§ Mr. Bestasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Ynys Môn of 7 March, Official Report, column 30, if he will relax the criteria for admission to the United Kingdom of relatives of Vietnamese refugees settled here.
§ Mr. WaddingtonIn its response to the Home Affairs Committee's report on refugees the Government accepted the Committee's recommendation that the family reunion criteria should be relaxed in respect of a number of Vietnamese in camps in countries of temporary asylum. The Committee did not recommend, nor do the Government think it justified to propose, any more general relaxation of the normal criteria.
§ Mr. Bestasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what evidence he decided to change the criteria for the admission to the United Kingdom of relatives of Vietnamese refugees settled here.
§ Mr. WaddingtonIt was decided to revert to the criteria applied to the relatives of all other refugees, with effect from May 1981 in the light of, among other factors, the United Kingdom's participation in the orderly departure programme from Vietnam, our wide-ranging commitments to refugees of many other nationalities, and to the admission of the spouses and minor children of others accepted for settlement in this country.