§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Neubert.]
§ 10 pm
§ Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth (Stockton, South)I am pleased to have this opportunity to raise the plight of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong.
Recently I visited the territory and had an opportunity, not for the first time, to visit refugee camps containing Vietnamese refugees. I visited the Chi Ma Wan camp for the second time, and the Bowring camp for the first time. They are both closed camps for Vietnamese refugees. I was deeply disappointed and depressed to find that refugees are still there after, perhaps, four years. Every hon. Member and everyone in Hong Kong would regard their conditions as being totally unacceptable. The residents of Hong Kong, and certainly the residents of the camps, believe the Vietnamese refugees to be a forgotten people.
I shall describe the conditions in those camps. There cannot be any real family life, because there is no privacy. The living space for a family in some of the camps is literally the bottom or top end of a bunk, and has been for a very long time. Those bunks stand next to one another in rows in sheds. The families have no privacy and live in totally unacceptable conditions.
Those conditions might have been acceptable if the refugees had had to live in them for only a short time. After all, the situation was, as I and my parliamentary colleagues saw, critical some years ago when boat loads of refugees were arriving. In those circumstances, it was understandable that such conditions should exist. But I raise this subject tonight because I believe that the solution to the problem is not to spend much more money on upgrading the camps and making them pleasanter to live in but to get rid of them completely. We should get those people out of Hong Kong and resettle them in other countries throughout the world.
The British Government have the key to opening that door so that many more people can be resettled. When the closed camp regime was first introduced in 1982, there were about 12,600 refugees in them. The number has now fallen to just over 9,000. Hong Kong has accepted about 14,500 refugees since 1975. It is instructive but rather depressing to look at the resettlement figures for the various countries.
At the Geneva conference we agreed that we should take some 10,000 refugees, which is 2,500 less than overcrowded Hong Kong has been prepared to take. In 1980 we took 6,076 refugees, in 1981 we took 1,775, in 1982 we took 241, in 1983 we took 101, and in 1984 we took 88. Last year, we took only 44 refugees from the 10,000 or so that are in Hong Kong.
By contrast the United States of America in 1982 took 6,657, in 1983 it took 2,065, in 1984 it took 1,540 and in 1985 it took 1,721. That represented 43.5 per cent. of the total number of resettled refugees.
In 1985 Canada took 1,302 refugees, which represented 32.9 per cent. of the total number of resettled refugees. Australia took 329 refugees, 8.3 per cent. of those resettled.
What a contrast it is that in 1985 we can take 44, but America took more than 1,700, Canada more than 1,300 and Australia 329. The Minister will tell us that the 352 Government agencies have accepted a commitment to accept an extra 500 family reunions at a rate of 40 a month. That will represent 500 additional places in Britain. I press the Minister to keep that rate of 40 a month. I should like to see that number increased beyond 40 per month and beyond the 500 places. The Home Affairs Select Committee took evidence on this issue and recommended that the Government should accept 40 refugees per month.
If the Government are prepared to accept this modest commitment, it would unlock the door for America, Canada, Australia and other countries to take more refugees. I am sure that our agencies would be only too happy to agree to this. That has been made clear to the Government, and indeed to others who have investigated the matter.
Refugee Action undertook a major investigation of this issue. I shall not go into the details of its report which was published while I was in Hong Kong. I believe that Lord Chitnis, who led the delegation which compiled the report, proposes to raise the subject in another place shortly.
I press the Government to extend the commitment to take 40 refugees a month. I would prefer the Government to accept 50 refugees a month, but the Government's commitment would unlock the door to other refugees being resettled in America, Canada or Australia. Many of the refugees prefer to go to Canada or America. Obviously, the Vietnamese have had previous contact with the Americans. They have a knowledge of America and they often have friends and relations there. Therefore, their attention is drawn to that country and many of the refugees would, undoubtedly, like to settle there. There is a heavy responsibility on the Government to take more of the burden—a small part of the burden—to encourage other Governments to accept more refugees.
The people of Hong Kong and the British people would find the conditions in the camps unacceptable in a civilised community. The Government in Hong Kong are spending tremendous amounts of money and taking enormous trouble to sustain those camps. Obviously, some improvements could be made, but the most striking thing about the camps which I visited was the marvellous work done there by many people.
Voluntary agencies such as Save the Children Fund, the Salvation Army and volunteers, some of them young people from Britain, are doing a marvellous job helping with education, for example, in the refugee camps. More could be done, but the priority is not to improve conditions in the camps—although I would love that—but to get people out and settled. If the Minister visits the camps, he will find that the refugees want to know when they can be resettled. They do not say that they want conditions improved. It is understandable that they want to get out, bearing in mind how long some of them have been there.
When most of the refugees arrived and were put in the camps, they thought that they would be allowed to settle in Hong Kong or other countries fairly rapidly. Institutionalisation has sapped many people's will as they have been in the camps for a long time. There is no doubt that some of the more recent arrivals are not genuine refugees in that they are running away because they have been persecuted. They come because they want the benefit of the economic conditions that they read or hear about in Hong Kong and other Western countries. The Hong Kong Government introduced the closed camp regime to dissuade people from going to Hong Kong.
353 I remember that, when boats crowded with people were floating about the seas in that part of the world, some countries took a much less charitable view than Hong Kong. It might be possible to criticise some of what has happened in Hong Kong, but it has undoubtedly been generous to the refugees as compared with some other countries in the region. It has gone to an enormous amount of trouble and expense to accommodate and resettle them.
Will the Minister please give us a commitment to continue resettlement in Britain of the modest number of refugees that I mentioned? Most of those who go to the camps, like refugees throughout the world, are the people with get up and go. We have found that with various refugee communities, a notable recent example being the Asians. They have entrepreneurial flair, a desire for education and a tremendous contribution to make to the countries in which they are resettled. That is one reason why countries such as Australia and Canada are only too happy to accept many more refugees than we have accepted.
I know from my meetings with people in the camps and from studies on them that they are able and willing people who will contribute to the communities in which they settle. I urge the Minister to give us that commitment and to tell other Governments that Britain has been prepared to extend her commitment. I am sure that the response from Canada. Australia, and the United States will enable us to close the camps. We should then resolve the problem and end some of the misery.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tim Eggar)I am sure that the whole House has listened with great care to the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth). His comments are based on first-hand knowledge as a result of his recent visit to Hong Kong, and I know that he has taken a considerable interest in this topic for many years. I welcome the opportunity to put the Government's views on the record.
The subject for debate which the hon. Gentleman has chosen concerns one of the sadder aspects of the conflicts that have troubled south-east Asia recently—the enormous exodus of refugees from Vietnam. I do not think that we have any reason to be ashamed of the part that we have played in efforts to solve the refugee problem with most of the burden falling on the authorities and people of Hong Kong.
As the hon. Gentleman said, the problem is still severe. Hong Kong still has more refugees than any other place of first asylum in the region. However, we are making steady progress towards a lasting solution. The total number of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong was over 50,000 in 1979. It dropped rapidly to under 13,000 by the end of 1981, largely as a result of Her Majesty's Government's initiative, and has since dropped gradually to 9,500 at the end of last year and just under 9,000 last month.
Since 1 January, 1,451 refugees have departed from Hong Kong for resettlement compared with 1,135 in 1985 and, one has to say that, some 525 have arrived against some 314 in 1985. The rise in departures is the result of increases in the numbers taken by the United Kingdom and other countries and I shall refer to those numbers in more detail later. As yet, there is no discernible reason for the increase in arrivals of some 40 per cent. or for the 354 increasing proportion of northern Vietnamese in those arriving. Therefore, we have a problem of arrivals that we have yet to discover the reason for.
Hong Kong, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, is the only place of first asylum to introduce a policy of local resettlement. It has now agreed to resettle up to another 250 ethnic Chinese refugees from the camps in Hong Kong. The refugees being resettled will be drawn from the longest stayers, that is those who have been in the camps for more than six years, and they will be among those who have proved hardest to resettle elsewhere. That is a significant contribution by the Hong Kong people and the Hong Kong Goverment.
Hong Kong is the only place of first asylum in the region to contribute towards the upkeep of its refugees. Last year 100 million Hong Kong dollars out of the 150 million Hong Kong dollars spent on refugees came directly from the Hong Kong Government. That is in stark contrast to Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, which all insist that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees pays the total cost of the refugees.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that the Hong Kong Government have never turned any refugee away. All who wish to land are allowed to do so. Voluntary departures increased significantly last year, but in order for those voluntary departures to take place we know that refugees made their decision to depart freely and without any form of coercion. We cannot, of course, compel refugees to remain in Hong Kong if they no longer wish to do so.
I shall turn now to the United Kingdom's contribution. We have accepted some 12,500 refugees since 1975, all from Hong Kong. Last September—the hon. Gentleman was less than fair in his comments in this area—we announced relaxed criteria for family reunion under which some 420 refugees would be taken from Hong Kong. So far, 250 have been resettled under that programme. That meets our target of 40 per month since arrivals began in November.
I think that the hon. Gentleman would agree that our present priority must be the reunification of Vietnamese families which have members in Hong Kong and in this country. At this stage we are not able to enter into commitments to take further refugees from Hong Kong. Whether we might be able to do so in the future will be decided in the light of the willingness shown by other resettlement countries to respond to Hong Kong's need and of all the other circumstances at the time.
The hon. Gentleman referred to a possible change in the monthly intake, which is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary rather than for me. The principal determinant of the rate of resettlement in the United Kingdom is the availability of accommodation for refugees. The voluntary agencies are making great efforts in this regard, but the difficulties involved in accommodating 40 refugees monthly would obviously be far greater if the number was increased. There are difficulties in that area, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree.
In line with the recommendations of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, we are pressing other resettlement countries to take additional refugees from Hong Kong to maximise the effect of our decision to resettle further numbers of 355 refugees. In other words, we try to multiply up, with help from other countries, the number that we are prepared to accept.
§ Mr. EggarIf the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue for a moment, I shall of course give way.
As well as the main resettlement countries, we have approaached other countries that have taken Indo-Chinese refugees in the past. Ministers have raised the whole question of further resettlement with their opposite numbers in other countries, and we have made regular representations through our diplomatic missions.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees accords priority to the resettlement of refugees from Hong Kong, and has approached many Governments who seek his advice when allocating their refugee resettlement quotas. They have been very supportive in our efforts to help in the resettlement process.
So far, we have had a number of encouraging responses as a result of the initiative that we launched last September. Australia has agreed to accept for settlement a further 200 refugees, Canada 50, Finland 70, the Netherlands 80, New Zealand 10 and Sweden 100. The United States, which resettles more Indo-Chinese refugees than any other country, is currently accepting refugees at an annual rate of some 1,800–200 more than the previous year's ceiling. We are extremely grateful to all those countries for their efforts to help Hong Kong, and it is fair to claim that much of the credit for that additional resettlement is due to this Government's initiative that was taken in September. We have indications that a number of other countries are likely to respond favourably, and we are of course continuing the pressure.
§ Mr. WrigglesworthI am pleased to hear what the Minister has just reported, but does not he understand that waiting for the response of other Governments, before giving a commitment beyond the end of 1986, makes it much more difficult for other Governments to respond in the way that we would like? It is almost a circular problem. They are waiting to see what the British Government will do, and the British Government are waiting to see what they will do. Will not the Minster break the circle by making it clear that we will maintain that commitment after to the end of this year?
§ Mr. EggarWe did exactly that in September. It was our initiative to take the extra resettlement cases, and our diplomatic initiative following that decision in the White Paper, that enabled us to persuade other countries to take more refugees than they would otherwise have done. I have already said that we are discussing the possibility of other countries taking further refugees. I do not think that at present it is quite appropriate for us to make any announcement about our future intentions. This is not only widely accepted by other countries but it is also understood by the UNHCR.
The presence of refugees in Hong Kong camps is one of the many sad aspects of the Indo-Chinese refugee problem. As the hon. Gentleman made clear, in an ideal world refugee camps, whether closed or open, would simply not exist. But neither I nor any other Minister could say that it was satisfactory or desirable to have 4,600 356 refugees in closed camps and slightly more than 4,000 in open camps. Refugee situations are never ideal, but having said that we must be realistic and accept, as did the hon. Gentleman, that the Hong Kong Government have done a great deal to make the life of the refugee as bearable as possible.
I know that many hon. Members find the whole idea of closed camps, of depriving innocent people of their liberty, repugnant. This Government dislike the policy. If, however, we were to end the policy now, the result would be that many more refugees would set out from Vietnam for Hong Kong, many in unseaworthy craft, with inevitable and tragic loss of life. Those who reached Hong Kong—because there would be some—would place an enormous burden on the resources of that already overcrowded territory. The result of ending our closed camp policy would be more human suffering in this tragic and troubled area of the world. The House will probably agree that in the circumstances the present policy is the only reasonable one to pursue.
Doubts have been expressed in some quarters about whether the closed camp policy has worked. Anyone who looks objectively at the statistics will see that as soon as the closed camp policy was introduced there was a considerable fall in numbers of arrivals in Hong Kong as compared with arrivals in other parts of the region.
Conditions in the camps have been the subject of much comment in press and Parliament. The Hong Kong Government and Her Majesty's Government attach great importance to ensuring that refugees are adequately cared for in the camps. I should like at this stage to quote remarks made by Mr. Paul Hartling, the last United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, when he visited Bowring closed camp, the camp that the hon. Gentleman also visited. He said that he did not like the idea of closed camps but that inside the Bowring camp he found
the circumstances, the conditions, very encouraging".He compared the situation of the children at the Bowring camp with that of some of the refugees in camps in other parts of south east Asia who, he said, were starving, sick, destitute and had tears in their eyes. His conclusion was that the Hong Kong authorities and the voluntary agencies were doing a very good job, for which he was very grateful. That was not a Minister speaking, but the last United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.I submit to the House that conditions in the closed camps are at least as good as those in other refugee camps in the region.
The hon. Gentleman quite rightly commented favourably on the work done by voluntary agencies in the refugee camps in Hong Kong. This work is of the greatest importance. I would like to associate myself totally with the hon. Gentleman's remarks and with the praise that he gave to the individuals from a number of different countries who are working for the voluntary agencies. I hope that they will not be discouraged by some recent and, in our view, unjust criticisms of their work.
I cannot, in conclusion, let pass the opportunity to express the Government's admiration for the quite remarkable efforts made by the people and authorities of Hong Kong in caring for so many refugees. They have given temporary asylum to over 100,000 Vietnamese since 1975. In 1979 alone, over 68,000 boat people arrived in Hong Kong. No refugee has ever been turned away. In the words of Mr. Paul Hartling, at a press conference in Hong Kong a year ago, 357
We are very grateful to Hong Kong—to the authorities, the Government here and to the people because Hong Kong has given asylum and never, never refused to give asylum to refugees coming here and never forced them back against their will, and treated them well, but of course, they would like, as we would like, to see a solution—a durable solution, for these refugees.358 I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that the whole House will echo those final words of Mr. Hurtling and agree that we need a durable solution to the refugee problem in Hong Kong.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o' clock.