TNAG-2455-FCO40-3576-Future-of-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-presentation-1992 — Page 55

CONFIDENTIAL

IMMEDIATE

3.

The proposals which the Governor will be announcing on 7

October are designed to meet the needs of effective and

accountable government: to make the electoral system more

democratic and fair: and to maximise the chances of continuity

through 1997 by exploiting to the full the flexibility available

within the Basic Law.

4. They fall into two parts. First, there are steps to be taken

straightaway to make Hong Kong's representative institutions more

effective, and the Hong Kong Government more accountable to them.

The Governor intends to separate the membership of the Executive

and Legislative Councils so that no non-official members of LegCo would also serve on ExCo. This will end the arrangement whereby representatives of some political groups in ExCo served on LegCo

while others did not, and enable LegCo politicians to develop

their parties and programmes free from the constraints of ExCo

membership. The Governor will also be taking other steps to

improve accountability: he will step down as President of LegCo

and make himself available regularly to answer questions there. A new Government/LegCo Business Committee will be established to

enable the administration to discuss the handling of its

Legislative and financial programmes with representatives of

LegCo.

5.

Second, there are the changes that will be needed for the

1995 LegCo elections. I find widespread support in Hong Kong

for a greater measure of democracy but at the same time a strong hope that what is put in place in 1995 can survive beyond 1997. That means making changes compatible as far as

possible with the Basic Law.

The simplest means of enhancing democracy would be for the Chinese side to agree a change in the Basic Law to increase the number of directly elected seats beyond the 20 it now envisages.

6.

But