- 6 -
Governor: Well, let me give that clarification and tell the honourable gentleman why what I've said isn't misleading the public.
Why have we introduced the Bill? We introduced the Bill, as the honourable gentleman will know, following the tragic fire in the bank at Shek Kip Mei in January, 1994. The legislation will cover premises where the fire safety measures no longer meet current standards. The investigation into that fire in 1994, showed that certain types of premises, including banks, off-course betting centres, jewellery and goldsmith shops, supermarkets, department stores and shopping arcades presented particular risks because of their size and the large numbers of people passing through. This legislation has been carefully developed to address precisely those risks. legislation covers commercial premises. The fire safety measures necessary for such places are not necessarily the same as those for say business or residential buildings and we'll review the need for new legislation to cover other types of premises in the light of the investigation report, as I said in my remarks.
The
So I do believe that since the bottom floors of the building in question are commercial premises they would've fallen within the scope of the legislation.
Mr James To (in Chinese): Mr President, I would like to follow-up. must clarify that the Bill will cover five premises but not regular commercial offices. I would like to ask the Governor this; does he feel that, actually we don't have to wait until the investigation results are out, actually over the years, all along the Administration knows that for old commercial buildings such problem already exists. I don't want to go back too far, for instance Mr Samuel Wong, sitting right next to me, years ago has written to the Administration calling for action in this field. I would like to know whether we necessarily have to wait until the investigation is completed and whether we have to wait until the enquiry is completed, or can the Administration start considering it right now?
Governor: Let me be extremely restrained in my reply. While we've been discussing this legislation, I'm not aware that the Government has been pressed to get on with things more rapidly. I'm sure, perfectly understandably, the pressures on the Government have been to make sure that we're not demanding too much of commercial premises in a short time. Perhaps what we need to do with issues like this is to strike a sensible balance. We want to put in place proper regulations. We want to do it as rapidly as possible. Of course, it's quite proper for this Council and others to be able to comment on the adequacy of the regulations we're seeking to put in place but I don't think we should be in a position in which before tragedies happen we want too much discussion and after tragedies happen we don't want any. What we have to do is to make sure that we put in place sensible arrangements which are properly considered and which can prevent tragedies like this happening.