2 items of subsidiary legislation/instruments and 12 other papers to be laid on the Table of the Council set out in Appendix 1

Members to ask 22 questions (6 for oral replies and 16 for written replies)

Contents of 22 questions, Members to ask such questions and public officers to reply set out in Appendix 2

(Standing over from the meeting of 20 November 2019)

(Standing over from the meeting of 20 November 2019)

(Standing over from the meeting of 23 October 2019)

(Standing over from the meeting of 30 October 2019)

(Standing over from the meeting of 6 November 2019)

(Standing over from the meeting of 20 November 2019)

(Standing over from the meeting of 12 June 2019)

(Items 8 and 9 standing over from the meeting of 3 July 2019)

(Items 10 and 11 standing over from the meeting of 10 July 2019)

(Debate and voting arrangements set out in LC Paper No. CB(3) 195/19-20 issued on 9 December 2019)

(Standing over from the meeting of 23 October 2019)

(Debate and voting arrangements set out in LC Paper No. CB(3) 195/19-20 issued on 9 December 2019)

(Standing over from the meeting of 23 October 2019)

(Debate and voting arrangements set out in LC Paper No. CB(3) 195/19-20 issued on 9 December 2019)

(Items 17 to 21 standing over from the meeting of 23 October 2019)

(Item 22 standing over from the meeting of 30 October 2019)

(Item 23 standing over from the meeting of 13 November 2019)

(Debate and voting arrangements set out in LC Paper No. CB(3) 195/19-20 issued on 9 December 2019)

(Item 25 standing over from the meeting of 13 November 2019)

(Item 26 standing over from the meeting of 27 November 2019)

(Debate and voting arrangements set out in LC Paper No. CB(3) 195/19-20 issued on 9 December 2019)

(Standing over from the meeting of 12 June 2019)

(Standing over from the meeting of 12 June 2019)

Hon LUK Chung-hung to ask:

The cumulative number of persons arrested, since June this year in relation to the disturbances arising from the proposed legislative amendments, is as high as several thousands, with some of them being, one after another, charged with the relevant offences. On the 4th of last month, when a case involving five defendants was brought before the Eastern Magistrates' Courts, a misnomer for one of the defendants and inconsistency in the Chinese and English versions of the charges were uncovered in the consent to prosecution of the Department of Justice ("DoJ"). As a result, the prosecution had to withdraw the charges against all the defendants. Later on, DoJ instituted prosecutions against them afresh. Regarding the prosecution work of DoJ, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Starry LEE to ask:

The disturbances arising from the opposition to the proposed legislative amendments have persisted for half a year, during which the radicals have incessantly blocked roads, vandalized facilities and attacked police officers and members of the public, and some people even died. The targets and scope of their attacks are continually expanding and the weapons they use are increasingly lethal. There are comments that apart from dealing a heavy blow to the economy and international reputation of Hong Kong, the chaotic situation has also resulted in members of the public being tormented by the turmoil and social dissension. Members of the public are deprived of freedom of speech and a normal life as they silence themselves to avoid attacks and dare not go out because of personal safety concern. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon CHAN Kin-por to ask:

It has been reported that the laboratories of The Chinese University of Hong Kong ("CUHK") and two other universities were intruded into one after the other by radical demonstrators last month, and some dangerous chemicals therein were stolen. The poisonous and dangerous chemicals stolen from CUHK include 17.5 litres of concentrated sulphuric acid, 2.5 litres of hexane, as well as 80 litres of concentrated nitric acid that may be used for making 10 000 acid bombs. If radical demonstrators use weapons made from such chemicals at demonstrations, the lives and safety of police officers and members of the public will be seriously threatened. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Jimmy NG to ask:

On the 4th of last month, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership ("RCEP") Leaders' Summit released a joint statement, announcing that 15 RCEP participating countries (India not included) had concluded all text-based negotiations and essentially all their market access issues negotiations, and had been committed to ensuring the RCEP agreement be signed next year. The Government indicated in April this year that it would seek Hong Kong's accession to RCEP after the negotiations had been completed. On the other hand, quite a number of Hong Kong businessmen hope that the Government will step up the assistance to them in relocating their production bases in order to cope with the Sino-United States trade conflicts. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Frankie YICK to ask:

It has been reported that a number of public service vehicles (including buses, minibuses, taxis and school private light buses) have been vandalized or burnt out during the public meetings and processions held in recent months. Some of the owners and drivers concerned have relayed that the vandalism of their "vehicles as a means of subsistence" has gravely affected their livelihood. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon YIU Si-wing to ask:

Since the eruption of the disturbances arising from the opposition to the proposed legislative amendments in June this year, the number of visitor arrivals to Hong Kong has plummeted and the tourism industry has been hard hit by that. The Hong Kong Tourism Board ("HKTB") has already cancelled the Hong Kong Cyclothon, Hong Kong Wine & Dine Festival and Chinese New Year Night Parade for this financial year. Regarding the measures to assist the tourism industry in tapping business opportunities, will the Government inform this Council:

Dr Hon KWOK Ka-ki to ask:

The Government has been providing, under the Government Vaccination Programme and the Vaccination Subsidy Scheme, free or subsidized administration of 23 valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine to elderly persons since 2009, and free administration of 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine ("PCV13") to elderly persons "with high-risk conditions" (e.g. suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus, liver or kidney diseases) since 2017. However, pneumonia was ranked the second killer disease in Hong Kong for seven consecutive years from 2012 to 2018, and the number of deaths caused by pneumonia even hit a record high of 8 437 in 2018. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Jeremy TAM to ask:

According to the Guidelines on Control and Administration of Overtime issued by the Civil Service Bureau in 2000, civil servants may undertake overtime ("OT") work only when it is strictly unavoidable, and each officer may work OT for a maximum of 60 hours only in a month. In addition, time-off should be the normal recompense for OT work. However, when it is, or is likely to be, impractical for the department to arrange time-off for the officer concerned within one month from the date when OT work is performed, the department may grant him Overtime Allowance ("OTA"). It has been reported that since the eruption of the "anti-extradition to China" movement in June this year, police officers have been granted substantial amounts of OTA and the ceiling on the OT hours for which they may work has been raised to 120 hours in a month. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon CHAN Hak-kan to ask:

In recent months, demonstrators repeatedly blocked trunk roads and damaged traffic lights in an attempt to paralyse the traffic. Regarding the traffic contingency measures, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon CHEUNG Kwok-kwan to ask:

It has been reported that some parents of students have indicated that their children received, while playing online games, invitations from other game participants to participate in demonstrations. Moreover, during the conflicts arising from the demonstrations from 9 June to 31 October this year, the Police arrested 3 001 persons, of whom one-third were students and 430 were minors. Such a situation has aroused concerns. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Dr Hon CHIANG Lai-wan to ask:

The world's first case of human infection of rat Hepatitis E virus ("HEV") was found in Hong Kong in September last year. Since then, a total of nine cases of this type have been identified globally with eight of them being found in Hong Kong. Some academics consider that the fact that a number of rat HEV infection cases were found in Hong Kong within a short time span has reflected signs of persistent spreads and outbreaks of the disease. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Gary FAN to ask:

In the Policy Address delivered on 16 October this year, the Chief Executive announced that the Government would immediately raise the caps on the value of the properties under the Mortgage Insurance Programme of the HKMC Insurance Limited. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Kenneth LEUNG to ask:

In the Supplement to the Policy Address of this year, the Government indicated that it would implement a voluntary scheme for phasing out personal care and cosmetic products containing microbeads ("Voluntary Scheme") to encourage the trade to stop the manufacture, import and sale of such type of products and help consumers choose microbead-free products. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon HUI Chi-fung to ask:

It has been reported that in October this year, the Police issued letters to the operator of a social platform on two occasions, requesting that certain postings on its platform be removed on the grounds that such postings had violated the community standards of the platform concerned as they contained false news or hate speeches. Regarding the Police's requests for removing postings on social platforms, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Elizabeth QUAT to ask:

It is learnt that domestic violence is a social issue of global concern. The victims usually suffer psychological abuse, bodily injuries or even sexual violence, and most of the batterers are their family members. The information of the Social Welfare Department ("SWD") shows that there were 2 937 newly reported spouse/cohabitant battering cases in 2018, and among the victims concerned, 2 387 were female (i.e. 81.3%). Regarding the handling of domestic violence problem, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Tony TSE to ask:

In October this year, the Government announced that an additional funding of a total of $10.5 billion would be provided for four subsidy schemes (i.e. the Operation Building Bright 2.0, the Building Maintenance Grant Scheme for Elderly Owners, the Lift Modernisation Subsidy Scheme and the Fire Safety Improvement Works Subsidy Scheme) to help more owners in need to properly maintain and repair their buildings. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Prof Hon Joseph LEE to ask:

An online questionnaire survey on sexual violence in the movement of opposition to the proposed legislative amendments ("the movement") was conducted from August to September this year. Sixty-seven respondents indicated that they had been subject to sexual violence (including sexual intercourses under threats or intimidation, threatened or attempted sexual assaults, touching of sensitive body parts, provocation and insults by remarks with sexual connotations). Besides, the respondents indicated that their reasons for not reporting such mishaps to the Police included that: they considered letting the Police handle their cases to be ineffective, they worried that the Police would conversely charge them with other offences, they lost confidence in the Police's capability in enforcing the law, they lacked the personal information of the perpetrators, and the perpetrators were in fact police officers or other law enforcement officers. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Charles Peter MOK to ask:

Some academics of public policies have pointed out that there have been inconsistencies in the quantities and formats of the information made public by various District Councils ("DCs"). Most of the data uploaded onto the websites have not adopted machine-readable format, and some important decisions (such as those on funding applications) are not recorded in any minutes of meetings as the decisions have been made by way of circulation of papers. Such situations have made it difficult for them to obtain the data needed for conducting analyses, and also hindered the participation of members of the public in policy discussion and monitoring the Council's operation. On opening up the data of DCs to enhance the transparency of operation and to encourage members of the public to participate in district affairs, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon CHAN Chun-ying to ask:

The Qualifications Framework ("QF"), launched in 2008 by the Education Bureau ("EDB"), defines clear and objective standards applicable to the qualifications in the academic, vocational and professional as well as continuing education sectors. To dovetail with the implementation of QF, EDB has set up 22 Industry Training Advisory Committees ("ITACs") which are tasked with drawing up the Specification of Competency Standards ("SCSs") for the relevant sectors. SCSs set out the skills, knowledge and outcome standards required of employees in different functional areas in order to assist in the formulation of training programmes to enable employees to obtain recognition under QF. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Dennis KWOK to ask:

Annex I to the Basic Law provides that the Chief Executive shall be elected by a broadly representative Election Committee ("EC") in accordance with the Basic Law and appointed by the Central People's Government. Section 9 of the Chief Executive Election Ordinance (Cap. 569) provides that the term of office of EC shall be five years, and the term of office of the current EC commenced on 1 February 2017. Section 2 of the Schedule to Cap. 569 stipulates that EC is to consist of 1 200 members who must be Hong Kong permanent residents and, among such members, 57 and 60 of them are representing respectively the subsectors of the "Hong Kong and Kowloon District Councils" and the "New Territories District Councils" under the Fourth Sector. On the other hand, a certain number of members of the current-term District Councils ("DCs") will cease to be members of the relevant DCs upon expiry of their term of office on 31 December this year. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council, whether those EC members representing the aforesaid subsectors will be deemed to have resigned from the membership of EC if they cease to be a DC member from 1 January next year onwards:

Dr Hon Pierre CHAN to ask:

The Department of Health ("DH") introduced in October last year the School Outreach Vaccination Pilot Programme under which outreach teams went to various schools to provide free seasonal influenza vaccination ("SIV") for primary school students. In October this year, DH regularized the Programme and extended, on a pilot basis, the Programme to kindergartens and child care centres. In addition, under the Enhanced Vaccination Subsidy Scheme Outreach Vaccination, schools may invite the participating doctors published on DH's website to provide free SIV for their students at their schools. On the other hand, DH provides respectively free and subsidized SIV to eligible groups through the Government Vaccination Programme and the Vaccination Subsidy Scheme. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

Hon Jimmy NG to ask:

The Innovation and Technology Bureau launched the $500 million Innovation and Technology Fund for Better Living ("ITFBL") on 31 May 2017 to encourage and fund the use of innovation and technology ("I&T") by the various sectors in the community in developing I&T application projects that bring more convenience, comfort and safety to the daily living of members of the public, or address the needs of specific community groups. It has been reported that up to September this year, the authorities processed a total of 86 applications for ITFBL and approved only 25 of them, representing a success rate of mere 29%. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council: