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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
demanded the Chairman to give us a clear indication of the purpose and form of discussion. If discussion aims at a decision, the Secretariat should give us more information or papers for consideration. If the discussion is an opinion poll, it should be in the form of an adjournment debate instead of a formal debate. It will be more suitable for Members to express and exchange views in an adjournment debate and then refer the matter back to the meeting for discussion. But back to the issue we are discussing, I think it does not matter whether we discuss it now or at meetings of the relevant Select Committee, the question is what procedure of meeting is to be adopted. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, please let us know what procedure of meeting will be used at the Urban Council.
Chairman (in Cantonese): Thank you for giving me this chance to speak. According to my experience in the Urban Council, the current procedure is that if a new policy is proposed and this policy will change the existing policy, it will be discussed at the relevant Select Committee with papers and background information submitted by the Department. The Select Committee has to consider all consequences of the policy change e.g. financial impact, influence on manpower and on the public. After careful consideration, the Select Committee will decide on whether the policy could be implemented or not. With the endorsement of SCWC, it will become the Council's policy. Monthly Meetings in the past only dealt with the endorsement of by-laws, allocation of funds, change of street names and improvement of services of UC complexes, etc. However from 1995 onwards, discussion at monthly meetings became more active and vigorous, and the number of questions asked and motions raised has increased. Motion debates in the past are related to whether or not we should consider changing a certain policy. They are not the same as those of today where we can change policies. These policies are instructional and the Department has to implement them after endorsement. Under such circumstances, as Mr. LEUNG Kam-tao pointed out, if instructional policies are implemented without thorough study of practical difficulties and impact, it may lead to implementation problems. Thus Mr. LEUNG's proposal implied his support to the procedural motion. In the same way, Mr. Albert LAI's proposal of referring the issue back to relevant Select Committees does not mean to object to the motion. In fact, Mr. Albert LAI indicated right at the beginning of his speech that the idea was good and that he supported the original and amended motion. As Mr. LEUNG Kam-tao pointed out, the ideal procedure of discussion is to refer the matter to the relevant Select Committee so that the Department could carry out an in-depth study and submit the basic information on the impact of policy change. The Select Committee has to discuss the implementation details and the degree of change of the policy before referring it to the SCWC. I think this procedure, i.e. the opinion of Mr. LEUNG Kam-tao, is quite correct.
As to whether policies could be changed or not, we should not change for the sake of change. In the past, we discussed whether we could consider certain
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