TNAG-1420-FCO40-1903-Hong-Kong-Parliamentary-Sub-Committee-on-Race-Relations-and--1985 — Page 163

being eligible to come here. The Government is also prepared to consider accepting further limited numbers of Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong. But a decision

on this will be taken in the light of the willingness shown by other resettlement countries to respond to Hong Kong's needs and of all the circumstances at

the time. The Hong Kong Government will also be prepared to consider accepting

for resettlement in Hong Kong a limited number of ethnic Chinese if the

resettlement forms part of a package aimed at reducing drastically the

size of Hong Kong's Vietnamese refugee population and resettling all those

whose stay in camps has been prolonged. The FCO will actively press other

resettlement countries to take additional refugees from Hong Kong in the light

of these decisions.

The Government has not, however, been able to accept in present circumstances

the Select Committee's recommendation that the closed camp policy be ended.

The Government believes that this policy is the most humane means of discouraging

further large-scale arrivals of refugees from Vietnam, and has been effective

in achieving this aim. In its view if the closed camps were abolished the

likely consequence would be that Hong Kong would again become the magnet for people from Vietnam that it was between 1979 and 1981, causing an unacceptable and unmanageable rise in the population of the camps in Hong Kong.

PART II

In Part II the Select Committee analysed the position of the Vietnamese in

Britain. It concluded that the Vietnamese have continuing difficulties for which special help is required. The Government agrees. Currently it is

supporting the voluntary refugee agencies in a three year Programme, the aim of

which is to develop the capacity of the Vietnamese community and of statutory

and voluntary services to the point at which the Vietnamese can become self- reliant and integrated. In the light of the Committee's report and its own

assessment the Government has decided:

(a) to increase funding of the Vietnamese Programme by 50%, from its

present level of £260,000 a year. The extra £130,000 a year will

be used mainly to fund extra agency workers, both Vietnamese and

British, in those parts of Britain in which the needs are greatest;

(b) to extend the Programme for a further full year, that is until

March 1988.