TNAG-2944-FCO40-4220-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-dependants-wives-and-widow-1993 — Page 119

K. 4 (Cont'd)

ict

Iance

any time.

that they could enter the UK for settlement at

But they feel that the assurance is not a sufficient guarantee for the future beyond 1997, and that the British Government should, and could, do more for them. In particular, and with the British Nationality Scheme evidently as background, they feel that they should be granted full British citizenship without having to fulfil

any residency requirement. However this is further than the British Government has been prepared

to go.

BACKGROUND

3.

This issue has been looked at repeatedly.

Concessions have been made before as follows :

(a) for the wives: covered by the Home

Secretary's 1986 assurance that HMG would

grant applications for settlement from any

of the 270 former servicemen in Hong Kong

together with their dependants i.e. wives

and children under 18 years of age;

(b)

for the widows : covered by the Home

Secretary's further 1990 assurance (at the

time of enacting the British Nationality

Scheme) that they could enter the UK for

settlement at any time regardless of their

or their husbands' nationality, provided

/that.

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