Good
6. Where families fall into two categories we suggested that a decision should be made assigning the family to one category or another on the basis of the majority of the family (ie 2 members in category 1 and 6 in category 2 would mean assigning the family to category 2). BRC agreed to this proposal with some reluctance but accepted that the final decision would rest with the Home Office and we would consider representations from them in individual cases. Hong Kong would be asked to check the relationships and if they were incorrectly quoted the families would be put in the appropriate category for their relation- ship.
7. Martin Barber raised the issue of those who had failed to attend interviews and were deemed to have refused resettlement. I said that we had been unable to discover any information about these cases since they were raised by Lord Oram in a Lords' debate. He had been asked to produce details of the cases but, as far as I was aware, he had not yet done so. We were willing to consider any cases if we were givensome information.
South East Asia
8. We agreed to apply the same categories and cut off date to the South East Asian cases. Martin Barber also accepted that China, Japan and Taiwan were countries of final settlement and should be excluded. I also advised that we could not accept refugees from Macau as most of these were refugees from China and to accept them would generate considerable animosity in Hong Kong since the Macau authorities have 'dumped' refugees in Hong Kong. We therefore agreed that the countries in the South East Asian scheme should be Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
9.
I confirmed that Mr Waddington had agreed that the SCORRI scheme applied to Laotians and Cambodians. Graeme Jackson undertood to obtain a list of Laotian and Cambodian cases from the agencies.
10. Martin Barber undertook to put the proposals to the agencies for comment and to ensure that complete and comprehensive lists were given to the Home Office to enable an analysis to be made. Refugee Action had already submitted lists for Hong Kong and South East Asia. I agreed to take the proposals back to the Home Office and if necessary, once priorities had been decided, to meet the caseworkers to discuss individual difficult cases.
aɛ Helden.
A E HEBDEN
Group A
3
November 1986
Page 60Page 61
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