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Tel. 9876531
Correspondence address:
P.U. Box 5404
General Post Office Hong Kong
17/2 aterson
Mr G Paterson
39E Seabird Lane Discovery Bay Lantau Island Hong Kong.
14 February 1993
?My mald M. Paligan
Overseas Pensions Department
Overseas Development Administration
Abercrombie house Eaglesham Road East Kilbride Glasgow C75 8EA
Dear Mr Paterson,
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the time once M. Plus
has had an opportunity
12
I suggest the you put the
Care to Mr Plans for his views on what we say next.
I thank we have cams to the ard
'to thank Don't this litew. of the line as we should the
Thank you for your letter of that i am not satisfied with your
27 January 1993 but i regret
reply. Mos dew in the reply, Y
AMO
2. Your repeated statement, that the responsibility for protecting the value of overseas pensions has "always" rested with the overseas government and not the British Government, shows your lack of understanding of the background to this matter. in the 1960's Great Britain had understanding and responsible administrations in so far as overseas pensioners were concerned. When the need arose they took action to protect the sterling value of British overseas pensioners' pensions. The Fublic officers Agreements with territories that were given independence is an illustration of the way this responsibility was exercised. There was no need, in the earlier years, to take action for dependent territory pensioners because their currencies were linked to sterling. only after that link was broken, with the devaluation of sterling in 1967, did a need arise and that was taken care of by the main principle of the Pensions (increase) Act 1971 which was to maintain the original purchasing power of pensions in sterling terms. You reaffirmed this principle in your letter of 26 November 1992.
3. I agree with you that the Act assumes that the basic
This pension remains at the same value in sterling terms. is exactly what i said in the first sentence of paragraph 6 of my Brief for Judicial Review which was sent to you under cover of my letter dated 8 March 1992 (copy attached). However, you will see from the second sentence of that paragraph that that assumption carries an implication that ir, through exchange rate shortfalls, the basic pension
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