TNAG-1606-FCO40-22121-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1987 — Page 123

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DRAFT SPEECH BY DR HON HENRIETTA IP, OBE JP

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL - 25.3.1987

Motor Vehicles Insurance

(Third Party Risks) (Amendment) Bill 1986

Sir,

On the first reading of this bill, some Members had reservations on repealing section 8 of the principal ordinance because it appeared wrong in principle for Government to subsidize

insurance companies, which under existing legislation were required to pay the expenses reasonably incurred by non-profit making hospitals in treating people injured by the insured

vehicles. As a result an Ad Hoc Group of which I convened, was

set up to study this Bill.

Since Government's main argument for the Bill was in the

administrative difficulties that arose from the recovery scheme, the ad hoc group initially focused its attention on ways to improve the recovery scheme instead of abandoning it. What was in

the fore of the minds of Members was that administrative and

financial difficulties should not stand in the way of the

execution of fair and just legislation. In no less than 4

meetings, Members looked into the 6 lengthy recommendations in the 1979 Report by the Management Services Division on how the scheme can be improved. Government at this point admitted that through a combination of the legislative and other changes suggested in that report, the scheme could be and not possibly, made more cost-effective. To satisfy ourselves beyond any doubt, we even

looked into the feasibility of recovering such hospital expenses

from the Traffic Accident Victims Assistance Scheme (TAVAS) or the

Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB) whose aims and objectives were in many ways similar to the subject in question. We were quite adamant that such alternative proposals could prove to be even

simpler.