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I am sorry to see that in recent times you have been rather trigger happy in ruling out of order Members' supplementary questions and the time should come when by a substantive motion we should question your judgement on this point.
CHAIRMAN:-This will be done, Mr. SALES.
MOTION.
CHAIRMAN: --Ladies and gentlemen, we will now resume the debate on the Motion "That this Council endorse the Statement of Aims for 1969". To-day, the Official Members will reply to points raised by the Unofficials at the meetings held on 27th and 28th November. Regrettably, Mr. Rowe, the Director of Social Welfare, has been ill for the past week and is unable to be present with us to-day. This, unfortunately, will mean that many welfare matters raised by Members will not be answered this afternoon. However, I will see what I can do to provide Members with the answers to the matters raised at a later date.
THE COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-Mr. Chairman, at last year's Annual Debate my predecessor was pulled up for exceeding his ration of time. This year I shall be briefer; in fact in the flood of oratory that overwhelmed the Council Chamber last month I could detect only three speakers who referred to resettlement matters.
Dr. BELL, in a typically forthright speech, referred to a number of matters, most of which are outside my province. I was interested in her proposal to relieve the shortage of estate shops by the construction of multi-storey markets; but that, Sir, comes within your responsibilities.
Dr. BELL complained that "many matters" in the Housing Board's report should have been first referred to the Resettlement Policy Select Committee. I do not accept the implication that the Resettlement Department was at fault. But the report has still not been published and, like Dr. BELL herself, I cannot be more specific.
Dr. BELL also complained that not enough was being done to relieve overcrowding in the older estates. In the ten years or more that these estates have been in existence, the majority of rooms have become overcrowded both by natural family increase and, to a lesser extent, by the permitted addition of relatives after the family was resettled. This overcrowding is relieved by what, in the jargon of the Department, is called internal and external decantation, that is, by allocating larger rooms in the same estate or in another estate. Some tenants have shown themselves to be reluctant to leave their present surroundings at all; and most of them are reluctant to move to another estate unless it is in a convenient, central area or in close proximity to their present home. This has meant that rooms becoming vacant in the older estates are most in demand and it has been necessary to reserve them for families living in the worst condition of overcrowding. As Mr. Hu said in his speech, in some of the older estates a family must be living at a density of 16 square feet for each adult to be eligible for a larger room. But that only applies to transfers within the same estate. The qualifying density for those who wish to move out to a developing estate is at present 24 square feet. I should add that in the twelve months since the last Annual Debate over 43,000 persons have been re-accommodated in larger rooms.
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to their present home. This has meant that rooms becoming vacant in the older estates are most in demand and it has been necessary to reserve them for families living in the worst condition of overcrowding. As Mr. Hu said in his speech, in some of the older estates a family must be living at a density of 16 square feet for each adult to be eligible for a larger room. But that only applies to transfers within the same estate. The qualifying density for those who wish to move out to a developing estate is at present 24 square feet. I should add that in the twelve months since the last Annual Debate over 43,000 persons have been re-accommodated in larger rooms.
I agree with Dr. BELL that the position would be improved if more estates were built in the central rather than the outlying areas. I understand that further consideration is being given to providing a resettlement estate at Cheung Sha Wan; but there is a limit to the number of central sites that can be found and this limit has just about been reached. However this comes more within the province of the Director of Public Works who will be commenting in more detail. Dr. BELL also suggested that the new estate at Pak Tin, which is centrally situated to the north of Shek Kip Mei, should be entirely reserved for the relief of overcrowding. It has been agreed that when the first blocks of this estate are completed next year, they should be reserved for overcrowded families from the three oldest estates, which are in the vicinity. It is not yet possible to say whether the whole estate can be reserved for this purpose because of other commitments. However, the second stage of this estate will not be completed until 1970, which will enable this proposal to be thoroughly examined in the meantime.
Finally, Dr. BELL suggested that the position would be improved by adopting the Council's proposal to count children over the age of six as adults in allocating resettlement rooms. At present only children over the age of ten are counted as adults; and the larger initial allocation of space that would result from this proposal would help to improve matters for the future. However it would do nothing to relieve the present overcrowding. And if more space is given to each family it follows that fewer families can be provided for in the accommodation available, and the rate at which overcrowding can be relieved would in fact be reduced.
Meanwhile resettlement tenants are being encouraged to move to Housing Authority flats and we are planning to increase our efforts in this direction when applications for Government Low Cost Housing are re-opened next year. It would be possible to go further: to make more restrictive the rules governing the addition of relatives to an estate family; to insist on the compulsory transfer of overcrowded families to other estates; or to insist on the transfer to other forms of housing of those who could be shown to be able to afford it. I need not spell out the difficulties involved in these propositions nor the degree of
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