Mr Speaker, Sir, I want to thank all the Members who have spoken up in support of the amendment to the Factories Act, and I will respond to the queries and questions raised by them. First, let me respond to Mr Othman Haron Eusofe's point about safety in the shipyard. Like everybody else, we in the Ministry of Labour are equally concerned with the spate of accidents in the shipyard and we have taken particular measures to try to reduce such accidents. The Committee of Inquiry mentioned by Mr Othman Haron Eusofe is just one of the measures when we look into the details of a particular accident and arising from it, try to learn the lessons so as to avoid a recurrence of similar accidents in the future. We have also made all the recommendations of the Committees of Inquiry part of the shipyards' safety regulations. We have made it mandatory for shipyards to comply with the recommendations of the various Committees of Inquiry. While it is quite unfortunate that we have had a series of serious accidents in shipyards that killed quite a number of workers, if we look at the overall picture, the number of accidents in the industry has actually been declining. For instance, between 1993 and 1994, the number of accidents has dropped from 4,257 to 4,003 in 1994. This is the overall accident rate. If you look at the severity of accidents, the number of fatal accidents has dropped from 77 in 1993 to 53 in 1994. But let me say, Mr Speaker, this statistical trend which shows that the number of accidents is declining, and the number of fatalities and severity of accidents are going down is really no cause for complacency. The most important thing is that despite all the measures that have been taken so far, from time to time we are still encountering totally unnecessary preventable accidents. And the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that such accidents should be kept to the barest minimum, if not, totally eradicated. Sir, Mr Othman Haron Eusofe also spoke on the training of workers, particularly foreign workers and sub-contractor workers, ie, workers who are less well educated and lower skilled, which Mr John Payva has also mentioned. I agree that this is an important area and we have in fact made it mandatory for such workers to undergo proper safety orientation before they can commence working. For instance, there is a Construction Safety Orientation Course. There is also a Shipyard Safety Instruction Course. Workers in these sectors must complete these courses before they can commence working in the worksites in the construction industry or in the shipyards. When we conduct such training courses, we take note of the fact that a large number of these workers are in fact foreign workers and may not understand English all that well, or they may only speak their own native languages. So, in fact, our safety courses are conducted in English, in our four national languages, even in dialects, if necessary, in Thai, and in Bengali for many of the workers who come from Bangladesh. So we do tailor-make our safety orientation courses to the language that the worker is most familiar with. As for sub-contractor workers, I think it is a responsibility of their supervisor and employer, ie, the sub-contractor himself, to ensure that they comply with the safety rules, the procedures or the safety management system installed by the company in which the sub-contractor is working, whether it is for a particular shipyard or whether he is a sub-contractor or a main contractor in a construction site. My Ministry has also provided training for the safety supervisors for shipyards and contractors. We will continue with our training and educational efforts in order to raise the awareness of workers on the proper safety procedures, the safe way to work in whichever industry. However, I believe that at the end of the day, we need more than just legislation. We need management's total commitment to safety. We also need workers' understanding and appreciation of the need to comply with the safety regulations of the company because sometimes we see reports of accidents happening where workers in fact caused or contributed to the accidents through sheer negligence and blatant disregard for safety regulations. So there is a substantial need for workers to also play their part. In this respect, my Ministry is working closely with NTUC in order to initiate some programmes whereby we will be able to work with the union branches or the union officials in the particular industry, especially in the shipyards, to alert the workers to their contribution towards safety management in the company, their role and responsibility in helping the company to maintain a safe working place. Sir, in response to Mr Chin Harn Tong who spoke on the repealing of section 14 by clause 6 to introduce new standards for natural or mechanical ventilation, I think the point here is that the source of air must of course be the atmospheric air. There is really no other way. Short of insisting on purifying natural atmospheric air, we cannot really improve on the quality. And even if we do, we are only affecting the air quality for a small proportion of the total population, which has no option but to breathe the air that we are living in. So his reference to atmospheric pollution is taken note of. The Ministry of the Environment will be working very hard to ensure that our ambient air is of good breathable quality. There is nothing much that we can do within the Factories Act itself to specify that quality of air. What we are specifying is to ensure that within the workplace itself, there is sufficient ventilation, mechanical or otherwise, to ensure that the workers are enjoying good quality air and they are not subjected to working in a polluted atmosphere. As to the need of getting workers to be familiar with first-aid drills and other measures to prevent the contamination of the work area by dust and other toxic material, we have already, in this amendment, required the management to obtain all the safety instructions or precautions necessary by way of obtaining the material safety data sheets (MSDS) which I referred to earlier on. There is an obligation on the management to ensure that the safety precautions which are clearly spelt out in the MSDS should always be complied with in the place of work. So in that sense, I think workers will become familiar with the dangers associated with the kind of materials or chemicals or substances that they are working with and they should therefore comply with all the safety precautions. They would also be familiar with the measures to be taken in case of an emergency. I agree with Mr Chin that, apart from tightening up the provisions in the Factories Act, it is important that factory operators follow the spirit of the Factories Act which is really to ensure that our workers can continue to enjoy working in a safe and healthy environment. May I now turn to the comments raised by Dr Soin on the age of 20 for workers who are authorised to make inspections on unfenced machinery and such likes, ie, examination, lubrication or other operations of unfenced machinery? The age of 20 is basically to ensure that such workers have a certain number of years of working experience. As you know, in our system, people may go into an industrial employment at the age of 16 because after their 'O' level, some of them may well leave school and go on to such a job. But we think that a young worker, with hardly a few years of experience, is not an appropriate person to do such work because in checking on some unfenced machinery where there are exposed moving parts, you need to be more experienced, more matured and more careful. So the age of 20 has nothing to do with the age of majority. It is just an estimate, a subjective assessment of how many years of experience would be necessary before a worker has sufficient maturity and a sense of responsibility to be allowed to carry out such job safely for himself and for his co-workers. On clause 35, I take the point that one death is already one too many. That is why I said in my earlier response that even though the statistical trend is favourable, we are still very concerned and we will implement and impose any measure necessary to minimise accidents. She will notice that the amendment is, in fact, to raise the penalty even when there is a case of one death. It will be increased from $25,000 to $50,000. We are just saying that in the case of total disregard for safe practices resulting in an accident that causes multiple deaths, we think we should signal that this is more serious and that the employer or the operator should be subjected to a much heavier penalty of $200,000. It is in no way trying to minimise the impact of just having one death. Sir, on clause 40, "safe working pressure" is in fact a much more dependable and reliable measure than the old terminology of "maximum permissible working pressure" because I think safe working pressure is precisely what it means, ie, the condition under which a particular pressure vessel, whether it is a steam boiler, compressed air receiver or underfired vulcaniser, can be operated without any risk to its worker. Maximum working pressure means you are reaching the maximum limit. The margin for error is henceforth much less. We prefer to choose a more conservative and safer approach to it. Finally, the Member's question whether the amendments will reduce or minimise the causes of accidents. That is our intention, that is our hope. But, of course, on their own, the amendments themselves may not achieve this. We need, and we seek, the cooperation of employers and, as I mentioned earlier on, workers also. To reduce accidents, it requires total effort on the part of the legislator, the employer and the workers. Everybody must contribute. Everybody has something to lose if an accident happens, most of all the worker who is at the frontline. So we hope that workers will pay greater attention to the safety requirements of their company and, at the same time, employers will invest more in terms of providing a better, a safer and a healthier working environment for their workers. Sir, I now turn to the comments by Mr John De Payva. I have responded to his comment on contract worker with low skill and low education. I think this is an area that we will continue to provide the right kind of safety orientation and safety training to ensure that they are adequately prepared to work in the hazardous industries. As to whether we can compel contractors to have a good safety record before they can tender for a certain job, in so far as private sector employers are concerned, I understand that some companies, particularly those dealing with very hazardous activities, for instance, oil refinery, do have corporate policies where they would bar contractors from tendering for any service, repair or maintenance work with them, if the contractors have been shown to have a poor safety record. So companies on their own are already adopting this approach because they are conscious of the need to maintain good housekeeping and good safety management. So they would want to keep out contractors who do not comply with their requirements. The Ministry will encourage as many factory operators as possible to adopt this approach. But I think there would be difficulty in implementing this purely by force of law. We have been discussing with CIDB whether it is possible to ensure that in the CIDB registration for building contractors, we should incorporate a criterion on the safety record of the contractor. So the Government, as the registering body for building contractors, will be examining whether, in future, before a contractor can be registered with CIDB under its various categories, it has in fact got a good safety record. And if a contractor persistently has a bad safety record and a lot of accidents has been happening in the particular contractor's work site, we could consider either not allowing him to be registered or debarring him from tendering for Government contracts. This is an idea that my Ministry has taken up with the CIDB and we will be examining the feasibility of implementing such a criterion. We have also worked with the Association of Singapore Marine Industry (this is an association of the shipyard industry) to encourage them to draw up some pre-qualification among their members for contractors tendering for work within a shipyard and to look into the safety record as one of the factors in assessing the suitability of such contractors. As to whether we should expand the system of safety audit to other industries, let us look at it from a broader view. As it is, apart from the shipyards and the building industry which are already required by our regulation to have safety audit, all other factories, including the heavy industries, are already subjected to regular inspection by the factory inspectors. Special attention is paid at these inspections on the hazardous equipment, such as lifting equipment and pressure vessels. This equipment, in fact, is required to be inspected periodically by competent engineers. For instance, a boiler, or lifting device, like crane, has to be inspected annually and certified to be safe and fit for use. In addition, whenever there is a change in the layout of the factory, or whenever there is an installation of new equipment that changes the operational procedure within a factory, the operators are required to inform the Ministry of Labour about such changes. So safety precautions will be looked into at that point in time before they can commence work. These regulations will enable the Ministry to monitor closely and regularly the safety conditions in factories, thus, to a large extent, achieving the objective of the annual safety plan proposed by Mr John De Payva and Mr Othman Haron Eusofe. As I said earlier, in the case of shipyards, those that are employing 200 workers or more are required to appoint external auditors to audit their safety management system annually. And for the construction industry, we require them to conduct an audit once every six months, if the contract sum exceeds $30 million. So with this auditing requirement for the two most hazardous industries, we believe that it would have contributed greatly to minimising the accidents. Mr Speaker, Sir, I believe that I have dealt with all the points raised by Members. Once again, I want to thank them for supporting the Factories (Amendment) Bill.