+
have an entitlement to registration as British citizens similar to the proposed entitlement to registration as BOCs.
But subsequent generations will have no automatic claim to
British citizenship, nor an entitlement to registration.
Granting British citizenship to the current generation cannot
therefore benefit the third and subsequent generation born
after 1997.
h) The Government have also made it plain that in the
unlikely event of any British national being forced to leave
Hong Kong and having nowhere to go, they would expect the
Government of the day to consider sympathetically whether to
admit them, on a case by case basis.
ק
HMG SHOULD GRANT BRITISH CITIZENSHIP TO FORMER SERVICEMEN IN
HONG KONG, INCLUDING THE SMALL NUMBER OF FORMER PRISONERS OF WAR
. We fully recognise the valiant contribution that these men gave during
the war. But many of them were born in Hong Kong, as were their
parents and grandparents, and all their personal and family connections
are with Hong Kong. Most if not all of them are BDTCs. They will
be entitled to become BN (0)s and will have the right of abode in
Hong Kong under the agreement. To grant them British citizenship
cannot secure their future in Hong Kong, which is where they wish to
continue to live.
Furthermore some of them have another nationality. It would be ultra
vires the Hong Kong Act to confer British nationality on those people
outside the proposed stateless provisions. [This would require an
amendment to the British Nationality Act 1981.] I do not think it
right, therefore, to single these men out for special treatment.
3.
HMG SHOULD CONSIDER SYMPATHETICALLY APPLICATIONS FOR REGISTRATION
UNDER S 4(5) OF THE BRITISH NATIONALITY ACT 1981
Will consider carefully any application from BDTCs under section 4(5)
on the grounds of Crown Service under the Government of Hong Kong.
Cannot, of course, apply this section to those whose service was under
the Government of the UK, which may well have been the position for
most of the Hong Kong ex-servicemen.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.