TNAG-1191-FCO40-1493-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-the-British-nationa-1982 — Page 13

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a third category of citizenship, British Dependent Territories citizenship (BDTC) was included in the White Paper and the Bill. It had been the Government's original intention to confer British Overseas citizenship on those present citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who will not acquire British citizenship (BC) on 1 January 1983.

BDTCS became eligible for registration as British citizens, a symbolic improvement over the position of aliens who will need to apply for naturalisation.

5. Hong Kong, accepting that CUKC would not be maintained, also pressed hard for an alternative status to BDTC which would emphasise the continuing link with Britain, eg British (Hong Kong) Citizen. This ran counter to the basic purpose of the Act, which was to relate British Citizenship to the right of abode in the UK. The Hong Kong proposal was not accepted by IIMG on the grounds that there would not be sufficient distinction from British Citizen and that there might be confusion over rights of entry to the UK, although Hong Kong fully accepted that there was no question of their receiving that right. (It has been agreed, however, that in describing 'National status' BDTC passports will show the name of the relevant dependent territory immediately below the words

'BRITISH DEPENDENT TERRITORIES CITIZEN').

6. In October last year Lord Geddes introduced an amendment to the Nationality Bill on behalf of Hong Kong which if successful, would have conferred the status 'British national' on all BDTCs and British Overseas citizens. The amendment was defeated by only 3 votes in the Lords. Since then the question of the right of BDTCs in Hong Kong to be described as British or United Kingdom nationals in passports has been vigorously pursued by the Hong Kong Government and by Executive and Legislative Councillors. In July this year thei Attorney General submitted a paper claiming to justify the legality of the inclusion of the words 'British' or 'United Kingdom' national in the passports of BDTCs. The FCO had resisted earlier offorts to achieve this on the legal grounds that the status of United Kingdom or British nationals is of relevance only in the sphere of inter- national relations and that the description in the passport must not deviate from the wording in the Act.

7. The Attorney General then argued that all categories of our citizen are British nationals in international law and that as passports operate internationally the national status (ie British national) could be included in a passport in addition to citizenship status. Both the FCO and Home Office lawyers conceded that there was no purely legal objection to saying that such citizens were British nationals for international purposes, although they saw possible lega complications eg because of the varying definitions of UK/British national in treaties and the consequent difficulties over any wording to express that status. Policy and administrative considerations would also need to be taken into account.

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