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sufficient tenderers must be present in the tendering process before the award of the contracts. I suggest that all functional select committees should now study the application of privatization to their respective scope of work for more possible savings.

Festival Entertainment

Following the disturbances in the Central District on Christmas Eve, 1981, I am pleased to see that the Urban Council has now provided entertainment programmes in various districts, mostly in conjunction with district organiza- tions. I am pleased to congratulate the Entertainment Select Committee on its efforts towards the avoidance of the recurrence of the unhappy incident on that unpleasant 'Silent Night' three years ago.

Mr. Chairman, I support the motion.

MR. HOWARD H. W. YOUNG (in English):---Mr. Chairman,

'Business As Usual'

Over the last two years, nothing has taxed our minds more than the issue of the future of Hong Kong. Now that the Agreement on Hong Kong's future has been signed and sealed, I think it is time to get our minds off worries and doubts about the subject and get down to a 'Business as Usual' frame of mind and concentrate on improving the quality of life. Having spoken about 1997 on the last two annual debates and the special debate in October, I shall try to confine my words today for a change, on matters related to the Urban Council's jurisdiction only in the various areas where we should be doing things to pave

the way

for the future 1997 and beyond.

Urban Council Composition

When the White Papers on the Further Development of Representative Government and the White Paper on District Administration were published, there was very little that had implications for the Urban Council and its composition. I think it is time that we take the initiative to look at this ourselves to see how we can fit into the overall political jigsaw puzzle.

and another year By next Spring, the Regional Council will have been set up or so from now, there will be on elected element in the Regional Council with a direct link to the New Territories District Boards. Since the functions of the Urban Council and Regional Council are similar in nature and only differ in geography, the Regional Council may be in a better position to serve District needs than the Urban Council unless we also review the ways and means we can come closer to the District Boards, which I think my colleague, Miss Cecilia YEUNG, has spent many words on talking about just now.

At the moment, we have elected and appointed Urban Council members participating in Urban District Boards, with the five larger Boards having four Urban Councillors instead of two. First of all, I do not think it is essential to

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have double the number of Councillors on any District Board just because the population of that District is larger, because the workload in attending any one District Board's meetings and committees is similar whether it is a large or small

District.

Secondly, I think it is worth finding out from District Boards whether they feel their interests could be better represented in the Urban Council if they also each nominated one member from amongst their number to actually sit in Urbco as a member, in the same way that Districts will have representation in Legislative Council. This is a decision that the Urban Council cannot make alone, and unless District Boards want it, there is no point in pursuing it, but at least we should ask and find out the views at District level.

Library Activities

In recent years the Urban Council has been very active in extension activities at libraries, but there are two areas where I would like to see even more development.

One is computer literacy. The age of computers and high-tech communica- tions is already with us, and if we are to keep our lead in the usage of computers in the South East Asian Region, we must provide facilities for our children to start getting used to and trained in computers from the start. The schools cannot fulfill this role alone, and in any case the pressure on classrooms and teaching staff at schools are such that whatever is taught about computers in our schools is likely to be confined to academic tutoring rather than actual hands on experience. We have also had computer activities in libraries too, but again these are mainly forums and lectures. In the implementation of any computer system, hands on experience is something for which there is no substitute. On top of talks and seminars, we should consider the feasibility of setting out areas, or rooms in selected libraries where people can come in and just practice and play around with various kinds of micro computers at their own pace, like the way they can come to our video library and watch films. This could fill an important gap which classrooms at schools cannot provide for. As for the cost of this, I am sure computer companies would be quite amenable to providing hardware at very attractive prices, because an Urban Council library computer practice room would be an ideal avenue further to introduce their products at an early stage to the potential users and customers of tomorrow.

A second area of potential further development of existing services in libraries is to extend our video library to become a lending library of video tapes. The cost of video players has come down a lot in real terms, and there does appear to be a market for video tape lending, as evidenced by the increase over the last year or so of such private commercial ships. But while our libraries provide a good quality selection of tapes, particularly documentaries and educational materials, these are hardly to be found in commercial video shops who are mostly full of movies (and some not very decent ones I must say). Therefore, this is another area Urban Council could play a role in filling a gap for the benefit of the public.