TNAG-1334-FCO40-1766-Future-of-Hong-Kong-legislation-1984 — Page 52

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CONFIDENTIAL

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

CH de Waal Esq CB

Office of the Parliamentary Counsel

36 Whitehall

London SW1A 2AY

17 December 1984

HKK 040/53

18 DEC 1984

аг

158

HONG KONG BILL

1.

135

Thank you for your letter of 10 December, enclosing the third draft of the Bill, and your letter of 12 December. At our conference on 12 December we agreed that paragraph 2.-(1) of the Schedule should read -

2.-(1)

Her Majesty may by Order in Council make provision whereby

(a)

(b)

—

British Dependent Territories citizenship cannot be retained or acquired on or after the relevant date by virtue of a connection with Hong Kong; and

persons who are British Dependent Territories citizens by virtue of any such connection may before that date (or before the end of 1997 if born in that year before the relevant date) acquire such new form of British nationality as is specified in the Order."

2. The Bill, as so amended, has now been agreed at official level in London and Hong Kong, and it can be printed this week. We wish it to remain confidential, and would like to have 60 copies. The Executive Council in Hong Kong will con- sider the Bill on 18 December, but it is hoped that their conclusions will not involve any redrafting. It is our firm plan that the Bill should go to Legislation Committee on 9 January.

3.

We do not I enclose a draft Explanatory Memorandum. consider that the Bill has any financial effects or effects on public service manpower so far as concerns the United Kingdom.

c.c.

J Pakenham-Walsh Esq, HO

M L Saunders Esq, Law Officers Dept

CONFIDENTIAL

F Burrows Legal Counsellor