HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL-9th February 1972. 355
the Urban Council have had discussions on the White Paper with the Unofficial Members of this Council, whose views I look forward to hearing today.
MR P. C. Woo:-Sir, in December of last year the Unofficial Members of this Council set up a working group to study the White Paper dealing with the reform of the Urban Council. The members of that group, of which I was the convenor, first of all met among themselves to discuss the White Paper in the light of public comments which had been made since its publication in October 1971. More recently there have been meetings between Unofficial Members of this Council and representatives both of the elected and of the appointed members of the Urban Council. We are grateful to the members of that Council for agreeing to come along and give us the benefit of their own views, for in this way we have obtained a greater insight into the problems presented by the White Paper and also into the divergent views on some of the proposals held by the various shades of opinion within the Urban Council itself. Notwithstanding these differences of opinion one salient factor that has stood out is the sub- stantial degree of acceptance of the proposals in the White Paper by the members of the Urban Council. I believe it is true to say that they do, on the whole, welcome the proposals and regard them as a challenge and as a step forward. The elected members do have one substantial point of dissent, namely, they all feel that there should be a majority of elected members. The appointed members feel equally strongly that there should not be an elected majority. The view of the Unofficial Members of this Council is that the equal balance of twelve elected and twelve appointed members proposed in the White Paper is just about right at the present point of time. Hence the overwhelming majority of us support the proposed revised composition of the Urban Council including the withdrawal from it of all the official members and the selection of a chairman by the Council itself, who might be either an unofficial or a co-opted official or an eminent citizen from outside the Council.
We also agree with the proposed functions of the Urban Council and with the general principles of the other changes proposed in the White Paper including the very important changes in the sphere of finance. We note that the functions as set out in the White Paper are largely acceptable to the Urban Councillors themselves, provided that the resettlement and housing functions which are at present within the sphere of the Urban Council and the Housing Authority in its present guise are not removed from them and provided also that acceptable detailed arrangements can be made in relation to finance and staff. My colleagues will make further comments on these points. I would like to make one general point here, and indeed it is a point made in the White Paper itself. I quote from paragraph 35:
No comments yet.
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