TNAG-1386-FCO40-1834-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-and-citizenship-1985 — Page 207

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22. Article 4(3) accords with the terms of the United Kingdom Memorandum. In order to be eligible to equird BN(O) status a person must be a British Dependent Territories citizen on 30 June 1997. A person who acquires BN(O) status and who subsequently renounces or is deprived of BDTC status before 30 June 1997 will not meet this requirement, and thus cannot retain BN(O) status beyond that date. This Article therefore provides for BN(O) status to be lost at the same time as the renunciation or deprivation of BDTC status if this is done before July 1997.

Removal of Hong Kong from list of Dependent Territories

23. Article 5 deletes Hong Kong from the list of British Dependent Territories in Schedule 6 to the British Nationality Act 1981 as from 1 July 1997.

Provisions for reducing statelessness

24. Article 6 sets out the provisions proposed during the debates on the Hong Kong Bill for avoiding or reducing statelessness. The underlying principle is that no one who loses BDTC status as a result of the Order (hereafter "former BDTC") not any child born on or after 1 July 1997 to such a person, should be stateless as a result of the Joint Declaration. This principle was extended in the Committee stage of the Hong Kong Bill in the House of Lords to the grand- children of former BDTCs if they are born stateless1. The provisions in respect of these grandchildren parallel those of section 17(2) and (3) of the British Nationality Act 1981. These provide that a child born stateless outside the Dependent Territories is entitled to be registered as a BDTC if an application is

made within 12 months of the birth and if:

(a) his rhe mother or father ("the parent in question") was a BDTC by

descent at the time of the birth and

(b) the father or mother of the parent in question was a BDTC otherwise than by descent at the time of the birth of the parent in question, or became such a BDTC on 1 January 1983, or would have done so but for his A

death.

25. Article 6(1) provides that those Hong Kong BDTCs who have not acquired BN(O) status, for whatever reason, should automatically acquire British Overseas citizenship (BOC) on 1 July 1997 if they would otherwise be stateless.

26. Article 6(2) confers British Overseas citizenship automatically at birth on children born on or after 1 July 1997 to former Hong Kong BDTCs if those children would otherwise be stateless. It covers of children both of Hong Kong BDTCs who became BN(O)s, and of those who failed to acquire BN(O) status, and who themselves became BOCs under Article 6(1).

27. Article 6(3) and (4) fulfil Her Majesty's Government's commitments to grandchildren born after 1 July 1997, of former Hong Kong BDTCs if the grandchildren are born stateless. It was proposed during the passage of the Hong Kong Bill that the automatic provisions made for the first generation

1 Official Report: Volume 461, Number 60, Columns 237-8.

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