TNAG-1081-FCO40-1331-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-the-British-nationa-1981 — Page 214

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Lord Carrington asked Mr Whitelaw to consider amendments to the

Bill to alter this either by a change to Paragraph 1(3) or by some

additional clause.

5. The Home Secretary has now agreed to official talks. These 78A

will be held at AUS level. We have meanwhile been corresponding

with the Governor on the best line to take.

6.

As the ideas of Unofficials and others have developed in Hong

Kong, Sir M MacLehose has sought the broadest possible assurances.

He has two problems. The first and most urgent is the concern of

local Crown Servants. A substantive reply is needed to the petition

which senior local Civil Servants sent recently to the Secretary of

State (my submission of 4 February). Sir Murray sees a serious danger

of Civil Service morale sliding and the Territory becoming ungovernable

as a result. However, he also points out that special treatment for

Civil Servants without reassurance for the rest of the population could

in itself be divisive and damaging to confidence.

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7. Sir Murray would therefore have preferred a 'belt and braces'

approach, with amendment to Schedule 1 Paragraph 1(3) and an additional

sub-clause in Paragraph 2 allowing the Home Secretary, in taking account

of 'the special circumstances of any particular case', to treat service

to the Crown in a Dependent Territory, whether as an official or

Unofficial, as one of the qualifying requirements for application for

naturalisation as British Citizens. In addition, he would like a new

paragraph in Schedule 1 allowing the Home Secretary to take into

consideration 'the constitutional relationship that citizens of the

British Dependent Territories have with the United Kingdom'.

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18.