President, the overall objective of today’s motion is to address Hong Kong’s declining birth rate and rapidly ageing population. The Legislative Council urges the Government to carry out ongoing assessments and studies on the future development of society, accurately identify the needs of society and formulate a comprehensive population policy through high-level coordination and interdepartmental collaboration. A series of measures should be adopted to ensure Hong Kong’s demographic sustainability, including the creation of a social environment suitable for young people to form families in the areas of marriage, childbearing, education, child-rearing and housing. Efforts should also be stepped up to promote family-friendly policies, provide more support for double-income parents, and improve child care services to encourage young people to have children.

To solve Hong Kong’s current problems in this regard, the current-term Government should give top priority to formulating a comprehensive population policy, just as it has done with the housing policy. If the situation is allowed to deteriorate, it will affect the future development of society and hinder economic progress, ultimately seriously weakening Hong Kong’s overall competitiveness. The Liberal Party considers that the Government should adopt a holistic vision in formulating the comprehensive population policy, rather than tinkering with existing policies and adopting a piecemeal approach to deal with problems on an ad hoc basis.

Taking childbearing as an example, the Liberal Party has always suggested that the Government should aim to encourage childbearing by providing more incentives, and then formulate measures that can facilitate the achievement of this goal. These measures include: firstly, the Government should introduce a progressive child allowance, under which an allowance of $150,000 should be granted for the first child, with the amount doubled to $300,000 for the second child, and further doubled to $600,000 for the third and each subsequent child, so as to step up efforts in encouraging childbearing among the people.

Secondly, the Government should also introduce an “education voucher scheme” because children’s education has always been an important factor for most parents when considering whether they should have children. Although 15-year free education is already available in Hong Kong, some middle-class parents still choose to send their children to receive a high-quality education at their own expense. The Liberal Party has repeatedly suggested that the Government should introduce an “education voucher scheme” which targets permanent residents of Hong Kong. The scheme should include all independent and privately-run nurseries and kindergartens that are not currently subsidized by the Government, as well as non-aided or Direct Subsidy Scheme (“DSS”) primary and secondary schools. This can enable parents to have real freedom of choice in deciding how to allocate their resources and increase the incentive for these families to have children.

Thirdly, given that there are currently over 300 000 families in Hong Kong employing foreign domestic helpers (“FDHs”) and many of them feel that it will put pressure on their daily expenses, the Liberal Party has repeatedly suggested that the Government should introduce tax deductions for the expenses of FDHs to encourage families to employ FDHs, while at the same time unleashing female labour force by allowing them to re-enter the workplace.

Lastly, several amendments are proposed for this motion debate. Regarding the amendment proposed by Mr Dennis LEUNG, which suggests improving the measures to encourage childbearing (such as improving the arrangements for maternity leave and paternity leave), the Liberal Party has always maintained that if the Government wants to improve maternity and paternity leave policies, it should be obliged to “foot the bill” and never put the cost on the owners of micro, small and medium enterprises. We can support this proposal if the Government is to bear the relevant cost.

President, I so submit.