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Governor: These are problems which we started to debate, thanks to the Honourable Lady, a couple of years ago, but I'm not sure how much appetite for or enthusiasm for the debate there was in the Council or in the community on the issue at that time. The matter which the Honourable Member touches on isn't one which is unique to Hong Kong. It's a problem in every developed community. I think that here in Hong Kong we provide better services at less cost and with less worry for patients or potential patients than in many other communities. But the basic problem, the Honourable Gentleman knows better than I do. The costs of medical care continue to increase, both for demographic reasons and because of the advances of science and technology. Everybody, understandably, wants the best service they can get and expects for instance any new treatment to be available to them. We also face the additional costs of an ageing population. As the health service keeps people alive for longer, so the costs of their health care increase and it's always the case that a very large proportion of a health budget is devoted to the health care of the elderly. So we will find ourselves in the same position as other communities, trying to balance unlimited demand against an inevitably limited supply of resources, and I hope that we can resume the debate which had begun a couple of years ago so the community can try to focus on what we believe the priorities should be. The Honourable Member has very sensibly underlined the importance of community health care and taking a more holistic approach to these issues and I think that has to be something that we all do.
I can just add one point. We do at present have a vigorous private sector and we have sensible bridges between the private and the public sector in health care. I hope that we don't inadvertently burn those bridges down because I think that would lead inexorably to more costly health care for everyone and it would lead inexorably to even more concern about different standards of health care according to the personal means of the patient and I think we want to avoid that if at all humanly possible. But I welcome the Honourable Member's suggestion that this is a subject which this Council will need to debate and to focus on.
Dr David Li: Governor, would you inform this Council which sector or industry have the majority of illegal employment and what are the causes?
Governor: I would need more notice of that question but I think it will be apparent to the whole Council that there have been some sectors in the past, like the construction industry, like the restaurant business, where there have been particular problems with the number of illegal workers. Between about June and August there were, I think, over 600 actions carried out against illegal employment and well over 900 arrests were made. That's, I hope, an indication of our determination to stamp out illegal employment wherever we can. It's unfair to the whole community but it's also, we must remember, unfair to those who are being employed illegally. Invariably they're being employed on worse terms. Invariably they're being employed in deplorable conditions in which things like safety and health have even less priority than they do in other parts of the work force. So it's in the interests of the illegal employees, as well as everybody else, that we take action on these matters.