'Thrash out the issues in subcommittees'

The beleaguered chairman of the Legislative Council Finance Committee has urged lawmakers to settle their disputes before bringing contentious matters to the committee for a vote.

Ng Leung-sing - fresh from a bruising battle over northeastern New Territories development during which he survived a no-confidence motion - said the issues should be thrashed out in the subcommittees first.

"The Finance Committee has been repeatedly discussing the same issues - or even the same motions - which have already been debated in the two subcommittees," Ng told the South China Morning Post on Monday.

Repeating the debates was "very unfair to the Finance Committee" and sending the items forward would "send the wrong message to the government that they could be approved", he said.

The Finance Committee's two subcommittees - Public Works and Establishment - discuss infrastructure and civil service matters, respectively, before sending them to the 69-member main committee for funding approval.

The Finance Committee failed to scrutinise 17 scheduled items before its summer break because of delaying tactics by radical lawmakers on the New Territories plan and waste-management proposals.

Ng faced the a no-confidence motion for allegedly breaching house rules by forcing through a vote on the HK$340 million funding application for projects linked to new-town developments in Kwu Tung North and Fanling North.