TNAG-1850-FCO40-2625-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 117

1989-06-12 21:15 COI RADIO TECH SERVICES.

01 928 8607 P.23

TRAIBCRIPT B SELECT COMMITTEE ON HONG KONG

12 JUN 1989

SIR DAVID WILSON:

The second part, Mr Lester, is easier than the first part. The first part I think, like so many things, it is a bit of both. It is a historical question, it goes back beyond 1979 and goes back bayond the period of my own

personal involvement.

But just roughly I think what happened was Hong Kong was faced by an inmadiate crisis back in 1975 with large shiploads of people arriving from Vietnam and it did not know what to do about it. The only practical thing to do was to land people and to seek arrangements for resettlement and that policy has simply evolved over time so I do not think it is right to say either this is entirely London or this is entirely Hong Kong, it is a

mixture of both.

On payment, that is quite simple, Hong Kong pays. UNHCR pays back some of the costs of food and social work within camps and more recently the British Government has given first of all to UNHCR two tranches of 1 million, one of t6 million, and then all three are to UNHCR to ume in Hong Kong. And then much more recently, last week, £4.5 million directly to the Hong Kong Government to spend

on camp facilities.

over the

But the Hong Kong Government has spent, last 10 years, 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollars on the issue.