TNAG-0895-FCO40-1105-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 302

CONFIDENTIAL

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VIETNAMESE REFUGEES:

NEW UK QUOTA

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1. The Governor of Hong Kong called on Mr Philip Woodfield at the Home Office on the evening of 17 July to follow up the Secretary of State's discussion with the Home Secretary earlier that day (Mr Wall's minute of 17 July). Mr de Deney, Assistant Under-Secretary in charge of the Community Programmes and Equal Opportunities Department was also present, together with Mr Colin Birt, who deals with resettlement matters.

2.

Mr Woodfield said that the first requirement was to clear the backlog left over from the quota of 1,000 announced by the previous government. 225 of these were already in this country. A further 175 had been selected and arrangements would be made to bring them to the UK as soon as possible. Another 600 remained to be selected. Thereafter a start could be made on the new quota.

The aim would be to build up quickly to around 500 a month. In the longer term the offtake would depend on the speed with which refugees could be moved out of camps, and this could not be easily forecast in advance. The Home Secretary wanted the whole process to be as unobstrusive as possible once the initial publicity had died down.

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Mr Woodfield said that the Home Office continued to think 498)

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that selection was best done by people from Britain. then be easier to handle criticisms if the refugees selected proved difficult to resettle. With proper preparation a team of two (one from the Home Office and one from the BCAR) ought to be able to select 1,000 people during a two-week visit. The Home Office had it in mind to make one such visit fairly soon and a further one about two months later. It was agreed that the first visit might take place around the middle of August, by which time the particulars of all refugees now in Hong Kong would have been registered by UNHCR.

4.

Sir M MacLehose asked whether the Hong Kong Government could help with preprocessing. Mr Woodfield said it would certainly help if particulars of 2,000 or 3,000 people who wanted to come to Britain could be assembled in advance. He agreed that it would also be useful if the Hong Kong Government could arrange some English language teaching.

5. Mr Woodfield explained that once the refugees had been brought to this country, the actual resettlement arrangements were made through the voluntary agencies, though the Home Office gave discreet help where needed. Sir M MacLehose hoped that all the main voluntary agencies would come to feel that they could not afford not to pay attention to the Hong Kong problem.

Mr de Deney said there was no lack of interest among the voluntary agencies; if anything there was a danger of overkill.

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CONFIDENTIAL