TNAG-1534-FCO40-2098-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-repatriation-1986 — Page 76

SEAD and UND concur.

CONFIDENTIAL

Background and Argument

SCORRI Report

3. The Government's reply to the SCORRI Report "Refugees

and Asylum, with Special Reference to the Vietnamese", published last September, accepted SCORRI's recommendation that "family

"family reunion criteria be relaxed in respect of Vietnamese in camps in countries of temporary asylum". The Reply estimated that some 420 refugees in Hong Kong would qualify under the relaxed criteria. Over 350 had arrived. by end-June. At the present rate of resettlement 420

should have arrived by end-August.

4.

}

SCORRI also recommended that:

"If necessary, and as part of a burden-sharing agreement, Britain should accept a small share of

those who are hard to resettle and have spent

years in camps."

The Government's reply was:

5.

" HMG

accepting, in

are prepared to consider 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 respond to Hong Kong's needs and of all the circumstances at the time."

Home

Secretary,

who

was

This heavily-qualified formula was extracted with

the then great difficulty from against any such commitment. We had originally sought a more far-reaching commitment which would have involved our acceptance of 500 refugees per annum, 420 family reunion cases.

in addition to the

We had argued that this would

CONFIDENTIAL