§ Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what response he has made to the request by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees that Pitika Ntuli, E. M. M. Mabiletsa and Johannes Moabi be granted political asylum in the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. Merlyn Rees:I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Thornaby (Mr. Wrigglesworth) on 5th December.—[Vol. 959, c. 561–21]
§ Mr. Wrigglesworthasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pur- 2W suant to his reply to the hon. Member for Thornaby on 1st December, if he will give the reasons for his0 decision not to agree with the United Nations High Commissioner's request to receive Mrs. Ndziba and Mr. Mabuzela for resettlement in the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. Merlyn Rees:The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees asked us to admit, exceptionally, three members of the Pan Africanist Congress out of a group of 14 detained in Swaziland about whom he was making approaches to a number of Governments. We agreed. We had already given refuge to three other members who had fled from Swaziland.
We were then asked to receive two more out of the group of 14, Mrs. Ndziba and Mr. Mabuzela, but this time under the Ten or More Plan. The plan was initially set up as an arrangement by which Governments agreed to receive a small number each year of refugees in Europe who, because of medical or social disability, were exceptionally difficult to place in the usual way. We consider that Mrs. Ndziba and Mr. Mabuzela do not fit the Ten or More Plan criteria and that we have already played a fair part in helping to settle the 14 cases.