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None of the amendments put forward by Hong Kong would limit the possible application of a statutory provision to specific categories of public servants - on the contrary they are deliberately wide-ranging. The Home Office are surely too realistic net to contemplate such a provision without some gurantee of the limitations that would be applied to it in practice and assurance from the Governor that he will be prepared to advise any other applicants that their applications could not succeed and even to advise more favoured categories that their applications should be deferred until the situation justifies exceptional treatment.
Need for a useful citizenship if Hong Kong's status changes
Some of the arguments for provision for public servants are based on the fact that CBDT (Hong Kong) would be useless after a Chinese takeover. The provision which I have discussed some weeks ago which would allow Crown Service in a dependency to count, in effect, as residence in the UK for naturalisation purposes after a CBDT had come here would cover that point. It would need to be allied to an assurance about immigration into the UK at that time, and I have never suggested that it could be useful otherwise, but it would, I repeat, be an avenue to a new citizenship.
Conclusions
In making these points I have no wish to obstruct the achievement of Hong Kong's objectives; my purpose is to advise on what is realistic and practical in nationality terms. I have never found the Hong Kong argument for a statutory provision in the Nationality Bill convincing in nationality terms. More important, I find it difficult to see that it makes sense in Hong Kong terms if the issue really is one of confidence. Yet If it were used it would probably have to be used well in advance of any emergency situation and it could then cause the very thing it is supposed to avoid the departure of the key personnel. I would have thought that the best assurance that is obtainable, on the lines of the Falkland Islands one but related to public servants or whoever, would be a better bet for the continued good government of the dependencies than the sort of statutory provision that we have been discussing except perhaps for the senior officials and unofficials who would hope to get British citizenship quite apart from any emergency situation, and any of these people who would prefer to go to the USA or some other destination apart from the UK in the event of an emergency.
17 February 1981
SECRET
W Jones
Nationality and Treaty Department
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