provision in relation to the descendants of non-Chinese BDTCs in
Hong Kong if he were satisfied in any particular case that the
circumstances justified it.
[Since the question of our obligations under the UN Convention on
the Reduction of Statelessness have been mentioned [in previous
debates in this House] I take this opportunity to confirm that the
provisions which the Government are proposing for dealing with
statelessness not only meet our obligations under the Convention but
in fact go very far beyond them.]
My Lords, the Government have moved to meet the concerns of the
House and of those directly affected in Hong Kong.
I firmly believe that
measures I have described should be
sufficient to alleviate concerns about statelessness
on the part of
non-Chinese BDTCs in Hong Kong. There will of course be a further
opportunity to discuss these matters when the Government bring a
draft Order-in-Council before the House. But from the point of
statelessness I believe that the provisions of this amendment are
unnecessary.
I assume that a further purpose of the amendment is concerned with
the provision of right of abode rather than the problem of
statelessness as such. The Government does not believe that there
is any justification for providing right of abode in this country to
any group of BDTCs in Hong Kong who do not have it at present. The
same of
course would apply to British Nationals (Overseas) after
1997.
The first reason for this is that the agreement itself guarantees
the right of abode in Hong Kong after 1997 to persons who have been
resident in Hong Kong for 7 years or more and have taken Hong Kong
as their place of permanent residence, and also to persons who
before the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR only have the right of
abode in Hong Kong. This would, I believe, cover all the
non-Chinese BDTCs in Hong Kong unless they are only there
temporarily, and have a right of abode elsewhere. I believe that this provision is an entirely satisfactory guarantee of the right of
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.