TNAG-1189-FCO40-1491-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-the-British-nationa-1982 — Page 111

HKGD.

From: THE PRIVATE SECRETARY

PS PSLUPS

PSIRME Hura PS/PUS. Chief Clerk Mr Actains Mir Donald

NTD

SED

Dan's Staple Deri

HOME OFFICE

QUEEN ANNE'S GATE LONDON SW1H 9AT

13 October 1981

BRITISH NATIONALITY BILL:

CITIZENS OF THE BRITISH DEPENDENT

TERRITORIES

The Home Secretary has asked me to write to you in response to the Lord Privy Seal's minute of 9 October.

The Home Secretary has carefully considered the Lord Privy Seal's proposal that a clause altering the nomenclature of citizenship of the British Dependent Territories should be introduced on Third Reading in the Lords on 20 October unless it seems likely that the Government can defeat the Gibraltar amendment in the Commons. He is afraid however that he sees considerable objections to this.

The Home Secretary's view is that it would be quite impossible to make any meaningful assessment of the attitude of the Commons until shortly before the House considers the Lords amendments. It would be very dangerous to attempt to do so as soon as the Commons re-assembles on 19 October and even then it would be too late to put down a Government amendment of this significance for debate in the Lords the following day.

An amendment of this kind - if it were to be made would have

- to appear no later than Friday, 16 October, and no sensible estimate of the outcome of the vote on the Gibraltar amendment could be made then.

If, therefore, the Government were to proceed as the Lord Privy Seal suggests, it would be necessary to decide whether to put down an amendment to pacify Hong Kong at a time when there was great uncertainty as to whether it was needed. Yet, once it had been put down and agreed, there would, as the Home Secretary stressed in his note to the Lord Privy Seal of 7 October, be a much greater risk that the Gibraltar amendment would be defeated. Home Secretary is most unwilling to proceed on such an uncertain basis.

The

Moreover, the Home Secretary is far from convinced that further measures to meet Hong Kong's situation can be justified. As he indicated earlier, much has already been done to meet Hong Kong's concerns and he does not see why we cannot rest on this in meeting any difficulties. The United Kingdom's relations with Hong Kong are a matter for the Lord Privy Seal's judgement, but the Home Secretary fears that anything sufficient to meet Hong Kong's concerns would be likely to cause considerable problems for the Government in the future. He is not prepared to see the gains which

Stephen Gomersall, Esq.

- 1

contd.