CODE 18-77
Reference.
CONFIDENTIAL
HKA 233/1
FILE NOTE
Pa
456
HMOCS MEETING BETWEEN S OF S, MR PATTEN AND CHIEF SECRETARY ON 2
JULY
1. I should note the comments Mr. Patten made to Mr. Ricketts when he debriefed us on the meeting.
Patten said that there had been no real discussion of the policy issues. It had been "ships passing in the night". The CS
2.
Mr.
had said his lines and we had said ours.
3.
His feeling was that the Treasury knew that a sterling safeguard would have to be conceded in the end. They were crazy to think that matters would be easier to handle when he had gone to HK: the reverse was true. He would have to take a harder line. He did not want to do this- he wanted to avoid a situation where he publicly had to attack HMG.
4. Mr Patten said that "We should not accept any dilution of our package". We should play up the fact that we were not proposing any early retirement. This was in fact saving the Treasury hundreds of millions of pounds (because HMG would have to pick up the tab for the years until normal retirement age).
Nihal rffare
M V Stone
HKD
10/7/92
CC MR RICKETTS
MR COX
MISS WILLIAMS
ده)