TNAG-0901-FCO40-1111-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1979 — Page 123

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Mr Smedley

CONFIDENTI AL

HKK 340

BELVOI

27

Nationality and Treaty Department

K

M

PROPOSED CHANGES IN BRITISH NATIONALITY. LAW

76.7

see (28)

1 Please refer to Mr Gray's minute of 25 June covering a draft submission about the objections raised by Dependent Territories to the proposed changes in British nationality law.

2. As you know, the Governor of Hong Kong has undertaken to send, as a matter or urgency, a written statement of Hong Kong Government views, expanding on the ideas he outlined in his conversations on 14 and 15 June with the Home Secretary and the Minister of State at the Home Office. I hope we can await this statement before submitting to Ministers. If this is not possible we should at least delay the submission until after the Secretary of State's return to the Office later this week. Lord Carrington was in Hong Kong on 30 June and had discussions with the Governor and his advisers. This subject may have been raised.

3. That said, your submission broadly reflects the Governor's proposals in so far as I understand them. However, I doubt whether the proposals in Dr Plender's Bow Group paper would provide an adequate basis for the revised scheme (paragraph 7 of your draft submission). Dr Plender seems to envisage the creation of a separate citizenship for each Dependent Territory. Sir M MacLehose has made it quite clear that he would not want to see a separate citizenship for Hong Kong, largely on the ground that it would create political difficulties with China. Admittedly, Dr Plender recognises that his proposal might not be appropriate for all Colonies, but he is decidedly vague about what might be done for territories that do not choose to create their own citizenship. It therefore seems to me that the reference to the Bow Group paper only creates an unnecessary complication, and that it would be better to leave out your paragraph 7 and Annex V altogether.

4. As I understood him in his discussion with Mr Raison, the Governor proposed that citizens of all Dependent Territories should be allowed to retain the present title of Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. I realise that the Home Office may not like the idea of retaining this nomenclature alongside the new category of "British Citizen". But as this solution would be second best to leaving things entirely as they are, it may be possible to persuade the Home Office to accept it as a reasonable compromise.

5. I should therefore like to see paragraph 2 of your draft submission rewritten as follows:-

"2. It is suggested that existing CUKC should be divided into three categories (instead of two as proposed in the Green Paper):

CONFIDENTI AL

/a)...