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Our objectives are:
to ensure that the Hong Kong Government can continue to perform effectively in the more developed political atmosphere in Hong Kong since the arrival of the first directly-elected LegCo politicians in last September's election. These are matters about the administration of Hong Kong up to 1997 on which the Governor will be announcing decisions, although we should give the Chinese some advance warning;
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to develop a policy for the next LegCo elections in 1995 which will enhance democracy sufficiently to be defensible in Westmister and to international opinion, while maximising the prospects that democratic structures developed before 1997 can continue thereafter. These are points which we shall need to discuss with the Chinese in the interests of continuity and on which the Governor will therefore be announcing proposals.
To achieve the first objective, the Governor is proposing a number of changes, including the separation of the membership of the Executive Council (ExCo) and LegCo, the creation of a Government Business Committee to help with the management of the Government's business in LegCo, and measures to improve LegCo's effectiveness and make the Hong Kong Government more clearly accountable to it. He will himself appear before LegCo and answer questions.
The point that will attract most attention internationally is that Martin Lee will not be appointed to ExCo. Given Lee's international profile, this will attract significant adverse comment. But it will be part of a broader readjustment of the roles of ExCo and LegCo involving the exclusion of all LegCo politicians from ExCo. This will remove the anomaly whereby some unelected LegCo leaders such as Allen Lee are at present on ExCo, while elected liberals such as Martin Lee are not.
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