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In fact it has been my experience that British
citizens with locally-born spouses, who work in the Far East, make a proportionally higher contribution to their employers than those without this advantage! The reason is obvious in that they inevitably pick up more local knowledge, language etc and do not feel the necessity of constant UK leaves or the need to retire here. I would have thought that British citizens in this category would be most needed during the handover period, yet they are, it seems, the ones who are being encouraged to leave Hong Kong first through the effects of this Bill.
Therefore I must conclude that this is an unintent- ional side-effect of the Bill, which can be put right in Committee during its passage through their Lordships' House next Monday. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend the Committee stage, however, if it cannot be put right then I must in all honesty speak against the whole Bill on Third Reading.
My reason for this would be that by not allowing spouses of British citizens the same rights as those in say the Falklands or Gibraltar, this piece of legislation immediately becomes tainted with the suspicion of racial bias. Personally, I would find this unacceptable, because first it would seem to go against certain reassurances that appeared to be given to me from the Government Benches during the Second Reading Debate; and secondly, because it would not, in my view, help serve British interests in the future of Hong Kong, which I thought was the main point of the Bill.
I hope you will find some of these views construct- ive, and that they will assist in relieving the very real worries that must be affecting those who are concerned about this Bill in Hong Kong.
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wit het regends
yus aye
sinn,
The Rt. Hon. Tim Renton MP PC The Rt. Hon. Earl Ferrers
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