TNAG-1849-FCO40-2624-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 114

the

account of the extent of the person's investment in the United Kingdom,

extent to which he needs to travel on business and all other relevant

factors.

Students

14. It has been suggested that time spent in this country as a student

should count towards settlement and citizenship. Admission as a student does

not provide an avenue to settlement since, by definition, students are coming here for a temporary purpose. However, if a person has nevertheless achieved settled status and applies for citizenship, it is already the case that periods of time spent here as a student can be counted towards meeting the residence requirements for citizenship (see paragraphs 18-21 below). To allow students from Hong Kong to count towards settlement time spent here while studying would not only raise questions of fairness (paragraph 5 above) but would also have unacceptable implications for the Government's policy of keeping primary immigration to a minimum.

The non-ethnic Chinese community

The

15. There are an estimated 111⁄2 thousand non-ethnic Chinese British Dependent Territories citizens in Hong Kong. OMELCO has suggested that these people should be granted British citizenship rather than British Overseas

citizenship if from July 1997 they would otherwise be stateless. Government considered the arguments put forward in support of this request but concluded that the granting of British citizenship was not justified in the present circumstances. In response to a Parliamentary Question from Mr Colin Moynihan, the Home Secretary stated on 23 April 1986 (0.R. Written Answers cols 146-148) that if any British national were in the future to come under pressure to leave Hong Kong, the Government of the day would be expected to consider sympathetically the case for admission to the UK. This assurance was repeated by Lord Glenarthur on 16 May 1986 in the context of a debate on citizenship for Hong Kong ethnic minorities, and again on 23 March 1989 during the debate on the policy on the issue of British passports to Hong Kong citizens.

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