XN000022-1996-07-17 — Page 2

Transcript of Governor's media session

The following is the transcript of the media session by the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, today (Wednesday) after visiting two penal institutions on Lantau Island:

Governor: I'm pleased that I've been able to spend the afternoon seeing the work of Correctional Services Department at our maximum security prison and at the detention centre. As I think you all know one of the problems that we have and haven't yet been able to tackle satisfactorily is over-crowding in our prisons. We are, I suppose, 30 per cent or may be even more over-crowded. That means that our Correctional Services Department who do such an excellent job, have to work in difficult conditions. It also means that the prisoners themselves live in over-crowded conditions and obviously that makes everybody's job more difficult. We have plans in the pipeline at the moment for providing about 1,300 more places in prisons and detention centre. That will obviously ease the problem in the short term by something like half. But that isn't enough. We do need to locate new sites for prisons and convince the community that this has to be given a sensible priority. It means convincing where appropriate district boards and neighbourhoods that new prison facilities are required. I think the problem we face isn't one of a shortage of capital resources. We certainly have the money in Hong Kong. But we've got to have the will as well. It's not fair to expect our Correctional Services Department to work in these over-crowded conditions or prisoners to live in these over-crowded conditions. So we've got to show that we've got the will in the next few years and build additional facilities so that our criminal justice system can work as effectively as possible.

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Question: Governor, there has been a report Government officials will quit their present responsibilities and help out with the future Chief Executive to set up the SAR Government. You have responded that...

Governor: I'll tell you what. I'll save you all the trouble of asking questions about this in the future. I am giving you a reply which we can refer to from now on as reply A. There have been reports in the newspapers on an almost weekly basis about what particular arrangements will be put in place when there's a Chief Executive Designate. Now, these stories are extremely interesting because we don't yet have a Chief Executive Designate. I'll answer questions about the co-operation that we intend to offer to a Chief Executive Designate when we've actually got a Chief Executive Designate and until then there is no point at all in me answering these interesting hypothetical speculations. But, the important point which I want to put on the record once again now and which I'll mention again if you ever ask me the same question, is that we do want to give the maximum possible co-operation to the Chief Executive Designate while ensuring that the administration of Hong Kong in the short term is as effective as possible.