TNAG-1570-FCO40-2136-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-and-passports-Hong-Kong-(Br-1986 — Page 64

E.R.

Mr Emery

B4 Division

Mr Hill

'C 24/

се

CC

LKW 340 RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

03 DEC 1986

DESK O

INDEX

PA

Mr. Leeks FCO (HKD) Mok

Miss Veale FCO (NTD)-

HONG KONG: BRITISH NATIONAL (OVERSEAS) STATUS: REGULATIONS

I am sorry not to have responded sooner to your letter of 16 October to Leeks in the Hong Kong Department of the FCO which you copied to Tony Holmes.

2.

Foreign

You know the Passport Department view on the proposal that BN(0) passports should be obtainable from other Dependent Territories besides Hong Kong and from the Channel Isles and Isle of Man. and Commonwealth Office (NTD) will respond on Dependent Territories and the suggestion that they should act as agents of the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. I doubt if they will welcome the idea.

3.

Though we were not as tight as we might have been in the drafting of the reference by Lord Glenarthur, which you quote, it was never the intention that these other Islands should issue BN(0) passports.

We do not think that Lord Glenarthur's words need be taken as indicating that the passport, and thereby the status, was available throughout the world. As for your point about the availability of the passport in foreign countries but not from British Territories there is nothing new in this. Hong Kong is the exception for BN(0) purposes only. is already the case that the UK format/'C' series passport is available to British nationals in foreign countries from consulates but not in Dependent Territories. There is however an arrangement which meets this and which might suit the BN(O) process.

4.

It

You point out that applications for BN(0) passports must be permitted under the regulations. These could be sent to the London Passport Office (or in certain territories the nearest FCO post) by diplomatic bag and the passport issued there under the same arrangement as already exists for British Citizens and British Subjects with right of abode who are resident in the Dependent Territories. This would work, but it would be a very slow process given the need to enter the identity card endorsement. (I appreciate that this is not an integral part of the registration process and that those who demanded the passport without the endorsement would be given it.) We have not heard much recently from Hong Kong about passport procedural matters but in their telegram 603 of 26 March 1985 (paragraphs G and H) they indicate that applications dealt with outside Hong Kong would have to be referred to them for the identity cards and that there could be delays of a month or two. If this is so FCO may wish to consider whether it makes sense for applications received in Dependent Territories to be referred direct to Hong Kong and the passport as well as the identity card issued there.

/We have