United Kingdom is indicative of his continuing interest in the people he served so well as Governor. His position as a member of the House of Lords gives him an ideal platform to pursue Bermuda's interests. This is important since Bermuda's great friend in London, Rupert Allason, lost his House of Commons seat at the last election.

There are many people who believe that the ideal position for Bermudians would be British citizenship and its access to the European Community.

It has been clear for some years, and Lord Waddington seems in his speech to reinforce the fact, that nothing was going to happen until after Hong Kong was gone. Lord Waddington reminded the House of Lords that there would not be "hordes'' of Bermudians or, indeed, people from the other 14 dependent territories, moving to Britain. As unpleasant as it may be to some, it is clear that Britain was not going to grant access as long as large numbers of people might have arrived from Hong Kong.

After Hong Kong goes, there will only be some 160,000 residents in the remaining dependent territories, the great majority of whom will not leave home. Citizens of Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands already have UK citizenship.

Referring to people in the remaining dependent territories, Lord Waddington, a former British Home Secretary who was once in charge of such things, is quoted as saying: "With the imminent handover of Hong Kong to China, there is no longer any immigration control justification for these people having a different citizenship from those who belong to the Mother Country.

"This step, or simply an easing of work permit restrictions, would allow Bermudians -- young, black Bermudians in particular -- who have business ambitions to gain experience in a wider environment than Bermuda and fit themselves for senior management.'' His reference to young black Bermudians is important. Under the present United Kingdom regulations many white Bermudians have what is called repatriality to Britain which means you can belong to the UK and own a UK passport if you had a United Kingdom grandparent. The problem is that very few black Bermudians have repatriality and that is clearly unfair.

It has always been assumed in Bermuda that this entre me to Britain could be achieved without reciprocal arrangements for people from the UK coming to Bermuda but that was before the UK Government changed from Conservative to Labour.

It is important to note that in the House of Lords, in answer to Lord Waddington, Junior Foreign Office Minister Baroness Symons said the UK Government had no plans at present to grant United Kingdom citizenship to the remaining dependent territories.

She said: "To do so would require reciprocal action in the territories where we believe the governments are not keen to allow unrestricted access to British citizens.'' A reciprocal arrangement would clearly be unacceptable to Bermuda with its policies of Bermudianisation. Besides that, some 60,000 Bermudians would have access to the UK and millions from Britain would have access to Bermuda.