TNAG-0542-FCO40-637-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 184

Sir Douglas Henley KCB.

Second Permanent Secretary

Public Sector

CONFIDENTIAL

MON

HM Treasury

Jus 70818775 Defence

дется дель Me Thomson

Finance Officei

Parliament Street London SW1P 3AG

Sir Michael Cary KCB, Ministry of Defence, Main Building,

Whitehall,

London SW1A 2HB.

Dear Michael

01-930 1234

RECEIVED IN

REGISTRY No.2 12 AUG 1975.

DPS/6

(240)

¥7)

in Wilfand THKOD Sin D. Watic/ Caribbean August, 1975. N Muse Huse Ryes of

8

LAST

RFF

Planning Sirett

(2)

(258)

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE CHARGES FOR THE SERVICES TO THE FCO

Thank you for your letter of 1 August on this subject.

2. Subject to the two qualifications mentioned below, we see no objection to your proposal that expenditure arising from internal security operations carried out by the Ministry of Defence at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in any of our remaining dependent territories should in principle be allowed to lie where they fall, and we agree that this could with advantage cut out

a dis

isproportionate administrative effort.

First,

3. We must attach two conditions to this agreement. we think that when operations of this kind are carried out every effort should be made to get the dependent territory concerned to pay in full or in part. We think there are still one or two cases where we could reasonably look for the local government to meet the cost. One obvious example would be Hong Kong: as you know, the draft Agreement which we are currently in the course of negotiating with the Hong Kong Government specifically provides that if there is a change in the size of the garrison Hong Kong's contribution would be reviewed. Another example is Bermuda, where I believe that in the course of settling a recent dispute with them over the cost of the 1968 internal security operation we made it clear that they would be expected to pay for the costs of any future such operation in full.

4. Second, you suggest that the need for supplementary estimates should be considered at the time in the light of the financial circumstances. Obviously, if the need arose, the case for supplementary estimates would have to be considered.