TNAG-1220-FCO40-1530-Democratic-representation-and-reform-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 154

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If I may, I shall now refer briefly to the other

matters raised or recommended by the Working Party in relation to the conventions or the understandings, since they form part of the

same exercise and complement these amendments to Standing

Orders.

Their proposals can be divided into those

that relate to the passage of bills, those that relate to questions, those that relate to provisions for debate and, finally, matters of general procedure.

Dealing with bills, the Working Party, first, recommended what in the course of the year has become our practice, that where amendments have been proposed or prompted by Unofficials, the moving of those amendments in a committee of the whole Council should be undertaken by the Unofficials. This ensures that credit goes where credit is due. Second the Working Party proposes that the Administration should be permitted to make informally minor corrections of typography, cross reference and other simple errors in a bill, after its approval by the Executive Council and before its introduction into this Council. It is proposed that this liberty be taken by the Law Draftsman in consultation with the Clerk to the

Council. This should reduce the volume of minor amendments

that are presently moved at the committee stage. The procedure proposed follows common practice in the British Parliament

and other Commonwealth legislatures. Lastly so far as bills are concerned, the Working Party has recommended that we should, where possible, batch amended clauses at the committee stage of the bill to allow the bill's sponsor or an unofficial member to speak once to cover all the proposed amendments, and to allow all the amendments to be voted on together. Indeed we have already started doing this. This has streamlined the Council's work, reducing some of what I might term its ritualism.

Pursuing the same line of reasoning,

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