SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret
Secret
DSR 11C (Revised 5/87)
Government have just confirmed that they will in fact be
able to meet two-thirds of this from their now very
limited remaining funds. They urgently require approval
for the disbursement of the funds we promised them.
5.
Confidential
Restricted
Unclassified
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
I understand however that your officials are
unwilling to authorise more than the £2.5 million for
the Whitehead Camp on the grounds that this would be
sufficient to provide accommodation for 9,000 people. I
accept that this would have fulfilled our original
accommodation objective, but under the new circumstances
I have outlined above, I am strongly of the view that
such a response would be entirely inappropriate. With
the Prime Minister's agreement, the Governor announced on
8 June our readiness to contribute funds of a certain
order of magnitude. Since then the situation in Hong
Kong has worsened. People in Hong Kong, and many in
Parliament, including our own supporters, would regard it
as perverse and cynical if we were now to scale down our
contribution. We would be accused of reneging on
commitments and of penalising the Hong Kong Government
for having found a means of disbursing the funds in a
more cost effective way. The Hong Kong Government will
clearly need to use all the accommodation in their latest
proposal; if we do not cover the costs,
the costs, I see absolutely
no prospect of the Finance Committee of the Legislative
Council voting to make up the difference. That would
leave the Governor in an impossible position.