TNAG-1418-FCO40-1901-Hong-Kong-Parliamentary-Sub-Committee-on-Race-Relations-and--1985 — Page 45

From The Minister of State,

Richard Luce MP

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

INDL

HKD

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

HKK 243/2

21 June 1985

2 5 JUNI 25

SCORRI.

Kan Stank

108

Thank you for your letter of 4 June to Malcolm Rifkind enclosing copies of a letter from David Ennals, Chairman of the Asia Committee of the British Refugee Council (BRC), and of the BRC's recent leaflet about the Sub-Committee on Race Relations and Immigration (SCORRI)'s report "Refugees and Asylum with Special Reference to the Vietnamese" David was due to come and discuss the report with me earlier in the week, but our meeting unfortunately had to be postponed.

We are giving very careful consideration to the recommendations in the report, and will be giving our response to the House as soon as possible. As I am sure you will understand, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the recommendations in detail in advance of this. I would however like to stress, as I did during the two recent Adjournment Debates on Indo-Chinese refugees, that neither Her Majesty's nor the Hong Kong Governments regard it as satisfactory or desirable that refugees should have to remain in camps, either open or closed. Our objective must be to find durable solutions for all of them as soon as possible.

As you may know, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Hartling, came to London on 5 June for discussions about Hong Kong's problem in the context of the SCORRI recommendations. We had a useful and wide-ranging exchange of views. On the question of closed camps about which we corresponded last year, I have little to add to my letter of 21 December. You may however like to know that when Mr Hartling visited the camps he commented that he found the conditions "very encouraging", and said he thought the Hong Kong authorities and the voluntary agencies were doing a very good job, for which he was very grateful.

I am returning the enclosures to your letter, copies of which have been retained for our files.

Stuart Randall Esq MP

House of Commons

London

SWLA OAA

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