TNAG-0902-FCO40-1112-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1979 — Page 8

VOARJO DENNA ALL

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6. I believe it would be helpful if the draft were also to make clear exactly what we want the position of Crown Servants to be. At present, paragraphs 2 and 7 give the impression that we merely want Crown Servants to be included in the categories who are allowed to pass British citizenship to the second generation born overseas. But option (a) in paragraph 4 of Annex B records the Home Office as proposing that Crown Service should be regarded

in effect as equivalent to residence in Britain i.e. that the children of Crown Servants should be regarded as British by birth rather than by descent. This, it seems to me, is as it should be and I would hope that the submission could make it clear that this is what we want our Ministers to support.

7. On a general point, since the Home Office are proposing that, under the new provisions, men and women should enjoy identical rights, paragraph 7 should be amended to take out the sexist bias; thus, the second clause of the introductory sentence should read not "if the father is a citizen by descent" but "if at least one grandparent was a British citizen by birth"; sub-paragraph (a) would not then be necessary; sub-paragraphs (c) and (d) should begin not "if the father" but "if either parent".

W.E. Cuantill

19 October 1979

WE Quantrill

Hong Kong and General Department K247

233 4381

C.C. other Dependent Territory departments (WIAD, SPD, SED, SAND, MCD)

MVD.

No Stratton Ar Aurray.

CONFIDENTIAL