Helsinki Final Act (Hansard, 7 February 1990)

§ 2. Mr. Amess
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the implications of the proposed Soviet Emigration Bill for fulfilment of the obligations imposed by the Helsinki Final Act.

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The draft Soviet emigration law is an improvement on present law and practice, but still places unjustified restrictions on travel abroad by Soviet citizens. We shall continue to press the Soviet authorities to bring their law into conformity with their international obligations, and to resolve the refusenik problem once and for all.

§ Mr. Amess
Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that the Soviet emigration law still places restrictions on the free movement of Jewish people on the grounds that they might have held sensitive state jobs or 871 come from what could loosely be described as broken homes? Will he please undertake to raise those concerns with his opposite number in the Soviet Union?

§ Mr. Waldegrave
My hon. Friend puts his finger on two of the exact points that are unsatisfactory in the present draft. I raised those very points with vice-Minister Adamishin when I was in Moscow recently and we shall continue to urge for much greater clarity and a proper law to get rid of those problems once and for all.

§ Sir Russell Johnston
Will the Minister simultaneously make representations to the United States about the obstacles that it is now placing in the way of refugees from the Soviet Union settling there?

§ Mr. Waldegrave
The United States, like all other countries, undertakes its proper obligations to refugees. The right of countries to refuse access is not the same basic human right as the right to leave one's own country. That has been long established.

§ Mr. Budgen
Did the Russian Minister express any disagreement or annoyance about my right hon. Friend's impertinence in telling the Russians how to run their emigration laws?

§ Mr. Waldegrave
No, he did not, because, like all other Russian Ministers, particularly in the present climate, he rejoices in the fact that Mr. Brezhnev, surprisingly, signed the final Helsinki document. That gave us the perfect legal right to inquire into such matters.