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not lie everybody else in Hong Kong, that they require special treatment. The protection that we can offer them, and for which they ask, is full British citizenship.
The numbers are small, and the situation is unique. If their fears prove to be without foundation, they will not come here. They want to stay in Hong Kong. Therefore, we are not risking very much if, as the Government say, their fears are groundless. If, on the other hand, their fears are justified, we have given an undertaking which can only be interpreted as meaning that we will take them in. It therefore seems to me that we both behave badly and do not protect ourselves against what the Government fear will happen. That seems to me the worst of all worlds.
Nor am I alone in my belief of what is the right thing for us to do in the circumstances. The House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs advocates that course. So does Justice; so does the International Commission of Jurists; so does the Governor, Christopher Patten; and so, unanimously, does the Legislative Council (LEGCO), about which no doubt the noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, will speak. We greatly look forward to hearing what she has to say on the subject.
The Government have so far refused to reconsider their position. That refusal is based on the assertion that the fears of the ethnic minorities are groundless. I hope that I dealt with that proposition. In refusing, the Government appear to regard the figure of 50,000 as in some sense sacred and unchangeable. But there is nothing sacred about 50,000. It might just as well have been 45,000, or 65,000, or even more, as some of us at the time greatly wished. It is a purely arbitrary figure. If the Government so wish, they can change it. Even if it means legislation, so be it. There is nothing magical about the figure of 50,000. I urge noble Lords to put the utmost pressure on the Government so that we can carry out our obligations properly.
Mr. Wardle also said, at col. 652:
"We see the ethnic minorities in the same way as all other British nationals in Hong Kong".
But they are not the same as all other British nationals in Hong Kong. Unless that point is grasped, one cannot understand the case that is being made. I hope that the noble Earl will tell us how we can possibly pretend that this group of people are exactly the same as the other inhabitants of Hong Kong. It is a mistake so to think. And from that mistake flows the mistaken, and, I believe, rather shameful, position in which we are. Those people came to Hong Kong because it is British. Many of them were brought there at our instigation. They have served the colony well. Their only nationality is British. They deserve protection, and we owe it to them to give it by making them British citizens.
6.55 p.m.
our
Baroness Dunn: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for moving this Motion. I have travelled from Hong Kong to be here to support it. As we have come to expect from the noble Lord, he raises an important issue of principle that I know troubles the conscience of many Members of this House. It is one
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that affects the future of a small number of non-Chinese British nationals who face statelessness after 1997.
Today, they are the Queen's subjects. They settled in a British colony to enjoy British governance and to give allegiance and loyal service to the Crown. They have contributed to Hong Kong's wealth and diversity. Many fought in defence of British territory. Their ties with the countries from which their families came have long since lapsed. They are now British dependent territory citizens, but will lose that status in 1997. They have no other sovereign but Her Majesty the Queen. Soon they will have none.
Ministers have argued against granting full British citizenship to members of this group on two main grounds: first, that the provisions in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Chinese Basic Law give them sufficient protection; secondly, that this is not a special case for setting a precedent.
As to the first of those grounds, under the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, after 1997 this group can have a right of abode in the Chinese special administrative region of Hong Kong; but they have no right to Chinese nationality. They can travel on a form of British travel document; but they have no right of abode in Britain. they can chance their luck and apply for Chinese nationality; but Chinese nationality laws are based on race, and they have no affinity with Chinese culture.
Ministers may argue that these improvised arrangements are good enough, but no one could argue that they are an honourable solution. Many eminent authorities have given their opinions that these people will be rendered stateless. The Times puts it more vividly: they will find themselves in “a legal no-man's land”.
As to the second argument, this is a uniquely special case, as noble Lords well know. No other citizens of Britain face statelessness. What is to take place in Hong Kong has no precedent in British colonial history. Hong Kong is not offered independence: sovereignty is to be transferred to another state where these British nationals will have no right to become citizens.
For years now the ethnic minority has pressed its case with dignity. Like all of us, those people want to continue to live and work in Hong Kong. But they are apprehensive that after 1997 there will be no sovereign obliged to protect them if and when, in the turbulence of time, they have to face the unpalatable fact that they are nobody's nationals and citizens of nowhere.
Last week, in another place, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, replying for the Government, assured the non-Chinese ethnic minority in Hong Kong that if they ever came under pressure to leave Hong Kong and had nowhere else to go, the British Government of the day would be expected to consider sympathetically their case for admission to the United Kingdom.
That is simply not good enough to discharge the constitutional obligations that go with sovereignty. Furthermore, it only echoes firm pledges made before on behalf of Her Majesty's Government-in 1985 by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and in 1986 by the
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