10 items of subsidiary legislation/other instrument and 1 other paper to be laid on the Table of the Council set out in Appendix 1

Members to ask 20 questions for written replies

Contents of the questions, Members to ask such questions and the public officers to reply set out in Appendix 2

Second Reading (debate to resume) (response by public officers), consideration by committee of the whole Council and Third Reading

(Details of the above amendments are also set out in Appendix 4 to "President's ruling on amendments proposed by 16 Members to the Appropriation Bill 2020" issued on 27 April 2020)

(Debate and voting arrangements set out in LC Paper No. CB(3) 385/19-20 issued on 28 April 2020)

Hon Starry LEE to ask:

It is learnt that in view of the global spread of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 epidemic, the Philippine and Indonesian Governments have recently suspended, one after another, the vetting and approval of their nationals' applications for working abroad as workers. It is estimated that currently, over 10 000 foreign domestic helpers ("FDHs") who have been offered employment are unable to come to Hong Kong to report for duty. For the approximately 3 000 intermediaries in Hong Kong providing placement services for FDHs, not only do they suffer a heavy blow to their business due to the epidemic, but they also need to deal with considerable amount of extra work concerning epidemic prevention and quarantine for FDHs. The approximately 10 000 employees engaged by these intermediaries also face financial difficulties. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon IP Kin-yuen to ask:

During the Police's operation at the MTR Prince Edward Station on 31 August last year, a number of members of the public were injured and there were even rumours that some persons died. Six months later, on the night of 29 February this year, some members of the public conducted memorial activities outside the ground-level B1 Exit of the Prince Edward Station and repeatedly placed fresh flowers, candles and other items ("mourning items") on the nearby railings, and the Police repeatedly removed such mourning items. In mid-March, a representative of the Police told the Traffic and Transport Committee of the Yau Tsim Mong District Council that on that night, the police officers had removed such items in accordance with the Fixed Penalty (Public Cleanliness and Obstruction) Ordinance (Cap. 570). Besides, some members of the public complained that when they were conducting memorial activities outside the ground-level B1 Exit of the Prince Edward Station on 31 March, some police officers ordered five members of the public who did not know each other to stand close side by side, and then ticketed such persons for contravening the Prevention and Control of Disease (Prohibition on Group Gathering) Regulation (Cap. 599 sub. leg. G) (commonly known as "the order to prohibit group gatherings"). In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Alice MAK to ask:

To curb the spread of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Hong Kong, the Government made the Compulsory Quarantine of Certain Persons Arriving at Hong Kong Regulation (Cap. 599C) and the Compulsory Quarantine of Persons Arriving at Hong Kong from Foreign Places Regulation (Cap. 599E) on 7 February and 18 March this year respectively. Such regulations provide that all persons (except for exempted persons) who have stayed on the Mainland (the scope of application of the former) and in all places outside China (the scope of application of the latter) for any period during the 14 days preceding arrival at Hong Kong, regardless of nationality and travel documents used, are subject to compulsory quarantine for 14 days. In addition, the Prevention and Control of Disease (Disclosure of Information) Regulation (Cap. 599D) made on 7 February this year empowers a health officer to require any person to furnish or disclose information relevant to the handling of a state of the public health emergency, such as travel history. Regarding the implementation of such regulations, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon KWOK Wai-keung to ask:

Earlier on, several tenants of Hong Mei House of Cheung Hong Estate and Heng Tai House of Fu Heng Estate were infected with the Coronavirus Disease 2019 one after another, and the causes for their infection might be related to the improper modification of the ventilating pipes of the foul water stacks in public housing units and design problems of the sewerage systems. As the authorities have so far not yet implemented any large-scale inspection and repair programme for the sewerage systems of the various public housing estates, some public housing tenants are worried about being infected with the disease and an outbreak of the epidemic in the community. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Dr Hon Helena WONG to ask:

On 21 January this year, the Kowloon City District Council ("KCDC") decided to form a "Committee on Monitoring Law Enforcement of the Police". However, during the election of the Chairman and Vice Chairman for that Committee at the KCDC meeting on 25 February, the District Officer ("DO") of Kowloon City under the Home Affairs Department ("HAD") refused to provide any support for that Committee on the grounds that the Committee's terms of reference fall outside the functions of a District Council ("DC") as specified in the District Councils Ordinance (Cap. 547), and the DO left the venue together with the staff members of the DC secretariat. Regarding the functions of and support for DCs, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon YIU Si-wing to ask:

The Ocean Park Corporation ("OPC") has recorded deficits of over $200 million for successive years since the financial year of 2015-2016. OPC is now unable to repay two commercial loans due in the last and current financial years totalling $2.3 billion, nor will it be able to repay two government loans for which repayment should commence in the next financial year. In January this year, the Government submitted to the Panel on Economic Development of this Council a funding proposal on the financial arrangements for OPC, which includes providing a one-off endowment of $10.64 billion, as well as deferring the commencement date of repayment and waiving the interest of the two government loans. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon CHEUNG Kwok-kwan to ask:

It has been reported that in September 2019, a Public Prosecutor under the Prosecutions Division of the Department of Justice ("DoJ") co-published with a barrister in private practice a law popularization book, which teaches young readers how to "keep away from legal traps and understand human right protection". Some members of the legal sector have queried whether some parts of the book are overgeneralized. For instance, the explanation in the book on whether a person, who has been found in possession of a fruit knife when stopped and searched by a police officer on the street, will be charged with the offence of "possession of offensive weapon in public place" is oversimplified. They have also queried whether that Public Prosecutor's expounding in the book on the rights of arrestees constitutes serious conflict of interests or roles with his duties in DoJ. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon CHAN Chun-ying to ask:

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority ("HKMA") granted a total of eight virtual bank licences between March and May last year. Up to the middle of April this year, one virtual bank has officially launched services, three others are conducting pilot trials through the Fintech Supervisory Sandbox, and the remaining four are doing preparatory work. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon WU Chi-wai to ask:

In February and April this year, the Government injected $30 billion and $137.5 billion respectively into the Anti-epidemic Fund ("the Fund") for launching two rounds of relief measures. However, not all the trades and practitioners (e.g. most of the self-employed persons who have not made any Mandatory Provident Fund contributions and the unemployed) hit by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 epidemic and the Government's anti-epidemic measures can benefit from these two rounds of relief measures. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Elizabeth QUAT to ask:

From October last year to mid-April this year, the House Committee ("HC") of this Council convened 15 meetings but its chairman and deputy chairman for the new legislative session have yet to be elected, rendering HC being unable to deal with the Legislative Council ("LegCo") business as normal. There are comments that with as many as 14 bills and more than 80 items of subsidiary legislation not being scrutinized and followed up, a substantial amount of legislative work involving the economy, people's livelihood and social development cannot proceed, and the normal operation of Hong Kong society has been seriously impeded as a result. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Paul TSE to ask:

The Joint Office ("JO"), set up by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and the Buildings Department, is dedicated to handling reports on water seepage in buildings. In August 2013, JO applied infrared thermography and microwave tomography ("new testing technologies") on a pilot basis for identifying the sources of water seepage. Since June 2018, JO has officially applied the new testing technologies to suitable cases in three districts, and it extended the application of the new testing technologies to five other districts in September 2019. Regarding the work of JO, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Alvin YEUNG to ask:

In recent months, my office has received a number of cases of assistance being sought which were related to domestic violence. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon CHAN Hak-kan to ask:

Although international oil prices plummeted over the past two months, there has not been any significant drop in local retail prices of auto-fuels ("local pump prices"). In view of the business difficulties of the transport trades, the Government has earlier announced the provision of support to the transport trades under the Anti-epidemic Fund, including: offering a $1 discount per litre of liquefied petroleum gas ("LPG") (i.e. approximately a one-third discount) for 12 months for LPG taxis and public light buses ("PLBs"), and reimbursing one-third of the actual fuel cost for 12 months for petrol taxis and diesel PLBs. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Dr Hon Pierre CHAN to ask:

Since the outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 ("COVID-19") epidemic in Hong Kong in January this year, some labour groups have been urging the Government to amend the law to include COVID-19 as one of the occupational diseases specified in the Second Schedule to the Employees' Compensation Ordinance (Cap. 282), so as to ensure that employees will be compensated for incapacity or death resulting from COVID-19. The Government indicated on 10 February that it had commenced a study on the proposal to amend the law, but that the law could be amended only when definite medical and epidemiological conclusion on the virus was available and, in such process, it was necessary to discuss the details with the various stakeholders. The Government also pointed out that if an employee contracted COVID-19 arising out of and in the course of his/her employment, he/she should inform the employer immediately so that the employer could notify the Labour Department ("LD"). In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Jimmy NG to ask:

The Chief Executive stated in the 2017 Policy Address that the Government had set a goal to double the gross domestic expenditure on research and development ("R&D") ("GERD") to about $45 billion a year, i.e. to increase the ratio of such expenditure to the Gross Domestic Product ("R&D expenditure ratio") from 0.73% to 1.5%, by the end of the current Government's term of office. According to the Report on Hong Kong Innovation Activities Statistics 2018 ("the Report"), the GERD in 2018 was $24,497 million, and the R&D expenditure ratio was 0.86%, which was still quite a distance from the goal of 1.5% set by the Government. Quite a number of members of the industry have pointed out that to achieve the goal, the Government needs to expeditiously introduce new measures to encourage more enterprises to conduct R&D activities. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Charles Peter MOK to ask:

On 18 March this year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement, demanding that "journalists of US citizenship working with the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post whose press credentials are due to expire before the end of 2020 notify the Department of Information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within four calendar days starting from today and hand back their press cards within ten calendar days. They will not be allowed to continue working as journalists in the People's Republic of China, including its Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions". The aforesaid measure imposed by a department of the Central People's Government involves the immigration policy of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region ("SAR") as well as the freedom of the press and freedom of speech enjoyed by Hong Kong residents under Article 27 of the Basic Law. Some comments have pointed out that the measure has undermined the freedom of the press and freedom of speech in SAR and damaged SAR's image as a free and open international city. In recent years, the SAR Government also rejected new or renewal applications for employment visa from foreign journalists. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Kenneth LEUNG to ask:

To tackle the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, persons arriving in Hong Kong on all flights are currently required to provide their deep throat saliva samples to the authorities for conducting tests for coronavirus, and then undergo a 14-day compulsory quarantine at a designated place (home or other accommodation) pursuant to the requirements of the quarantine orders. Some members of the public have pointed out that while such persons are forbidden to go out during home quarantine, those living with them are not subject to this restriction, giving rise to the possibility of the virus spreading to the community through the latter. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Holden CHOW to ask:

As Hong Kong's economy has been hard hit by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 epidemic, the business of quite a number of enterprises has plummeted, and many employees have been asked to take no pay leave or a pay cut, or have even been dismissed. Although the Government has implemented two rounds of relief measures through the Anti-epidemic Fund, quite a number of trades and employees still have not benefited from them, and are left feeling anxious and helpless. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Dr Hon KWOK Ka-ki to ask:

Under section 18 of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap. 486), any individual is entitled to make a data access request to a data user (e.g. a government department), i.e. to be informed whether the data user holds the personal data of which the individual is the data subject, and (if the data user holds such data) be provided with a copy of such data. Under sections 19 and 28 of the Ordinance, a data user must comply with such a request within a specified period, and may charge, for complying with the request, a fee that is not excessive. Regarding the Police's handling of data access requests made by members of the public, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Alvin YEUNG to ask:

The Commissioner of Police ("CP") is the controlling officer for Head 122 of Government expenditure. Regarding the expenditure of the Hong Kong Police Force in the 2019-2020 financial year, will the Government inform this Council: