Mr. Martin LEE : Sir, is the Chief Secretary
referring to
paragraph 8 of this note of the meeting held on 20 August 1986
where this sentence
appears: "At present the
censorship of
films was left to
authority was not defined legally"? If he were indeed
referring to this sentence, then would he please explain how he
would expect members present at that meeting to understand that
in fact for many, many years the Government Censor had been
acting illegally according to its own legal advice?
the discretion of the Film Censor whose
Chief Secretary
Sir, I wasn't present at the meeting and I
am relying upon the authorised version of the minutes which I
have indeed read from. I understand that this matter was
discussed at that meeting. I would also point out, Sir, that
it was not the intention of the Administration to keep this
Council in the dark about the political sensitivity involved.
Indeed, as I have mentioned in my previous answer, it was very
much in the mind of Government that when the Secretary for
Administrative Services and Information discussed these matters
with the ad
ad hoc group, the background to the whole situation
would be discussed as indeed it was.