TNAG-0519-FCO40-614-Meeting-of-Lord-Goronwy-Roberts--Parliamentary-Under-Secreta-1975 — Page 14

-6-

for Hong Kong Government to maintain the full momentum of the Governor's social programmes. It may be necessary to rephase.

expansion of the social and educational services. None the

less, the Hong Kong Government has given the highest priority to social services in this year's budget. A record sum of Hong Kong $3,057 million, 41.8% of total expenditure, will be channelled into social services (representing an increase of 12.4% over the revised estimate for the previous year), as

follows:

Education

HK$1,336.5m (HK$1,209m) (+11.5%)

Housing

HK$793.9m

(HK$660.5m) (+19%)

Medical and Health

HK$583.2m

(HK$563.8m) (+3%)

Social Welfare

HK$326.7m

Labour

HK$17.2m

(HK$270.1m) (+21%) (HK$15.9m) (+12.7%)

(1974-75 figures in brackets for comparison).

LABOUR AFFAIRS

17. 1974 was a year of considerable progress in enactment of labour legislation. The main achievements were (1) reduction of maximum permissible annual overtime for women and young persons; (2) protection of workers against acts of anti-union discrimination; and (3) workers made redundant, or discharged

through no fault of their own, are now entitled to severance

pay.

18. A Labour Relations Bill is currently in the pipeline.

The purpose of this bill is the improvement of labour/management

relations and establishment of a legal framework for dealing

with serious labour disputes. The Government aim to introduce

it later this year.

I

19. I know that some members of our party and the Labour

movement generally have reservations about some aspects of this Bill, particularly that providing for cooling-off periods.

naturally questioned the Governor closely about the latter

and was interested to learn that the provision was included

with the unanimous consent of the Labour Advisory Board on which

management and workers are equally represented. From my talk

/with