TNAG-2369-FCO40-3442-Future-of-Hong-Kong-international-support-regarding-national-1991 — Page 3

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Papers Previous

H20 125

LAST PAPER

Thank you for your letter of 23 October with which you enclosed a copy of a letter from the Home Office of 21 December 1990, which I had not previously

seen.

2. I agree that last year the Home Office had considerable difficulties with Gibraltar's idea but it seems to me that even then the door was not completely closed.

3. I appreciate that there will be difficulties with a proposal to treat "non-resident residence" as qualifying towards being able ultimately to apply for a nationality status under BNA 81: but it seems to me that the Act does anyway cater for this, and I therefore disagree with the comment in para 3(a) of the Home Office letter. If I may paraphrase Paragraph 6(a) of Schedule 1 of BNA 81, the Secretary of State may in certain cases treat an applicant for naturalisation as a BDTC as having fulfilled the year residential qualifying period even though the applicant was absent from the territory for more than the cumulative period normally permitted. As there is no limit placed on this particular provision the Secretary of State can thus presumably consider th residence qualifications to have to fulfilled even though the applicant ses absent for

for the full five years.

is what Gibraltar wants to invoke. The applicants would have we granted residence status in Gibraltar but without having physically to reside here (although it could be argued that he still needed to have been in the Territory for a short time at the beginning of the 5 year period (first phrase of para 5(a), Schedule 1)). Only at the end of five years (but see para 4 below) of having held this residence status, would d person be able to apply for naturalisation as a BDTC through a connection with Gibraltar. It seems to me that a combination of Gibraltar law and UK law allows for this: the Gibraltar Immigration Ordinance gives the Governor wide powers to grant residence status in the interest of Gibraltar; and BNA 81 provides for some or all of the five years physical presence requirement to be waived in certain circumstances.

4. I entirely appreciate that BDTC status is indivisible and that a BDTC who has that status through a connection with Hong Kong canno therefore seek to

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