TNAG-0784-FCO40-988-Application-of-international-labour-conventions-to-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 107

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or potentially applicable to Hong Kong by virtue of their ratification by the UK. He also sent me Appendix IV to your letter of 5 January 1978 to the FCO giving a brief indication in each case of the reasons why Hong Kong cannot at present apply the Conventions. There are five other Conventions not covered in this Appendix IV and Harry gave me a note, a copy of which I enclose.

I should now like to send the material to

Miss Littlc but before doing so I wonder whether some of the wording in the Appendix IV referred to above might be looked at again. The phrase I think will do us some damage is "There are no proposals at present to introduce a comprehensive Social Security Scheme in Hong Kong". We do in fact have a comprehensive Social Security Scheme in Hong Kong but it is not of the same nature as that in the UK and apparently it does not cover a number of fields that the ILO Conventions deal with. I did, in fact, muke quite a point with Miss Little that our Social Security system had developed very rapidly and had gone further than that in any Asian country other than Japan. Would it be possible to give some less damaging reason for the non application of some of the ILO Conventions? I am afraid that I do not know what the Conventions say So I cannot offer very helpful suggestions. It may be though that for Convention Nos. 36. 37. 38, 39 and 40 a phrase such as "Society Security in Hong Kong is non- contributory and in the form of an income support scheme. This makes it impossible to apply this Convention". OF course, in writing to Miss Little I would not include any Convention that is not ratified by the UK. I. do not know whether it would be possible to write somewhat more fully about the reasons why groups of Conventions are not applied. Obviously we are anxious to apply as many Conventions as possible and I am sure you have given a great deal of thought to the application of the Conventions, and I think it would be worth explaining in some detail why in Hong Kong's circum- stances this is simply impossible in some cases.

I showed them the pamphlet "Some Facts About Employment in Hong Kong". They were anxious to have it but I only had the one copy, which I needed for a talk I was to give. I have now passed it on to them. Could you let me have another please.

(D.C. BRAY)

c.c. Mr. Harry Hurst.

c.c.

Overseas Lebour Adviser Commissioner for Labour, EK.

FCO.

Enc.

DCB/SVS