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I respect your judgement that you feel that that time has now come, and I therefore accept your resignation from the Executive Council. But I do so with considerable regret, bearing in mind the valuable contributions you have made to the Council's policy discussions over the last few years and the clear and articulate way in which you have represented the views of an important section of the community during that period.
Your ExCo colleagues and I will miss your presence this coming Tuesday morning, and those following. We wish you well.
End
Governor's question-and-answer session in LegCo on Feb 1
Following is an extract from the Governor's question-and-answer session in the Legislative Council on February 1, 1996:
Governor: I thought that I would allow more time for questions by not making a statement today.
Mr Szeto Wah (in Chinese): Mr Governor, the Executive Council has to observe collective responsibility and so does the Preparatory Committee. If we have a person who is both an Executive Councillor and also a member of the Preparatory Committee, when there are different decisions between the Executive Council and the Preparatory Committee, where should his responsibility lie? And should it be the first one that should take precedence or should it be the last one that should take precedence over the previous one? Thank you.
Governor: 1 congratulate the honourable gentleman on such a clever, thoughtful, intellectually provoking, constitutional question.
It's not for me to comment on the working practices of the Preparatory Committee. Save to say that perhaps it's easier to have collective responsibility and confidentiality in a body as small as an Executive Council or a cabinet and perhaps a little more difficult, and that's not meant as a criticism, it's a statement of my views on human nature, a little more difficult when you've got 150 people. But I wish those who are organising the work of the Preparatory Committee the best of luck in that respect.