be operated through the Manpower Services Commission. To this end the Committee have sought to explore with the MSC how the use by the Vietnamese of existing services might be improved and whether fresh initiatives can be taken to meet their particular needs and especially the twin problems caused by poor language ability and the effects of the dispersal policy.
61. The Manpower Services Commission have recently announced several new initiatives directed towards the long-term unemployed for which Vietnamese refugees would be eligible. We would hope to enable them to take full advantage of these new opportunities but if so some strengthening of the agencies' staff will be essential so as to provide a capacity to sponsor group schemes and to assist individual refugees who could benefit from specialised training schemes. Although some part of these management costs would be borne by the MSC itself it seems likely that there would have to be some continuing extra expenditure by the agencies themselves, for which they would hope to obtain financial support from the Home Office.
Family Reunion
62. Inevitably, when refugee situations develop, family separation, disruption and possible permanent fragmentation occur. This is particularly true of the Vietnamese where, in addition to those left behind in Vietnam, families are scattered in camps in Hong Kong, Thailand and other S.E. Asian countries, and settled in China, and in other Western resettlement countries.
63. The Final Act of Conference of the 1951 Refugee Convention urged all Governments to observe the principle of family unity in refugee cases, which in practice means that close family members of refugees should be admitted more generously than are those of ordinary immigrants.
64. In the period from 1975 up until December 1980 the Home Office were prepared to interpret the principle of family unity very liberally. Gradually, however, the criteria for entry of relatives to this country have been more strictly drawn, so that since July 1981 visas are issued only to spouses, minor dependent children and, on the basis of sympathetic case by case consideration, to other members of the nuclear family.
65. Two groups which suffer particular hardship as a result of the present criteria are aged parents and the relatives of unaccompanied minors. Elderly parents who would normally be dependent on members of their family in the U.K. appear currently to be excluded, except where only one parent survives and no other relatives are available to provide support. As for the relatives of unaccompanied minors, it is a fundamental principle of child-care that children should be reunited with their parents. However, a number of applications for visas made on behalf of these children have been refused. The number of cases involved is very limited and we hope that the Home Secretary will be prepared to respond positively to the approach which we have made to him to widen the family reunion criteria to include the parents and unmarried siblings of unaccompanied minors where no adult member of the family, or guardian, capable of looking after the child, is resident in the U.K. And where there is no chance of parents being allowed to leave Vietnam, for consideration to be given to authorising visas for relatives (usually aunts, uncles or other siblings) who are in a country of first asylum.
66. The U.K. is not a country of immigration and we are not unmindful, therefore, of the considerations which apply in permitting families to come
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