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Walled City
[LORDS]
[Lord Goronwy-Roberts.] enclave. There are now plans to sort out and improve this inadequate and, indeed, hazardous electricity situation. Fire risk, because of the maze-like layout of the Walled City is, of course, very high. Among the essential services, it is difficult to allot priorities to water and drainage, linked as they are to sanitation, and electricity and fire risk. These reforms must go forward together. In 1973, the Hong Kong Government started to clear the sensitive areas on the fringe of the Walled City, and legislation regard. ing the storing of dangerous goods is also in force. I understand that this is effective.
I think, however, that the point made by both the noble Lord and the noble Earl about housing is probably the key to a real improvement. This is a problem of density, as my noble friend emphasised from the start and, indeed, pinpointed in the phrasing of his Question. It is a problem of housing, the density of housing, and the poor quality of con- struction in the Walled City. These are matters for grave concern and the ideal solution, I suppose, would be to tear the lot down and start again. But apart from the political problem, to which both my noble friends referred with responsibility and care, which I very much appreciate, of avoiding invoking reactions which might in the event create situations worse even than those we have heard described so precisely tonight, there is the prac- tical question of rehousing, of giving priority to this particular enclave ahead of the rest of the Colony, of indeed getting general acquiescence to such a priorised programme.
I very much liked something my noble friend said on this point. He finally very reluctantly, rejected it, as a solution, but I think on reflection he, like myself, may find in something like the following a constructive approach to a gradual solu- tion; namely, that the Hong Kong Gov- ernment should go ahead as expeditiously as ever possible with its massive pro- gramme of house building-that is, a programme for building enough houses to rehouse 18 million people out of a total population of over 4 million. It is a programme to rehouse over 10 years almost half the population of the Colony.' Already a substantial part of this new
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of Kowloon housing is being located on the very edge of the Walled City.
I understand my noble friend's reserva- tions about whether this in fact may prove to be a solution. I think it may contri- bute substantially by attracting from in- side the Walled City-the city of dreadful night", as my noble friend referred to it, and as I am quite sure Francis Thompson himself would have done if he had seen Hong Kong-increas- ing numbers, especially among the young, from this morass of disease and danger into these new flats and houses, so that the density in the Walled City is gradu ally diluted as the new standards become known to those still remaining, still pre- ferring to remain. in the Walled City. This is the best kind of reform, the reform over a period on the basis of experience and acceptance, although it is always tempting in situations like this to go for the revolutionary change, the instan- taneous stroke. I hope that we can all look at this problem as one which may possibly begin to be solved on the basis of this massive housing programme and its location.
I think that my noble friend will be glad to know the position on rents. He said that rents in the Walled City are one- third below those in the rest of Kowloon, I understand that it is not true in relation to Government housing, the rents for which arc well below private rents in the Walled City. The answer is, there- fore, more Government housing, which we may be sure will certainly be more attrac- live to many families in the Walled City, and even more economical for them.
So much for the enormous physical problem and the efforts made to tackle it. But I must briefly touch on the second question, to which both noble Lords who spoke, quite properly, drew attention. These efforts are constantly affected, in- hibited indeed, by a political situation of a unique character, with its roots in the past and its implications for the present and the future, that we simply must care. fully take into account. As I said pre- viously, we must be very careful indeed that we do not, in our genuine desire to improve the situation within the Walled City, so move as to evoke actions which create new and increasingly difficult situations, perhaps less tractable, more dangerous than the one we are considering tonight.
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