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British Nationality
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Lord Aylestone: In moving this amendment, which I said at the time was wide, the object was simply to find out precisely, what the Government meant by Hrevice of My Veledintion for the time being designated under
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way in that direction. We now know a possibility (we would not put it any higher) that employees of the EEC may be dealt with de Cause ed aminchined to think, having listened OFFICER
to the debare, that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, was probably ciberian any of us; that in fact Crown service meant-control, it means who pays the salary. I suppose employees of the EEC could come in under that because there is an element in the amount of money we pay to the EEC which pays salaries. However, this is much wider than we thought at the beginning. I am sure that we must return to it at Report stage, and I am particularly anxious to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has to say. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Jacques): I call Amendment No. 25. If this amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendments Nos. 27A to 31.
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[Amendment No. 25 not moved.]
4.47 p.m.
Lord Gridley moved Amendment No. 27A: Page 2, line 45, after (“ Kingdom ") insert (“or Crown service in the Colonies ").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment. I have done so because I wish to be assured by the Minister that former officers of the Colonial service, now that they are on pension or have left the service, will, under Clause 2 of this Bill as it now stands, enjoy the rights of British citizenship for themselves and their children, rights which they formerly enjoyed while serving the Crown overseas. in some detail to those rights later in what I have to I propose to refer my.
To me it is exceedingly important that this should be so, and that Clause 2 of the Bill should cover these rights. At page 14, in Clause 13(2) and (3) lines 33 to 43, it seems only too clear that on the coming into force of this Bill, despite the rights hitherto enjoyed by overseas officers as officers of the Crown, they are no longer to be considered as British citizens. This is a right, I must make clear, which they enjoyed when serving overseas. Let me explain. Officers serving the Crown overseas were recruited for service by the Secretary of State for the Colonies in the United Kingdom. I cannot believe that any of them did not possess a British passport at the time of their appointment, or that a qualification for their appoint- ment was not that they had to be British subjects by birth. The procedure regarding passports was that if
■ British officer's passport issued in the United King- dom expired after 10 years, and this occurred while the servivng officer was overseas, application for a British passport could be made, and was made, by the officer concerned to the Governor, or High Commis- sioner, in the territory in which the officer was serving, and this was granted.
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I am fully aware that this is a correct statement for it occurred in my case. When I applied for a passpor t in these circumstances to the late Sir Shenton Thomas w who was Governor and Commander in Chief of the b former Straits Settlements in Singapore and High o Commissioner for the Federated Malay States, el passport was granted. When that expired I was able T on surrendering the passport in the United Kingdom p to the British passport authorities, to obtain from then a British passport, with no difficulty.
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However, it seems to me in retrospect that under o this Bill and under subsections (2) and (3) at page 14 if none of this procedure is to be recognised in the future, in spite of the fact that under that procedure | o was able to obtain a British passport.
I ask parti u cularly, therefore, is it to be recognised under Clause 2 ci and when that passport expires shall I be able to obtair another new British passport? With reference to my al four children, three were born in Malaysia and were to registered as British by birth under a certificate granted of locally, and as they are now of age they have subse quently, on making application, encountered no dif th ficulty in obtaining a British passport.
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According to the records we hold in the office of the Overseas Service Pensioners' Association there are 12,000 former officers of the Crown, 9,000 of whom of are now in Britain and 3,000 living overseas, and al be of these men are deeply concerned that under Clause 2 they and their children should continue to enjoy Br of British citizenship which they obtained in Crown the service in the colonies. That is the reason why under Clause 2(2)(a) I wish to insert “or Crown service in the Colonies", to cover the points I have made.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Depart ment of Trade (Lord Trefgarne); I shall first deal with dist the wider implications of my noble friend's amendment inte and then come to the specific matter he has raised wh The amendment would enable a British citizen by are descent to transmit his citizenship automatically to the his child born overseas if at the time of the child's bor birth he was in Crown service under the government of chil a dependency and had been recruited for such service Bill in the United Kingdom. The first generation born hav overseas of course automatically acquires British cati citizenship under the provisions of Clause 2(1)(a) of pro the Bill. We do not think it would be appropriate to ens extend British citizenship automatically to children in t born to such officers in these circumstances, great poss though our regard for their work is, and let me explain citiz why. For one thing, these officers, unlike those serving and the Government of the United Kingdom, cannot be unde said to have a United Kingdom base; their base is resid the dependency where they are employed, and they at a cannot be said to be representing this country in their child work in the same way. Furthermore, an important ment reason for enabling British citizens by descent who acqu are in Crown service under the Government of the United Kingdom and have been recruited for that service in the United Kingdom, is that in many cases children wher born abroad to such officers are barred from acquiring They local citizenships by virtue of their parents' occupation: Clau this is the case, for instance, with the children born other abroad to British diplomats. If such children could the s not acquire the citizenship of their parents, they would denci be left stateless.
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