Reg No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret,
Secret.
Confidential.
DRAFT
To:-
James Boyden Esq, MP
House of Commons
Type 1 +
From
Minister of State
Telephone No. Ext.
Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
Cc:
.................................................... In Confidence
Dr Shirley
Summerskill
Home Office
Department
Thank you for your letter of 5 July about refugees
in Indo-China.
I share your concern for the very sad plight of the
"boat people". The points you have raised, however, about
accepting into the UK more Vietnamese refugees, over and
above our agreed quota of 116, and particularly of
accepting applications from those on board the "ROLAND"
and "LEAP DAL" who do not fall into this category, are
really matters for the consideration of the Home Office.
It was, of course, made clear to the UNHCR earlier this
year that we would expect the arrival here, of those whose
applications had been accepted by HMG, to be spread over
a reasonable period f time. I do not personally think
the Home Secretary would wish to consider extending our
quota, at least until most of those so far accepted have
been satisfactorily resettled here.
this
We have received, through UNHCR, 95 applications in all,
mostly from "boat people" in Singapore and Thailand:
figure includes applications from the 21 Vietnamese
refugees who were brought here from Japan in February.
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