Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that individuals prosecuted under the Hong Kong National Security Law are not unfairly excluded from access to the British Nationals (Overseas) visa scheme.

The Home Office considers all applications for UK visas on their individual merits. Suitability requirements apply to all routes and must be met in addition to validity and eligibility requirements.

The Immigration Rules part 9: grounds for refusal (Immigration Rules - Immigration Rules part 9: grounds for refusal - Guidance - GOV.UK) has further detail as to when an application for entry clearance, permission to enter or permission to stay must be refused on criminality grounds.

In addition, further information on how overseas convictions and offences not recognised in the UK are considered for applications submitted specifically under the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) route can be found in the published casework guidance - Hong Kong British National (Overseas) route. Guidance for caseworkers provides flexibility to ensure that overseas convictions and offences not recognised in the UK do not result in the automatic refusal of a HK BN(O) route application.