BACKGROUND
1.
The rules on returning residents allow persons ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom to resume their residence after an absence of up to two years. They do not entitle persons resident overseas to maintain settled status in the United Kingdom by paying short visits to this country
once very two years.
2.
Lord Caithness told OMELCO on 18 September that we and
the Home Office would monitor the operation of Rule 58, to see whether any Hong Kong people, entering the UK lost their
indefinite leave to remain (as did Mr Au Yeung).
3. It is in practice difficult to monitor these matters with any precision, because statistics are not kept. But
the Home Office have assured us that no new cases have come
to their attention.
4.
Strictly speaking, ILR actually lapses when an
individual leaves the UK and, subject to Rule 58, a new ILR is granted on his return.
5.
Some (if not most) Hong Kong people who are granted ILR actually remain here - and after four years acquire settled
status and ultimately British citizenship. There is now way of telling how many of those granted ILR (1958 in the five months since the Rule change) are in the process of
acquiring settled status in the UK, as opposed to those "temporarily resident" in Hong Kong, who managed to convince the immigration officer that they are ordinarily resident here. The figures for Hong Kong people who have acquired
settled status here are as follows:
1988
1150
1989
1360
1st half of 1990
640
BOPAEN/3
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