TNAG-2639-FCO40-3831-Future-of-Hong-Kong-British-nationality-dependants-1992 — Page 113

24 January 1992

Peter Lloyd Esq, MP

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Home Office

Queen Anne's Gate

LONDON

BRITISH NATIONALITY ACT 1981: HONG KONG

[B]

/1981

You wrote to me on 21 November to explain your

reluctance to concede to OMELCO's request to register a group of Hong Kong children as British citizens under Section 3(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981, but offering instead an immigration concession. I wrote to Dr C H Leong on 26 November accordingly. I then discussed the offer with OMELCO during my visit on 6 December. The matter was left that they would consider further and reply in due course. I have not yet had a reply, but I understand that Dr Leong called on you last week to discuss the matter, so I thought I should let you have my views in the light of my discussions with OMELCO.

The immigration concession really will not meet the needs of these children. The only real benefit to them in this concession (over their existing entitlement under the Immigration Rules) would be that it would apply to over-aged dependent children up to the age of 26. Furthermore, to take up this offer would require families to up-root themselves from Hong Kong and settle in the United Kingdom. But the whole thrust of OMELCO's argument is that the affected families wish to remain in Hong Kong to continue to contribute to its prosperity and stability. What they need is precisely the kind of assurance offered to key people under the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990: British citizenship. Most of the parents of these children would have been strongly placed to succeed under the selection scheme, were it not for the fact that they were already British citizens.

I realise that to grant citizenship to these children would overide one of the key administrative criteria normally used to justify registering minors under Section 3(1), but there is nothing in the (Act to prevent it, and it would be wholly consistent with the 1990 Act; indeed it would be illogical and inconsistent in terms of the 1990 Act not to use an unfettered discretion under the 1981 Act to register these children.

TUGABE