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action by us which will provide a lead to the international community in resettlement, in addition to the lead we have taken. on repatriation.
8.
In the past one powerful argument against a new resettlement commitment has been the fear that this would induce even greater
numbers of people to leave Vietnam in the hope of resettlement in
the West. We believe that our success so far in getting across
the deterrent message of the screening/repatriation policy has
this risk.
Substantially reduced
9. We have also carefully considered whether our reception facilities and statutory services could deal with an increase flow of refugees. The voluntary agencies argue that they could cope with as many as 60 per month (as opposed to 20 per month at present). We are more cautious. The agencies and statutory services have not coped with such numbers in recent years though they did manage 40 per month during parts of 1985-86 and 1986-87 without undue difficulties. We judge it right to go for about 40 per month again. If sustained over a period of 21⁄2 years from now this would amount to an additional commitment of 1000.
Details of a possible package on these lines are set out in an
annex to this minute.
10. The proposed package seeks to take in both people who have a greater ability to adapt to life in this country and to make a success of the opportunity we are offering and also the longstayers for whom the humanitarian case is strongest. The Hong Kong government have offered to assist in identifying
suitable candidates for us. Among those with potential to settle
here, the Training Agency will be able to help with guidance on
the assessments on which final selection will be made by immigration officials. Most of the more skilled refugees have, of course, left Hong Kong some time ago so it would be difficult and would give the wrong signals to go further towards an exclusively skills based package at this stage.
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Private notes are available after approval.