·
and
and, unlike other countries which received the Vietnamese, made no requirements other than that the Vietnamese wished to come to this country; that in the opinion of the voluntary agencies it would be possible for them to settle; that they were not personally unacceptable. Very few people who wished to come to the United Kingdom were rejected. This generous approach and the fact that the United Kingdom programme began rather later than those of other nations has meant, however, that of the Vietnamese accepted by this country, few had any sort of knowledge of English or of Western culture, many were in Western terms unskilled, and many had been previously rejected for settlement by other countries.
12. Acceptance of refugees rescued at sea by British registered ships was, of course, not based on Government selection criteria. Guarantees are given by the Government that entry visas will be given for those rescued. Efforts are then made to settle the refugees in countries with which they have closest ties and the UK ultimately receives those who do not secure admission elsewhere.
Reception
13. To cope with the flow of Vietnamese to be received by the United Kingdom, a number of reception centres were opened around the country, the cost being met by the Government, and refugees were admitted as and when these centres had capacity to receive them. During the existence of the Joint Committee a total of 46 reception centres were opened at one time or other. Appendix A lists these centres, their dates of opening and closure and the number of Vietnamese settled from them since November 1979.
14. Each of the agencies on the committee had its own reception centres. Some centres were little more than houses accommodating perhaps four families while others were much larger establishments brought into use by adapting unoccupied property belonging to the military services, government departments and so on. The largest had capacity for 730, the smallest for 18 and the maximum occupation of centres was around 3,800.
15. The period spent by the Vietnamese in reception centres enabled the agencies' staff to familiarise themselves with the settlement needs of each family, employment potential and ties with any other families previously housed. Every effort was then made to match the needs of individuals and families with the housing which was available. During this time the Vietnamese received any necessary medical care, an introduction to British culture and tuition in English language. English language education at the reception centres has been provided by local education authorities on reimbursement of full costs by the Government. Inevitably, however, this could be no more than an effort to provide the Vietnamese with an elementary grounding in English and could in no way properly equip them to be self sufficient when living on their own in the community after settlement.
16. Generally, the reception phase has gone well though it has lasted consid- erably longer than we had anticipated. We are happy to record that there were no major outbreaks of illness nor problems in keeping order, the risk of both of which must be recognised as ever present when dealing with such numbers of refugees. The centres were also successful in establishing and maintaining good relations with the local communities in whose areas they were based.
3.
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