TNAG-2060-FCO40-2938-Hong-Kong-Overseas-Service-Pensioners--Association-(OSPA)-1990 — Page 21

Record of a meeting held on Tuesday 20th November 1990 at the Hong Kong Government Office, Grafton Street, London.

Present: From the Hong Kong Government

Sir David Ford, Chief Secretary

Mr Keith Shipley, Civil Service Branch Pensions From the Overseas Service Pensioners'

Sir Philip Haddon - Cave KBE CMG Mr Colvyn Haye CBE

Mr DWA Blye CMG OBE

Mr VA Ladd CBE

Mr W Dorward OBE Mrs S M Mansell

Association

Mr Haye opened the meeting by thanking Sir David Ford for agreeing to a discussion of overseas officers' pensions at snort notice. He said that in correspondence with Mr Andrew Burns, Assistant Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Lord Caithness, the Minister of State, with particular responsibilities for Hong Kong, the Overseas Service Pensioners Association (OSPA) had been assured that the question of the sterling value of Hong Kong pensions paid in the United Kingdom was under active consideration as a matter of priority. Mr Haye asked if Sir David could outline. what precisely was being considered.

2.

Sir David said that as a base line HMG's responsibility for the payment of pensions for dependent territories had always been on default by the overseas territory or on independence / change of status. He said that the HKG and HMG were trying to devise a method by which HMG would take over responsibility for payment of HKG pensions in advance of 1997, cover the exchange rate risk and provide increases in line with UK inflation. He said that they were willing to consider suggestions on the basis of looking forward not back. Mr Shipley added that HMG was receptive but that HMG's liabilities would necessarily be limited to implementation from a current date.

3. Mr Haye pointed out that existing post - 1976 HK UK pensioners, especially since 1983 when the fixed HKD/USD link nad been imposed, had sustained substantial losses in the value of their pensions which were now running at over 30% and that they naturally expected some compensation for those losses.

4. Mr Haye went on to say that OSPA had long held that responsibility for maintaining the value of HMOCS pensions from Hong Kong and ensuring their continued payment after 1997 was the joint responsibility of the HKG and HMG. He referred Sir David to the OSPA Paper of December 1988 on the problem, copies of which had been left with his Office and Government House earlier in the year, in which it had been said that one solution, and the most stable from the point of view of overseas pensioners, would be for HMG to take over their