LETTERS
Haven from Hong Kong
Sir: Your recent editorial (13 May) on the question of right to abode in the United King- dom for the citizens of Hong Kong was well put. But I fear that there is little chance of government action on this issue when its immigration rules strike far closer to home than Hong Kong. In fact the rules threaten the very famiiies of many British citizens who temporarily live overseas.
My own case is typical. I am a British citizen who has married a foreign wife whilst working in Hong Kong. The com- pany I work for has botight power plant worth thousands of millions of pounds from the United Kingdom over the past few years. I continue to pay my contribu- tions to the British National Insurance scheme as I have done fOr the last 30 years. You might think that. I have a right — indeed, a basic human right — to be able to take'my wife back to Britain with me when my contract finishes. But this is not so. For my wife to obtain a, settlement visa, the rules require her, amongst other things, to:
— produce a written guarantee of her maintenance and accommodation in the United Kingdom, — produce evidence of my financial stand- ing, — state my educational qualifications, — estimate my monthly income on return to the United Kingdom, — provide equally detailed information on her own situation.
I have no right of abode in any country except the United Kingdom, but it seems that if I fall on hard times, or my qualifica- tions are below some unspecified standard, the Government is prepared to break up my family when I return. I accept without question the need for us to prove that our niarriage is genuine and that we did not marry solely for my wife to gain entry to Britain. But, the rest is an affront to my rights as a British citizen. However, this is only a part of the problem. Even if the Home Office does grant my wife the right of settlement when I return, she must serve a probationary period of a year before she can be granted indefinite leave to stay. If I were to die, within that year she could be deported, subject only to the uncertain discretion of the Home Secretary of the day. But any child of our marriage, being a British citizen, would be allowed to remain.
Thus the family of a British citizen, already devastated by death, could be deported or split asunder by the applica- tion of the British immigration rules. Also, if I were to die before our intended date of return, the rules would not allow my wife to settle in the United Kingdom at all. This would effectively deny entry to any of our children who were too small to look after
David G. Buckley
6 Kelvin Tower, 3 Tsing Yung Street, Tuen Mun, New Territories, Hong Kong
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