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Following is a question by the Hon Frederick Fung and a reply by the Financial Secretary, Mr Henry Tang, in the Legislative Council today (November 29):
Question:
At its meeting held in March this year, the Commission on Poverty discussed the provision of long-term travel support to the low-income earners who live in remote areas and need to commute to work across districts, and the Commission hoped that the Government would launch a trial scheme in this regard in the 2006-2007 financial year. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the latest work progress in the provision of the long-term travel support, and the details of the trial scheme, including the implementation date, target recipients, whether there will be restrictions on the means of transportation taken by the recipients, whether there will be a maximum period for receiving the travel support, the implementation mechanism, the government department(s) responsible for administering the scheme, the anticipated amount of public expenditure to be incurred and the number of recipients each year, and the anticipated effect of the scheme towards alleviating poverty;
(b) of the measures to prevent employers from reducing accordingly the wages of their employees while the latter are receiving the travel support, and whether it has assessed if the implementation of a statutory minimum wage system is one of the feasible measures; and
(c) as the Government has not yet launched the trial scheme, and the term of office of members of the Commission on Poverty will expire in January next year, whether the Government will consider reorganising the Commission and the Chief Secretary for Administration taking over its chairmanship, so as to enhance its powers and functions and hence enable it to take forward the work on alleviating poverty at the policy level?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) One of the work priorities of the Commission on Poverty (the Commission) is to encourage the unemployed to work and to move from welfare to self-reliance through promoting employment, training and strengthening employment support.
To take forward this objective, at its meeting held on March 27, the Commission agreed in principle that the Government should provide more transport support to the unemployed who have limited means and are living in remote areas so as to encourage them to commute to work across districts.
In the past few months, the Commission Secretariat and the relevant policy bureaux and departments have studied various possible options for implementing a transport support trial scheme. We have also examined the short-term travel support offered by the Employees Retraining Board (ERB) and agreed that there should be room for further improvement to further encourage the unemployed to work.
At the Commission's meeting held on November 20, we also discussed with members our ideas for the trial scheme. Members generally agreed on the following three points:
First, the application mechanism should be simple and user-friendly so that more people in genuine need can benefit;
Second, the scheme should provide targeted assistance to encourage the unemployed living in remote areas to commute to work across districts; and
Third, the transport support should be provided on a time-limited basis so that it is an incentive to work across districts, but not an income supplement.
By providing transport support to the unemployed who live in remote areas at three important stages, namely enhancement of employability, job search and transition to work, the Government hopes to encourage these people to commute to work and achieve self-reliance. We aim to launch the scheme as soon as practicable.
Relevant bureaux and departments are deliberating on the number of districts to be covered by the scheme, the time limit for receiving transport support, the amount of transport support to be provided and ways to minimise abuse of the scheme. Details of the scheme will be further discussed by the Commission. Since all these will have a bearing on the public expenditure to be incurred, we cannot make an accurate estimate of the expenditure involved at this stage.
(b) As pointed out in my reply above, there should be a time limit for receiving the transport support since its aim is to provide incentives for the unemployed living in remote areas to commute to work across districts. Therefore, employers should not reduce accordingly the wages of their employees while the latter are receiving the transport support.
(c) The term of the Commission is due to expire on January 31, 2007. As I indicated at the Commissionˇ¦s meeting held early this year, we are planning to extend the term to end of June 2007. The Commission will submit its report to the Government with a view to implementing short-term measures and making recommendations on the long-term policies for poverty alleviation and prevention.
Ends/Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Issued at HKT 12:53
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