TNAG-0660-FCO40-809-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1977 — Page 157

FCO40 Hong Kong Department Records 聯邦事務部香港部檔案 All

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difficulties faced by dependencies and the pressure on their resources, which mean that they can give the right of entry only to those who have very close ties with them. They could not radically alter their arrangements; there could not, for example, be an understanding that a British Overseas Citizen could go to live in any dependency he might choose unless he

had such ties with it.

74. Accordingly it seems inevitable that the standards for

British Overseas Citizenship should differ from those for British Citizenship. British Citizenship could not be adjusted so as to follow the limits proposed for British Overseas Citizenship; the shape of British Citizenship could hardly be determined by the limits placed by dependencies on those

with a right of entry to them. On the other hand it would be fruitless to provide that British Overseas Citizenship should follow British Citizenship in all respects. To do so would simply mean that some people who would acquire British Overseas Citizenship, for example through birth to a woman from a dependency, would find that they had no right of entry to the dependency from which their status was derived. More- over if British Overseas Citizenship is to be confined to those who "belong" to the dependencies, the arrangements for holding it must reflect the outlook and attitudes of the peoples of the dependencies, and these are bound to differ from those of the

people of the United Kingdom.

75. In general, therefore, the long term aim ought to be to confine British Overseas Citizenship to those with a right of entr

to a dependency. To take first of all the arrangements for transmission of citizenship, it ought not to pass automatically to a child born outside a dependency unless the father is a citizen by birth, registration or naturalisation in an existing dependency. This would of course mean that some British Overseas Citizens would be able to transmit citizenship to their children

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