Replies to LegCo questions
Legislative Council Question No. 15 (Written Reply)
Date of Sitting
: 29 May 2002
Asked by : Hon. CHOY So-yuk
Replied by : Secretary for Health and Welfare
Question :
Under the current rule, a child born in Hong Kong of parents who are not Hong Kong residents may still apply to the Social Welfare Department for Comprehensive Social Security Assistance ("CSSA"), if one of the parents is a Chinese national, subject to compliance with other eligibility requirements. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council of the number of such Hong Kong-born children who applied for CSSA, as well as the amount of CSSA payments involved, in each of the past three years?
Reply :
Madam President,
Under the existing provisions of the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme, an applicant must be a Hong Kong resident and have resided in Hong Kong for at least one year in order to be eligible for assistance. Any person whose presence in Hong Kong is unlawful or who has been admitted into Hong Kong for non-residence purpose (e.g. a tourist, an imported worker or a foreign domestic helper) is not eligible for assistance. In exceptional circumstances, the Director of Social Welfare may, at her discretion, grant assistance to an applicant who does not satisfy the residence requirement. The residence requirement is not applicable to persons born in Hong Kong who have acquired permanent residence status at birth.
A Chinese citizen born in Hong Kong before or after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is a permanent resident, regardless of the residence status of his or her parents. Therefore, if one of the parents of a child is a Chinese citizen and the child is born in Hong Kong, the child will acquire permanent residence status at birth, thus becoming eligible for assistance under CSSA (subject to compliance with other eligibility requirements). The parents of the child would, however, not be eligible for CSSA, if they cannot satisfy the residence requirement. The Social Welfare Department (SWD) does not routinely collate statistics on the number of applications received from such Hong Kong-born children (i.e. a child born in Hong Kong of parents who are not Hong Kong residents, but one of whom is a Chinese national) and the amount of CSSA payments involved.