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Gibraltar citizenship and through this British nationality. The idea was to introduce a scheme along the lines of the British Nationality Scheme put in place by the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990 which allowed up 50,000 British Dependent Territory Citizens (BDTC) in Hong Kong (plus dependents) to be granted British residence without the need to fulfil normal UK residence requirements. Both the Home Office and we have explained that this is a non-starter.
30. Gibraltar have continued to argue for this, stressing the advantages for Gibraltar's faltering economy of such a scheme. The Home Office clarified the position again this month. The main difficulty is that the British Nationality Act (1981) contains an unwaivable requirement that an applicant for naturalisation must be physically present in the Dependent Territory 5 years before an application is made. This would apply to all would-be investors, not just those from Hong Kong.
31. A further complication is that those would-be investors, who already have BDTC status with Hong Kong, cannot apply to become BDTCS through a connection with Gibraltar before 1997, when BDTC status in Hong Kong comes to an end.
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The Home Office advise that the Governor of Gibraltar's power to waive absences during the 5 year qualifying period must be carefully applied, and to decide to do this for a particular class of applicants in advance would be unlawful. There might however be scope for investors to make periodic trips to Gibraltar over a 5 year period and then to apply for citizenship. We have passed this idea to the Governor's office.
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33. Should Bossano raise this with Ministers, we suggest they listen to his case and, as necessary, mention the possibility of investors acquiring Gibraltar citizenship, after regular visits over a 5-year period.
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