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Governor: Well, I think you've got to look at two different issues. First of all you've got to look at the question of a provisional legislature at all. Secondly, you've got to look at the question of a provisional legislature working before June 30, 1997. I totally agree with British Ministers who think that to establish a provisional legislature, acting as though it were the legislature, before June 30, 1997, would call into question China's compliance with the Joint Declaration. I mean Article 30 of which is extremely clear. I think I mentioned earlier in the programme that senior Chinese officials have said there can only be one legislature before June 30, and that if there were a provisional legislature it wouldn't assume any of its functions before July 1. I still very much hope that since that view has been expressed to British Ministers at the most senior level in the Chinese Government, that that will prove to be the case rather than some of the things we've heard recently and it seems to be more sensible for us to press on that front than to throw legal challenges around. I don't, I repeat, want to see this turned into a bitter argument so I hope we can persuade Chinese officials to behave a bit more sensibly.

Question: Good morning. I'd like to go back to two very vital issues Mr Governor. The first is, where you may not be able to point to as much improvement as the last list. The first is pollution and air quality and can you guarantee whether anything will actually be done to improve air quality, as a previous Minister of Environment you may be interested before you leave?

And the second one is immigration. In your tenure there's been a vast increase in the number of the population. Many of these are family reunions and the quality of the people coming in is not of the highest calibre. They often end up going straight on to the welfare system which is quite a burden to society. There may not be much you can do about that, but I would appreciate your point of view.

Governor: OK. On the environment I think it's one of the manifestations of Hong Kong becoming a more successful, prosperous community, that people place, understandably a higher priority on environmental issues. I'm sure they'll continue to do so. We have managed to cut, I think I've got the figures right, our dust emissions from new vehicles down by about 50 per cent since '92, sulphur dioxide down by about 42 per cent, about half our vehicles are now using catalytic converters. It was only about, I think hardly any were doing so in 1992, and 80 per cent of the petrol we now sell is unleaded. So all those are steps forward, but I know that people want us to do more. That's why we're doing things like investigating very urgently replacement for diesel and I think this will be inevitably a pretty high priority for my successor as it's been for me.

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