MINISTER
OF STATE
Our Ref: IMG/86 9/387/7 (S)
HOME OFFICE
QUEEN ANNE'S GATE
LONDON SWIH 9AT
(96-7
2140036
As you know your letter of 1 July to Tim Renton, enclosing an extract from the South China Morning Post about the position of ex-servicemen in Hong Kong, has been passed to me for reply.
It seems to me that this Press article is confusing the concepts of citizenship, settlement and right of abode. The undertaking that was given in the Home Secretary's Written Answer on 23 April and confirmed in subsequent debates in both Houses made it quite clear that not all the ex-servicemen would immediately be eligible for British citizenship. The undertaking was as follows:-
"The Council's second request was that former servicemen in Hong Kong who served in the defence of Hong Kong in the Second World War should be granted British citizenship. The number involved is about 270. In view of their particular service, the Government will meet the spirit of this request. It is not possible under the British Nationality Act 1981 to confer British citizenship on them all regardless of the nature of their service or their present citizenship. But I will consider sympathetically applications for registration as British citizens under section 4(5) of the British Nationality Act 1981 from any who are eligible under this provision because they are British Dependent Territories citizens or other British nationals and because they served under the Government of Hong Kong, for example in the Hong Kong Volunteers. The number who might be eligible is likely to be about 60. I am also ready from today to accept and grant applications from any of the 270 or so former servicemen in Hong Kong together with their dependants who wish to come to the United Kingdom for settlement."
Perhaps it might help if I explain the reason for the distinction. Section 4(5) of the British Nationality Act 1981 gives the Home Secretary discretion to register as a British citizen a British Dependent Territories citizen or other British national who has at any time served in Crown Service under the Government of a Dependent Territory. It cannot therefore apply to anyone who was in Crown Service under the Government of the United Kingdom, and there is no equivalent provision in the Act which would cover such people. Of the 270 or so former servicemen in Hong Kong we understand that only about 60 are British Dependent Territories citizens who served under the Government of Hong Kong, for example in the Hong Kong Volunteers. The rest served in regular British Army units, such as the Royal Artillery, and thus under the Government of the United Kingdom. Since there is no provision in
/the law which
Andrew Faulds Esq MP
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