TNAG-2745-FCO40-3960-Visits-by-the-Executive-Council-of-Hong-Kong-(EXCO)-and-Legi-1993 — Page 65

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registration under the scheme was initially slow because all applications had to be processed and potentially successful applicants interviewed before registration could start. Registration now on target. 20,980 Principal Beneficiaries have been registered up to mid January, plus 36,682 dependants (total of 57,662). Average family size is 2.75. Target for

registration under first tranche is about 39,500 Principal

Beneficiaries, the remaining 10,500 to be allocated under the

second tranche due to open early 1994.

4. All BDTCS are eligible to compete under the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990. The second tranche will

start early in 1994. Ethnic origin is not a factor in the

scheme (and since information is not collected on such a basis

we have no figures to show the success to date of the ethnic

minorities in the scheme).

5.

There will be some adjustments for the second tranche

which will require a new Order in Council. Home Office have

yet to submit on the details.

6.

Ms Lau has complained that fewer people will benefit from

the Scheme than originally estimated (Ministers announced the figure of 225,000 as an illustrative maximum), because the

number of dependants is proving to be lower than that estimated by the Home Office. Ministers always made it clear

that the key figure was the maximum of 50,000 households to be

covered (and the 1990 Act spells this out). The figure of

225,000 was only ever intended as an illustrative, not a

definitive, upper limit.

7.

British Citizenship for Wives and Widows of Ex-Servicemen

During the second reading of the British Nationality

(Hong Kong) Act 1990 the Home Secretary gave an assurance that

the spouses of any British citizens who had died and who had

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