TNAG-0979-FCO40-1198-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1980 — Page 124

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The Department of Trade have agreed that this would be a suitable vehicle for their purposes in respect of the UK expatriate businessmen and it is now obvious that the Home Office can see a use for it in similar circumstances, though at least until they have received my letter they were thinking of it only in respect of a transitional provision and not as a permanent provision. I do not think that the differences between us and the Home Office on this subject now are w suitable, insuperable.

Citizenship by Virtue of Marriage

8. There are two aspects of this subject still open. We have questioned the extent of some of the proposed conditions which a woman married to a British citizen would have to fulfil to acquire

British citizenship, but they do not represent major points of principle. The other aspect is the need not to do anything in the Act which would allow a man who marries a British Citizen to acquire British citizenship and so bypass the Government's immigration restrictions on settlement in the UK of men marrying certain British women. There seem doubts whether a proposed UN Convention on the elimination of discrimination against women (sic) would oblige us to grant the same treatment of men and women in respect of acquisition of citizenship after marriage. Though The ball is in the Home Office's court on both these points.

Citizenship by Birth in the UK

9.

We understood that the Home Office had considered the restriction

some time ago and abandoned it. We await any new proposals. A possible danger for the FCO in not giving British citizenship to children born here of foreigners who are subject to conditions of stay is that it could make considerable work in assessing a person's entitlement to citizenship since a British birth certificate alone

would no longer be adequate evidence of citizenhip. There are different ways in which such a scheme could be implemented but all of

them have the same sort of problem for us. Another possible danger in not giving British citizenship to children born here to foreigners

subject to conditions of stay is that it could lead to demands for a

corresponding provision to allow citizenship to children born overseas of British parents in similar circumstances. Without checking with

many of our posts I would not be certain that most other countries

apply the same concept as we do of lifting all conditions of stay of

foreigners after a certain period of residence. It may be that some

/countries

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