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to avoid formalizing these consultative bodies too rigidly at least until I have had some experience of the sort of questions the Council is likely to ask me to refer to them. MR. CHEONG-LEEN: --How many District Consultative Committees have already been formed?
THE SECRETARY FOR HOME AFFAIRS: -The answer is ten, in the sense that each of the ten districts can call together a group of persons to advise on any matter which is referred. The qualification which I made is meant to indicate that we cannot expect that the same individuals will necessarily be the group of persons to be brought together for any particular purpose.
MR. CHEONG-LEEN: -Thank you.
MR. SALES: -Mr. Chairman, should not that information have come from MR. CHEONG-LEEN himself as the new Chairman of the Hawker Policy Select Committee rather than from the Secretary for Home Affairs? (Laughter).
MR. CHEONG-LEEN: -Mr. Chairman, the answer to that is, with your permission, in this instance I find it more appropriate for the Secretary for Home Affairs to answer it.
MR. SALES: -But does the Council find it more appropriate?
(4) MR. B. A. BERNACCHI asked the following question:
Over 10 years ago MR. RICHARDS, as Chairman of the Urban Council, gave an undertaking that the use of the present Chambers in the Secretariat Building was only temporary pending the erection of a Municipal Block of offices on the reclamation opposite the Post Office.
(a) What plans if any are now in hand for the erection of such Municipal Offices?
(b) As the present Urban Council Chamber and the accommodation for the Urban Services Department in the Central Government Offices are both clearly insufficient, what plans are being made for further or new accommodation generally?
THE CHAIRMAN replied as follows: -
It is not quite correct to say that, ten years ago the then Chairman of the Council gave an undertaking that the use of the present Chamber in this building was only temporary, pending the erection of a municipal block of offices on the reclamation opposite the Post Office.
The question of building a municipal block was first raised in the form of a motion by MR. P. C. Woo in June 1954, when the Council and the Urban Services Department were housed in very cramped conditions in the General Post Office Building. At that time, consideration was being given to housing the Council in the City Hall which was then being planned, and MR. Woo's motion was amended to the effect that the Council should accept the accommodation in the City Hall until a new municipal council was planned, when an approach should be made to Government for an entirely independent building commensurate with the scope and dignity of a municipality. The accommodation offered in the City Hall would not have been adequate to accommodate the Council and the Urban Services Department. As a result, at a meeting of the Whole Council in August 1955, Members agreed with the Chairman that it was not practicable for him to be isolated from his departmental staff. The Committee of the Whole therefore decided to request that if the accommodation in the City Hall could not include the Department as well as the Council Chamber and offices, it would be better to wait for the new central reclamation and the construction of civic offices and a Council Chamber in a new building, possibly a "municipal office".
Since 1958, of course, the Council and the Urban Services Department have been in this building. In answer to a question by DR. R. H. S. LEE in September 1964, Members were informed that the provision of our present accommodation led to the dropping of the original proposal of accommodating the Department and the Council Chamber in a new building on the reclamation. Members were also informed at the time that Government had no immediate intention of moving the Department and the Council Chamber.
The answer to the first part of your question is, therefore, that, as yet, no plans are in hand for the erection of a municipal office. A decision on this will, I presume, hinge on Government's decision on the future scope of the Council, but I can assure Members that I have drawn Government's attention to the need to bear in mind, in this context, Council's requirements for suitable accommodation.
With regard to the second part of the question I can only agree that the present Chamber and office accommodation
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