IN CONFIDENCE
the Wessex helicopters are also brought into play. These ageing minesweepers will gradually be replaced by Peacock class purpose-built patrol craft (built by Hall Russell of Aberdeen) with enhanced sea-keeping qualities and steel hulls. They will be larger than the present boats, partly for greater speed but also allegedly because greater size might be needed in contingency operations away from the immediate coastal waters of Hong Kong.
CBF'S DEBRIEFING
In his final meeting with the Committee, CBF was able to discuss various issues of concern which had emerged in the course of the visit and about which the Committee later made informal representations over tea to the Governor.
CBF was sympathetic about the issue of car tax. The high rates to which it had recently risen in Hong Kong had made it very difficult for the MoD to give it proper weight in fixing local overseas allowances which had been recalculated only shortly before the rise in car tax. That increase alone was not a sufficiently large factor to trigger a review of allowances. The cost of living calculations had to be done in making com- parisons with UK rates, and there was no other expatriate posting which was a valid comparator. Even if some of the British Servicemen in Hong Kong failed to appreciate how much living costs in Britain had risen, he believed that their case for a reassessment of this factor was a good one.
On the question of the expense of using air-conditioning, CBF thought that the complaints the Committee had heard were less justified.. It was taken into account in computing allowances; but the trouble was that families treated their allowances as disposable income and did not budget for air- conditioning.
CBF promised to give further thought to the question of facilities for pre-school children.
He said that the ageing Wessex was still an excellent aircraft of ideal size and capability with a good deal of flying left in it since it had been progressively rebuilt.
He finally re-emphasised the importance in terms of in- theatre reinforcement and training possibilities, of the Gurkha battalion being stationed in Brunei. He hoped that it would survive Brunei's independence and, although there was the possibility of its redeployment to Hong Kong itself, believed that its withdrawal from Brunei would be a destabilising factor in the region and be a loss to the reinforcement of Hong Kong. It was too soon to calculated the effect of these uncertainties on the Brigade of Gurkhas.