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Vietnamese Refugees
18 DECEMBER 1987
[Mr. Alastair Goodlad]
places of permanent resettlement. That problem, which is facing the Hong Kong Government in an acute form, is one that we in this country share with them.
The causes of the problem lie in Vietnam and are beyond our control they are religious harassment. compulsory military service, political education camps, in which people sometimes spend many years, snortage of food and consequent malnutrition. People who manage to escape from the country and risk their lives and those of their families in open boats deserve every sympathy. The early refugees were all genuine - people in danger of their lives or their liberty because of their religion, political beliefs or race. Subsequently, emigration was no doubt stimulated by accounts of better conditions. It is not helpful to anybody to suggest to the millions of people living in Vietnam that all they have to do is to go somewhere else for a better life. It is not a practical proposition. The only possible course is a steady policy of erosion of the number of genuine refugees awaiting resettlement. At the moment, sadly, we are going backwards rather than forwards.
The British Government have said that this country's willingness to take further refugees from Hong Kong will be decided in the light of the willingness of other resettlement countries to respond to Hong Kong's need. and in the light of all the other circumstances at the time. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to tell us what has been the outcome of the Government's pressure on other countries to take more refugees from Hong Kong and of the conversations with Vietnam.
I hope that my hon. Friend will spell out to the House how our own willingness to accept refugees for settlement is evolving. One of the constraints is the capacity of the voluntary agencies, primarily the Ockenden Venture and Refugee Action, in accommodating refugees. They do a distinguished job, and I hope that my hon. Friend will reassure the House that they will continue to enjoy the necessary financial support from the Government for doing so.
The Government have said that the principal determinant for the rate of resettlement in the United Kingdom is the availability of accommodation for refugees. I need hardly remind my hon. Friend and the House of the number of empty houses, particularly outside the south-east. I hope that my hon. Friend will elaborate on the current availability of suitable accommodation.
The need to alleviate the plight of the Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong is compelling and urgent. The means are available and I hope that my hon. Friend can tell us that the will is undiminished.
11.45
Sir Philip Goodhart (Beckenham): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. Goodlad) for the humane way in which he has introduced this subject. I am sure that we all echo the tribute that he has paid to the Hong Kong Government for the way in which they have tackled the problem and to the charities that have done so much to alleviate suffering.
A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to visit again a closed centre in Hong Kong where some 1.676 people were detained in an area about the size of the Holland Park comprehensive school. The staff who looked after them were clearly humane, and relations between the staff and
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the inmates were remarkably good. The inmates' health was good and there seemed to be less crime than one might expect to find in an English village of comparable size. On the other hand, the overcrowding is becoming much worse. When I was there 12 months before, there were double bunks, and this year triple bunks were being introduced. The average length of stay in the camps is now three and a half years and some of the children approaching school age have never set foot outside the camps. That cannot be right.
Like my hon. Friend, I recognise that we are in a cleft stick. If we open the camps in Hong Kong, and if the West accepts many more Vietnamese boat people for resettlement, the number of people setting out from Vietnam will almost certainly increase. In the summer we saw a major increase in the number of refugees trying to come to Hong Kong because of the mistaken belief that in Washington the Secretary of State had announced a relaxation of American policy of allowing in more immigrants.
What can we do? I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury. We must try to persuade other countries in south-east Asia, and in the Philippines, in particular, to accept some of the refugees from overcrowded Hong Kong until such time as the harsh regime in Vietnam softens its stance sufficiently to allow those people living in the camps to return.
11.48 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tim Eggar): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. Goodlad) for givig the House an opportunity to consider this very important issue. I welcome the opportunity to put the Government's view on record and to explain what we are doing to resolve this tragic problem. I shall do my best in the limited time available to answer some of the points that have been raised. If there are any outstanding matters that I cannot cover, I will write to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury and to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Gooodhart).
Since 1975 a vast number of people have left Indo- China. The reason is very simple. They have fled the Communist oppression. More than 15 million people have left their homes to seek sanctuary overseas and more than I million of them are Vietnamese. More than 35.000 Vietnamese await resettlement in refugee camps in the region and some 9,400 are in Hong Kong. That is a human tragedy of appalling proportions and one which only international action can resolve. I should state that the only comparable refugee problem is that of the Afghan refugees trying to escape from Communist oppression.
In July 1979 it was a British initiative that led to a conference in Geneva designed to tackle the worsening crisis of the boat people. It was agreed that group refugee status would be conferred on those leaving Indo-China by boat. That was an important step forward. Asylum would be offered by those countries where boat people first arrived to allow time to arrange resettlement in third countries. For years that British-initiated system worked well taking the south-east Asian region as a whole. The rate of resettlement declined after 1980, but until recently it had more than kept pace with the declining rate of arrivals. The change came this year.
While the pace of resettlement continued to decline, the rate of arrivals increased. Many are accepted as refugees
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