Fifth Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
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HOUSE OF COMMONS
Fifth Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
Tuesday 13 July 1993
[MR. BARRY JONES in the Chair]
Draft Hong Kong (British Nationality) (Amendment) Order 1993
10.30 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Wardle): I beg to
move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Hong Kong (British Nationality) (Amendment) Order 1993.
The Chairman: With the agreement of the Com- mittee, it will be convenient to discuss at the same time the other order before us, namely, the draft British Nationality (Hong Kong) (Selection Scheme) (Amendment) Order 1993.
Mr. Wardle: Subject to approval in this House and in another place, the first order will come into force on 3 January 1994 and the second on 21 July 1993. It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I put the first order in context. As its title makes clear, it relates to the selection scheme that was provided for by the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990.
The detailed arrangements governing the scheme were introduced by the British Nationality (Hong Kong) (Selection Scheme) Order 1990, which provided for applications for British citizenship to be made in tranches. Quotas were set for four classes of appli- cant:--the general occupational class, the disciplined service class, the sensitive service class-I shall not ask to which class, spiritually, the hon. Member for Not- tingham, North (Mr. Allen) belongs-and the entre- preneurs class. The Act provided for up to 50,000 places to be made available to British nationals in the four classes and the various groups of which they were comprised. The scheme allows for points to be given for various attributes such as age, education and experience. Citizenship is given in the quota of those scoring most points. Some 39,500 of the 50,000 places were assigned for distribution under the first tranche, which started in December 1990 and finishes at the end of this year. Because of an element of under-subscrip- tion in some classes, just over 38,000 will be registered in the first tranche by the end of this year. The whole operation is running smoothly and we are well on tar- get to complete the first tranche by 31 December 1993. As at 3 July, we had registered 31,568 principal ben- eficiaries, together with 52,876 dependants.
The next phase of the scheme will be the last. Four fifths of the places will have been allocated by then. There will be too few places left to warrant further phases and there will be too little time left for another phase after the second tranche applications have been processed. It seems to us that few people will leave it
Hong Kong (Brit. Nat.) Order 1993 Brit. Nat. (Hong Kong) Order 1993
until 1996 to emigrate if they have that intention and have, by then, secured such an insurance policy. The second and last phase will therefore begin on 3 January 1994 and will extend to 30 June 1997.
The new order makes relatively minor adjustments to the selection scheme in the light of experience in the first tranche. At first sight, hon. Members may find the detail of the order rather daunting, but its main pur- pose can be stated fairly simply.
The 1990 order has been found to be rather rigid and the main aim of the new order is to modify certain provisions of the scheme to facilitate fair allocation of the remaining places. The order introduces the flexi- bility that will help us avoid over-provision of citizen- ship places among occupations in which demand has been lacking, and to allocate more places to areas in which demand has been strong.
I should perhaps confirm that the order does not make any special provision for the non-Chinese ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. As hon. Members will be aware, the future of that group was debated on the motion for the Adjournment on 9 July and I can only repeat what I said then: that the Government see no need to make any special citizenship provisions for them. Members of that group have always been free to apply, along with all other British Dependent Territory Citizens for British citizenship under the 1990 Act selection scheme and this remains the case. Last Fri- day, I took the opportunity to repeat once more the assurance that we have given on several occasions over the years, namely that if, contrary to all expectations, members of the non-Chinese ethnic minority in Hong Kong came under pressure to leave Hong Kong and had nowhere else to go, the Government of the day would be expected to consider, with considerable and particular sympathy, their case for entry into the United Kingdom. That assurance has been given in response to the special considerations affecting the non-Chinese ethnic minority, and it naturally does not extend to any other category. I should now like to say something about the changes that this order makes to the operation of the selection scheme.
In the first tranche there was under-subscription in one or two categories, principally among private-sec- tor managers and administrators, by about 4,250 places, but also among the police by some 150 places. It also appears that the number of qualified candidates in the sensitive service class and entrepreneurs class may turn out to be fewer than provided for in the quota. The order provides for places to be transferred from these categories to groups where they will be used.
It is envisaged that any transfers between groups and/or classes will take place in a one-off exercise on a date to be specified by the Governor. That will prob- ably be before completion of the processing of appli- cations in the relevant group or class, but after the Hong Kong Government have established the size of the unused quota.
To assist with the general aim of matching more exactly supply and demand in the various categories,
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.