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Section 27 of the Offences against the Person Ordinance relates to the ill- treatment or neglect of a child or young person by someone who has the custody, charge or care of that person. The current penalties are, on conviction on indictment, a fine of $2,000 and imprisonment for 2 years and, on summary conviction, a fine of $250 and imprisonment for 6 months. The proposed amendment of the section will provide for a penalty, on conviction on indictment, of imprisonment for 10 years and, on summary conviction, of imprisonment for 3 years.
Warnings in respect of smoking
I will also be proposing a Committee Stage amendment in respect of the health warnings that are required in respect of smoking. At present, the health warnings that are. required on cigarette packets and advertisements must be in a colour which contrasts with the background upon which they appear. This requirement is rather vague and some warnings are not easily seen. The Bill therefore proposes that the warnings should be printed in black upon a white background.
The Tobacco Institute of Hong Kong made representations to the Administration and to the Bills Committee in respect of the proposed amendments. With regard to cigarette advertisements, the institute requested a grace period of 12 months within which cigarette manufacturers would be able to change their existing advertisements in order to comply with the proposed new requirement. The Administration and the Bills Committee considered that this was a reasonable request and, as a result, the amendment in respect of cigarette advertisements will not be brought into operation until 1 August 1996.
With regard to cigarette packets the Tobacco Institute stated that the design and colouring of such packets are a matter of great commercial importance to manufacturers. The institute argued that it was wrong to impose a requirement of black and white health warnings on all manufacturers, since not all existing warnings were insufficiently prominent. It proposed that the amendment in respect of cigarette packets be withdrawn at this stage and that the tobacco industry be given 6 months in which to improve the legibility of health warnings on those packets. Again the Administration and Bills Committee considered this suggestion a reasonable one, and I will therefore later propose a Committee Stage amendment to delete the relevant clause of the Bill.
I would add, however, that the Secretary for Health and Welfare will be considering proposals from the Tobacco Institute and if, after 6 months, there has not been a significant improvement in this area, the proposed amendment will be re- introduced into this Council.