TNAG-0979-FCO40-1198-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1980 — Page 40

CONGDERMA! CONFON

:

British Citizenship by Birth

41. Under the present law people born in the United Kingdom become. Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies by birth; the only exceptions are in accordance with standard practice, that is, the children of accredited diplomats and children of citizens of an enemy country which had occupied part of the United Kingdom (or of the Islands, as was the case in the Channel Islands between 1940 and 1945). The Green Paper did not suggest any change in the acquisition of British Citizenship in this way. Most people who referred to this in their comments on the Green Paper supported this view,

although there were others who urged that a move should be made in the

direction of the ius sanguinis by stipulating that a child neither of whose

parents holds British Citizenship should not acquire it at birth.

42. The Government consider however that a move to the complete adoption of the ius sanguinis would have a serious effect on racial harmony. It would

deprive children born here to settled immigrants of our citizenship and could

hinder their integration into the community. But the Government are concerned

about the children born here to parents neither of whom is a British Citizen,

and neither of whom is free of conditions of stay. Births of this kind occur

in a wide range of circumstances: not only for example, to the couple who are

here in the country for a short stay, when the birth takes place unexpectedly

early; but to others who are here for long periods, but temporarily for

example as students; and also to people who have remained here in breach of conditions of entry, or who have entered illegally. In many such circumstances

there seems no real justification for continuing to allow the child to have our

citizenship unless one of the parents is subsequently accepted for settlement

here. It may indeed sometimes be the case that the acquisition of our

citizenship will be something of a handicap to a child later in life when he

has returned to his parents' country, if the law of that country requires him

to renounce other citizenships by a certain time and he forgets to do so.

43. But the Government's main uneasiness on this score is that allowing

birth to confer citizenship on such a child means also that after he returns

with his parents to their country, his own children, born years later, will

be British Citizens by descent. The additional British Citizens so created,

with the right of abode here, would form a pool of considerable size, and they

would have little or no real connection with the United Kingdom.

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