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HIRK 360/2
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Mr Murray Parliamentary Unit
7/2
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HONG KONG : PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION, MR ROBERT PARRY MP
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1. I submit a draft reply and background note to the attached PQ tabled by Mr Robert Parry MP (Labour Liverpool, Scotland Exchange) for oral answer on 14 February. Parliamentary Unit have advised that the Question is unlikely to be reached for oral reply and draft supplementaries are not therefore needed.
2. Mr Parry is one of several MPs who have received a letter from the Society for Community Organisation (SOCO) in Hong Kong concerning the campaign for public housing by boat squatters living in the Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter in Kowloon, and in particular about the arrest of some of them on 7 January when they tried to present a petition to the Governor. Mr Parry wrote to Lord Goronwy-Roberts about this incident on 25 January (he received an interim reply on 5 February), and indicated in his letter that he might table some PQs on the
subject.
3. The "boat people" in this case are not to be confused with Vietnamese small-boat refugees. They are Hong Kong residents who, lacking permanent accommodation ashore, reside on boats moored mainly in Typhoon Shelters in Hong Kong.
4. The reply is based on information supplied by the Hong Kong
Government.
7 February 1979
hu/andun
R JT McLaren
Hong Kong and General Department
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