TNAG-0971-FCO40-1190-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-in-the-UK-1980 — Page 200

E.R.

This recent experience of ours illustrates another feature of the way we handle these matters in this country. There is the close and constructive partnership between Government and the voluntary sector. In a given situation each makes its own essential contribution. The Government having responded positively to the need for help in the world refugee crisis last summer has since provided essential funds, co-ordination and administrative support. For their part, the voluntary bodies have provided a flexible, caring and practical service for the refugees themselves. We are achieving together what neither

of us could very easily have achieved separately.

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Traditionally,

The programme, however, also involves other agencies and services. Government's role is to help provide the refugees with survival skills and an initial launch into the community. In the Vietnamese programme, the Government is, therefore, funding more than just the costs of maintaining and staffing reception centres. It is also in co-operation with local education authorities, providing for refugees in these centres at no cost/the local community an intensive programme of education in English language and communication skills. But after this initial launch, initiative and responsibility pass increasingly to the local communities where the refugees are resettled. In this resettlement stage there is again a need for a constructive partnership, this time between local government and the voluntary sector.

Given this substantial degree of interdependence it is all the more appropriate to use this occasion to examine in a critical as well as a congratulatory sense how the Vietnamese refugee programme is now proceeding.

Progress with Vietnamese refugee ogramme

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First, how are we coping with the numbers involved? It is not generally realised that in 1979 about 5,000 Vietnamese came to this country. Many of these came from the boat rescues by the "Sibonga" and the "Roachbank" and from the quota of 1, 500 agreed to by the last Government; 2,000, however, came from the 10,000 quote for Hong Kong which we agreed at the Geneva Conference. In the first three months of this year, I gather that the arrivals from Hong Kong seem likely to total something over 1,500. As at the end of March, therefore, there will be about 6,500 refugees still to come from Hong Kong. I want to emphasise that the Government would like to see these refugees brought to this country just as soon as it is practicable to do so with the present reception centre accommodation at our disposal. It is important for the refugees themselves that they should not have to live for any longer than they really have to in the poor physical conditio.s

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