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Indo-China:
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[Lord Goronwy-Roberts.] pledged nearly £7 million to the High Commissioner for Refugees for various refugee programmes throughout the world. Of this, over £2 million was earmarked for his programmes in South-East Asia. Most of the High Commissioner's funds for the South-East Asia programme have been expended on Thailand, which is at present coping with a greater number of refugees than most other countries in the region.
Funds have also been made available by the Government, as we have heard to British voluntary agencies working among refugees in Thailand. The Govern- ment recognise that many voluntary agencies, international and British, secular and Christian-or should I say secular and religious? I do not know whether there is an appropriate distinction in this matter-will recognise that all these are active in supplementing the work in Thailand of the High Commission itself This year grants, usually up to 50 per cent. of project cost, have been made, or are likely to be made, for projects promoted in that part of the world by the National Council of the YMCA, the YWCA, Project Vietnam Orphans, Save the Children Fund and the British Red Cross. The noble Baroness raised the question of access by voluntary organisations, agencies, to refugee camps. I have no record of complaints received from voluntary agen- cies on this score but in the light of the remarks made by the noble Baroness | will certainly look into the matter.
Most of the projects to which I have referred are direct supplements to the basic help given to refugees by the High -Commissioner and they provide primary and secondary education, vocational train- ing and health care. It is outside the mandate of the High Commissioner to assist the local population where these voluntary agencies operate, but I am sure that in helping the refugees as such, the voluntary agencies certainly do not pass by on the other side of the road if there are cases among the indigenous population in which they can help. It is sometimes a real problem, which we must recognise, that refugees in camps of this kind, though by no means living in comfort, nevertheless can be better off than the local population in their vicinity. So there is this virtue in voluntary agencies, that they are resilient, they are flexible
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in their operation as well as their approach. Their humanity is not over-bound by strict rule.
The noble Lord, Lord Geddes, I was glad to hear, drew particular attention to the position of Hong Kong. Hong Kong, which is already overcrowded, is bearing a particularly heavy burden in coping not only with the steady stream of Vietnamese who arrive in their own junks, or even rescued at sea and brought there by merchant vessels, but also with the daily flow of immigrants from China, all told about 100,000 last year.
The Colony's population has grown from about half a million in 1945 to nearly 5 million today, a tenfold increase. It is greatly to the credit of the Government of Hong Kong, and perhaps particularly to the credit of the present Governor of Hong Kong, that the tremendous task of providing for this rapidly increasing indigenous population has procceded so successfully while at the same time coping with this massive influx of refugees of opportunity as well as others who have come into the Colony over the past 20 or 30 years.
Since 1975 the Hong Kong Government have arranged for 4,800 former residents of Vietnam to come to Hong Kong to join close relatives there. A further 5,700, who have made their own way to the Colony, have been allowed to settle even though they had no special claim on Hong Kong. In addition, there are now over 10,000 people who have been granted temporary shelter in the Colony. and who are awaiting resettlement else- where.
The Hong Kong Government's policy towards such refugees has been to allow all those who make their way to Hong Kong in their own boats to land tem- porarily until they can be resettled in other countries. Hong Kong has also provided temporary shelter for any refugees picked up at sea by vessels whose first scheduled port of call is Hong Kong. The arrival of the "Huey Fong" just before Christmas created a very serious problem for the Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong was not the ship's first port of call, and while still 1,000 miles away from Hong Kong and about the same distance from Taiwan the master was warned that he would not be allowed to enter Hong Kong and should proceed to his original destination, which was in Taiwan.
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