TNAG-0669-FCO40-818-Policy-on-housing-and-resettlement-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 165

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Mr Murray

Parliamentary Unit

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HONG KONG: PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS: MR STAN NEWENS MP

Joces

1. Mr Stan Newens (Labour /Co-operative - Harlow) has put down

two Questions for Written Answer on housing matters in Hong Kong.

2. Mr Newens takes a keen interest in Hong Kong and regularly tables Questions covering various aspects of its affairs. In 1976 he put down Questions on fraud and corruption in the Hong Kong Police Force and the affairs of Wheelock Marden & Co. (an "insider trading" scandal). He was an early signatory of Mr Robert Parry's Early Day Motion on the "Democratic and Social Advance of Hong Kong", which embodied criticisms of the Hong Kong Government's

labour and social policies.

3. The present two Questions have evidently been prompted by the need to rehouse 155 squatters from the roof of a private building which the owner wishes to redevelop (Hong Kong telegram no. 70). The Hong Kong Government has offered the squatters temporary accommodation at a transit camp at Shamshuipo (formerly an army barracks) until such time as they can be housed in licensed areas. The squatters wish to be moved at once to a licensed area fearing that if they move to a transit camp they will be left there for many months before being rehoused.

4.

The proposed eviction has been given wide coverage in the Hong Kong press. Mrs Elsie Elliot, an elected Urban Councillor and a champion of the interests of the underprivileged in Hong Kong, has taken up the case of the squatters. She has written an open letter to the Governor condemning the Hong Kong Government's housing

record.

5. The Hong Kong Government state that it should be possible to offer licensed area accommodation to the families in April and they hope to persuade the owner of the building, who has already agreed to defer clearance until after the Chinese New Year on 18 February,

If the owner of the to accept a longer period of deferment.

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