TNAG-2944-FCO40-4220-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-dependants-wives-and-widow-1993 — Page 23

1 December 1993

Dame Janet Fookes DBE MP

House of Commons

LONDON

SWLA OAA

"

Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

London SWIA 2AH

From The Minister of State

Sy

MUD

340/8

RECE

- 3 DEC 1993

GISTRY

INDE

en Taken

(46y

Dear Janet

Thank you for your letter of 24 November to Douglas Hurd, enclosing one from your constituent Mr L J Irving, of 29 Admiralty Street, Stonehouse, Plymouth PL1 3RX, about preventing Hong Kong Chinese immigration to this country. I am replying as Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with responsibility for Hong Kong.

As you say in your letter to Mr Irving, members of the Chinese community living in this country are hard-working and law-abiding citizens. They make a great contribution to the life and prosperity of this country. There could be no question of forcing these people who are now settled in the UK to return to Hong Kong.

There are currently about 3.6 million potential British passport holders in Hong Kong. These are British Dependent Territory Citizens and British Nationals (Overseas). Nearly all such passport holders can expect to enjoy visa-free access to this country for short visits. But they do not have (either now or after 1997) any automatic right to remain and settle here. Their home is Hong Kong and their future is assured there under the terms of the agreement we have negotiated with China.

Up to 50,000 families from these British passport-holders in Hong Kong have an opportunity to gain British citizenship under the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990. The background to the introduction of this legislation is that in the aftermath of events in Tiananmen Square, the exodus of people with professional skills threatened both Hong Kong's prosperity and

The good government during the last years of British rule. Government therefore introduced the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990. This provides for the registration as full British Citizens (that is with the right of abode in this country) of 50,000 heads of families together with their spouses

/and