IN CONFIDENCE
I enclose a summary of the Governor's main proposals.
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
(ExCo and LegCo) 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. It will enable both
Councils to perform more effectively by clarifying the
functions of each. In particular, it will free all LegCo
politicians to develop their parties and programmes free
from the constraints of ExCo membership. The Governor is
bringing on to ExCo some respected members of the Community
without party political involvement. He will also be
taking other steps to improve accountability:
down as President of LegCo and make himself available
regularly to answer questions there. A new Government/LegCo Committee will be established to
enable the administration to discuss the handling of its
legislative and financial programmes with representatives
of LegCo.
he will step
These steps are all part of maintaining effective British administration of Hong Kong up to 1 July 1997, and
on these issues the Governor will therefore be announcing
decisions.
Second, there are the changes that will be needed for
the 1995 LegCo elections. I have previously assured the
House that we would continue to press the case for a faster
pace of democratisation. I did so when I met the Chinese
Foreign Minister in New York on 25 September. The Chinese
position remains that the Basic Law cannot be changed
before 1997, and that no increase in the number of directly
elected seats in 1995 beyond the 20 set out in the Basic
IN CONFIDENCE
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