TNAG-2639-FCO40-3831-Future-of-Hong-Kong-British-nationality-dependants-1992 — Page 101

TH

›cerned British Expatriates Society

The Earl of Caithness

Minister of State

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

November 11, 1991

RECEIVED BY

Block 7, 8th Floor Robinson Garden Apartments 3-3G Robinson Road Hong Kong

# 15 JAN 1902 PRIVATE SEGUENT

Tel: 5210859 Fax: 5211978

Dear Sir

The group I represent consists of British citizens resident in Hong Kong whose spouses are non-UK citizens. As you know, our spouses do not qualify for UK citizenship unless we return to the UK and satisfy a three year this we met to discuss residential requirement. You may recall that we situation during one of your visits to Hong Kong last year (we met on September 20, 1990). I would like to raise two matters with you.

My first question concerns the fact that even though a non-British spouse is entitled to apply for naturalisation after three years of residence in the UK, the processing of such applications was subject to a considerable delay as a result of which the whole process can take in excess of five years.

You kindly agreed to look into this situation and wrote to me on October 11, 1990 to explain that the considerable backlog in the processing of naturalisation cases was due to a flood of applications having been received in 1987 before the expiry at the end of that year of certain provisions in the British Nationality Act of 1981.

Since it is now over one year since we communicated on this point I thought it would be appropriate to enquire what the current status of the backlog is; ie how long one can now expect it to take a routine naturalisation application to be approved. Since the apparent reason for the backlog was a one time flood of applications in 1987 I would hope that the backlog has been considerably reduced since last year. It would be most encouraging to the members of my group if I could advise them that progress has been made in this area.

My second question relates to the provisions in the 1981 British Nationality Act which require the non-British spouse to satisfy three years residence in the UK before naturalisation can be sought. My group's argument all along was why this three year period had to take place in the UK and could not be satisfied in Hong Kong. I do not propose to repeat these arguments here. However, I now understand that non-British citizen spouses of British members of the police force here are now entitled to apply for naturalisation on the basis of residence in Hong Kong being counted towards the three year period called for under the Act. I have been told that passports have now been issued to such spouses.