23 October 1991
Mr M Hill
GIBRALTAR
Dear tire.
RESTRICTED
BY FAX
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Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
270 2862
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Mr. Marris 25/10
GIBRALTAR: HONG KONG IMMIGRANTS
1. Thank you for your letter of 9 October, which we copied to the Home Office. The latter's response has been to draw our attention to their letter of 21 December 1990 (attached) which neither we nor HK Dept had seen before. There was obviously a slip-up in the system for which I must apologise.
2. The Home Office are anxious that you should see their letter quickly (hence this fax). On the Governor's power in this matter, they have drawn our attention to Section 43 of BNA 1981 in particular sub-section (4)
3.
As you will see the Home Office have considerable difficulties with this idea. You will wish to consider their detailed points. Please let me know, in the light of these, whether/how you wish to take this forward.
Your ever.
Nich
N P Carter
Southern European Department
cc Mr Morris, HK Dept
Mr Harrington, NTCD
Mike, I'm
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22/10
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TELEPHONE NUMBER: 760 1555 7601555
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Immigration and Nionality Department
Lunar House 40 Wellesley Road Croydon CR9 2BY
Telephone 081-760
(GTN 3822)
J C Morris Esq
1228
Hong Kong Department
Foreign & Commonwealth Office Whitehall
LONDON SW1A 2AF
[HOME OFFICE
ind
Your reference
Our reference
Date
21 December 1990
Dear Joh
GIBRALTAR:
SCHEME FOR HONG KONG
You wrote to Roy Harrington on 12 and 24 October about the Government of Gibraltar's wish to set up a scheme of assurances for Hong Kong asking what sort of scheme we could recommend since the Gibraltarians had evidently drawn a blank about how best to proceed. I am sorry that we have not been able to send you an earlier reply.
We have looked at this in some detail and we have come to the conclusion, in short, that because Gibraltar is a British Dependent Territory there is restricted scope for it to run an independent scheme offering assurances which do not involve the recipients leaving Hong Kong.
It is clear that the Governor of Gibraltar can grant residence there whenever he believes that to be in Gibraltar's interest. Thus it is, for example, open to Gibraltar to operate a scheme similar to our own immigration provisions which would enable people to settle there by virtue of investment.
however, There are, severe difficulties in the way of converting such arrangements into any form of scheme of assurances which would confer Gibraltar BDTC status on people who are to remain in Hong Kong.
a)
b)
A scheme leading to citizenship is not possible under the British Nationality Act 1981 which, as Roy Harrington has already pointed out, does not allow for any variation of the minimum 3 and 5 year qualifying periods for BDTC status.
A further difficulty is that the structure of the 1981 Act does not allow a BDTC who has that status by connection with one dependent territory to acquire BDTC status by connection with another dependent territory. Thus BDTCs from Hong Kong would first have to renounce their citizenship before applying for Gibraltar BDTC status.
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