TNAG-2944-FCO40-4220-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-dependants-wives-and-widow-1993 — Page 120

2.

M. 4 (Cont'd)

that they still lived in Hong Kong and had

not remarried.

However the call to go one sleg Curther and

grant

full British citizenship to these ladies without residence

has been revived with news that there was spare capacity

in the first tranche of the 1990 BNS and that the second

tranche is about to start. The Legco Sub-committee on

Nationality has convened three meetings to examine this

and the ethnic minorities' issue, and Mr McGregor

publicized at the 29 December meeting the CS' assurance to

him that we would look at the wives and widows issue again.

6.

The

impossibility of including them under the

1990 BNS is covered at M. 1.

Ĉ.

There is now no

I am afraid there is little room to move

under the British Nationality Act 1981.

general discretion under the Act for the Home Secretary to

grant British Citizenship to persons as he sees Cil. The

1981 Act also look away special rights for wives. Before

the commencement of the 1981 Act, wives (not husbands) of

Citizens of the United Kingdom colonies (CUKCS) could

become CUKCS under the BNA 1948, and on 1.1.1983 they

automatically became British Citizens (BCS)

having to satisfy any residency requirement.

without

6.2. 19

/7....

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age