CONFIDENTIAL
HKB 233/1
223
the Righ
Ricketts
Mr Shine Yes.
Ра
FROM:
It does not seem to me that the Treasing were being very energetic if they only tabled this banal piece of paper after three days' talking. But I hope HKG managed to get some hard DATE: figues from them on 2.5 if the Treasury were offering an amazing bargain it might just be worth raising
Mr
Cox
m
it
with the Chinese
13/kii
HMOCS PENSIONS
PF Ricketts
Hong Kong Department
12 December 1991
Cc:
Mr Burns Mr Stone
1. On my way back through Hong Kong on 11 December, I joined a meeting which Barrie Wiggham was holding with the visiting pensions team.
2.
Wiggham and others on the HKG side made clear to me in advance that the Treasury team's discussions earlier in the week with the CS and FS had not gone well: the CS in particular was angry at what he saw as the Treasury team's unwillingness to listen to any points put to them.
3.
Mr Wiggham's meeting bore out that the visit had developed into something of a dialogue of the deaf. The ostensible purpose was to discuss the broader issues, in particular likely Chinese attitudes, which Alan Paul and I described. But the Treasury team took the opportunity to table an outline proposal (copy attached) for the kind of solution which they thought they would be able to recommend to their Ministers. As you will see, this is based on the assumption (1.2) that there would be both a transfer of responsibility for HMOCS pensions from HMG to HKG and a transfer of capitalised current value of pensions liabilities. Wiggham was unwilling to go very far into discussion of this, commenting that it seemed to ignore all that HKG had been saying to the Treasury team about the impossibility in practise of transferring the capitalised value of HMOCS pensions only to HMG. I commented that it was useful while the Treasury team were in Hong Kong to explore the options as fully as possible: but this should be on the basis that there was no consensus in Whitehall on the principle of a transfer of assets to HMG. The Treasury team were afterwards rather cross with me for making this point, arguing that it tended to dissipate pressure on HKG. But I was concerned to avoid leaving the impression in Hong Kong that the Treasury team's visit was a concerted effort to force HKG into acquiescing in an approach which they considered politically unacceptable.
4.
The Treasury team also complained to me privately that Wiggham had been less than honest in discussing with them options which HKG were themselves considering for enhancing the security of pensions for all civil servants after 1997.
UK1AAQ
CONFIDENTIAL