CONFIDENTIAL
UK
intake of refugees from
Hong Kong, and begin
consultations with the countries concerned and with UNHCR
on possible long-term solutions to the Vietnamese refugee
problem in SE Asia.
B
4.
C
The Secretary of State wrote to the Home Secretary
on 15 September. His minute argued that the family reunion
resettlement programme begun in Autumn 1985 should
continue, even though the Home Office's ceiling of 500
resettlements was about to be reached, in order
in order to avoid a
damaging hiatus between the end of that programme and an
of HMG's decision on whether to accept to a
further intake from Hong Kong. In his interim reply, the
Home Secretary refused to continue to "call forward" family
reunion cases from Hong Kong on the grounds that, since 40
refugees had yet to be resettled under this programme, the
hiatus envisaged by the Secretary of State should not
announcement
occur.
D 5.
The Home
Secretary has now replied substantively to
State, indicating that any further
to resettlement should be within the
internationally agreed initiative to
the Secretary of
commitment by HMG
framework of an
address the Vietnamese refugee problem in its entirety.
The Home Secretary has asserted that the small number of
resettlement places available to Vietnamese refugees under
other existing commitments (to accept those rescued at sea
who have ties with the UK; and to accept 60 "SCORRI" cases
from
elsewhere in South East Asia) could
be used to
demonstrate our continuing concern and to avoid the hiatus
referred to by the Secretary of State.
6.
It is apparent that, whilst
that a long term solution to the
refugees
is
that there
resettlement
argues that
the Home Office agree
problem of Vietnamese
essential, they do not accept our assessment
should be a "visible and continuing flow" of
cases to the UK from Hong Kong. The draft
the Home Secretary's
preferred approach will
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