Businessmen may buy right of entry

MILLIONAIRE foreign businessmen are to be allowed to buy the right to settle in the UK by investing at least pounds 750,000 in British trading companies, writes Patricia Wynn Davies.

The Home Office denied that the new rule, planned to take effect on 1 October, was targeted on any particular country - but it is likely to attract entrepreneurs seeking to quit Hong Kong after 1997. Graham Allen, shadow home affairs minister, said Labour would oppose the change. 'If you are a husband trying to reunite with your wife it is a lot tougher,' he said. 'I would like to know who these millionaires are. Will it include the drug barons, heavy donors to the Tory Party and those involved in financial scandals?'