To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what legal advice is available to Vietnamese boat people during the screening process when they claim refugee status; what is done to inform applicants for refugee status of their rights; and if he will make a statement.

Under the comprehensive plan of action, responsibility for advice about screening falls to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which briefs all Vietnamese migrants on arrival. The Hong Kong authorities also provide a pamphlet in Vietnamese to all migrants explaining the screening procedures in detail. The UNHCR also provides legal advice and help to migrants at all stages of the screening and review process.

How many of the boat people have been granted refugee status? Has any pressure been brought on Her Majesty's Government by the Chinese, the butchers of Tiananmen square, to expedite the return of, or to remove any rights from, those refugees?

I can write to the hon. Gentleman with the figures, but the majority of arrivals from Vietnam who are screened are found not to be refugees. Only those who are screened out—who are found by that procedure not to be refugees—are sent back to Vietnam. That matter is one on which the people of Hong Kong feel very strongly. We have made repeated statements on our policy to the House, and it is not a matter on which we need to take advice or instructions from the People's Republic of China.

Does my right hon. Friend accept that those of us who have observed the screening process in the camps in Hong Kong have been greatly impressed by its thoroughness and fairness? Will my right hon. Friend and others involved in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office accept congratulations on the patience with which that huge problem has been tackled? Most of us are pleased that those people who are not political refugees are sent back to Vietnam.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who has put his finger on the real point. It is not reasonable to expect Hong Kong to continue to accept, year in, year out, large numbers of people coming from Vietnam—not because they have a well founded fear of persecution, but because they want to better the economic lot of themselves and their families. Hong Kong cannot continue to accept that situation.