144
4 February 1985]
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE
Examination of Witnesses
[Continued
MR R LUCE, a Member of the House, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, examined; MR A C GALSWORTHY, Head of Hong Kong Department; DR D C WILSON, Assistant Under-Secretary, and DR D CARTER, SE Asian Department, from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, called in and examined.
Chairman
212. Mr Luce, may I begin by extending the apology of the Committee to you and your officials. We are very sorry that we are commencing today's business behind our appointed time of 4.15, but other matters have, alas, intruded upon us. Nonetheless, we do welcome you, of course, to this the final session of our Inquiry into Refugees. You have a number of officials with you. I wonder, for the purpose of the record, if I could ask to to introduce them?
(Mr Luce.) Mr Wheeler, thank you, first of all, for inviting me. I wonder if I could do as you have invited me to do, and introduce the officials who are with me, and if you would allow me, just for a second or two, to update you on what has happened since the memorandum?
213. We would be very grateful if you would do that.
(Mr Luce.) On my right is Dr David Wilson who is the Assistant Under-Secre- tary of State for the Far East, responsible for Hong Kong, amongst many other issues. On my immediate left is Mr Galsworthy, Head of the Hong Kong Department. On my far left is David Carter who is assistant Head of the South East Asian Department. Mr Wheeler, perhaps I may say this very briefly, because you will want to question me in detail. First of all, on this very important issue of the Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong, this is a matter that concerns us as a Government very deeply. For that reason, we as a Government welcome the fact that your Sub-Committee is undertak- ing an investigation which I believe will contribute to our assessment. I think it might be very briefly helpful to let you know what has happened since our memo- randum was submitted to you, which was going back to October of last year. What has happened since relates particularly to exchanges with other governments and the UNHCR officials about the problem that we have in Hong Kong. There are two main areas to this. First of all, at the UNHCR Executive Committee meeting in Geneva last October, the United Kingdom Perma- nent Representative, Dame Anne Warbur-
ton, again raised the problem of refugees in Hong Kong, in urgent terms, as she has done regularly at previous meetings. She expressed our regret that the number of resettlement opportunities for those in Hong Kong camps was continually declin- ing and urged those countries with large resettlement programmes to include an offtake from Hong Kong. I should add that we have also had a considerable number of further, recent bilateral contacts with major resettlement countries. In these contacts we have again come up against the problem outlined in Part II of our memorandum to the Sub-Committee: that is to say, the reluctance of other countries to do more to help Hong Kong, in the absence of a further United Kingdom resettlement effort or pro- gramme. However, I would like to say also that we have continued to point out to the major resettlement countries that the record of the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, in accepting 19,000 refugees in the United Kingdom over the last five or six years, and 14,000 in Hong Kong itself, is an extremely good one. I think, Mr Chairman, for the moment that is all that I would like to say.
214. Thank you very much, Mr Luce. That is extremely helpful; and, of course, we are very grateful to you for your memorandum which we, as a Committee, have studied. I suppose it is true to say that the 11,000 people in the open and closed camps in our Crown Colony of Hong Kong have but one overriding ambition, and that is to be permanent residents of Hong Kong; anything else is, to them, second best, if not worse. I suppose that if they are not to remain in Hong Kong itself, the United States of America is the destination to which they would much prefer to go, rather than to a country of Western Europe. What do you see as the future for those in the camps? Given the negotiation over the future of Hong Kong, do you see ultimately any settlement of the people in those camps, within the Crown Colony?
(Mr Luce.) Mr Wheeler, can I first of all go back to your first assumption? With regard to the 11,900 refugees (a figure that is a little down on what it was a few months