REMOVED FROM HKB 233/1
56
OVERSEAS SERVICE PENSIONERS' ASSOCIATION
PRESIDENT:
The Lord Grey of Naunton, GCMG GCVO OBE
SECRETARY:
Mr. C. D. Stenton
HKB 233/2
Your Ref:
Our Ref: CDS/RJH/F3HK
The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Caithness, Minister of State,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
London,
SW1A 2AH.
Dear Minister
63 CHURCH ROAD
HOVE SUSSEX
BN3 2BD
Telephone: Brighton (0273) 721630
28 NO. 1991
27 November, 1991
Аска
MKS
Dass
for
reply from please
Mr Story Lord Cantuess
Ms Withers 12/02
5Bore.
55
It is now two months since Mark Lennox-Boyd replied on your behalf, while you were abroad, to my letter of 19th September about Hong Kong overseas pensioners. Since then we have heard nothing further from either the Foreign & Commonwealth Office or the Hong Kong Government about preserving the value of pensions.
Forgive me for pressing, but we ourselves in the Association are being much pressed and find it increasingly difficult to answer convincingly the complaints made to us, and HMOCS officers still serving there cannot really be fobbed off indefinitely with assurances that their problem is still receiving 'urgent consider- ation' from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in close consult- ation with the Hong Kong Government', but that the 'number of pensions-related issues' are so 'complex' that no specific timing can be given for their clarification, although it is hoped that this will be possible in the not too distant future'.
'
As you know, we have been getting these assurances for well over a year, and the Hong Kong Government told us that you personally were seized with the urgency of doing something quickly to resolve the problem.
This then is to ask you to press your people in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to reach a decision on the proposals which the Hong Kong Government sent to the FCO some six months ago. Surely, at least, an agreement in principle that HMG has an obligation to protect the position of overseas pensioners (as they have done for pensioners from every other colony) is possible? Acknowledgment of this would provide some measure of reassurance to both past and present members of HMOCS, who are now becoming increasingly worried that there may be something sinister behind the present lack of progress.
I, and the Hong Kong overseas pensioners represented by the Association, would be most grateful for anything you can do to hasten further consideration of this long standing problem. May I also repeat my readiness to bring a small delegation from the Association, including some of the Hong Kong pensioners concerned, to discuss this with you, if you feel that it would be helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Ralph
President
Brey
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