PART I, SECTION III: 3.06.20
January we discussed the anxiety and insecurity felt by pensioners and their fears of delay or default in the payment of their pensions by overseas Governments. You again urged the view of the Association that the most effective safeguard and reassurance would be the assumption of direct responsibility by HM Government in the UK for payment of these pensions.
As I told you at our meeting, while HM Government has
consistently held to the view that overseas governments must continue to be responsible for the payment of the pensions of the officers they had employed, it has
also undertaken to safeguard these payments through
the conclusion of Public Officers' Agreements with the
countries concerned. I suggested that there was no
difference between us on the proposition that the
Pensioners Association was entitled to look to HM
Government to safeguard by one means or another the payment of these pensions and that this in fact had
been done.
Since our meeting, however, I have been giving further thought to the anxieties expressed to me by the
Association, and I have considered with my colleagues
whether there is any further statement which HMG could
make in order to give further reassurance
to overseas
pensioners.
HM Government recognise the concern of British overseas
pensioners for the security of pensions payable by independent Governments. They believe that the Public
Officers' Agreements made with these Governments are
and should continue to be the basic safeguard and that
pensioners can have confidence in HMG's determination to make this effective, particularly in view of the fact that they stepped in immediately in the only two
cases of default. I am, however, now authorised to
tell you that if for any reason it should so happen in
relation to the payment of a pension that a pensioner
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