TNAG-1333-FCO40-1765-Future-of-Hong-Kong-legislation-1985 — Page 174

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Nationality. There was a slightly inconclusive reaction to the Secretary of State's proposal that the nationality provisions should be dealt with by means of an enabling clause allowing an Order or Orders in Council to be made at a later date. Attorney General concurred. The Home Secretary expressed the hope that the bulk of the consequential amendments to the 1981 Nationality. Act might be left to a subsequent Order in Council, but went on

to express the view that "Parliament might well expect at

at least a very limited number of the more important provisions to be included in the Bill". The Lord President interpreted this as a suggestion that "certain of the key elements of nationality legislation should be included in the Bill itself", and expressed a preference that we adopt the route of enabling powers in all

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4. I am satisfied by subsequent clarification provided by the Home Office in discussion and correspondence that any divergence of approach over nationality is more apparent than real. A letter to us from a Home Office official, which has been seen by the Home Secretary, interpreted the Home Secretary's position as "that the major provisions need to be clear on the face of the Bill indicating, for example, that the Order in Council 'shall, in particular provide for such and such'". In other words the preference of the Home Secretary is that the main points on nationality to be covered by subsequent Order in Council should be indicated in the enabling clause rather than that the Bill itself should contain substantive legislation on nationality. This approach appears to be consistent with what the Lord President of the Council has in mind. I think it is also acceptable to ourselves. It would probably be unrealistic in parliamentary terms to hope to get away without any indication of the likely scope of an enabling clause on nationality, and without any substantive debate on the provisions that would be listed. Moreover the Secretary of State clearly stated in his minute that if the presence of an enabling clause on nationality appeared likely to delay the passage

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