§ Lord MONSONMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that, of the substantial number of political refugees who have escaped from South Vietnam in overladen fishing boats, many have already been lost at sea as a result of having been refused sanctuary elsewhere; and accordingly whether, given that 1,208 refugees from the extreme Right-Wing régime in Chile have been admitted into the United Kingdom since 1st March 1975, but only 424 refugees from the extreme Left-Wing régimes in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, they will forthwith admit at least a further 750 refugees from these three South-East Asian countries.
§ The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich)My Lords, applications for admission to this country as refugees are considered individually and on their merits. Permission for refugees to come here is not normally granted in terms of filling quotas or balancing the numbers of one group against another. Where, however, an international operation is mounted, we may agree to accept a share of a known group of refugees alongside other participating countries. Thus we have for several years authorised the admission of refugees from Chile, and we have also agreed to accept 75 cases from Argentina as our contribution towards an appeal by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We have also been prepared to consider any applications from Indo-China, and in response to another appeal by the United Nations High Commissioner have agreed to accept 116 Indo-Chinese "small boat" cases. To date only some 21 of these places have been taken up.
§ Lord MONSONMy Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his slightly disappointing reply, may I ask whether he would agree that there are at least 8 three reasons why particular help needs to be given to refugees from South-East Asia and their families: the first being that unlike the Chileans (who are relatively few in number and who in any case are always welcomed in Cuba, Mexico and behind the Iron Curtain) and unlike refugees from Cyprus, the Lebanon, Angola and elsewhere, these people have nowhere else to go and risk being shot if they are sent back to their countries of origin; the second being that the West as a whole, and not simply the United States, has a definite moral obligation to those whom it encouraged to come out openly on the side of the West and then abandoned when it came to the crunch; and the third and connected reason being that, while Britain may not be the next domino in line, it is none the less right that we should show in a practical and humanitarian way our sympathy—our solidarity, if you like—with the victims of Communist agression?
§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICHMy Lords, I would agree with the noble Lord in saying that the Government should approach this matter in a humane way. As I indicated in my reply, we are prepared to play a part in this difficult matter and have been of as much help as we can be to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. If any other approach is made to us, we shall do our best to help.