TNAG-0911-FCO40-1121-Policy-on-housing-and-resettlement-in-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 26

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Hong Kong:

[7 MARCH 1979]

was on 24th December last year, and that that was merely a request to disperse which I do not think was fully met, and hat happened on 7th January continued despite police requests. Then, the parties having been warned, I imagine, that if they went through the tunnel they would then have gone beyond the bounds of official patience. They proceeded to do So. The noble Lord suggested that it was important that large numbers of people had dispersed unarrested, and yet they had committed the offence of which the 76 were said to be guilty. I do not think that that crowd was made up of lawyers, and I think any normal group of people would see that this was a gradation of response, which was not in any way

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extreme or brutal.

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As to what happened after that, the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, will doubtless be in a position to enlighten us. As I understood it, charges were preferred against the adults. Convictions resulted, but the people who had been charged and convicted were bound over and thus incurred no penalty at all, although they were, I understand, members of an organisation which, quite properly, is trying to draw attention to the hardships of a particular group of people in Hong Kong. The causes of the demonstration are the circumstances of the boatmen (who are not to be confused with the boat people, which is an emotive term relating to refugees from Vietnam). These people are living in the vessels in which they used to live, or in vessels similar to them, when they were working at their trade as fishermen.

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The objects of the demonstration were to get them rehoused on dry land and, presumably, to have this done in advance of the long queue of others who are waiting to be rehoused. I would just

draw the noble Lord's attention to the very large number of people living in shanties on geologically unstable slopes, in which the danger is that with the torrential rains in Hong Kong you get a mud slide which results in instant burial and asphyxiation. If your boat starts to go down, on the other hand, you can step on to another one next door. think that that is an important considera- tion, and I wonder whether the people in the shanties have a greater claim than the people in the boats.

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Arrest of Petitioners

272 Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is not the case that those on the waiting list have to wait seven or eight years before they get any hope of a house, and that this is the condition of these boatmen ?

Lord ELTON: My Lords, I think that if the noble Lord were to extend his attention to the other people on the list, he might find that this was the case elsewhere. He has to look no further than Islington to find people waiting inter- minable years.

I understand that the council there cannot say how long people will have to wait in order to be housed. This is a universal problem. It is increased in Hong Kong by the fact that in the 12 months up to 31st December, 1978 over 100,000 new residents came over the border from China. What authority of a conurbation in the United Kingdom could cope with that and still shorten the list? There were 70,000 who came illegally and 30,000 who came as fugitives, without papers. Therefore, if it is at the back of the minds of those reading the columns of Hansard after this debate that somehow Hong Kong has a repressive régime, I think that the figures speak for them- selves. People do not fling themselves so willingly and in such large numbers into prison. That, I think, is, in itself, an endorsement of what Hong Kong is achieving.

I have, as it happens, been around many of the housing projects in Hong Kong. I have seen the emergency housing and the various grades, as well as the latest schemes that they have. It is difficult not to be fulsome in one's admiration of the organisation, energy and sheer achievement of what has been done. I do not wish to state the case in too flowery terms, because it will sound like propaganda and merely think that, in extremely difficult this is not a propagandist occasion. I

circumstances, the local authorities there have done rather better than local authori- ties in this country have done with far more resources at their disposal. That is an important element in looking at what is going on in Hong Kong. Lēt us have a yardstick, and let us find what area in this country, with an equivalent popu- lation, could produce an equivalent solution.

I come now to the question of the responsibility of 7 year-old children.

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