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Governor: We were concerned about the integrity of the Immigration Department and their ability to do their job effectively at a very difficult time. Perhaps you'll just let me add this to the froth of words that has been written and uttered on this subject. W K Lam, our Secretary for the Civil Service, is an example of the sort of civil servant who has made Hong Kong a decent, clean and successful place, and the sort of standard of competence and integrity which he represents are the bulwark between Hong Kong being successful and Hong Kong declining into sleaze and cronyism. I have been utterly amazed at the suggestions which I have read in some places that the matters referred to in the letter that we would have issued under CR 59 to Mr Laurence Leung somehow were minor matters. I am amazed by that suggestion. The notion that somebody who is in charge of one of our most important and sensitive departments could not pass an integrity check but should, in some people's views, merely have been slapped on the wrist, allowed to continue; the idea that the commercial issues raised in that letter didn't fall well below well below the standards of conduct and integrity that we rightly expect of our public service; the suggestion that somehow all this is small beer - that it doesn't matter I think reflects very poorly on those who apparently think you can run a decent public service without policing matters effectively and properly. If you had discovered that the director of the immigration service couldn't pass an integrity check, but the Government had swept it under the carpet and let him stay in office, you would have pilloried the Government and rightly. I believe that W K Lam, and others concerned, have taken the right decisions and I just want to make this absolutely clear - at every single stage in this argument and this controversy. I am sure the Chief Secretary, whose integrity and competence I don't imagine anybody here questions, will be making exactly those points when she appears in front of the Legislative Council committee next week, when I hope that the Legislative Councillors will behave with the courtesy which the Chief Secretary deserves. But I imagine that the Chief Secretary will make it absolutely clear to them what she thinks about some of these questions about integrity and conduct. Now that is all I have got to say about this issue at this stage. I think there has been a lot of self-indulgent nonsense written and said about this case. But at the end of the day, the executive is accountable, but the executive takes decisions and the decisions the executive have taken in this case have been entirely in line with the best traditions of honourable service for which public service in Hong Kong is renowned. Thank you very much indeed.
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