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9. Article 4 is concerned with the entitlement to acquire the new status
of British National (Overseas) by those who will cease to be British Dependent
Territories citizens in 1997. The UK Memorandum associated with the Joint
Declaration provided that the new status may be acquired by such persons
only if they hold or are included in a passport showing the new status
issued before 1 July 1997, or before the end of 1997 in the case of persons
born in the first six months of that year. Under the terms of the Agreement
therefore BN (0) status cannot be acquired by anyone born after 30 June 1997.
10. Acquisition of BN (0) status will be by registration. This is consistent
with long standing provisions in British nationality law for the acquisition
of citizenship as an entitlement. But the registration formalities will
be kept to a minimum. They will consist essentially of the entry of each
applicant's particulars on a central register, to be maintained by Hong
Kong. No fee will be charged for this.
11.
The terms of the Memorandum inseparably link the acquisition of BN(0) status with the holding of a BN (0) passport. The passport and the entry
in the register will be evidence of the new status. Article 4 therefore
provides an entitlement to hold a BN (O) passport. As your Lordships will
know, there is generally no entitlement to hold British passports, which
are issued under the Royal Prerogative. But the Hong Kong Government
argued that the holding of a passport was so fundamental to the agreement
that the people of Hong Kong expect the Order to give a clear entitlement
not only to BN(0) status but also to the passport that goes with it.
The Government accepted this argument, and the wording of Article 4 therefore
meets Hong Kong's wishes. The detailed arrangements for making applications
and issuing passports will be worked out with Hong Kong between now and
1987.
12. Article 6 sets out the Government's proposals for reducing statelessness. During the debates last year a number of Noble Lords expressed great concern
about the possibility that British Dependent Territories citizens who
were not ethnically Chinese, and their children, might be left stateless
in 1997 because the Chinese would not regard them as Chinese nationals.
The Government therefore gave a firm undertaking that no former Hong Kong British Dependent Territories citizen, nor any child born after
June 1997 to such a person, would remain stateless as a result of the
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