12. My rt hon Friend, the Foreign Secretary, assured this House in the debate on 20 January that it was "the solemn responsibility of the British Government to administer Hong Kong up to 30 June 1997 in the best interests of its people". We shall indeed discharge that responsibility to the utmost of our abilities. We shall also seek to ensure that the Sino-British Joint Declaration is fully and faithfully implemented so as to preserve confidence in Hong Kong and to create a firm basis for Hong Kong's future stability and prosperity. These are objectives to which the British and Chinese Governments are both firmly committed. I am sure that the House will wish to join me in endorsing these objectives and the policies. which we are pursing in order to achieve them.