Sir David Ford KBE LVO Chief Secretary's Office Government Secretariat Lower Albert Road Hong Kong
Ther
де
Pl.com bo
HLA
Rechend I Breen
Нкв 233/3
- TAUG 1991
Gay, of we have
thy?
"Wymering
Sheet Common 22 Nr Petersfield
DF 2017
Hants GU31 5AT England
8 July 1991
Gin
11
Hong Kong United Kingdom Pensions
Thank you for your letter of 5 June 1991 telling me of the outcome of the Governor in Council's consideration of our petition.
I have copied your letter to all those concerned and I have to tell you that not only are we disappointed, but also saddened that the Governor in Council has again failed to address the essential issue which is the inequitable treatment of a small group of pensioners who have taken considerable losses consequent upon certain developments in recent years which have ignored their situation.
Indeed, the Governor in Council's decision is simply not germane to this issue: the retreat into a "reconfirmation" that HK pensions should continue to be paid in HK dollars and apply to all is tantamount to ignoring all that we have said over the last three years and more about how policy decisions made in Hong Kong have consequentially affected us (but not local officers with their local liabilities, nor local officers who have voluntarily retired in North America, nor serving officers whose future has been generously protected by recent salary adjustments), and how the amended SPOS rules have discriminated against post-1976 retirees (but not pre-1976 retirees) to cost them dearly in the past five years or so.
As regards the first point: apart from the past history of pensions paid to UK resident HK pensioners (pre-1967, post-1967 up to July 1972, 1972 to November 1974, 1974 to the Autumn of 1983) when, to a greater or lesser extent, the sterling liabilities of UK-HK pensioners were recognised, since the Autumn of 1983 we have not been paid in HK dollars, but effectively in US dollars which exchange exposure has cost us dear (and, ironically, has been to the benefit of those local pensioners who have voluntarily migrated to North America).