Vietnamese Refugees (Hansard, 18 January 1989)

The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers)
My Lords, my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs announced on 22nd December in another place that we are prepared in principle to admit a further 1,000 Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong over two to three years, provided that other countries are prepared to contribute commensurately.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, perhaps I may ask this question. Accepting that the solution to the Vietnamese problem lies outside Hong Kong, and that the recent decision which the Minister has just announced to admit another 1,000 refugees and to allocate another £1 million to the problem is important, does not the fact that this country is the sovereign state mean that we have a strong moral obligation to do more than we are doing? As Canada and the United States have admitted five times the number of refugees that we have, and as Australia has admitted twice as many, should not that be the least that we are doing?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, we admit a very great number of people into this country. There is a limit to how many people can be admitted in a country of this size. I remind the noble Lord that of some 45,000 immigrants to the United Kingdom per annum we have taken some 20,000—not per annum—from Vietnam.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, are not comparisons with Canada and Australia somewhat absurd in the light of the enormous difference in the size of those countries and this one?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for pointing that out. Whether the comparison is absurd is a matter of judgment; but it is a distortion.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, while recognising the complexity and the difficulty of this problem, may I ask whether the Minister agrees that there is a serious anomaly? Is it not the case that the authorities in Macau, which is 40 miles from Hong Kong, have decided to grant EC passports to their Portuguese citizens? Is the Minister further aware that that means that 100,000 residents of Macau will in future have the right to settle in Britain? That is a right denied to British citizens resident in Hong Kong. Does not the Minister agree that that is a very serious anomaly?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, that is a somewhat different point. Those who live in Macau retain Portuguese citizenship, while those who live in Hong Kong are Hong Kongese. That is not the same thing.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, the Minister has not dealt with my question. There is a serious anomaly and a very large number of people in Macau will derive advantages which are refused to British citizens in Hong Kong. What are the Government going to do about that?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I apologise if I misunderstood the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition. I thought that he was referring to the Vietnamese boat people; he is of course referring to a totally different subject which is British citizenship in Hong Kong. That, with the greatest of respect, is a different question.

§ Lord Wyatt of Weeford
My Lords, is the Minister aware that not even Hong Kong Chinese officials of longstanding loyalty are being allowed to come into this country? Their applications are being turned down by the score. If the Portuguese are not frightened of upsetting the Chinese Government by letting their people from Macau come to Europe, why on earth are we so frightened of the Chinese Government that we do not allow large numbers of Hong Kong Chinese British nationals to come to this country? They would certainly improve our standard of industry, perhaps raising it to the level of the industry of Hong Kong or even of Taiwan.

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I say to the noble Lord with the greatest of modesty that he falls into the same trap as the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition. The noble Lord, Lord Wyatt, asked me a question about immigration from Hong Kong and from China. The Question on the Order Paper is about Vietnamese boat people. Those are different matters.

§ Lord Hylton
My Lords, returning to the original Question, it was announced some 18 months ago that on compassionate grounds some 450 Vietnamese people would be admitted into this country for family reunions. Can the Minister say how irar we have got in admitting those 450 people, and whether steps can be taken to speed up the reception of the balance of them?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord the answer to that question. However. I shall find out the answer and let him know what it is.

§ Lord Harmar-Nicholls
My Lords, as the Government's offer was made several weeks ago and is subject to some extent to others who can help by making a similar contribution, has the Minister any indication yet as to whether our lead is likely to produce any results from other countries?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, it is generally encouraging at the moment that there is a considerable amount of diplomatic activity taking place to see whether those countries of first asylum will be prepared to co-operate and try to take some of these people. It is quite clear that we cannot be responsible for all of them, but we are prepared to play our part, and take our share, provided that others do the same.

§ Baroness Ewart-Biggs
My Lords. iii view of the very real problem in Hong Kong of maintaining the camps for Vietnamese refugees, which I have seen myself, I should like to ask this question. Can the Minister say what progress there is in negotiations with the Vietnamese Government with a view to repatriating the Vietnamese refugees who arrived in Hong Kong after June 1988?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, a considerable amount of discussion is going on with the Vietnamese Government at the moment. There have to be satisfactory assurances of humane treatment of all those who are returned to Vietnam. The Vietnamese Government have assured us and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees that those who are returned will be well treated and will not face punishment. I should point out to the noble Baroness that at the moment there are some 15,000 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong. There are 11,000 others who have either not passed the test or have not been passed. New tests have been applied to those people since 1988. Only 10 per cent. of those tested have passed as refugees.

§ Lord Mellish
My Lords, I recognise the compassionate intentions of those who have put down this Question, but does the Minister agree that it is illogical and indeed inhuman to accept refugees if houses and jobs are not provided for them?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. We have to ensure that those who come here can settle within the community. There have been problems with language and with employment and we must ensure that there are not also housing problems. That is why, as with all forms of immigration, there is bound to be a certain amount of control and a certain amount of difficulty.

§ Lord Annan
My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that the case for the Vietnamese refugees can he argued not on compassionate grounds but on grounds of the self-interest of this country? These people are extremely hard working and they are also extremely intelligent. Is the Minister aware that the children of refugees who went to the United States and Canada in the 1960s now hold top places in universities and have been enormously influential in the growth of the computer industry and related industries in California and Canada?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, the noble Lord makes a valid point. I am sure that what he said applies in a great many cases. However, I think that the motivation of the boat people has changed from being, as it was orginally, of a political nature to being rather more of an economic nature. Many people are leaving Vietnam because they think, and they find, that the opportunities for economic prosperity are greater elsewhere. That is why it is important to discern whether those who ask to he granted refugee status are in fact refugees under the terms of the United Nations convention.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, will the Minister make clear, because I do not think that he did so in answer to my first supplementary question, that having Hong Kong as a Crown Colony this country has a strong moral obligation? If so, is he saying that that moral obligation amounts to some 300 refugees each year for the next three years, which I think is what he said?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, of course one has an obligation towards Hong Kong. That is the reason why we are trying to help solve the problem. But we do not have an obligation to Hong Kong or to any other country to take a surplus of people who others cannot place. What we have decided to do under the circumstances is to offer to take a thousand people more provided that other countries will do the same.
The noble Lord makes gesticulations which in other circumstances might have been of a less agreeable nature! I see the point that he makes. He can do mathematics as well as I can. Of course we are concerned to have an obligation towards Hong Kong. We do not have an obligation to accept all those who claim to be refugees who happen to land up in Hong Kong and who, by the United Nations test, may not be refugees.

§ Lord Mackie of Benshie
My Lords, has the Minister fully appreciated the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Annan, that those people have got on their bikes in a really big way and are exactly the kind of people the Conservative Party wants to encourage?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords. I do not know whether the noble Lord is trying to make a crafty party political point. I am sure that he is not but it did sound a little bit like it. We are talking not about people getting on their bikes but about those who are refugees or claim to be refugees and who have gone by boat to another country which is not England.