TNAG-2168-FCO40-3105-House-of-Commons-Foreign-Affairs-Committee-inquiry-into-Hong-1990 — Page 28

The Government's Assurance

6.

In his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee on

24 May, the then Minister of State in the Home Office,

Mr Timothy Renton, told the Committee that:

"if, against all expectation, any solely British national with no claim on Chinese nationality come under

pressure to leave Hong Kong, we would ... expect the.

Government of the day to consider their case

sympathetically."

We cannot of course at this stage estimate the numbers that might be covered by this assurance. We would certainly expect members of the non-ethnic Chinese community in Hong Kong to qualify for citizenship under the scheme provided for by the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Bill, but cannot anticipate the numbers involved.

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