CONFIDENTIAL
27.
One possible approach would be to seek an express
commitment to a new programme to resettle some 40 cases a
month, initially for one year after the "SCORRI" intake
ends. We should need, in consultation with Hong Kong,
devise criteria to put to the Home Office which would
produce sufficient refugees to produce this rate of
resettlement in UK. The Home Office may however resist,
and we may have to settle for less than this rate at the
end of the day.
as
28. Another option could be
could be to press the Home Office to continue to accept at our proposed monthly rate of 40 all refugees in Hong Kong who qualify under the existing "relaxed" criteria. Such an approach would avoid the need
for formal consideration of what would have to be treated
new intake. We would need first to assure ourselves
that sufficient cases could be identified to mak e this
numerically worthwhile. (Whereas one of the UK voluntary agencies involved in resettlement now estimates that 1000, rather than 420, refugees in Hong Kong may be qualified under the "SCORRI" criteria, Hong Kong puts the figure at
about 680). If the Home Office were to agree to accept
these refugees we should conduct a further diplomatic campaign based upon our absorption of these further numbers of refugees and again encouraging other countries to offer more resettlement places. To say that we were taking more family reunion cases would probably impress other countries less than if we were to announce a new intake; whether it would be presentationally effective would depend
additional numbers actually taken.
on
the
29. Alternatively we might press
that all the eligible
family reunion cases and that a new intake be accepted. However, a commitment of this magnitude is likely to be
almost impossible for the Home Office to accept: even though such a commitment by HMG would impress upon other resettlement countries that we me an business and would almost certainly lead them to accept more refugees from
Hong Kong.
CONFIDENTIAL