Vietnamese Boat People

§ Mr. David Howell (Guildford)

The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs will be grateful for the opportunity for us to debate this afternoon the appallingly difficult question of the future of the Vietnamese boat people—although, in view of the subject's sensitive nature and the deep emotions which it arouses on all sides, I am not sure how grateful the Chairman and Committee will be for the chance to put their heads in this noose.

The debate technically arises from the Estimates, as you, Mr. Speaker, reminded us, although the House will wish to address the principle raised by the Government's policy and decisions on the boat people. I shall briefly allude to the Estimates, which are by no means chickenfeed. We are dealing with expenditures already made by the British Government of £30 million and by the Hong Kong Government of £200 million to cope with the accommodation and expenses arising from their present policy for dealing with the Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong. We should note that substantial expenditure, but must turn our minds to the principle raised by the Government's policy.

How to handle the Vietnamese boat people—the refugees and migrants—poses one of the most agonising decisions for my right hon. and hon. Friends. It is possibly one of the most difficult decisions which they or the Government have had to face for a long time. That agony and difficulty deserves understanding—perhaps a little more understanding than it has attracted from some quarters recently. The responsibility of these difficult issues bears down heavily on the shoulders of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

The Select Committee considered this issue when looking at the broader subject of Hong Kong's future last summer. The report issued by the Select Committee at the end of June, after the Tiananmen square horrors, mentioned this matter. The Committee's views were generally, unanimous. However, on the precise question of the Vietnamese boat people and how to deal with them, Committee members had various views. Some of the votes taken on the precise wording of those views reflect the agony and difficulty of any body of people, any hon. 238 Members, any liberal people wanting to reach the best solutions in public affairs—as I hope that the Committee felt it was—when facing such as awkward choice.

The following statement about the boat people was unanimously supported in the Committee. It stated: Faced with a declining level of acceptances by resettlement countries and a suddenly and massively increasing population of boat people, we believe that the Hong Kong Government had no alternative but to introduce a screening policy. That policy began to differentiate between those deemed to be genuine political refugees, fleeing from persecution, and those designated economic migrants.

The Committee's report continued—the words were unanimously agreed: We accept that the logical consequence of a screening programme is the repatriation of those who have been screened out. That was accepted. There was a further sentence, against which some Committee members felt they had to vote.

Therefore, although the sentence was in the report because it reflected a majority view, it was not unanimously supported. That sentence stated: We believe that, in the absence of significant levels of voluntary repatriation, however regrettable it may be, there is no alternative to the mandatory repatriation of those who are screened out. Another set of views was supported by a different majority in the Committee. The pattern of different majorities forming shows how immensely difficult and complex the issue is. The different majority added: We note that these people are fleeing not from persecution but from extreme poverty and that over 50 per cent. of them are under the age of 20 years. This calls for special ways in dealing with these young people and if as a last resort, they must return to Vietnam, the authorities dealing with them must act in a humane way and ensure that they are adequately provided for. Assistance should also be given to allow them to settle down in Vietnam. I have sought to represent as fairly as possible the Select Committee's position. My other Committee colleagues from both sides of the House will wish to give their interpretation of the report, but I have given the words used and the ways in which we reached our conclusions. The difficulties that we faced when debating the matter, even all those months ago, were a precursor of the immense difficulties that we would face when it came to making a decision.

My right hon. and hon. Friends face the choice of two evils. This is not one of those wonderful times when there is good on one side and bad on the other and a simple choice can be made. This issue involves the awful complexity of a Government having to reach decisions and carry responsibility when no course is a good course. The lesser evil is that of taking the decisions which have now been made, versus the greater evil of doing nothing, not making the decisions and seeking to obtain other support to resolve the problem. We would then find that we had inflicted more cruelty, suffering and inhuman conditions on thousands of hapless people.

Having tried all other avenues, it is right to act in these few days in which we are debating the matter—for the simple reason that, if we do not act, thousands and thousands more Vietnamese boat people will float in on the early spring tides. They will come in their tens, perhaps even hundreds, of thousands. They will not only constitute a huge migration but cause chaos in Hong Kong which will lead to suffering on a far larger scale than anything we have yet seen. When balancing the choice between the 239 evils, those who argue that we should once more try to delay taking action must face up to the responsibility that they may, by their good intentions, create many more difficulties and much more suffering than we have seen so far.

§ Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent)

Is it not also a very heavy factor in this most difficult choice that the Government who showed themselves to be so utterly ruthless in Tiananmen square have made it clear that they will feel no responsibility towards those hapless people if they are left in Hong Kong in 1997?

§ Mr. Howell

That is certainly the case. We tend to measure these matters against our own, we hope, high standards in this House. We forget the attitude towards the boat people and their activities that prevails in many parts of Asia. We forget at our peril that many of those boats are turned away from other countries and sent to sea again, where all the people in them—men, women and children—drown. We forget that a great deal of the current migration is organised not by people who, through good will, want to provide transport to a freer life and a better world—whether in Hong Kong, America or Canada —but by the most ruthless racketeers. They are ripping off those poor people, persuading them of all sorts of false objectives, removing from them their precious dollars and gold savings, and then cruelly sending them to sea in unseaworthy craft or putting them in buses and sending them up the coast. It is as much an evil trade as drugs or prostitution, and we are seeing its end product in the miserable camps in Hong Kong. The hapless people are bewildered, conned and misled. They have been driven to what they thought would be a better life, only to find that it is not.

That is the background against which the Government have had to make a decision. They have to carry the responsibility, and have little choice but to act now, as they are doing. My hon. Friend the Minister will make the Government's position clear when he speaks. I hope that the Opposition's position will also be made clear.

§ Mr. Ron Leighton (Newham, North-East)

The right hon. Gentleman rightly said that the Vietnamese people were fleeing from poverty. That poverty largely stems from the blockade of Vietnam by western powers. Did the Committee address that matter with a view to changing policy to help to eradicate poverty in Vietnam?

§ Mr. Howell

I have given the view of members of the Committee—although not all members—that additional assistance should be mobilised in co-operation with and for Vietnam. The hon. Gentleman must accept that, although aid and assistance from outside can help a society and an economy, the basic conditions and the basic way in which a Government treat their citizens are matters for decision inside that society. We must face the fact that, in recent years, Vietnam has been an extremely nasty place to live for individuals and for liberal values. However, there may be a chink of light. The position may now be changing, and in that may lie our hope—

§ Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South)

rose—

§ Mr. Howell

I do not think that anyone, not even the hon. Gentleman who wants to intervene, can claim that it is all beer and skittles in Vietnam.

§ Mr. Mullin

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that many of those people are fleeing not the Stalinist system of economics, which I probably deprecate as much as he does, but market forces? Many of them come from the coastal areas of North Vietnam such as Honggai and Haiphong. They are fleeing because the Government have adopted the World bank recommendations and cut off subsidy to the coal mines. Of course, the north of England is familiar with that. I shall leave aside the point that those towns were flattened by American B52s.

§ Mr. Howell

We are now getting into a debate about Vietnam's past. It has had its problems, but it has also brought problems upon itself.

§ Mr. Jeremy Hanley (Richmond and Barnes)

I am dwelling not on the past, but on the present Vietnam. The report on the British refugee camps prepared by Alf Dubs and Lord Ennals specifically states: returnees are in no danger when they are back in Vietnam; that they can choose where to live and that they receive assistance to resume their lives. They expressed the view that more people in Hong Kong should be aware of that truth.

§ Mr. Howell

That is an important point.

I have heard some unkind people suggest that the Opposition's posture was opportunist. I do not think that it is; I certainly would not lay that charge upon them. However, given the complexity of, and the obvious dilemma in dealing with, the problem, it is regrettable that those on the Opposition Front Bench have not appreciated the value of seeking a bipartisan approach on such an immensely difficult issue. It is their right so to choose, but it is a great pity for the aims of the policy and for the reputation of this country.

I suppose that those who are totally disinterested must ask why, if people find this forced repatriation not only appalling—as we all do—but so appalling that the even greater risks of doing nothing should be run, there are no feelings about the forced repatriation of people from Hong Kong to China, which happens every day on as big a scale as anything that we are contemplating. I understand that, last year, about 30,000 people were forcibly repatriated from Hong Kong to China, with the agreement of the Chinese Government.

We can all make comments about the state of affairs in different countries, but I do not think that since the summer anyone has argued that China is a home of happiness and liberalism and that those people have been returned to a wonderful, open and welcoming country. Indeed, I dread to think of what has happened to some of them. While I do not wish to make any party points, it must be recognised that if one takes a certain stance on the question of forced repatriation, the same stance and the same standards must be applied to the other forced repatriations that have been taking place for many years.

I want to be brief, but I must say a word about the United States of America. I have always admired that country and, in many areas of human rights, it has been fine. However, in this matter I think that Washington's policy is pure humbug. The Select Committee report quoted the words of Sir David Wilson—who, as Governor of Hong Kong, is in an immensely difficult position that requires some understanding in the House. He said about the boat people: they are…not trying to go to Hong Kong but to go to places of resettlement. Above all, they are trying to go to 241 North America which has said that these people do not qualify for resettlement in the United States as ordinary refugees because they come from north Vietnam…Hong Kong is caught between this upper and nether millstone. The former Foreign Secretary, in evidence to the Committee, expressed his bewilderment that the United States seemed to support the prospect of indefinite accumulation of people in places like Hong Kong and that is clearly not a tenable position. The Committee unanimously concluded: We believe the American position fails totally to understand the seriousness of the problem or its damaging consequences both to the people of Hong Kong and the Vietnamese. It is also damaging to the many other people involved. The United States policy-makers—those who are currently influential in Washington—just as they appear to be wrong about Europe, are wrong about Hong Kong and are probably wrong about their policy on China.

This is a situation in which there is no choice but to take an ugly and difficult decision to avert an even greater injustice and conflict. Those who cry halt now—those who say that there must be some other way, even though every conceivable way has been sought—would themselves, I fear, carry the responsibility for the even more catastrophic consequences of inaction.

We are asked by leaders and guides in the world and by others among the public to search our consciences. Those who argue that this action should not now be pursued need to search their consciences just as minutely and carefully.

§ Several Hon. Members

rose—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)

Order. It is clear that a large number of hon. Members wish to take part in the debate. Many will be disappointed unless speeches are brief.

§ Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)

We on the Opposition Benches welcome this debate, which is taking place not before time. We have been calling for a debate on this urgent matter for many months—[Interruption] It has been a matter of Government responsibility. The Government have been dodging this issue on the Floor of the House, while at the same time secretly hatching their plan for forced deportation. I assure the right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) that that is not the best way to achieve a bipartisan approach on this issue.

The motion is a technical one on the Estimates. The Opposition view is represented by motion No. 46 in the notices of motions, which cannot be tabled because of a procedural technicality. But that motion effectively is what my hon. Friends and I support tonight.

I also assure the right hon. Member for Guildford that Opposition Members appreciate the problems of the Governments of Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. The conditions in the camps are intolerable, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and I saw when we visited them in June. The outbreak of cholera, the rioting, the absence of education for the children and many other matters testify to the abject misery of life there.

242 We also recognise that if all that we do every time the boats arrive from Vietnam is to arrange the resettlement in the West of every person, the flow will continue unabated, and the situation will be increasingly difficult for Hong Kong and damaging for Vietnam. That is why we must tackle the root cause of the problem with a viable, long-term, stable but, above all, humane solution.

We disagree totally with forced deportation. Having said that time and again, our view should come as no surprise to Conservative Members. We have said it at Question Time and my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton and I have said it in statements. We oppose it because it is heartless and inhumane. I predicted that it would have to be done by a moonlight flit, and so it was —deliberately to escape the attention of the world's media.

§ Mr. Michael Grylls (Surrey, North-West)

My right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) mentioned the return of illegal immigrants from Hong Kong to China, a policy that has gone on for many years. How does the hon. Gentleman square his ridiculous attack on the British Government's Vietnamese policy with the fact that when Labour was in government between 1974 and 1979—the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) was a member of that Government—they returned from Hong Kong well over 100,000 illegal Chinese immigrants with very little screening? That shows the utter hypocrisy of Labour policy in this matter.

§ Mr. Foulkes

Chinese refugees are returned one by one at the border. We are here talking of people who have settled in camps and of families with children, some of whom were born in the camps. This is an entirely different issue.

§ Mr. Terry Dicks (Haynes and Harlington)

That is typical of you lot—two-faced.

§ Mr. Foulkes

I will not take anything from that racist hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order, The hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) must withdraw that remark.

§ Mr. Foulkes

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) is well known for his statements to the media, although not for his statements in the House. I let them stand on their merit and I withdraw—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman must withdraw the word that he used.

§ Mr. Foulkes

I have withdrawn it, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman's statement stands as testimony.

The Government have not explained why that moonlight flit was done at 3 o'clock in the morning, if not to try to dodge the attention of the media, or why, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton said, nearly 200 riot police with riot helmets, shields and batons were needed—[Interruption] The facts appeared in every newspaper, including The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Financial Times. That was done to remove 51 people, 43 of them women and children. Why was violence needed? [Interruption] The Conservative lackeys of the Foreign Office might read what was said—[Interruption] If Conservative Members want to treat this issue seriously, they should stop barracking and listen carefully to what is 243 being said. They should also read The Daily Telegraph today—not a radical Left-wing newspaper—which reports that martial arts were applied in the deportations and that handcuffs were being used. It was described in an editorial in The Times as "a sordid action," and that is indeed what it was.

We have warned the Government repeatedly that there would be justifiable outrage when pictures of boat people being forcibly deported were seen on television sets in sitting rooms throughout the world.

§ Mr. Thomas Graham (Renfrew, West and Inverclyde)

My hon. Friend will be aware that the Pope in Vatican City is responsible for Catholics in Britain and throughout the world. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) said that the Pope should put his hands in his pockets and fork out money from the rich coffers of the Catholic Church to assist the boat people. Indeed, he suggested that the Pope could authorise the sale of two or three Vatican paintings to help the economy of Vietnam and thereby show what a good Catholic he was.

Does my hon. Friend agree that that reveals the hypocrisy of people such as the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington? After all, if the British Government had to take such steps to deal with the problems of the elderly, disabled and other needy folk in this country, it would be utter nonsense.

§ Mr. Foulkes

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Perhaps we expect the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) to insult the Pope. It was even more despicable that an anonymous Downing street source should have done so.

On a number of occasions—for example, at Foreign Office Question Time on 25 October, at Prime Minister's Question Time on 26 October and, as the Minister will confirm, when I met him on 7 September—my right hon. Friends and I urged the Government to abandon their plans for forcible repatriation. The Government have used the phrase "an orderly return programme" and recently a senior Hong Kong Government official told me that they would send home only those who acquiesced. That is euphemistic, semantic hypocrisy.

§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Francis Maude)

I confirm that the hon. Gentleman urged us not to go ahead with this policy. I also confirm that he had no alternative.

§ Mr. Foulkes

That is not true, and I shall be dealing with that point.

The Opposition have a number of serious concerns, not least about the screening of asylum seekers, who are told too little about the procedures. No legal advice or assistance is given to them and there are only six United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees monitors for 600 daily interviews, so they can attend only a fraction of the interviews. The whole system is biased in favour of rejection. Immigration officers have power only to reject. Acceptance must be referred up. How, in any case, do they differentiate in this instance between political and economic refugees? I hope that the Minister will give us some idea of the criteria used and whether they are the same criteria as were used when welcoming people from East Germany.

On 12 December, the Foreign Secretary said that the British Refugee Council had approved the screening 244 procedures. I have read the report and spoken to the director of the British Refugee Council. He, like people from Amnesty International and other organisations, are critical of the screening procedures.

§ Mr. Andrew MacKay (Berkshire, East)

I am anxious to establish whether the hon. Gentleman is genuinely concerned about political refugees being turned back, particularly in boats. It takes us back some 40 years to another Labour Administration who turned away genuine Jewish political refugees who were trying to return to Palestine, sending them back to the Soviet Union and elsewhere in eastern Europe, almost certainly to their deaths. Is the hon. Gentleman part of that, or will he denounce it today?

§ Mr. Foulkes

The hon. Gentleman does not have his facts entirely right, but I am sure that in any event he would agree that two wrongs do not make a right. An action of which he is understandably and properly critical provides no justification for the subsequent action that we are discussing.

We are also concerned about the lack of effort, enthusiasm and commitment devoted to persuading refugees to return. That is because the Government decided on forced repatriation many months ago, and have maintained a blinkered attitude ever since. They tried to persuade other nations at Geneva in June, and failed; their heart has not been in the voluntary scheme, because they wanted it to fail so that they could return to Geneva in November and persuade other countries to accept compulsion, but they did not succeed then either. Contrary to what has been implied by some Conservative Members, no agreement on compulsory repatriation was made at Geneva: the British Government are alone in that regard.

§ Mr. Maude

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the international community is unanimous in its view that there is nowhere for these people to go other than back to Vietnam? Is he seriously suggesting that the Government deliberately chose their present policy when there was a better alternative?

§ Mr. Foulkes

Yes, and I am coming to that alternative.

Only a programme of assistance for Vietnam to help to improve the lives of people there will help to encourage them to stay, and encourage those who have already left to return. Those who return will go back to an increasingly more tolerable life, and will send messages to those who remain, thus reinforcing the trend towards voluntary return. [HON. MEMBERS:"It will take years "]

That is a counsel of despair. Our approach is advocated in a letter to The Times last Friday by Chris Bale, Oxfam's Hong Kong director; by Nicholas Hinton, director of the Save the Children Fund, in The Independent; and by Mary Purcell, War on Want's Asia programme officer, also in The Independent. Those three people are committed, long-term officers who, unlike some Conservative Members, know the circumstances of refugees in Hong Kong.

The same course was advocated in the report of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1986, when the refugee problem was much less acute than it is now. If it had been adopted then, it would—as the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) rightly said—have given a sense of 245 hope to the people in Vietnam, and prevented the outflows of the past two years. Our view is also supported in an editorial in The Times on 13 December, which stated that the economic misery is at the root of the exodus", and by The Guardian, which said on 14 December that there was an urgent need to do something about the sorry state of Vietnam, which was not so much a tyranny as a devastated economy crying out for help.

If we in the United Kingdom can lead a shift of opinion to restore aid from the European Community and persuade the International Monetary Fund, the Asia Development bank and the World Bank to assist Vietnam again, hope—as the hon. Member for Broxtowe said—will begin to return.

§ Mr. Tim Devlin (Stockton, South)

The hon. Gentleman's remarks are very interesting, but as 30,000 to 40,000 people are leaving Vietnam for Hong Kong each year, the programme that he has outlined must be a long-term one, and may take two or three years to be effective. For how many years would he allow this rate of emigration to continue, and what would he do with those who are already in Hong Kong?

§ Mr. Foulkes

If we had accepted the Foreign Affairs Select Committee report in 1986, we would now be three years further forward. We have to start some time.

One issue on which I can agree with the right hon. Member for Guildford is the appalling hypocrisy of the United States. While rightly opposing forcible repatriation, the United States is unwilling to accept the corollary —the need to bring Vietnam back into the international community. It must cease its vendetta against Vietnam simply because it lost the Vietnam war: it must lift the trade and economic embargo. If the right hon. Member for Guildford thinks that the United States' attitude is humbug—I agree with him—why do not he and his Government lift their embargo? If they do not, they, too, can be accused of humbug.

§ Ms. Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington)

My hon. Friend will have heard Conservative Members jeering about "taxpayers' money" when he suggested a programme of aid for Vietnam. Does he agree that a House of Commons that can vote £150 million to help victims of the Barlow Clowes affair should consider providing some sort of aid for the people of Vietnam?

§ Mr. Foulkes

My hon. Friend makes a valid point.

The United States Government and the French Government have a special responsibility to help in the reconstruction of Vietnam. The West as a whole, led by the United States, has constantly given a clear signal to the people of Vietnam: "Escape from Vietnam, and you will be resettled quickly in the West." That signal has been given for many years now, since the end of the Vietnam war, and to change the light from green to red so suddenly is unfair and inhumane.

It is entirely incorrect to say, as Conservative Members have on previous occasions, that other countries have refused to take Vietnamese refugees. Between 1975 and 1988 the United States took more than 700,000, Canada 121,000, Australia 117,000 and the United Kingdom fewer than 18,000. It is wrong for us to criticise other countries for not taking their fair share.

§ Mr. George Walden (Buckingham)

I am genuinely unable to understand the hon. Gentleman's answer to the point about returning refugees from Hong Kong to China. If he is to carry conviction inside and outside the House, it is essential for the hon. Gentleman to have a clear and consistent policy in relation to the two very similar cases. I still do not see how he can justify turning back refugees: I watched it happen in China when I worked there, and it is not a pretty sight. They do not want to go; they struggle, and women and children are pushed back over the bridge. What is the hon. Gentleman's solution? Will he suggest a programme of economic assistance for the 1 billion Chinese to salve our consciences?

§ Mr. Foulkes

Before Tiananmen square we were rightly trading and investing in China, but we are not trading and investing in Vietnam; that is one difference. The hon. Gentleman might also make a comparison with East Germany, and ask himself whether he is being consistent. There is, of course, a distinction between individual crossings and the position of families who have been living in the camps for some time, including children who were born there. Assistance for Vietnam is needed to develop schemes for irrigation, reafforestation, transport and agricultural production. Trade liberalisation will help to make life there more tolerable.

Our third anxiety concerns guarantees and the monitoring of returned refugees. I know that the right hon. Member for Guildford and his Committee are rightly concerned about that. We are informed that those who have returned voluntarily have not been ill-treated or persecuted and are beginning to re-integrate. They are sending positive messages back to Hong Kong and that is encouraging more people to volunteer. However, Mr. Thach, the Vietnamese Foreign Minister, reiterated his Government's opposition to forced repatriation in an interview in The Sunday Correspondent last week.

There are no guarantees and as all the agencies that might monitor the return of refugees have refused to monitor the return of those who are forced back, there will be no independent monitoring. The Foreign Secretary said in a letter to hon. Members: Independent observers will monitor the treatment of those repatriated. When the Minister replies to the debate, he must tell us who will be responsible for monitoring. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has refused, as has the Save the Children Fund. None of the other voluntary organisations will monitor forced repatriation. Surely the Minister will not suggest the embassy, which consists of only three men who are very good but are certainly not equipped for the job and are certainly not independent. They could not monitor the return of thousands of refugees. The Minister must tell us today who will carry out the monitoring.

The Government's programme is flawed. It is misdirected, heartless, likely to be ineffective and widely opposed. It is opposed by President Bush and the American Congress, Amnesty International and all the other voluntary organisations, the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury. But we know that Conservative Members can dismiss the views of those eminent people.

§ Mr. Michael Jopling (Westmorland and Lonsdale)

The hon. Gentleman has done his best to present to the House an alternative policy to that of the Government, and we 247 have listened very carefully. His entire policy appears to be centred round an aid package for Vietnam. If we are to take him seriously, he must tell us how much money the Opposition would spend on that policy if they were in government.

§ Mr. Foulkes

I do not have to tell the House immediately—[HON. MEMBERS: "How much?"] Of course I do not. I made the suggestion on 7 September and the Minister said that he was considering my suggestion. I did not suggest only an aid package. I suggested liberalising trade with Vietnam and aid packages from the IMF, the World bank and the Asian Development bank to Vietnam, to bring it back into the international community. Vietnam and Argentina were the only countries against which we operated trade embargoes; now we are liberalising and opening trade with Argentina and excluding Vietham.

Why are the Government pressing ahead despite all the opposition in Britain and throughout the world? It is for a very squalid reason. The Government and people of Hong Kong are pressing three issues. The Government know that they cannot give them what they want on the right of abode. They will not give them what they want and should have in terms of democracy, so they are sacrificing the boat people merely to satisfy one of those three demands. There is no other rational explanation.

§ Mr. Tony Baldry (Banbury)

Did not the hon. Gentleman hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) explain clearly in opening the debate that unless clear signals are given to people in Vietnam, another tide of boat people will arrive in Hong Kong in the very near future? In the light of those comments, will he withdraw the disgraceful allegations that he has just made?

§ Mr. Foulkes

They are certainly not disgraceful and I shall certainly not withdraw them. There is no evidence whatsoever that the despicable action already taken by the Government is having the desired effect. So it is proving to be ineffective as well as detestable.

I have given way many times and many of my right hon. and hon. Friends wish to speak, so I shall conclude my speech. I have outlined in detail our proposals for assistance to Vietnam, but I wish to outline a further dimension. On 13 September, the Financial Times stated: More forcible repatriation can be avoided, but only with international help. The consequences of not resolving this issue next month will be a shameful indictment which will not fall on Britain alone. Best of all, the Daily Express, which I do not usually quote, stated: Mr. Hurd should announce an indefinite stay on the repatriation policy while Britain fights in every appropriate body to see that the international community comes up with a solution to what is an international problem. How can the Government continue when the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) and Lord Ennals are being sent by the Government on a mission to Vietnam in the new year to examine the situation? Is it not a slap in the face for them if forced repatriation continues? How can the Government continue when there are no guarantees on monitoring arrangements and in the face of widespread and mounting opposition?

There is an alternative, and that is to bring some hope to Vietnam and its people—to bring them back fully into the international community and to try repeatedly to 248 persuade and encourage more boat people to return to some long-term hope. They will return if they have better prospects for a more tolerable life.

Once again, I urge the Government to abandon their plan for further forced deportation. To continue that as the last vote in the House before we adjourn for Christmas would be an inhumane act of boundless folly and I urge the Government to think again.

§ Mr. Julian Amery (Brighton, Pavilion)

We are dealing with what should be termed an immense human tragedy. It is not a question of right against wrong; it is what all tragedies usually are—a conflict of right against right. I do not altogether dissent from the conclusion drawn by the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) when he quoted from the Financial Times and the Daily Express, but I hope he will forgive me for saying that the polemical partisan terms that he used were below the level of events.

§ Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton)

What about Albania?

§ Mr. Amery

What an absurd intervention. I read in the newspapers that the right hon. Gentleman was suffering from 'flu. I am sorry that it has had such an effect on his cerebral capacity.

§ Mr. Kaufman

In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman was delineating various suggestions as absurd —[Interruption] The right hon. Gentleman is a very long-serving Member of the House and early in his political career he will remember recommending the bombing of Albania. That struck me as rather an absurd suggestion.

§ Mr. Amery

Obviously the 'flu has done its work. I never recommended the bombing of Albania. I have recommended the bombing of other places, including Nazi Germany, but not Albania. Of course the right hon. Gentleman got it wrong.

All I was saying was that the polemical speech by the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley is below the level of the serious debate which we should be conducting on such an immense human problem.

First, we should be quite clear that Britain is involved with Vietnam only marginally by historical association. Hong Kong has come into the picture only because we have agreed that it should be a staging post for refugees. So far, it has carried out that role, but there is no question of Hong Kong being asked to bear any burden. If there is a burden, it should be borne by ourselves as the governing power, and by the international community. Obviously, we do not want to put any burden on Hong Kong as a result of this, and if extra personnel were needed, it would be up to us to recruit them.

I hope that the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley will forgive me if I say that to bring Vietnam into the international community is no certain solution. It is all very fine to talk about reforestation, but we are talking about the problems of today and tomorrow. Hope might be given over a decade. Marshall aid took a long time to take effect so the idea that we can cope with the problem of the boat people now through the International Monetary Fund, the World bank or any other organisation is moonshine.

§ Mr. Foulkes

I also mentioned, as I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will recall, irrigation and other more short-term proposals. However, even the long-term proposals are meant not merely to provide immediate solutions, but to give some hope that there is a bright future for people in Vietnam. Surely the right hon. Gentleman agrees that that is one essential element.

§ Mr. Amery

I was involved in the old Commonwealth development irrigation schemes, and they took years. Dams have to be built and many types of equipment have to be provided. Such schemes will not solve the problem of people who are escaping, some from persecution and some from hunger.

The hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley was a little nearer the truth when he talked about economic migrants, although the line between political and economic migrants, is difficult to judge. Were the 5 million Afghan refugees all political migrants? Nobody suggests that they should be sent back. Did the Palestinian refugees escape purely for political reasons? The Ethiopian refugees are escaping from hunger. Is that economic or political? This is a complicated and difficult subject, which should not be dealt with as the hon. Gentleman did by talking about long-term developments.

§ Dr. David Owen (Plymouth, Devonport)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Amery

I shall develop the argument a little. The suggestions of the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley might ignite hope, but are the people in north and south Vietnam really scanning newspapers and listening to the radio to see whether there will be a loan? I do not think so.

The coming of the next boat season, to which the Government have drawn attention, is also a problem. The Government have made out a cast-iron, logical case, which I find it difficult, in logical terms, to combat. And yet I cannot bring myself to accept the idea of the forcible repatriation of thousands of people from a British colony. I am not much influenced by international opinion or much afraid of facing up to harsh decisions, yet I find it unacceptable and even obscene to repeat what happened with the repatriation of the Cossacks, or with the Jewish refugees after the war when we blew up ships that tried to take them back to the mandate territory of Palestine. My hon. Friend the Minister would not put it in those terms, but he would think, "OK chum, what do you want to do?"

I have to answer the question of what we should do. I would not like to take the responsibility—nor would I like my hon. friend the Minister to take the responsibility—for denying sanctuary to people who have spent money and run considerable risks to escape from the prison house so that they would then be sent back to it. Vietnam is still a prison house and we make no bones about what we think of it, as we have gone so far as to support an alliance that included the Khmer Rouge because we dislike the Vietnamese Goverment so much.

What can we do? It is not given even to the wisest of us to read the future with any real clarity. The movement of history is sometimes slow and sometimes rapid. We have seen the whole of eastern Europe change overnight, like an avalanche or landslide. It might be wise to postpone the repatriation and to go to the refugee conference, where we could say, "All right, you won't take them, although it is 250 your duty, but at least cough up some money to make the camps tolerable for the present refugees and, if there is another boating season, for the next lot. Pay up."

The space in Hong Kong is limited, but the New Territories are quite extensive, as my hon. Friend the Minister and I, who have been there, both know. We need not take a decision yet. Many problems in life cannot be solved at a given time. Time may work for us and the position in Vietnam may improve, although some of the developments about which the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley spoke will not happen quickly. We do not know whether the fear of what will happen in 1997 will inculcate a greater readiness for repatriation. I do not know, but we should avoid taking decisions now and putting ourselves in the position of denying sanctuary. The answer is to call the conference quickly and to say to the international community, "It is your job to pay. We shall maintain the camps for a year or two longer. If you do not accept that responsibility, on your own head be it."

§ Mr. Paddy Ashdown (Yeovil)

I listened with a great deal of interest and care to the impressive speech by the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery), which will bear careful study. I hope that the Government listened to his remarks as he made an important contribution.

There are some things that it is in a Government's power to do, but which they should decide not to do, not on the grounds of practicality or because there are no alternatives, but simply because such actions are wrong. Although I recognise some of the difficulties of the matter, the Goverment's actions a week ago last Monday were wrong. They were wrong by almost any standard by which one cares to judge them. Even if the policy of mandatory repatriation was right, it was wrong to go about it in that manner. The Government were wrong whatever the sinuous convolutions of facts and truth in which the Minister will, no doubt, get involved later. Even if the policy of mandatory repatriation is ultimately judged to be correct, it is still wrong deliberately to choose women and children to put at the front line of such a contentious policy simply because they will put up less of a struggle.

Whatever the situation and whatever conclusions we reach on this difficult subject, it is still wrong to put in place a screening mechanism that takes administrative decisions that condemn people to return to the tryanny from which they fled in fear of their lives. It is also wrong to put in place appeal tribunals that judge whether or not such administrative decisions are correct and at which the people who are so condemned are forbidden to be present, to have legal representation, to know the reasons why the decisions have been taken against them or to have access to judicial review. As I understand it, this is the first occasion in the history of British justice on which such a judicial review has been denied.

Whatever conclusions are reached about the rightness or otherwise of a policy of mandatory repatriation in difficult circumstances, it is still wrong for a Government to use the techniques of the 3 o'clock knock, to send in riot troops who outnumber those women and children by four to one and to cart those people off to detention against their will.

Last Monday morning I felt the same sense of revulsion at the Government's action and at the way in which they 251 have carried out their policy that was felt across the nation. That action has rightly caused international condemnation, opprobrium and obloquy to be heaped upon the Government. That action was wrong, and it shamed the Government, the Prime Minister and, ultimately, the nation.

Even if hon. Members do not accept my case that that action was, by any judgment, wrong, I ask them to reflect on what an appalling example we have set for the Chinese Government, who are to take over the care and safe keeping of our subjects after 1997. What if, after 1997, the Chinese state troopers turn up at 3 o'clock in the morning to carry off a British subject against his will and hand him over to a Communist state? How can we complain, since we shall have done it first?

§ Mr. Walden

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Ashdown

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman when I have finished my point.

What if the case of that British subject is put before an appeal tribunal and he is condemned to detention in a Communist state, and what if that British subject is not entitled to be present, to have legal representation or to know why the decision has gone against him? What if he is not entitled to judicial review? How then will we complain, since we shall have taken such action first?

§ Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North)

What difference would our complaint make?

§ Mr. Ashdown

It seems that the hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene. I shall give way to him in a moment, after I have given way to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden).

I ask the House to understand that we shall leave behind little enough as it is to protect freedom in Hong Kong. After 1997, probably the only thing that will stand between our subjects and the tyranny that slaughtered its own citizens in Tiananmen square is our system of legal justice, and how terribly we damaged that system last Monday night. What a dreadful legacy we have left to be picked up after 1997. Those who come to abuse their powers—we know that they have the ability and the stomach to do so—will say, "But this was the example that British justice set us." What an appalling example to have set.

§ Mr. Walden

The right hon. Gentleman has a tendency to talk in moral absolutes, and he must expect to be asked to live up to those absolutes. He has just stressed the iniquities of the mainland Chinese regime. I repeat the question that I put to the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes). We are returning refugees to a Chinese mainland, run by an iniquitous regime. How does the right hon. Gentleman square his repeated concern for the stability of Hong Kong with a moral argument that could lead only to the non-return of Chinese refugees to Hong Kong and the collapse of Hong Kong in very short order as a result?

§ Mr. Ashdown

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that that is the central issue to which we who object must address ourselves. I ask him to remember that I have so far concentrated not on the policy—with which I shall now deal—but on the way in which it was implemented. The 252 hon. Gentleman has asked an important question and I shall seek to answer it. If I do not, I shall be happy to accept another intervention from him.

I listened with interest to the right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell). I realise that this is an extremely difficult problem to tackle. I accept that it is no good Opposition Members simply standing on the high peak of their self-righteousness, and mouthing—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I assure hon. Members that I shall be dealing with the policy itself. It is no good our merely mouthing our outrage. The central question must be whether the Government had an alternative, and I believe that there was, indeed, an alternative, and that it was an effective alternative. It was the international programme for the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees.

The difference between the Chinese refugee who comes over the border and the Vietnamese refugee who arrives in Hong Kong is that, in 1979, we explicitly encouraged refugees to leave Vietnam and we put in place an international resettlement programme aimed at resettling every single one of them—something that we have never done with the illegal immigrants from China. Those Vietnamese who are now flooding into Hong Kong have not understood—rightly or wrongly—that the policy has changed.

The Government must realise that there is no point in their saying that there is no alternative when it was the Government who were, in chief measure, instrumental in destroying that alternative.

§ Several hon. Members

rose—

§ Mr. Ashdown

I hope that hon. Members will bear with me, as I wish to develop my argument.

§ Mr. Ian Taylor (Esher)

rose—

§ Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Ashdown

If the hon. Lady will forgive me—

§ Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman

The right hon. Gentleman is talking about the south Vietnamese.

§ Mr. Ashdown

Oh, I see. The hon. Lady thinks that there is a difference between the south Vietnamese and the north Vietnamese. I am sorry, but I do not recognise that there is a difference. The country is a singular and unitary country. They are all refugees who seek our protection.

As I have said before, in 1985 I may well have been one of the first hon. Members to visit a Vietnamese refugee camp. I told the Government in an Adjournment debate then that unless they fulfilled their obligation under the international resettlement programme, the programme would collapse. The right hon. Member for Guildford criticised the Americans tonight. I ask him to remember that when the programme was in operation to Americans took 25 times as many Vietnamese boat people from Hong Kong as this Government did. They took 49 per cent. of those people, who were our responsibility, whereas the United Kingdom Government took 2.4 per cent. We took fewer than any other participating nation. Even Sweden took twice as many as we did.

It is all very well the Government saying that we had no alternative, but they were the instrument to destroy that alternative. I warned in 1985 that if the Government persisted in failing to carry out their obligations to the 253 international programme, that programme would collapse, and so it has. In 1980, no fewer than 37,000 people were taken under that programme whereas this year only 6,000 have gone. Since 1980, Britain's contribution has dropped from 6,077 to 101. If the Government had played their part in that international resettlement programme, we would now have in place a system that might begin to tackle the problem—

§ Mr. Devlin

rose—

§ Mr. Ian Taylor

rose—

§ Mr. Marlow

rose—

§ Mr. Ashdown

Let me make this point before I give way to allow an intervention or two. It is quite simple. I can understand the reluctance of the international community towards bailing us out at this point when we have so signally failed fully to carry out our responsibilities under the programme previously.

§ Mr. Ian Taylor

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way to me. He seems to be living in a different world from the real one. The whole world community has changed the rules on the treatment of refugees since 1979. All refugees who arrived in Hong Kong prior to last June when the screening process, started have been confirmed by the Government as being treated as political refugees, so they will be resettled internationally. Therefore, they will be treated as was previously intended. There was then a public announcement that there would be a screening process, and that screening process is acceptable internationally as the only way to deal with the problem.

§ Mr. Ashdown

Yes, indeed. The hon. Gentleman has brought me to my next point. The international agreement is now that the screening process should be in place—I accept that—but it also states that we should be giving the maximum input. Last year's agreement, reached at the June 1989 international conference, stated that the first option for a Government is to apply voluntary repatriation and that only after that had been in place and only after the "passage of reasonable time" should alternative measures be put in place, and then only after a proper programme had been established to encourage that process.

I do not believe that either of those two conditions has been fulfilled, and UNHCR takes the same view. A programme of voluntary repatriation that has been running for only six months cannot conceivably be said to have allowed a reasonable intervening passage of time, and nor has there been the education programme for voluntary repatriation to which the June 1989 conference agreed.

However, despite that, it can be argued that voluntary repatriation is achieving much more than most people had predicted, and I admit to the House bluntly that it is achieving more than I had thought it would achieve. Applications are now running at 150 per week. As I understand it, 637 people—let us recognise that that is 10 times as many as the Government have repatriated—have returned to Vietnam voluntarily and another 1,500—

§ Mrs. Maureen Hicks (Wolverhampton, North-East)

rose—

§ Mr. Ashdown

I hope that the hon. Lady will agree that I have given way a fair amount. I am trying not to take up too much of the time of the House so that other hon. Members, perhaps even the hon. Lady, can make their own speeches.

About 1,500 people have now registered in that process but—and this is the point to remember—there has already been a significant fall-off in applications for the voluntary repatriation programme since the forced repatriations began. The Government do not have the right to follow through enforced repatriations until, in accordance with the agreement that they made in June this year, they give the voluntary repatriation process some time to develop. That is why UNHCR, Amnesty International and other respected organisations working in this area have refused to agree with the Government's action. They believe that the voluntary repatriation programme can be given a boost and be allowed to expand.

I want to make several points about the need to reform the screening process because, as other hon. Members have said, it is a disgrace. I have with me a letter from a firm of solicitors, Boase and Cohen, which is representing some of the boat people. Perhaps it would be instructive for the House if I read a small passage of it for the record, because the Government must address the points that are made in it. That firm of solicitors writes about its clients: What we have found is that we are obtaining great difficulties to get access to the camps even to advise our clients as to how they should deal with the questions at the initial review. Indeed, the Immigration Department do not even advise us as to whether our clients have been interviewed or when they are likely to be next interviewed. They also prevent us from attending at the interviews and making representations. Although the UNHCR may be able to monitor the interviews, my firm or any of my representatives are not allowed to be present. It is my experience from seeing the results of the initial interviews that the Immigration Officers dismiss out of hand pleas by my clients that they have been subjected to persecution. Indeed, at one interview, my clients had documentation to show that they had been placed in a Re-education camp but this was dismissed as being untrue. I do not believe, UNHCR does not believe, and Amnesty International does not believe that the mechanisms by which we have been screening these people for a decision that will return them to the tyranny from which many of them have fled in fear of their lives is adequate. We believe that the wrong decisions are being taken and that many people are being returned who should not be returned and who will be subject to persecution on return.

§ Mr. Graham

rose—

§ Mr. Ashdown

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, but this must be the last time.

§ Mr. Graham

Did the right hon. Gentleman see on British television the other night a British television crew wanting to interview some boat people in a camp, but being prevented from speaking to those folk by the guards? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is strange that a country that says that it has a democratically elected Government does not allow ordinary men and women who are suffering the right to speak to British television companies?

§ Mr. Ashdown

We need no clearer example of the Government's shameful policy than that it had to be carried out in the dead of night and under the blanket of secrecy, so ashamed were they of what they did. The House 255 continues—[Interruption] Well, it cannot be in the Government's interests to lay down a system in Hong Kong that allows the Government of the day and the state troopers of the day to operate in such a manner. We can defend the rights of people in Hong Kong only if we are prepared to give the example of an open and free democracy, not the example of actions that are more in keeping with those of an east European state a year ago.

I have five brief points about what I believe should be done. I hope that the Government will consider them. First, the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley was right when he said that one of the long-term issues that must now be addressed is aid to Vietnam. It is illogical to allow the embargo on aid to Vietnam to continue and it is idiotic that the United States should seek to preserve it. If the Government must act unilaterally to lift that embargo and provide aid, they should do so.

Secondly, it is important that we fulfil the agreement that we made in June 1989 to give time to allow the voluntary repatriation programme to work and that we resource it effectively.

Thirdly, it is important that we return to the forthcoming January conference because perhaps one of the few positive results of this painful and tragic episode is that the international community is now alerted to the problem. The right hon. Member for Guildford is correct that the Americans' condemnation of our action gives us a unique leverage so that we can turn round and say to them arid others, "Right, you must put your actions where your words have been and put into place an international resettlement programme." However, the Government must play a part in such a programme, and not leave others to carry the major burden.

Fourthly, as is now suggested by some at UNHCR in Hong Kong, it is important that we now consider the possibilities of converting Tai Au Chau, which is an uninhabited island in Hong Kong, into either a permanent or temporary resting place for the Vietnamese boat people for the period until the problem can be solved. The Minister is shaking his head. If he wishes to intervene, I shall of course give way to him, but I should like to make one point before he does. We know from Hong Kong—I am sure that the Minister knows also—that there is a shortage of labour there at present. There is also a massive shortage of labour in Singapore, which is seeking to buy in labourers from Hong Kong. I do not believe that this proposal is impossible and to those Conservative Members who believe that it is impossible, let me just say that the opinion of many at UNHCR is that something can be done along those lines.

Fifthly and lastly—

§ Mr. Marlow

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, this is a three-hour debate and this rubbish has been going on for 22 minutes. Could you bring it to an end?

§ Mr. Ashdown

I shall ignore that comment since much of my time has been taken up answering interventions from Conservative Members. If I had not done that, my speech would have been significantly shorter.

I hope that my fifth point will answer the right hon. Member for Guildford. There is a case for saying that we must do something that will stop the post-monsoon influx of arrivals in Hong Kong. Sending back 50, 150 or 250 people will not do that. We should use the intervening three or four months to put in place an effective, efficient 256 and fast screening mechanism which would prevent people from being put in camps for several months and would effectively allow a decision to be taken on their future on the spot. In other words, we should treat them on exactly the same basis as we treat the Chinese illegal immigrants.

If in the next three months that screening process were properly resourced with an appeals mechanism that respected civil liberties, and if the Vietnamese Government were asked properly to propagandise that fact, we would be able to tackle the problem in a way that did not bring shame and condemnation on the Government or set such an appalling example for the Chinese Government who are to follow us in 1997. The alternative, as I have outlined it, would tackle the problem at its roots in the long term and in the short term without shaming Britain's reputation and infringing the civil liberties of a few helpless people whose only sin has been to seek freedom under our protection.

§ Mrs. Maureen Hicks (Wolverhampton, North-East)

In the past week, Hong Kong has moved centre stage and the eyes of the critical world are focused on the policies to be adopted by the British Government on two major immigration issues: will we repatriate further Vietnamese boat people, and how many insurance policies are we prepared to give to Hong Kong residents in the run-up to 1997 to stem the brain drain?

Given the little time that we have, to deal with the second issue would be wrong. Suffice it to say that major concessions to Hong Kong residents could seriously misfire and it would be the likes of my constituents who would yet again bear the brunt of our well-intentioned decision.

The extent of the humbug and hypocrisy that I have heard in recent weeks has made my blood boil and has prompted me to speak out tonight. It started particularly for me when I watched the events of Camp David, when Mr. Bush lectured my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. That was followed by one international attack after another, culminating in the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury joining in. What they all have in common is that they have no solution, no offer of help, and, like those Opposition Members we have heard tonight, no policy.

I had hoped to hear constructive solutions tonight, but I have heard only a lot of idealistic fantasy. I have heard no way of solving the prolonged crisis that mounts by the day in Hong Kong while Opposition Members procrastinate. There are 56,000 Vietnamese boat people living in artificial homes. Some have been there for years on end, jammed into crowded and often insanitary detention centres. In two months, they face the prospect of being joined by a further 1,000 a week. The problem has grown out of all proportion and has been too long ignored. Hong Kong just cannot cope.

Those of us who have been to Hong Kong will have seen the living conditions there. There are 13,000 people to every square mile. For how long do we let people go on living in misery in the hope of getting out of the camps? For how long do we tempt further Vietnamese to come in search of the brave new western world? Is that what our critics call compassion?

I shall stick my neck out and congratulate the Government on taking control of an intolerable situation. That is a reflection of the strong leadership for which the 257 Government are respected and renowned. The British people will stand behind us. To run away from the mounting crisis, as the Opposition parties would have us do, and be ruled by sentiment and emotions that we have heard tonight, would be irresponsible. Tempting as that might be, our hearts cannot rule our heads.

§ Mr. Jim Lester (Broxtowe)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

§ Mrs. Hicks

I will keep going, because of the shortage of time.

Constituents in inner cities such as Wolverhampton, which I represent, have long lived with the repercussions of an open-door immigration policy, advocated by many Opposition Members. The residents in the leafy glades of Yeovil have not. Too often I have listened to the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), who would not listen to me tonight, pontificating on the need for the Government to be generous, and I listened to him tonight savagely attacking the Government's actions. But for how much of his time has he had to live with the tensions of inner-city life? Has he ever had to watch immigrants arrive in a community, often small and overcrowded, and endeavour to integrate, competing for jobs, housing and schools with locals who were born and bred in the area? It is all too easy to preach as long as the problem is not in one's own backyard.

§ Mr. Ashdown

Will the hon. Lady give way?

§ Mrs. Hicks

The Labour party has no policy, but it will be quick to label me racist. But I am dealing with the realities of 57,000 people. I am not a racist; I am a realist. I have to consider the effect of any more immigrants on people of all colours and creeds whom I represent. Opposition Members say, "Let's be nice to everyone. Let them all in and to hell with the consequences." But they will blame the Government for the consequences. Opposition Members parade the plight of the homeless in one breath, then say hello to everybody in the next.

Little England is creaking at the seams, and we have our own problem of overpopulation.

§ Mr. Foulkes

Will the hon. Lady give way?

§ Mrs. Hicks

Time prevents me from giving way.

We have 232 people per square mile. But in the past week we have heard vociferous criticism from Canada and Australia. Canada has about 2.5 people per square mile and Australia has only 20 people per square mile. America, the most vociferous critic, and a country that I usually love and respect, has 25 people per square mile. Yet those countries lecture us. They preach one thing and practise another.

We have been condemned for returning 51 people, while Mr. Bush contemplates returning 42,000 Chinese students. What future can they expect after Tiananmen square? What about the forcible repatriation of immigrants from Haiti and Mexico? They are regularly returned. America, with its experience, should be able to give us help. As we have heard tonight, 50 people are daily turned back from Hong Kong at the Chinese border, and they have no right of appeal. Others seem to be able to do 258 what they like with their illegal immigrants, but if we follow suit we are labelled heartless and there is an enormous outcry.

The Government, having taken a sad but honest decision, must guarantee that the Vietnamese boat people will be treated with dignity, and that physical force is never used against them. Boat people facing the prospect of repatriation must have their fears addressed and be reassured that their return to Vietnam will be peaceful and scrupulously monitored. Two embassy staff and three parliamentarians may be sufficient for the task of monitoring 51 refugees, but in the case of greater numbers, other agencies such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees must take responsibility in a concerted international effort to help the refugees re-adapt to Vietnamese life—living, as they will, in the knowledge that their dreams of life in the West have been dashed. Others in V