The Chief Secretary said that he noted that we were seeking compensation/plus enhancement of pensions/to take account of current losses, /and that should HMG be unwilling to pay/then the HKG would have to look at the matter. He doubted whether HKG could assist for a variety of reasons but principally on political gounds./
There was a some discussion of detail,/principally in correction of misunderstandings in Hong Kong and at the FCO,/ before the CS left to catch a plane,/but we felt it had been a good meeting because the HKG and HMG at last seemed to be discussing the pension problem positively.
Unfortunately, when we sought confirmation of this understanding in correspondence after the meeting,/both the Chief Secretary in HK and the Assistant Under Secretary at the FCO jappeared to have second thoughts/The CS spoke of having a long way to go before arriving at a solution,/and the AUS said that the FCO was still waiting for proposals from HKG, / stressing that even if they were to be acceptable in principle/ details such as the rate of exchange would be very much an open question./
Coming after years of talking and corresponding at great and patient length with the HKG and HMG, this back-tracking prompted a petition to the Governor in Council/subscribed to by Sir Philip Haddon Cave,/myself,/ Dougie Blye, Vic Ladd,/Bill Dorward,/Roy Henry,/Peter Williams, Fred Watson, Bryan O'Rorke and Tommy Tomlinson.I dare say that every Hong Kong pensioner in the UK would have added their names to ours,/but there was no time to get in touch with them all, so we subscribed on their behalf.
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As I pointed out in a covering letter with the petition Chief Secretary, it is not every day that a former Chief Secretary, /several previous Secretaries/and Heads of Departments, who had served Hong Kong with dedication and distinction for several decades,/put their names to a submission to the Governorin Council. They did not particularly relish doing so/but felt it was now necessary.
The petition was drafted with some care/It addressed the problem,/described the background,/developed the argument/and arrived at the inescapable conclusion that HK-UK pensioners believed that the HKG had the legal and moral responsibility/to make good losses taken as a direct result of official policy since 1983, to ensure that further losses did not occur and, in conjunction with HMG, to ensure the continued payment and value of HKD pensions in the UK after 1997./The HKG had the means and machinery to solve the current problems of its pensioners in the UK./HMG had similar powers to secure their future. All that was required now was the will to act/because action was long overdue.