TNAG-2639-FCO40-3831-Future-of-Hong-Kong-British-nationality-dependants-1992 — Page 33

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FCS/92/149

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PS Mr boodled Sir J Coles

iala

Mitum

Miss Brooks

Legal Counsella

Mr Sullivan NTCI) BB4/5.

RIGHT OF ABODE IN THE UK FOR

CERTAIN CHILDREN OF HONG KONG PARENTS

1.

I was grateful to you for looking at this problem at such short notice, and for agreeing a sympathetic line for my press conference in Hong Kong. The plight of this small group of families has attracted considerable attention in Hong Kong They are widely seen as deserving special consideration.

2. I recognise that the children concerned are not alone in being affected by the entry into force of the British Nationality Act on 1 January 1983, and I understand your reluctance to give a blanket undertaking without the time to look at the issue in more detail. I was encouraged that you told Tristan Garel-Jones that you thought that with a generous interpretation of existing guidlines, over half these children should succeed in applications for full British citizenship. I hope that on closer examination you will feel able to use your discretion to register all of them. I say that for two reasons:

- First because this is a group that can be distinguished from any others in the world, since in Hong Kong uniquely it is the aim of our nationality policy to anchor people in place, not to encourage them to establish a close connection with the UK in order to secure citizenship for their children. That was the whole thrust of the British Nationality (HK) Act of 1990.

HKCD 321876