TNAG-0903-FCO40-1113-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1979 — Page 89

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CONFIDENTIAL

an appropriate collective noun will, of necessity, have to be used in the Act itself it would be intolerable if the Act has to refer to all the individual citizenships each time "colonial" citizenship is mentioned. This might be accomplished in either of two ways as we see it. Either a legal collective title, e.g. British Dependency Citizen, is devised with the explanation that, for administrative purposes, it will be shortened to e.g. British (Hong Kong) Citizen etc or there is a supplemental provision that the legal collective title means those persons who are British (Hong Kong) Citizens, British (Gibraltar) Citizens etc listing all the dependencies. The extent of the drafting difficulty and the possible implications which might result will become more apparent when a decision is reached on the nomenclature to be employed. No action is called for at this stage but we may need to seek your advice in due course.

22 October 1979

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CONFIDENTIAL

A V E Gray NTD