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has shown that most workers there place little value on their entitlement to retirement benefit and prefer to mortgage it for the sake of acquiring property. One of our objectives in introducing the Home Ownership Scheme here was to meet the absence of a Provident Fund facility to cover the acquisition of long-term security through property ownership. So in the course of time and through expansion of the Scheme, we may be able to go some way to meet it.
10.
As if these complications were not enough, we now understand from the Commissioner of Labour that the working party reviewing the Workmen's Compensation Ordinance is likely to recommend that liability for workmen's compensation should be covered by compulsory insurance. If this recommendation is made and accepted, it could be extended to liabilities for other benefits under the Employment Ordinance (such as extended sickness benefit). If so the additional cost to employers by way of premium payments would be very much less than under a contributory scheme for the same degree of cover. So this might be acceptable and prove a tidy way of dealing with cover for extended sickness. However no firm decision can be taken for several months.
11. We have no intention of leaving things as they are, and you will have noted that in my speech to LegCo I accepted that the need for additional cover existed. We must therefore provide it by one means or another. My present thinking is that the most sensible procedure would be to deal with each risk separately and cover:-
b)
c)
a) Extended sickness under the Employment
Ordinance or by some alternative arrangement.
Death benefit on a non-contributory basis and with a relaxed means test criterion.
Push ahead with a retirement scheme but on a voluntary basis both to test public demand and to demonstrate that this sort of cover exists for those that want it. However the need to provide cover for extended sickness and premature death should not be complicated by being tacked onto it.
12. You will appreciate that this item should be seen against the background of the forecasts of
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