HOME OFFICE
Lunar House Wellesley Road Croydon CR9 2BY
Cops to Morgan
Und lept. Al
Telephone 01-686 0333 ext 2518
Miss N Rice-Jones, MBE
+KK 243 11
Secretary
Your reference
. :. 3 iorlretereace Tour reference
Standing Conference on Refugees
Parnell House
25 Wilton Road
LONDON SW1V 1JS
REL
ICEX
PA
31 August 1978
(163
Thank you for your letter of 29 August about Indo Chinese refugees.
As I am sure you know, Lord Harris gave the following reply on 2 August to a Question tabled by Lord Elton on this subject which placed particular emphasis on the position of Cambodian refugees:
"Following an international appeal by the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees, Her Majesty's Government agreed to accept for permanent settlement in the United Kingdom 116 Indo-Chinese small boat refugees. However, before that quota had been fully taken up there was evidence that several South East Asian countries were refusing permission to disembark to small boat refugees rescued on the high seas by passing ships; they would only do so if the country of registration of the rescuing vessel gave an undertaking to accept for permanent settlement any such refugees who had not been settled elsewhere within an agreed period. My rt. hon. Friend recently decided that where the rescuing vessel was registered at a port in the United Kingdom such an undertaking would be given where it· was required. It is not intended that this commitment should be numerically limited by way of a quota. To date 258 small boat refugees, all Vietnamese, have been accepted for permanent settlement in the United Kingdom.
A total of 153 Cambodians have been accepted as refugees in the United Kingdom; this includes those who were already here at the time of the Communist takeover of Cambodia and those accepted as refugees on the basis of some tie or connection with this country. Such applications will continue to receive sympathetic consideration without regard to numerical limitations. Another form of assistance has been provided by the Government's recently announced contribution of £1m. to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for his special operations in Thailand and other countries of South East Asia."
The position concerning "small boat" refugees therefore, is that we have entered into an open-ended commitment with regard to such refugees rescued by United Kingdom registered ships. We have, in addition, recently agreed to accept 61 small boat refugees at present in Hong Kong who have no prospect of acceptance by other countries and I believe that some are to be received in the very near future by the Ockenden Venture, others by B.C.A.R.
In referring to the 258 small boat refugees, Lord Harris said that they were all Vietnamese but I understand that although they are all refugees from Vietnam a few have been found, after arrival here, to have Cambodian and in one or two cases Chinese ancestry. To bring you right up to date on the "small boat" situation.
1
1.