Dear Joan
6217
From: THE PRIVATE SECRETARY
HKDO
.:P
Mr. Walker.
la achin
Now lettenfor infl agreed to
част SCORPI HOME OFFICE per. Scorri
PS/MI Kenton
Sir W. Harding
Dr Wilson
Cunte
QUEEN ANNE'S GATE
LONDON SWIH 9AT
24 September 1985
UND
SEAD
8324/9
HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: REPORT ON REFUGEES AND ASYLUM
Members of H Committee may like to know that the Government's response to the Home Affairs Committee's Third Report, on Refugees and Asylum with special reference to the Vietnamese, is due to be published on Thursday (26 September).
The Committee's report was published in April, and was in three parts covering: Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong, the Vietnamese in Britain, and refugee procedures generally.
The Committee's recommendations affect a number of Departments and the response has of course been agreed with them. The recommendations likely to attract most attention are those relating to the admission of further Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong. The response on this issue was agreed between Mr Brittan and the Foreign Secretary and has been endorsed by the present Home Secretary.
The Government reply accepts the Committee's recommendations in this area. It records agreement to relax the family reunion criteria for Vietnamese at present in camps in countries of temporary asylum. About 500 Vietnamese refugees, most of them in Hong Kong, will be eligible to come here as a result of this decision. The precise number admitted will depend on the refugees' willingness to come to the UK (as opposed to another resettlement country), and their relatives' willing- ness to sponsor them. The reply indicates that we will also be prepared to consider accepting, in addition to the family reunion cases, further limited numbers of Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong. 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 re-settlement 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 response does not, however, accept in present circumstances the Select Committee's recommendation that the closed camp policy in Hong Kong be ended. It explains 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: 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 to 1981, causing an unacceptable and unmanageable rise in the camp's population in Hong Kong.
Miss J MacNaughton
!
HKK 24362
RECEIVES HE REGIOMY
26 SEP 1985
DESK OF ROFA
INDEX
REGISTRY
PA
Action Taken
/In Part II
A
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