Hansard, 2005-07-18

Under the provisions of clause 2(d) of Article 46 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, the following Members have been granted permission to be or to remain absent from sittings of Parliament (or any Committee of Parliament to which they have been appointed) for the periods stated: Name From (2005) To (2005) Mdm Ho Geok Choo 18 May 20 May Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong 19 May 22 May 05 Jul 08 Jul Encik Mohamad Maidin B P M 23 May 24 May 13 Jun 01 Jul 02 Jul 02 Jul Dr Michael Lim Chun Leng 24 May 28 May 08 Jun 09 Jun Prof. Ivan Png Paak Liang 25 May 31 May Mr Seng Han Thong 25 May 29 May 17 Jun 05 Jul Dr Balaji Sadasivan 27 May 29 May 05 Jun 13 Jun 20 Jun 23 Jun 19 Jul 24 Jul Mr S Iswaran 27 May 27 May 02 Jun 17 Jun 07 Jul 08 Jul 11 Jul 15 Jul 19 Jul 21 Jul 26 Jul 28 Jul 03 Aug 05 Aug 10 Aug 13 Aug Mr Lawrence Leow Chin Hin 29 May 02 Jun 21 Jun 24 Jun 26 Jun 30 Jun Column: 729Dr Lee Boon Yang 29 May 11 Jun Dr Wang Kai Yuen 29 May 04 Jun Mr Lim Hng Kiang 30 May 03 Jun 28 Jun 01 Jul 02 Jul 05 Jul 11 Jul 13 Jul 14 Jul 14 Jul Mr Yeo Guat Kwang 30 May 02 Jun 16 Jun 18 Jun 20 Jul 23 Jul Mr George Yong-Boon Yeo 31 May 10 Jun 23 Jun 23 Jun 29 Jun 30 Jun 09 Jul 16 Jul Dr Vivian Balakrishnan 31 May 03 Jun 09 Jun 16 Jun 27 Jun 30 Jun Miss Penny Low 01 Jun 05 Jun 08 Jun 14 Jun 15 Jun 18 Jun 20 Jun 01 Jul Mrs Lim Hwee Hua 04 Jun 20 Jun 11 Jul 16 Jul Dr Ng Eng Hen 04 Jun 14 Jun Mr Inderjit Singh 05 Jun 12 Jun 27 Jun 29 Jun 19 Jul 21 Jul Assoc. Prof. Dr Yaacob Ibrahim 05 Jun 17 Jun 21 Jun 29 Jun 03 Jul 06 Jul Mr Cedric Foo Chee Keng 06 Jun 08 Jun 22 Jun 23 Jun 09 Jul 12 Jul 18 Jul 19 Jul Mr David T E Lim 06 Jun 10 Jun 11 Jun 12 Jun 18 Jun 21 Jun 18 Jul 19 Jul Mr Loh Meng See 06 Jun 08 Jun 21 Jun 23 Jun 08 Jul 18 Jul Mr Gan Kim Yong 07 Jun 18 Jun 20 Jul 21 Jul 26 Jul 28 Jul Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee 07 Jun 10 Jun 11 Jun 16 Jun 19 Jun 25 Jun Column: 730Mr Leong Horn Kee 07 Jun 11 Jun 21 Jun 23 Jun Assoc. Prof. Low Seow Chay 07 Jun 10 Jun Mr Arthur Fong 08 Jun 10 Jun 11 Jun 20 Jun Dr Ong Seh Hong 08 Jun 08 Jun 20 Jun 22 Jun Mr Raymond Lim Siang Keat 08 Jun 15 Jun 24 Jun 27 Jun Mr Wee Siew Kim 08 Jun 10 Jun 12 Jun 24 Jun 24 Jul 03 Aug Mr Zainudin Nordin 08 Jun 09 Jun 11 Jul 17 Jul 20 Jul 23 Jul 24 Jul 26 Jul Mr Goh Chok Tong 09 Jun 09 Jun Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam 09 Jun 16 Jun 06 Jul 16 Jul Mr Hawazi Daipi 10 Jun 12 Jun 14 Jun 18 Jun Mr Teo Chee Hean 11 Jun 14 Jun Mr Lee Hsien Loong 12 Jun 19 Jun 28 Jun 30 Jun 06 Jul 16 Jul Mr Lee Yock Suan 12 Jun 01 Aug Mr Ong Kian Min 12 Jun 13 Jun 15 Jun 20 Jun 06 Jul 08 Jul Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed 12 Jun 17 Jun 09 Jul 22 Jul Dr Ahmad Mohd Magad 13 Jun 18 Jun 26 Jun 01 Jul 11 Jul 14 Jul Mr Sin Boon Ann 13 Jun 17 Jun 30 Jun 01 Jul 06 Jul 14 Jul 20 Jul 21 Jul 29 Jul 01 Aug Dr Tony Tan Keng Yam 13 Jun 16 Jun 21 Jul 31 Jul Mr Chew Heng Ching 16 Jun 18 Jun Mdm Cynthia Phua 17 Jun 17 Jun Mr Wong Kan Seng 17 Jun 17 Jun 23 Jun 26 Jun Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan 23 Jun 24 Jun Column: 731Mr Lim Boon Heng 23 Jun 08 Jul Dr Loo Choon Yong 29 Jun 11 Jul Encik Yatiman Yusof 29 Jun 29 Jun Dr Lily Neo 01 Jul 02 Jul Mr Chan Soo Sen 07 Jul 09 Jul 19 Jul 24 Jul Mr Teo Yock Ngee 08 Jul 11 Jul Mr Lim Swee Say 09 Jul 09 Jul Mr Abdullah Tarmugi 11 Jul 14 Jul Dr Ong Chit Chung 11 Jul 15 Jul Mr Heng Chee How 12 Jul 14 Jul Mr Mah Bow Tan 12 Jul 17 Jul Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon 12 Jul 15 Jul 20 Jul 22 Jul Mr K Shanmugam 15 Jul 01 Aug Mr Low Thia Khiang 19 Jul 01 Aug

Dr Lee Boon Yang

Mr Leong Horn Kee

Mr Lim Boon Heng

ABDULLAH TARMUGI Speaker Parliament of Singapore

The following Bills were assented to by the President of the Republic of Singapore on the date stated:

31st May,2005 (1) Registration of Criminals (Amendment) Bill (2) Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Bill (3) Presidential Elections (Amendment) Bill (4) Companies (Amendment) Bill (5) Statutes (Miscellaneous Amendments and Repeal) Bill ABDULLAH TARMUGI Speaker Parliament of Singapore

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

1. Mr Inderjit Singh asked the Minister for Trade and Industry if he can provide an update on the state of the economy, especially after the recent downward revision of the projected growth numbers for 2005.

2. Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) whether our economy has been and could be further affected by persistently high oil prices; (b) if further downward revisions on our economic growth forecast this year are likely; and (c) how will this affect job prospects.

Mr Speaker, Sir, may I have your permission to take Question Nos. 1 and 2 together?

Yes.

Mr Speaker, Sir, in May, the MTI revised its forecast for economic growth this year to 2.5% to 4.5%. This was a downward revision from the earlier forecast of between 3% and 5%.

Two main reasons accounted for this revision. First, output of the biomedical manufacturing cluster was expected to weaken this year, following a 26% gain in 2004. This reflected planned changes in the production mix of pharmaceutical output this year.

Second, a number of developments - especially high oil prices - had pointed to less buoyant economic growth for some of our major trading partners this year.

Data available since the revision showed that lower output in the biomedical manufacturing cluster continued to persist. Oil prices have also risen past the US$60 per barrel mark since early July. Higher oil prices led a few major economies to downgrade their GDP growth forecasts or issue warnings of likely economic weakness recently.

Nevertheless, based on our early estimates, we expect the second-quarter GDP growth to be better than the first quarter's, at about 3.9% compared to 2.8%. This reflected stronger support from the services sectors, particularly the wholesale and retail trade sector.

With economic growth for the first half of 2005 at an estimated 3.4%, MTI continues to expect full year growth to fall within the forecast range even if oil prices are maintained at current levels or even slightly higher to the end of the year.

As an oil importing economy, Singapore cannot escape the negative impact of high oil prices. However, unlike previous oil shocks, we expect the impact of the current high oil prices to be tempered. During the oil shocks of the 1970s and the 1980s, high oil prices were the results of abrupt supply disruptions, and they led to widespread economic recessions. In contrast, the high oil prices we face today are due to

strong economic growth in two of our major export markets - the US and China. The demand for oil to fuel their economic growth has strained existing oil producing and refining capacities globally, leading to upward pressures on prices. But this same growth also boosts the external demand for goods and services produced here, helping to support Singapore's economic growth.

Oil prices are likely to remain high into the foreseeable future, due to the lead time needed for capacity expansion in the oil industry. But as long as high oil prices are the result of strong demand, economic growth should continue in Singapore. At this point, MTI also does not foresee the impact on the labour market here to be severe.

A clearer picture of the economic outlook will emerge over the next few weeks as more data concerning second quarter growth comes in. MTI will release the details of second quarter economic performance after National Day. It will also announce the latest forecast for full year growth for 2005.

Sir, I would like to ask the Minister on the outlook for manufacturing, particularly electronics manufacturing, in light of a few closures of some multinational companies who are relocating from Singapore to other countries. Is this trend increasing or do we see manufacturing strengthening again in Singapore?

Mr Speaker, Sir, manufacturing output for the first half of this year remains soft compared to last year. This is because last year we had a very high base of growth. This year, for the first half, we are growing at below 4%. But we expect the second half to be better and we therefore expect manufacturing to contribute significantly to our growth forecast of 2.5% and 4.5%.

Looking forward, we expect manufacturing to continue to play an important role in Singapore by contributing between 25% and 27% of our GDP. There will be some relocations of the low-end value-added sectors but we have a very strong investment pipeline and investments continue to be very vigorous in the manufacturing sector generating good jobs for Singaporeans. So the outlook for manufacturing remains positive.

Sir, I would like to ask the Minister if the improved growth in the second quarter, which was driven by the services sector, is likely to be sustainable, going forward into the rest of the year and, also, if there is any evidence that the SMEs are more hard-hit by the negative impact caused by oil prices.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I believe our economy is as diversified as you can make it to be and, therefore, as we go forward, we expect some sectors to suffer from low growth but other sectors to be buoyant. In this way, we continue to achieve our medium term growth prospects.

Going forward, the services sector looks promising, particularly the tourism sector is experiencing very good growth. Business and financial services are also doing well. There is no reason for us to think that the services sector should slow down significantly going to the second quarter. We continue to look forward to the contribution of the services sector towards our economy.

I think, overall, the Singapore economy is performing reasonably well. We must not expect a repeat of last year's very high growth. This year, we expect growth to consolidate and therefore 2.5% to 4.5% growth is a very decent performance.

Sir, could the Minister elaborate a bit on the biomedical sector? I could not get a feel of whether this was a short-term downturn or it was a volatility that we did not expect. Or is it expected to decline further? If the Minister could give us an insight of how this sector is going to perform, it will be useful.

Mr Speaker, Sir, we have explained the volatility faced by our biomedical cluster several times. First of all, the biomedical cluster contributes about 5% of our GDP. It is not a small sector. But, unfortunately, the plants that we have are producing active pharmaceutical ingredients and this tends to be done on a batch basis. It is not a continuous sustained production, ie, they produce batch by batch. So every time there is a major run, we see very good growth. As they retool the manufacturing plants to cater for the next batch, there is a period in which the output slows down.

Last year, for example, a few plants came into operation and that gave us a very high growth. This year, if we can continue to sustain that same output, I think we would have done very well. But that means the rate of growth is not there and, again, because of this batch production, we do see some quarters showing a negative output. But this is the nature of the biomedical cluster in Singapore. The volatility will reduce as we grow the base of the biomedical sector to include contributions from the biotech sector and the medical devices which tend to be more steady. But if we are producing the active ingredients, then we have to ride this volatility.

Sir, I would like to refer the Minister to the figure he mentioned about our GDP growth is likely to be 2.5% to 4.5%. He said earlier that MTI may give a closer forecast. Could the Minister affirm that figure?

I would also like to ask him whether there are any other bright spots that he can foresee coming up this year. For example, would there be a recovery in the construction sector?

Finally, would there be any follow-through impact as we expect to see coming soon from the construction of the two integrated resorts?

Mr Speaker, Sir, as I have explained, we have already achieved 3.4% growth for the first half. So that is squarely in the middle of the band in our forecast range of 2.5% to 4.5%. Going forward, we will get the data of the second quarter over the next few weeks and therefore we should be able to confirm the second quarter growth figures by mid-August. I think if that figure confirms our flash forecast, which is what we put out recently - the 3.9% growth for the second quarter is just a flash estimate - then I think we have a very solid first half growth.

We do not expect to see a significant downturn in the second half. We need a very big downturn to bring us below the 2.5-4.5% range. If any of the Members were to do their arithmetic, with 3.4% growth in the first half, we are obviously in a very good position to achieve at least 2.5% growth for the year.

As for achieving the higher end of the range, it will depend on a few sectors that may pick up. The manufacturing sector looks very strong. As Members know, our marine engineering companies still continue to get good orders and good growth. Among the manufacturing sector, the electronics sector, some analysts think that the second half will be better than the first half. By and large, we do not see a significant slowdown. In fact, the assessment is that the second half ought to be better than the first half. So

we can be cautiously optimistic about the growth prospects for the whole year.

As for specifics, like the construction sector, I think this will really have to depend on growth in the private sector. The Government projects are already in the Budget book and so people in the industry know what are the projects in the pipeline.

As for the impact of the integrated resorts, the physical construction will not take place till one or two years down the road. So it will not have an impact on this year's figures.

Sir, for the little growth that we are expecting this year, does the Minister expect the growth to add any significant number of jobs or are we going to see a jobless type of growth?

Mr Speaker, Sir, we expect the employment creation to be similar to what we have, ie, commensurate with a growth rate of around 2.5% to 4.5%. It will not have the kind of job creation that we saw last year. But at the same time, we expect to see good job creation this year.

3. Mr Ong Kian Min asked the Minister for Trade and Industry what are the main reasons for the sharp increase in electricity tariffs for the period 1st July to 30th September 2005 and whether the financial impact of such increases can be mitigated for ordinary households.

Sir, before I ask my question, I would like to declare that I am a director of Senoko Power Ltd, a Temasek-owned power generation company. Question No. 3, Sir.

Mr Speaker, Sir, fuel cost makes up about half the cost of electricity. Our fuel sources for electricity

generation are oil and gas. Gas prices in Singapore are indexed to oil prices. An increase in oil prices will therefore lead to higher electricity prices. The electricity tariff for the period 1st July to 30th September 2005 increased by 14% mainly due to a 31% increase in fuel oil price over the previous quarter from US$30.09 to US$39.32 per barrel.

The Government will be giving utility rebates ranging between $60 and $200 - depending on HDB flat type - this month (July 2005) and in January next year (2006). Unused rebates can be rolled over to the following months. These rebates, which were announced by the Prime Minister in his Budget Speech in February this year, will mitigate the financial impact of electricity price increases on households. In all, the rebates will cost the Government about $62 million.

Singapore Power Services (SP Services) has also introduced the Pay-As-You-Use (PAYU) Metering Scheme on 16th May 2005 to help needy HDB households better manage their electricity consumption. This scheme enables HDB households whose electricity supply has been disconnected to be reconnected and have their arrears paid over time. This will help customers on the scheme consume electricity at levels they can afford.

In this period of high oil prices, it becomes all the more important that we adopt good energy conservation practices. Consumers should be more conscious about using energy-efficient electrical appliances. This includes opting for energy-labelled air conditioners and refrigerators, energy-saving lights, choosing the correct capacity of air-conditioner and refrigerator, and enabling "energy-saver" modes in their computers. More information on energy conservation practices at home is available from the National Energy Efficiency Committee website.

Sir, I would like to ask the Minister three supplementary questions. First, instead of introducing a 14% increase in tariff in one go, whether such a large double digit increase could or should be smoothened out and spread out over a period of time to mitigate the financial impact, not just on lower income households but on all families.

Secondly, whether the present formula to determine the electricity tariffs for domestic households is too rigid as it is based on the average price of HSFO over a period of one month, say, the month of April, to lock in the rates for the period July to September.

Thirdly, nothwithstanding that the new electricity tariff has been determined for the next three months, would there be any flexibility for a downward adjustment if oil prices were to retreat and come down during this period?

Mr Speaker, Sir, the regime for setting electricity tariff prices has been in place for many years, and has served us well. It allows prices to move up in a smooth way as oil prices go up. At the same time, it allows electricity prices to come down should oil prices come down. As I indicated in my reply, even though oil prices have moved up by more than 30%, the electricity prices are adjusted upwards by 14%. So this is a result of the smoothening process.

In answer to the second question, the tariff is set for three months. And every time we do a revision, we look at what actually happens compared to what is forecasted and then make the adjustment. So there is also an adjustment process with each review period.

In answer to his third question, a downward adjustment will definitely take place if oil prices come down sharply.

This is the automatic balancing that goes on with the review process.

Sir, I just want to clarify with the Minister. The 30% increase in the fuel oil price in the last quarter has caused this 14% increase in the electricity tariff. Does it mean that as the price of fuel oil goes up and is expected to go up further that we could expect another tariff hike in the October-December period? If so, what is the Government doing to mitigate this expected increase in the tariff in future?

Sir, what the electricity tariff will be in future will depend on the behaviour of oil and gas prices which are linked to the high sulphur fuel oil prices. As I indicated, there is a review mechanism, and we look at it quarter by quarter. If the oil prices come down, then for subsequent quarters, we can see the electricity tariffs coming down too.

There is another factor coming into play, ie, the competitive nature of the business. If you read the Business Times report today, the article indicated that there is a huge supply capacity right now in our power generation sector, more than double the demand. Therefore, there is a great deal of competition among the generating companies, and this has led to very competitive prices. So the electricity tariff prices, for example, if we look back, say, in February 2001, it was the same price as today, whereas the oil prices in February 2001 were much lower than today.

So there are two factors at play here: one, the oil price and, secondly, the competitive forces. Over the last few years, the competitive forces have helped to push the price down but, unfortunately,

we have this very strong headwind of higher oil prices.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the Minister mentioned that with high and rising oil prices, it is important that we adopt good energy efficient practices. May I ask the Minister what his Ministry is doing about promoting renewable energy and alternative sources of energy?

Sir, as I mentioned just now, our electricity capacity is already double what we need. Therefore, to get companies to invest significantly in new renewable energy sources would not be an easy task. For the time being, we are converting most of our fuel to gas, and that in itself is more efficient and more eco-friendly. I think this is already a good move and helps us to bring the electricity prices down. What I think we can do as a country is to make use of energy saving appliances. I think this will help to conserve energy.

4. Mr Ong Kian Min asked the Minister for Trade and Industry if his Ministry will consider making it a requirement that all petrol stations post their actual pump prices prominently on billboards in their forecourts, and not just the percentage discount as is the case now.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I agree with Mr Ong that displaying pump prices prominently together with the percentage discount will be more consumer-friendly. Consumers will be able to know upfront the base prices and calculate how much they will be paying after the discounts. This is a good practice and we will encourage all petrol stations to do so.

Traders and suppliers should always strive to present accurate and adequate

product information and prices to consumers. This will improve market transparency and enable consumers to make informed choices. MTI will be happy to work with CASE to acknowledge petrol stations that adopt good practice in displaying their pump prices. This will hopefully spur industry players to improve their information display to consumers, and raise our overall business standards.

5. Dr Lily Neo asked the Minister for Manpower in view of the latest figures on income and expenditure that showed the bottom 20% of the population suffering income drops compared to the rest, is there (a) any plan to address this issue and help this group raise their standards of living; and (b) a need to review the various assistance schemes available.

6. Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong asked the Minister for Manpower, in view of the latest Household Expenditure Survey which showed that the real income of the bottom 20% of Singaporeans has fallen, what progress has been made to (a) raise the income of low-wage workers through job re-creation and redesign; and (b) ensure that Singaporeans can continue working for as long as possible, including raising the retirement age.

7. Assoc. Prof. Ong Soh Khim asked the Minister for Manpower, in view of the latest figures on income and expenditure that showed the bottom 20% of the population suffering income drops compared to the rest, (a) what are the profiles of Singaporeans in the bottom 20% with respect to education level, age, gender, marital status, family size, and those suffering from physical and/or mental disability; (b) what is the percentage of Singaporeans in the next quintile that have incomes about 1-2%

higher than this bottom 20% quintile; and (c) what are the causes of this drop in income in the bottom 20%.

Sir, with your permission, may I take Question Nos. 5, 6 and 7 together as they are related?

All right.

Mr Speaker, Sir, Members have asked for some updates and data since the release of the Household Expenditure Survey and certain related facts of the lowest 20% household income group. Let me give what we have available from a number of sources. Based on the data from the 2002/2003 Household Expenditure Survey conducted by the Singapore Department of Statistics (DOS), the average size of households in the lowest 20% household income group was 3.6 persons and the average age of persons in these households was 34 years. About half of the households were in HDB 3-room or smaller flats, which means that the other half were in 4-room or larger accommodations. Excluding students, about seven in 10 persons in these households had primary and below education level - 70%, and eight in 10 working persons in this group were holding jobs in clerical, service, sales, and production.

The per capita household income for the lowest 20% household income group ranged from $0 to $480. In the next quintile income group, about 5% of the households had per capita household income of between $480 and $500.

Sir, the negative growth in the per capita household income for the lowest 20% income group could be due to a variety of reasons. The Singapore economy was hit by several negative shocks such as the Iraqi war and the

SARS outbreak during the period when the Household Expenditure Survey was conducted. Remember that is the the 2002/2003 Household Expenditure Survey. In addition, globalisation has led to increasing competition from emerging countries like China and India for lower end jobs, causing wages for such jobs to stagnate. There was also an increasing number of retirees due to our ageing population.

The Government has set up a Ministerial Committee on Low Wage Workers to address the challenges to the employability and income security faced by workers in the bottom 20 income percentiles. The Ministerial Committee will develop and implement a holistic package of policies and measures to help these workers and their families.

As the issues surrounding low wage workers and their families are multi-faceted, the Ministerial Committee will study the profile of these workers and their families to understand the problems they face in employability, and develop targeted solutions to help each group.

We also need to ensure that the solutions are sustainable and holistic. Besides looking into measures for more responsive social assistance to help them tide through difficult times, the Ministerial Committee will also recommend measures to assist them to take up jobs, and for those who are employed, to enhance their earning potential, whether through job re-creation or skills upgrading and retraining.

The Ministerial Committee will also look for ways to help their children stay in school longer, so that they can acquire the academic foundation for further learning and employability.

A Tripartite Committee on Employability of Older Workers is

currently looking into the broader issues of older workers' employability. This includes having older Singaporeans work longer and raising the effective retirement age. As I have mentioned, raising the legislative retirement age remains our medium term goal. In our system, the age in which the CPF payout starts is linked to our legislative retirement age. Given that the majority of low wage workers are aged 40 and above, the Tripartite Committee's work will complement the work of the Ministerial Committee.

The Ministerial Committee will consult widely with relevant stakeholders and community organisations to better understand the problems faced by low wage workers, and to develop effective ways to help these workers achieve greater self-reliance over the long term.

Mr Speaker, Sir, may I ask the Minister how does he address the concerns of those who have undergone retraining but still cannot find employment or better job opportunities? Will he facilitate better and suitable matching job placement? Will he also make retraining opportunities more attractive in order to encourage more people to go for retraining?

Sir, we recognise, as the Member has mentioned, that certain workers who go for training find that at the end of the training either they cannot find a job or that the training they received is not recognised by the employer or at his job place. Yes, we can improve it by ensuring that the training he gets has some relevance to his job as well as making sure that the training he goes for is relevant to the next job that he is going to take. That explains why we have shifted some of our strategic concerns. We used to have train-and-place; in other words, we encourage workers to train and after they have acquired the skills, we try and find a job for them. We have moved away

somewhat from this original strategy to place-and-train. In other words, we want to find you a job. That includes sometimes job preparation exercises. Some Members may have heard of NTUC boot camps where, basically, they bring together certain workers who have been disrupted from their employment. They counsel them in terms of how to go for interviews and other aspects. At the same time, once we have identified a particular job which we think you are suitable for - and this may involve pre-screening interviews and assessments - then we train you for the job. I think this makes the training more realistic and there is also a greater value at the end of their training.

This obviously takes a lot of attention and time because we are dealing with individual cases. But it is our aim and we are building up capability among the various job centres in the CDCs and self-help groups to be able to apply this strategy more effectively.

Sir, I have three supplementary questions. The first question is with regard to reskilling. What are the assistance plans that will be provided to those who are too old, illiterate or do not have the intellectual capability or even physically or mentally disabled to be reskilled?

Would the Ministry consider categorising or reserving certain groups of jobs for this group of people?

The second question is this. To put in proper perspective, besides looking at the decrease in the income, does the Ministry look at the increase in the cost of living from 1998 to 2003? How much has this rise in the cost of living actually offset the income increase or income decrease, so that perhaps we should be looking at maybe the bottom 25%, instead of just the bottom 20%?

Sir, the Member has asked a number of questions which encompass quite a lot of groups. For the ones with disabilities - they have special needs - we have targeted programmes for them. In a situation where the labour market is soft, sometimes it is difficult. But, nonetheless, we will work with specific employers to see whether there are opportunities for those who are disabled.

On certain groups, what do we do if they are illiterate or do not have language capability. I am not sure what the exact words the MP used, but I think it was inadequate intellectual capability. But let us assume that they can be trained. I think it is important that we can overcome language restrictions. For example, we have done that in a particular plant, and I told the House this past occasion. Say, for example, in Baxter Healthcare, when they were modernising and automating their machinery, a programme was introduced. It is called contextualised literacy - I do not need to teach you the whole breadth of the English language, I just need you to be able to read a few signs and understand how to do it, and that was very effective. It was for a small number, but it helped them understand the English words, to be able to work the automated devices. So, that is an example, and we will continue to expand these programmes.

The Household Expenditure Survey also had good information about expenditure and cost of living. It basically showed that in the bottom 20 percentile, yes, there was a loss in earnings. But it also showed quite clearly that it was with the Government rebate that they ended up still net positive. And I think these were in real terms. So I think the message is, yes, we will have to help them increase their skills and be able to earn more. Yet we have to also admit that it was because of the SC&CC or the

number of Government financial assistance schemes that they are quite dependent on them, and we have to see how we can better tailor them for some.

Sir, the Minister mentioned that the bottom 20% includes an increasing number of retirees. And he mentioned looking at raising the retirement age. This will only help those who are yet to retire, and not those who have retired. Can I ask the Minister what are the options for the group that has already retired, and also whether it is timely to look at whether the pension levels for Government pensioners should be increased, given that the cost of living has been rising over the years?

Sir, this touches on the issue of retirement adequacy for those who are already retired. I understand that MCYS conducts a national survey in terms of focusing on this group. The last one was conducted in 1995. There is currently one on-going. What it did show was that, in terms of what we put aside for CPF retirement, and this is a retirement account, a significant number of retirees, although they own properties, they may be asset-rich and cash-poor. But that survey also showed that about 80% of retirees received income from their children. The majority said that it was adequate for living expenses, which meant that the family support is very important and another pillar which families do help each other out even in their retirement.

But raising the retirement age is still an important goal, both the effective and legislative retirement age, because we will need to help. In other words, if this current cohort can work longer to support their own retirement, then I think the family structure is strengthened. I do not think that they are discrete aspects. I

think they are interlinked. The Committee will have to look at the number of measures. As I said, there is a tripartite committee on extending employability as an important issue. We will have to see what can be done. But it is very clear that in order for us to save more, we have to work longer. So, the solutions are not difficult, but the implementation and how we can achieve them will need widespread consultation and practical measures to apply.

I would like to ask the Minister whether the 20% that we are talking about includes the long-term unemployed PMEs. And if it does, what is the number and what kind of assistance are we rendering to this group?

I do not have specific breakdown, but this was a household expenditure survey. So this survey was based on households. As I have replied, out of the 20%, eight in10 working persons in this 20% of households were holdings jobs in clerical, service, sales and production sectors. I assume 20% were then in PMETs. As to specific measures for PMETs, I think the Member has filed a separate question and I will leave it to that occasion to answer it.

Mr Speaker, Sir, while the Minister looks at the holistic approach to help these families, can the Minister work with the Ministry of National Development to quickly lessen this basic cost of housing? Because our current policy is that we do not favour downgrading and 50% of these households, as what the Minister has said just now, actually own 4-room flats.

Just on the specific figure, I said 50% live in 3-room flats or smaller. The converse will be somewhere there, but the specific figure needs to be checked. Yes, it is an issue that the

Ministerial Committee is looking at. In other words, how do they monetise their assets. I do not think it will be quite right to say that we have an explicit policy to discourage downgrading. I think the Government has many times said that you should right-size your housing. In other words, you should live in houses that you can afford, and we leave it to members to be prudent about.

As to whether we should avail members more avenues to help them monetise their assets, I think that surely must be one of the means in which they can fund their retirement. So, yes, we are looking at that.

Sir, first, I would like to support Mdm Cynthia Phua's proposal on looking at helping residents to right-size their property. There have been a number who have come to downgrade but they do suffer certain penalties, for lack of a better term. So, perhaps the Ministerial Committee can look into that.

The Minister said that many of them have low educational levels. I notice that many of them are also from broken families and families with perhaps one member or so with criminal records. Some of these people have come to my MPS and said that they have been trying to look for a job to turn over a new leaf. But being in their 40s or even 50s, they find it tremendously difficult to look for a job. So my question is: is there any specific policy targeted at this group of people who might want to turn over a new leaf and yet in that so-called not-so-desirable or difficult age group?

Sir, what the Member has illustrated through questions is that this is a multi-faceted problem and that is why a number of Ministries are involved. We will ask the various Ministries to look at specific target groups.

The Member also mentioned that we penalise those who want to downgrade. I do not think that is quite fair. The issue of subsidy has been raised many times in this House, and we do not really penalise them. This is an issue of subsidy. But if they have right-sized in their housing, and the timing in terms of the property market is wrong, then they are just bearing the brunt of market forces. It was neither the intention nor the outcome desired by the Government that they are so-called penalised, and we do not penalise them.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the Minister did not answer my question earlier on more attractive retraining opportunities, especially with financial assistance. May I also ask the Minister whether he would adopt a more holistic approach in helping the unemployed poor, as they may have other needs besides retraining and job placements, especially those with young families? Will he assign social workers to this group to better cater for their various needs? Does the Minister have any concrete plan of action to address this issue of widening wage gap?

My last question is: is there a group of people, due to age or lower education, who are not suited to the presently available retraining schemes? Therefore, will he look into the creation of new job opportunities, for example, healthcare services as homecarers?

Sir, let me, first, answer the questions that I can remember. In terms of whether we want to provide more financial assistance for those to go for training, the answer is yes. In fact, I do not think that is the issue. The issue is not really that they cannot afford it, because we do subsidise 90% and so do sometimes employers or other self-help groups. The cost of the training is actually 100%, so that they do not have to bear the cost. On top of that, we have what they call an absentee

payroll. In other words, you leave your job, you are actually paid in a sense, in lieu of your wages. So you are actually getting something while on training.

The bigger issue, as the Member has pointed out, is relevancy of their training. As I have mentioned, yes, we will scale up. She has mentioned social workers. These are actually case workers to help them find meaningful jobs at the end of it. I think that is important. What about those whom we find do not have the aptitude? Our first focus is to make sure that we will find them a job within the market-place economy. There is an economic worth to the job and which will bring you up. I do not think we quite want to move towards what other countries do. Basically they are inefficient jobs, they are called work jobs. They are not really work; they are jobs created so that people can say that they have work. In one of the trips I attended, it is counter intuitive and counter effective. You just have a hedge and see the maximum number of people you need to trim the hedge, and that is the key performance indicator (KPI). And the more people you have to trim the hedge, then the more success you have. I do not think we want to move towards that. I think each job in the economy should have a market value so that we can continue to be efficient and competitive.

Sir, just now the Minister said that, excluding students, seven in 10 have primary or below education level. Given that our education is a dominant avenue for social mobility, will the Ministerial Committee consider implementing schemes to help the next generation of these people to break out of the poverty cycle, such as implementing special programmes in the education system?

My next question is: can we have a time-line? When do we expect the

recommendations from the Ministerial Committee to come about?

I thank the Member for those very practical questions. Yes, MOE is represented on the Committee. Together with the other agencies (like MCYS), one of the key roles is to break the poverty trap. As the NMP rightly pointed out, we do not want to perpetuate a permanent underclass, and we have to recognise that, and all the facts and surveys showed us that. Because their socio-economic background can disadvantage them and because their children cannot take advantage of the education opportunities. So this is a big area that we are looking at. This will include probably mentoring schemes. I think we want to consult widely. I do not think the Committee wants to go into this thinking that it knows the entire nature of the problems, that it knows all the solutions. We want to consult widely with social workers, with VWOs, to try to understand what the root problems are and see how we can make effective and targeted measures.

From that point of view, I do not really want to rush the Committee for quick and pet answers. I want solutions that are sustainable. But I think more important also for the Committee is to articulate a philosophy of how we are going to respond to

these figures because these are structural challenges. What is Singapore's answer to these problems that other countries have faced for many years, and their solution is welfarism which does not work? What is Singapore's solution? I think that is a more important aspect. So the Committee will come up in due time and in good course, but neither should we rush this process.

Sir, the Minister in his answer said that one of the reasons for the drop in income of the lowest percentile group is due to the economic

recession and the Iraqi war. I am surprised to hear that, because this would equally impact the other percentile groups of income earners as well. So if the effect is such that it is going the reverse direction - the lowest percentile group is going downwards and the other percentile groups are still going upwards - then the widening wage gap is even more pronounced and frightening, and more of a concern. So I would like to ask the Minister whether, arising from these factors, the Government should actually consider a more comprehensive review of the entire package of help that we give to our lower income group, not just for the Ministerial Committee to review on employability, but also on other issues like welfare programmes, medical aid programmes, even the rebates as well as the job assistance programmes that we are giving. Are we doing enough to help bring up their income level, rather than seeing them going down?

Sir, let me just caution that we should not read too much into the particular answer about why. My point was that this was conducted at a time when there was the Iraqi war as well as SARS, and they would have some impact. The Member is quite right that because there was an aberration, we cannot quite find out what the reasons are. But, broadly, what we see, not only from 2002 and 2003, which was across the last seven to 10 years, is that the upper quintile, if you like, the wages were rising and, for the bottom 20%, there were some wage deflationary aspects and somewhat stagnant. This was quite different from the 1991 to 1997 era where the economy did well and all groups rose between 8-10%, in terms of compound annual growth. In terms of relooking everything, we have to look again with some equanimity, this is a particular group where there are certain things that we certainly need to do, but we do not need to re-fix the wheel because it is not broke. I agree with the

Member that we have to look at certain aspects, and part of our objective is to see how relevant they are assuming, and quite rightly assuming, that the trends that we are seeing are structural.

Sir, I believe the key issues are basically jobs, jobs and good jobs. So, basically, I would like to ask the Government and the Ministry what they are doing to increase the number of good paying jobs available to Singaporeans.

Sir, the answer must be economic growth. You cannot create jobs if there is no market value because then you are just subsidising them. That is not a job. Therefore, we must continue to focus on our fundamentals, make sure that our workers can command the premium and the salaries that we pay them, continue to attract investments and continue to make sure that Singapore is a designation that people want to come. Within the ambit of a market-based economy, I think there are also pockets where we can help Singaporeans find those jobs, be productive in those jobs, and this is the focus of the Job Redesign Programme. But let me go back to the fundamental assertion that it is a growing economy that produces jobs.

8. Mdm Ho Geok Choo asked the Minister for Manpower if he will provide a status report on how the Ministry is preparing the stock of manpower required by the Singapore economy in the next 10 years so as to ensure that, internally, Singapore will have a stock of manpower with the right skill sets, competencies and right mindsets for the economic success of our industries.

Sir, the National Manpower Council (NMC) was convened

in 1999 and this is the body that reviews periodically at a centralised level our manpower needs. The NMC comprises top officials from various Ministries and economic agencies, including MTI, MOE and EDB, to identify the skill sets and competencies required by the economy, especially growth industries, and this is for the medium and long term, in other words, five to 10 years. How is this done? This is done through projections, surveys of employers' projected manpower needs, consultants' reports and then validation through company visits and other feedback channels. For instance, the National Manpower Demand and Skills Needs Surveys were conducted to obtain qualitative and quantitative data from companies in the manufacturing and selected services sectors for the manpower needs and demands for each occupation over the next two to three years.

We work closely with individual agencies to develop sectoral manpower plans. For example, we have been working with EDB on the needs of the manufacturing sector, with the Singapore Tourism Board on the requirements of the tourism-related industries, and with MICA on the emerging needs of the creative industries.

There are two key ways in which MOM prepares the workforce to take on these jobs. First, we work with MOE and the educational institutions to help train students to the right skill sets and competencies for these new jobs. MOM sets Pre-Employment Training targets for the various Post-Secondary Educational Institutions (PSEIs) to ensure an indigenous capacity to meet the needs of strategic growth industries. To make sure that our projections are relevant, the Post-Secondary Educational Institutions conduct detailed employability surveys of their graduates, and their results serve as

inputs to the NMC to further refine their manpower planning. Second, the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) is tasked with upgrading the skill sets of the existing workforce and retraining the unemployed, equipping them with the right skill sets and competencies to take on the new jobs.

WDA has developed the National Continuing Education and Training Framework (NCETF), which is an integrated and coherent system that facilitates flexible adult learning, improves access to skills upgrading and provides clearer progression pathways for workers. WDA works with partners, such as NTUC, to reach out to workers, especially the lower skilled, and their companies, to facilitate skills upgrading.

MOM and WDA have also been producing and disseminating labour market information reports on potential job opportunities to help students, workers and employers make better-informed decisions in choice of study or skills upgrading.

Sir, I would like to check with the Minister how often do the industries actually come together with the relevant Ministries to conduct such an exercise and how often is the national training needs analysis carried out. Secondly, how are our schools actually preparing our female students with the mindset for technical jobs, for example, as aerospace technicians and engineers, given that more than half of our population are females?

Sir, the National Manpower Council meets annually to review papers that are put up. But the agencies that are involved have ongoing discussions. Basically, the job is to, within the limits of information available to the NMC from companies, from our economic projections, from our economic agencies, if you like, form a masterplan

for our manpower development needs. Not only are we collecting information, we are validating previous projections. So, for example, the polytechnics and universities conduct standardised labour market surveys on employability of the graduates six months after they graduate, not only across the board, but by specific occupations, so that we know, for example, both specifically and over a time trend, whether our projections have been correct. In other words, if it is a creative industry or a growth industry, then we want to see whether indeed they are employable. This information is fed to the NMC, to the companies as well as to subsequent cohorts of students who are going to apply for these courses because we want to provide choices by giving more information.

As to how we can prepare them for the younger students and those entering the labour market with the right skills, this is an issue which our educational institutes are very much seized with. So in line with also the employability surveys, they are also asked qualitative surveys - to ask them what they need. Many of our institutions have now responded to this, in terms of hybridised courses, in other words, there is a business component in engineering, for example, or people can take double degrees, or they can take particular modules. Indeed, that proportion of common items, in terms of skill sets, is larger historically, as compared to the past. In other words, there are both the content expertise as well as the general expertise, in terms of work skills.

Sir, is it the policy or intention of the Government to permit more foreign workers to come to work in Singapore so as to help fill these manpower needs? And if that is so, will our Singaporean workers be disadvantaged in this policy process?

Sir, as I have said in this House before, it is quite wrong to say

there is a plus and minus, there is a win-lose situation, in other words, one foreign worker who comes into Singapore takes away a Singaporean job. If I may illustrate what Mdm Ho brought up, in terms of the aerospace industry, we started and became a hub for MRO, or what we call maintenance-repair-and-overhaul industry, when we had no indigenous capacity to support their hub in the first place and we could only do that when we brought in a number of foreign technicians to jump-start the industry. And now that we have an established MRO industry, it creates job opportunities for Singaporeans. But the polytechnics need certain timeframe to get students, to train them and, when they graduate, to go into the industry to get the necessary experience. So to cast this debate as "I win, you lose" is entirely unrealistic. It does not show the point and it is not true.

As we have mentioned often, if we do not have certain foreign workers to do the night shift which our local workers do not like to do, and some with good reasons, then a lot of factories cannot operate. So I take it that this is a healthy balance. The challenge is to make sure that there is an optimal mix, to make sure that there are adequate job opportunities for Singaporeans, which we will continue to do because, at the end of the day, we are using foreign workers to help our Singapore economy grow and Singaporeans will benefit.

Sir, as the IR is expected to create about 10,000 jobs, I would like to ask the Minister whether planning has been done already to identify what kind of jobs would be created and to prepare Singaporeans so that they are able to do these jobs because some of these may require them to go through a course of training which may require a few years.

Sir, the short answer is yes. Now that we have decided to

proceed with the IR, we must make sure that it succeeds. We have to build the IR, but that is not a guarantee to its success. The real issue is our service culture. We have to make sure that those who come to Singapore do have a good time and enjoy the experience. And that really starts from the moment they arrive - they may come by air, land or sea - to the moment they leave. It may be in the greeting, it may be our taxi drivers, it may be how they are greeted, the concierge or what entertainment there is. So that is a broader issue. As I mentioned, there is an inter-Ministry team working at how we can upgrade the service standards. So for specific jobs, yes, we are working with various agencies, in terms of manpower plans, to see what skills are required. It may also mean bringing in expertise that we never had to teach, whether it is Disney or some of these entertainment companies, to help others enjoy themselves.

Sir, I just want to clarify.

No.

9. Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong asked the Minister for Defence, given the recent deaths of two Singapore Armed Forces soldiers after or during jogging, whether (a) there have been cases of soldiers experiencing a sudden cardiac arrest event during training but surviving it; (b) safety measures such as defibrillators have been usefully employed for emergency care; and (c) soldiers are required to undergo cardiovascular screening to identify those at high risk of sudden cardiac death.

Mr Speaker, Sir, Ms Irene Ng has asked about the recent deaths of two SAF servicemen while running - one was a regular and the other was a Full-time

National Serviceman. These have understandably given rise to some concern among Singaporeans. I would like to thank Ms Irene Ng for this opportunity to provide more information on this issue. And I take this opportunity also to extend my condolences to the families of the two servicemen, 2WO Teh Kok Lian and 3SG Ivan Ong Peng Ghee.

First, allow me to provide some details on the two cases. 2WO Teh Kok Lian, a regular serviceman aged 39, was participating in a routine run on 22nd June when he collapsed at about 8.45 am. He was given immediate medical attention and evacuated to the camp medical centre where the medical officer initiated resuscitation measures. At 9.00 am, he was transported by an ambulance to the National University Hospital. Unfortunately, 2WO Teh passed away at the National University Hospital at 9.40 am.

3SG Ivan Ong Peng Ghee, a full-time National Serviceman section instructor aged 19, collapsed at about 8.45 am after an informal, self-paced jog with several of his colleagues. He was given immediate medical attention and brought to the camp medical centre where the medical officer initiated resuscitation measures. At 9.27 am, a helicopter, which had been activated, took off from Pulau Tekong to evacuate 3SG Ong to the Singapore General Hospital. He passed away about 50 minutes after he arrived at Singapore General Hospital.

In both cases, the servicemen were given immediate medical attention on site and at the camp medical centre, and then promptly evacuated to hospital. The medical response was comprehensive and appropriate. MINDEF's safety investigations into the two incidents concluded that there were no safety breaches in both cases. MINDEF is also convening official Inquiries into the two deaths.

Sir, the autopsy on 2WO Teh concluded that he had died from sudden cardiac arrest that resulted from an acute myocardial infarction. In layman's terms, he had suffered a heart attack. The autopsy report on 3SG Ong is not yet ready as the Health Services Authority has not completed its investigations.

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) results from sudden cardiac arrest in a person who is usually in a state of normal health. In other words, the person may not exhibit any warning symptoms or signs prior to the attack. In the SAF, over the nine-year period from 1996 to 2005, there were 19 cases of sudden cardiac deaths, ie, about 2.1 cases per year. Of these, five had collapsed during training. The others were not during training. There is no comparable data for the Singapore male population. However, a National Heart Centre study showed that there were 261 cases of sudden cardiac deaths among the Singapore male population aged 18 to 45 over a three-year period from 2001 to 2003, or an average of about 87 cases per year.

To put the issue in some perspective, allow me to share some pertinent information on the chances of surviving a sudden cardiac arrest. Dr Lim Swee Han, Senior Consultant and Head of the Singapore General Hospital Accident and Emergency Department, reported in a January 2005 paper that there was a 4.1% survival rate in 968 non-trauma cardiac arrest cases in the five-year period from 1994 to 1999. Dr Marcus Eng Ong Hock, in a cardiac arrest and resuscitation epidemiology study in 2003, reported that from a total of 548 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Singapore, only 2.0% survived to discharge. Even among patients who suffered cardiac arrest in tertiary hospitals, ie, while they were already in hospital, where the best care is available, the survival rate to discharge ranged from 18% to 32%, according to studies from

various countries. Unfortunately, death as a consequence of cardiac arrest is the most common outcome even with optimal management.

Sir, let me now explain the SAF's medical screening system. Every SAF serviceman, whether a National Serviceman or regular, goes through a pre-enlistment medical examination at the SAF's Medical Classification Centre. There, he is fully assessed to determine the presence of pre-existing medical conditions. The medical assessment includes a resting electro-cardiogram (ECG), chest X-ray, blood and urine tests, and a physical examination. Individuals with a history of death in the immediate family before 40 years of age, or sudden death, are questioned more thoroughly and may be referred for specialist assessment and additional investigations.

The SAF's routine screening for heart disease in pre-enlistees is equivalent to the standards recommended by the European Society of Cardiology and International Olympic Committee, and higher than the standards in the United States recommended for competitive athletes. Our screening protocols are also similar to those used by other established armed forces. We want to be sure that our servicemen, especially the full-time National Servicemen (NSFs), are medically fit for continuous and strenuous physical training.

For regulars, the medical screening includes periodic health examinations commencing at the age of 25. All servicemen (including operationally-ready NSmen) who are 35 years of age or older, undergo medical screening for cardiac risk factors when they are required to take the Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT). If the test results are abnormal, the serviceman will be referred for further specialist assessment. If the results are normal, then this medical screening is

done once every two years until age 40, and annually thereafter. These measures exceed the Ministry of Health's clinical practice guidelines which recommend that screening begins at age 40 in the absence of any risk factors. The SAF's current medical screening regimes are comprehensive and are based on sound medical evidence of their effectiveness. They are continually reviewed to ensure that they are consistent with current medical knowledge and practice.

Sir, training in the SAF is conducted at a progressive pace. For example, during the first week of basic military training, recruits are gradually eased into the camp environment and training tempo. The recruits then go through other basic modules in physical fitness and military skills before moving on to more rigorous training. SAF commanders are always on the look-out for servicemen who may be experiencing problems during training.

Apart from progressive training, the SAF has a comprehensive safety management system that includes compulsory adequate rest before strenuous training, compulsory drinking of water before, during and after training, and pre-training screening to identify those who are not feeling well. In fact, our servicemen are regularly reminded to seek medical attention if they feel unwell. Those who seek medical attention are given full access to primary and specialist health care. Our SAF medical officers abide by the same professional ethics and standards as their civilian counterparts. They are also bound by the SAF values of professionalism, ethics and care for soldiers.

Sir, Ms Irene Ng has asked about the use of defibrillators. There are two types: semi-automated defibrillators used by medical doctors, and automated external defibrillators (AEDs) which can be

operated by trained individuals, including our SAF medics. Defibrillators work by delivering electrical shocks to the heart, in order to convert abnormal heart rhythms back to normal rhythms. However, not all abnormal heart rhythms can be effectively treated by electric shock, and an AED would interpret the heart rhythm of a person who has gone into sudden cardio-respiratory arrest and advise the operator whether or not an electric shock is indicated. Studies indicate that if there is early defibrillation when there is a shockable rhythm, 20-50% of victims may survive.

AEDs were progressively introduced into the SAF last year to enhance medical coverage. There are currently 237 AEDs in our camps. They are operated by our medics during strenuous activities, such as the IPPT and Standard Obstacle Course test. Since its introduction, the AED has been applied once, when 2SG Ong Jia Hui was brought ashore after a diving incident last month. However, he had no shockable rhythm and the device was, therefore, not activated.

Ms Irene Ng has also asked about cases of successful resuscitation after a sudden cardiac arrest. There was a recent case, although this was not with the aid of a defibrillator. In May this year, a 27-year-old regular serviceman collapsed during an IPPT run. He had no pulse and was not breathing. He was promptly evacuated to the medical centre, where cardio-pulmonary resuscitation was begun and he was given an intravenous infusion and oxygen. The serviceman was stabilised and then evacuated to NUH. He has since returned to work.

Sir, I would like to assure Singaporeans that the safety and health of our servicemen are of the highest priority to MINDEF and the SAF. We have comprehensive and rigorous screening regimes for those coming into the SAF, including our Full-time National Service

men. And we have appropriate safety measures and medical cover for our servicemen when they are conducting training or rigorous physical activity. Sudden cardiac death is, unfortunately, something that cannot be completely prevented, as the statistics for not just the SAF but the Singapore population at large show.

I would like to thank the Minister for a comprehensive and re-assuring reply. But may I ask two supplementary questions?

Sir, according to medical literature, survival can be as high as 90%, if treatment is initiated within the first few minutes after a sudden cardiac arrest. Sir, I am assured that MINDEF has used defibrillators on at least one person. But can I ask the Minister why they were not used on the two recent cases of servicemen who suffered cardiac arrests?

My second question is a broader one. It relates to the whole issue of safety in training. Over the last one month, there have been about four cases of Singaporeans who have died because of their training exercises. Since a review had been completed last year, have there been full checks to make sure that they are all implemented correctly or whether there should be a further review to make sure that our soldiers' safety is paramount during training exercises?

I am not sure where Miss Ng got her data from. The data I have is from the medical sources that I have available. If she is able to provide me with medical data that show otherwise, we will, of course, have a look at them. But from the medical data that I have and the research that has been conducted, these, unfortunately, are the statistics.

Whether or not an AED can be used in a specific case depends on the condition

of the patient. In certain cases, the use of an AED is not appropriate and may, I suppose, cause more harm than good. In the case of the two servicemen who collapsed, in fact, they collapsed very close to the medical centre. So, they were taken to the medical centre. One collapsed only about 200 or 300 metres from the medical centre and was immediately evacuated there within minutes. The resuscitation capabilities at the medical centre are more comprehensive than those that could be provided with an AED. Unfortunately, he did not survive.

Sir, on the issues of safety in the SAF and training incidents, I would like to break these into two groups. In the case of these two runs, I would say that they are not very different in substance from what many Singaporeans, men or women, younger or a little older, would do on an average day, ie, go out for a run with a number of his colleagues. So, these two incidents, I would say, are not directly related to SAF training per se. In fact, on an average day, when a Singaporean goes out for a run, he does not usually carry an AED with him or is he particularly close to a medical centre. So, in fact, I would say that if a soldier decides to go for a run on his own or with some friends in a camp or camp facility, he probably has better medical cover than the average Singaporean has, if he decides to go out for a run with his colleagues.

The second group of incidents concerns those which involve SAF training. SAF training does have inherent risks. We want the training to be as realistic as possible but also as safe as possible. Hence, every type of training in the SAF is carefully audited. There are safety procedures and checks, and these are put into place. Unfortunately, some incidents do occur from time to time. Whenever there is an incident, we will go through a very thorough investigation

process and inquiry process to find out what are the causes, and whether all the safety precautions were observed. If not, why? Was there anybody at fault? Was there an oversight? Or, even if all the safety precautions were observed, was there something in the system that could have been done better? And if it can be done better, then we will do so. So, I will group these into two different types of cases.

Perhaps I should also update Members of the House on the rappelling incident on 13th July 2005. First of all, I would like to convey my condolences to the family of 1SGT Shiva Mohan and the family of the foreign serviceman. MINDEF's investigation into the incident is underway, and the SAF has suspended all heli-rappelling training, pending the outcome of the investigation. Other SAF training with helicopters and the RSAF's search-and-rescue duties continue. MINDEF will conduct a rigorous and thorough investigation to examine all possible causes of this incident, eg, whether all safety processes and procedures were properly observed and what other measures might be necessary to prevent such incidents in future. All possible causes of the incident will be

considered.

The SAF mandated a two-day SAF-wide safety time-out immediately after this incident. This was conducted at the unit level by unit commanders after the commanders themselves were briefed by their service chiefs. The objective of the safety time-out was to remind and refresh commanders, trainers and instructors on the safety system to ensure that safety measures are in place and remind commanders and servicemen that safety is also an individual responsibility. The safety time-out was completed last Friday and SAF training, other than heli-rappelling which has been suspended

pending the findings of the investigation, has resumed and so have our exercises and operations.

Mr Speaker, Sir, may I ask the Minister, in view of the fact that 200 people, aged 20-30, died of sudden cardiac arrest between 2001-2003, and although many of them had no symptoms and looked perfectly healthy, on autopsy, they were shown to have structural heart abnormalities and problems with heart rhythm. May I ask the Minister whether he will adopt a better screening and implement more stringent check-ups for our NSmen more regularly?

Will he ensure that the enlistment check-ups are done by doctors who have undergone training to detect early and possible heart abnormalities? Will he screen our NSmen more regularly and earlier, ie, not from the age of what he mentioned earlier, at 35 for high cholesterol, pre-diabetes and high blood pressure, as these conditions put them at risk for sudden heart attack and stroke?

Lastly, will he also offer stress ECG for our NSmen during their enlistment check-up?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I have to be guided here by the medical professionals. As I have said just now, the SAF's routine screening for heart disease in pre-enlistees is equivalent to the standards recommended by the European Society of Cardiology and the International Olympic Committee, and higher than the standards in the United States recommended for competitive athletes. So I believe that the procedures that we have for pre-enlistees' cardiac screening are really quite up to the mark. The state of medical science is such that for this kind of screening, it is not possible to detect all conditions. Of course, at the point of autopsy, it is possible when you open up a person to detect such a condition. But as a medical

practitioner, Dr Neo will know that there is also a risk in medical examinations, especially in invasive medical examinations, and the risk and the return must be balanced.

We do, as I have said, conduct medical screening for regular servicemen, as well as operationally-ready National Servicemen. This includes resting ECG. And if there is an indication of an abnormality, then we will do a stress test. As I mentioned just now, these measures exceed the Ministry of Health's clinical practice guidelines which recommend that screening begins at 40 in the absence of any risk factors.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to ask the Minister, in the light of scientific evidence to show that as many as half of the people who are presented with a heart attack at a hospital do not have any critical stenosis or narrowing in the heart artery, but actually only have a very minor narrowing in the heart artery, and as a result of tear at that segment, they form a clot and block the artery, resulting in a heart attack, this often occurs during exercise. Perhaps, we should consider the possibility of identifying those who go through very vigorous exercise during the NS period, ie, high-risk individuals who would be, in all likelihood, have a high risk of having a narrowing in the artery, which cannot be picked up by traditional means like treadmill testing. We know today that there are technologies available where this can be picked up non-invasively without any risk to the patient. Of course, we want to take guidelines like ESC guidelines or IOC guidelines ---

Dr Lim, what is your question, please?

My question is: in the light of things evolving, whether for specific high-risk individuals,

we should actually look at other means of identifying them.

On the second point about AED, if we reach the A&E for a sudden cardiac death, of course, your mortality is more than 90% because it takes a long time to reach it. But if you have an AED accessible to the person within one, two or three minutes, the outcome is surely very different.

So my point is whether the Minister wants to review this need to make AED very accessible to the training areas where there are medics so that they can use it within minutes, rather than waiting to go to the medical centre which will probably take 10-20 minutes, by which time the person may be brain-dead.

If I may just respond to the point on AEDs first. I completely agree with Dr Lim. That is why we have 237 AEDs in the SAF and we will equip it with the numbers that are necessary.

I am not a doctor but Dr Lim is an expert in this area. I am told by our doctors that not all conditions are treatable by an AED. There are such things as rhythms that are shockable and things which are not, and even if you have an AED there, it may or may not be of use to the person.

In the two cases that I mentioned, the presence or absence of an AED did not arise because the persons were very close to the medical centre and there were medical officers at the medical centres available to treat them, much better than with an AED.

On the question of whether or not such conditions can be detected, I will have to be guided by the medical professionals. I imagine that there must be panels which look at best practices in this field and when such practices advance, we will certainly advance with

them. I am not able to engage into a detailed discussion on the merits of particular procedures or examinations which I am sure Dr Lim is much better able to do so.

Mr Speaker, I want to ask the Minister whether there are any comparable data of other armed forces on similar cases of heart attacks and whether there is research done by these foreign armed forces, which we can learn from.

I do not have comparable data that Dr Ong has asked for. But I have data for the Singapore male population, aged 18-45. And National Servicemen and our operationally-ready National Servicemen are generally of that age range.

Over that period, there were 261 cases of sudden cardiac death, which is about 87 cases per year. For the SAF, there were 19 cases of sudden cardiac death from 1996-2005, which was about 2.1 cases per year. There are roughly about three cohorts' worth of males in the SAF at any one time - two cohorts of National Servicemen and another cohort comprising regulars plus operationally-ready National Servicemen who are in for their ICT. So, in round numbers, there are about three cohorts at any one time. There are about 27 cohorts of males between the ages of 18-45 in the statistics I have just cited. So there are nine times more. I think you can do the comparison, with 2.1 cases per year for the SAF and 87 cases per year for the population at large for a roughly similar age group.

10. Mdm Halimah Yacob asked the Minister for Health whether the Ministry

will consider removing the maximum limit currently prescribed for Medisave savings so that the entire Medisave contributions can be retained in the Medisave Account instead of transferring the excess amount to the Ordinary Account.

Currently, Medisave accounts are subject to a Medisave Contribution Ceiling of $32,500. Once an account has reached this level, new contributions to Medisave will overflow to the member's Ordinary Account.

This policy was introduced in 1986. It is to give Singaporeans greater flexibility in using their excess Medisave monies for other needs, once they have been deemed to have saved enough for their future hospitalisation expenses at class B2 level.

Recently, we have received suggestions from some middle-income members to use their Medisave to help pay for the higher cost of hospitalisation in private hospitals and class A/B1 wards. The question is whether allowing this will undermine the adequacy of Medisave for future hospitalisation needs of Singaporeans. Perhaps we can allow this for those with healthy balances and active contributions. If we do, we may need to raise the Medisave Withdrawal Limits and the Medisave Contribution Ceiling for such members, as they are currently based on class B2 rates.

My Ministry is studying the issue carefully and will also consult the public before making a decision on this.

Sir, when will the review be expected to complete and the new policy implemented?

In due course, Sir.

11. Dr Ong Seh Hong asked the Minister for Health whether his Ministry will consider further extending the age cap for MediShield coverage beyond 80 years or removing altogether the age cap for MediShield, to include more elderly Singaporeans under a broader based medical cover, particularly when this group will be most dependent on medical cover in their very old age.

The age cap for MediShield coverage is not a permanent age cap. As life expectancy goes up, it should move in tandem.

The current age cap of 80 was set in 2001. I think it is time for another review.

Now that the MediShield reform has been implemented, I have begun to look into this possible refinement. But I must confess that in the last three days, I have not been focusing on this subject.

In this regard, the MediShield reform has already produced some early benefits. There are now four insurers offering catastrophic illness insurance coverage for Singaporeans above 80. It is likely that the current MediShield Plus tender may attract bids with an age cap higher than 80 years. If so, their bids will also help us in our study of where to re-set the age cap and the premiums for such an age band.

3.00 pm

Order. End of Question time.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No. 22, Written Answers to Question Nos. 18, 20, 30 and 34 on the Order Paper are reproduced in the Appendix*. Question Nos. 12-17, 19, 21-29, 31-33 and 35-46 have been postponed to the sitting of Parliament on 19th July 2005.]

*Cols.

for Security and Defence)

Mr Speaker, Sir, eleven days ago, on July 7th, terrorists attacked London. The facts of the London bomb blasts are now known. Four separate bombs, three in the subways and one on a bus, went off almost simultaneously. The casualty toll stands at more than 50 dead and over 800 injured. In Singapore, we were doubly shocked by the attack. First, it struck against a city and a country that had taken the terrorist threat seriously and prepared for it. Second, it struck London less than a day after that city was selected, in Singapore, to host the 2012 Olympic Games.

Given the sophistication of the attack, it was clear that the preparations for the attack must have required much effort and planning. In targeting the London transport system at peak hour, the attack was clearly intended to cause maximum casualties, disruption and chaos. We do not know why the terrorists timed the attack that day, but the attack appears to have been timed to coincide with the opening of the G8 Summit in order to create maximum publicity.

Sir, the attack on London was a wicked act by evil men. We condemn this cruel and ultimately senseless act. We are deeply saddened by the loss of many innocent lives. The Government and the people of Singapore have conveyed our deepest sympathies to the people of London and the United Kingdom. Singapore also conveyed its strong support for Britain in the fight against terror. In this hour of darkness, the British people showed courage and resilience.

We applaud the efforts of the UK government in managing the consequences of the attack. We were impressed by the swift and well-co-ordinated response of the emergency agencies in the immediate aftermath of the incident and by the determination of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the British Government to return London to a state of normalcy.

Within four hours of the attack, all the survivors had been evacuated and the London public transport system had been shut down. Government officials held joint press conferences and gave systematic updates on the situation to calm the public. By the next morning, July 8th, most of the light railway and surface rail had resumed operations in East London and buses had begun to run. Roads, previously closed, had re-opened except for those in the immediate vicinity of the attacks. The underground rail network also resumed partial operations but with added security measures, such as sniffer dogs and extra patrols.

The July 7th attack underscores the persistence of the global menace of transnational terrorism. While many key operatives of the terrorist network of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been arrested over the last few years, the threat has not been eliminated. Instead, Al-Qaeda has morphed into a loose franchise of terror inspiring the emergence of new groups of fanatics. The London attack confirmed that all countries in the world, including Singapore, face a clear and present threat of terrorism. Our common fight against transnational terrorism must continue. It will be a long struggle and we need to be prepared for a protracted campaign.

Security Measures

Over the last few years, my colleagues and I have been actively thinking and

working to reduce the likelihood of such terrorist attacks occurring in Singapore. The terrorist threat we face is not ordinary. On various occasions in this House and at dialogue sessions, I have explained how the terrorist threat today is qualitatively different from the terrorist threat of the past, and hence requires a different and strategic response. We live in a different world today. Globalisation is a fact of life that we cannot escape. Indeed, globalisation must be embraced if we are to benefit from the globally interconnected economy. But there is a dark side to globalisation as well - a transnational terrorism that operates on the same autonomous global networking.

The terrorist threat today comprises a network of cells, groups and individuals residing in many countries linked often by personal friendship, inspired by a common extremist ideology and galvanised into deadly action usually by a radical mentor. This is a new challenge in the realm of security which all countries in the world have to confront today.

On May 16th, I spoke to Members of this House about the broad range of measures the Government has instituted across sectors, such as aviation security, maritime security, cyber security and border control, and the steps we have taken to strengthen our critical infrastructure and protect Singapore against chemical, biological, radiological and explosives threats.

Today, I would like to brief Members on the measures that the Government has taken to protect Singapore's transportation system against a terrorist threat. The Government stepped up the security of our public transportation network as a precaution immediately after the attacks in London took place. The National Security Coordination Secretariat in the Prime Minister's Office worked with agencies in the Ministry of Home Affairs

and the Ministry of Transport to review and enhance our security measures where necessary.

Post 9-11, we have stepped up security measures across all our major sectors, including our public security systems. Even before the April 2004 Madrid train attacks, MHA, MOT and LTA, together with our security agencies, have been progressively enhancing the security of our public transport systems and hardening its infrastructure. In April last year, we formed the Public Transport Security Committee to study what other measures could be taken to protect our commuters' safety. Since then, even more has been done to strengthen the security of our MRT and bus networks. Our security agencies have been working with the public transport providers since the Madrid bomb blasts of March 2004 to prevent an attack on our trains and buses and to prepare them to deal with an incident, if one should occur.

Our Internal Security Department (ISD) has no specific intelligence to indicate terrorist attacks in Singapore are about to take place. But we should bear in mind that the Jemaah Islamiyah had previously planned to attack MRT stations here. This makes the work of the Public Transport Security Committee critical. The Committee monitors prevailing security threats to Singapore's public transport system and enhances existing security measures. The Committee has since August 2004 developed plans to deploy transit security guards to MRT stations and bus interchanges. A Police MRT unit has been set up and will be deployed from August 2005. CCTV coverage for MRT stations and trains will continue to be enhanced. An MRT security audit framework has been implemented. We are continuing efforts to boost commuter vigilance and are conducting exercises to validate contingency plans in a multiple simultaneous attack scenario.

In the immediate aftermath of the London bomb blasts on July 7th, our Police HQ Command Post quickly initiated action by police units. Police patrols were stepped up at all MRT stations. The MRT operators increased the number of checks done on commuters. As London and other cities implement more measures to detect and prevent terrorist attacks, we must do likewise. For example, we are planning the deployment of Explosive Detection Dog teams at MRT stations to carry out surprise checks. We will also install CCTV at bus interchanges for better surveillance.

National Resilience

Sir, the London attack underlines the point that no one is immune from the threat of transnational terrorism. The UK Government has a robust security architecture and professional service in dealing with terrorism. Yet, even a city as hardened and prepared as London became victim to terrorist attacks. The next target could well be Singapore. I would like to urge all Singaporeans to be psychologically prepared, and vigilant. I am glad to note that, in recent months, there has been an increase in the number of reports made to our security agencies by members of the public about suspicious activities and bags left unattended. It shows that our people can be alert when jolted out of their comfort zone. This does not mean that we should live in fear or that we should be paranoid about every single item left unattended in public places. Rather, it is about taking ownership of our well-being. We must share the conviction that together we can defeat any attacks against us. As I have often said, Sir, fighting terror is not just the Government's fight. It is Singapore's fight against terrorism.

But winning the fight against terrorism does not mean that there will not be an attack. Even with the best preparation

and the most comprehensive security measures, an attack is possible and can take place without specific warning. How we conduct ourselves in the aftermath of a terrorist attack will be a major test of our national resilience and our mettle as a people. We need to remain resolute in the face of terrorism. The people of London have proven to be tenacious and unyielding. Time and again, we have seen how important the resilience of our people is in the face of an attack. This is best epitomised by the reactions of many Londoners. When asked about how they are coping with the terrorist attack, one Londoner put it this way, "I think the idea is to get back to normal as quickly as possible. That's the best way to show them [the terrorists] it isn't going to work." The response of the whole British society - the victims and their families, the British people, the emergency responders, the media, Government and politicians - all rallied and refused to be cowed by the terrorists. London will prevail. So too must Singapore.

The reactions and responses of Singaporeans to the terrorist attacks in London are encouraging. They now recognise that security measures, which were previously regarded as onerous, are now a necessary fact of life. Many supported the widening of security measures to protect Singapore.

Social Cohesion and Religious Tolerance

Sir, social cohesion across various ethnic and religious groups in Singapore is an integral part of our national resilience as a nation.

We should be alert to the impact of a terrorist attack on the social fabric of our nation. The British authorities have identified the perpetrators of the London blasts and they are four young, Muslim British citizens. Three of them were born in Britain of Pakistani descent. The fourth was an immigrant of Jamaican

descent. Let me say categorically at this point that terrorism has nothing to do with the true faith of Islam. I cannot agree more with Prime Minister Tony Blair when he said, and I quote, "Fanaticism is not a state of religion but a state of mind." Let us not dignify these murderers, for this is what they are, by associating them with any great religious faith of the world.

At the same time, we should not take the strength of our social fabric for granted until it has been tested by fire. In the wake of an attack, a backlash against our Muslim community could split our country and lay to waste the decades of hard work we have put in into nurturing racial and religious harmony and in building up social resilience. All Singaporeans must be sensitive to this concern. For example, in the wake of the London bomb blasts, several arson attacks against Muslim targets were reported in various parts of the UK, and the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslims in the UK received hate mail and threats.

The Singapore Muslim community has made great strides in forging a unique Muslim identity shaped by a deep conviction in Islam and fostered by Singapore's unique context of a pluralistic and progressive society and a globalised and secular state. The Singapore Muslim identity is rooted in the principle that Muslims faithful to Islam can play an important and integrative role as active citizens in a secular Singapore. MUIS and other Malay/Muslim leaders are taking the lead in forging the Singapore Muslim identity. They will draw from the lessons we have learnt from the experiences of other Muslim communities. We will apply these lessons carefully as they relate to the context of the Singapore Muslim community. Some of these lessons have broader, universal appeal, for example, tolerance of diversity and the need to adapt one's religious life to the unique context of the society and the state we live in.

Sir, in May, I joined Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs, Minister Yaacob and President MUIS, Alami Musa, on a visit to Egypt and Turkey to have a first-hand look at the practice of Islam in these two countries. Egypt, and in particular Al-Azhar University in Cairo, is the cradle of Islamic scholarship and an icon of Islamic learning. Our visit to Egypt and our meetings with the Grand Mufti Dr Ali Jummah and Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Sheikh Tantawi reinforced the message of religious leaders in Singapore that Islam, as a religion of peace, is tolerant of diversity and is progressive and inclusive. I would encourage MUIS to share its observations of the Egyptian and Turkish Muslim communities with the public and of how the visits have helped to reaffirm the validity of key principles in the Singapore Muslim identity. In general, the message that is conveyed by the Islamic scholars and leaders in these two countries (Egypt and Turkey) is that each Muslim community has to decide on the unique way in which it should lead its religious life. Singapore's context of a multi-religious society and a modern, globalised and secular state is unique. It exerts an influence over the religious life of the Muslim community.

A Muslim community's integration with other communities in a secular state is key to reducing suspicion and mistrust. A Muslim community's denunciation of radical Islamic groups that perpetrate acts of terrorism will help other communities see that Islam is a religion of peace, that the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving and that Islam should not be tarnished by the acts of a small radical minority. This will help mitigate any backlash in the event of a terrorist attack. In this connection, I welcome the statements by MUIS and other Muslim groups in Singapore denouncing the attacks in London.

Conclusion

We have been fortunate that there have been no attacks on Singapore. But we cannot be complacent. Our security agencies cannot be everywhere. The people of Singapore play a critical role in partnership with the Government to keep Singapore safe and secure. They do so in three important ways. First, our people are the eyes and ears and the extended reach of our security agencies. In this regard, I would like to urge all members of the public to continue to be vigilant and to report suspicious articles, persons or activities to the security agencies. Second, our people are the arms and legs of the emergency response agencies. Singaporeans should take an active interest in life-saving skills and participate in emergency response exercises organised in their neighbourhoods and constituencies. Third, our people are the hearts and minds of the country. The psychological resilience of Singaporeans and the unity and harmony among the different communities are crucial to see Singapore through crises.

We can learn from the example set by Londoners in how they reacted and responded to the terrorist attacks of 7th July. They have remained resilient and defiant in the face of terrorism, and they have achieved a remarkable recovery. The Muslim community in the UK has contributed to the healing process and has worked hard with the other communities to strengthen the moderate voice of Islam.

Since 9-11, my colleagues and I have worked to upgrade the physical security protective measures in Singapore, review the strategic framework that facilitates greater coordination across Government agencies and cooperation internationally, raise the public's awareness and enhance our collective resilience. However, we must be prepared for a long struggle. The

fight against terror cannot be left to the Government alone. The nation must come together and stand up to the threat facing us. Only through sustained vigilance and unity can we secure our safety and security.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to thank the Deputy Prime Minister for issuing a statement on terrorism and the attack on London. But would the DPM not also agree that, besides taking security measures, we could also learn quite a bit from the social change currently undergoing in Britain? And one of the key questions is: why would well-adjusted young men from 19 to 20 years become so radicalised that they would undertake such act against their fellow citizens? A question has also been asked, in the preaching of Islam to these young people, whether there was a shortage of British-born Imams, so much so that they have to bring in foreign-born Imams, and as a result they could not preach to the young people using British terms, thereby exposing them to external Islamic radical ideas.

So I thought, perhaps, we also have to ask ourselves whether in a multi-racial and multi-cultural society like Singapore, terrorism can be internal rather than external. If the threat is mainly internal, then all the ICA barriers that they put up may not stop terrorism. Therefore, it is more important, Sir, that we might have to look further into this and ask the same question that the British have asked - can the young people in Singapore become so radicalised to take similar action against their fellow citizens?

Sir, Dr Wang Kai Yuen has asked a question as to whether terrorism can be internal as well as external. The answer is yes. Terrorism can be in our midst. It is not

something far away. It can be something which is home-grown. Three of the four people who blew themselves up in a bomb attack in London were born in Britain, British citizens. None of them were poor. All of them had jobs. They were well adjusted. Dr Wang has asked: why should well-adjusted young men be prepared to be radicalised, carry out terrible acts, kill themselves, kill other people, to pursue an evil objective? Sir, this is a fundamental question which the world is asking. What is it that can inspire young men and also young women in the Middle East to give up their lives is a scenario which is difficult to understand. What do they gain from it? What do they believe?

The psychological profile of suicide bombers in Britain and other countries is a surprising one. These suicide bombers are not people who are devout, who know Islam, who have studied the religion. Quite often, as with the four suicide bombers in London, they are ordinary citizens - people who have jobs, people who mix with other communities. One of the bombers loved to play cricket; another one worked in his father's fish and chips shop. None of them were the type of people whom you might regard as people prepared to give up their lives, but they had been to Afghanistan or Pakistan. They had been radicalised by somebody who could twist their minds. One of them in fact was, according to the papers, somewhat of a playboy and a worry to his parents because he was not serious. But a visit to a terrorist camp, an extremist group, in Pakistan changed him. He became devoutly religious. He was born again, but for an evil purpose.

On the 31 Jemaah Islamiyah extremists whom we arrested in December 2001 and interrogated, the most worrying thing about these extremists is that they were so ordinary. All of them were fully employed. Some of them had served in our Singapore Armed

Forces. None of them could be regarded as being ill-treated. Why should they be prepared,

if we have not got them, to carry out attacks, deeds which would have killed not only Americans, foreigners, but many of their own friends and some of their own relatives?

Sir, this is a difficult question to answer. I will not try to do it here. When you talk about religion, you are reaching into the innermost recesses of a person's personality. We have to understand this. We are working with our counterparts in other countries to try and understand it. We are exchanging intelligence. There is a new mood sweeping this Islamic world. That is why the Singapore Muslim identity project, initiated by MUIS and the other Muslim leaders in Singapore, is so important. One theory is that people, like the London bombers, are, in a sense, empty vessels. They had no religious ballast at all. They were empty, and, being empty vessels, when they met a radical mentor, it was easier to pour poison into their minds. It is a theory. Possible? We have to see whether this is true.

But it comes back to the point that in the case of our own Muslim community in Singapore, we must make sure that they have got a sound religious foundation. That way, there will be some protection against an external radical preacher being able to influence them. But that is not a 100% guarantee. There is no 100% guarantee. We can take certain steps in order to reduce this probability. One of the problems which they have in Britain is that, up to recently, they have no means to stop people coming into Britain and preaching in their mosques messages of hate, jihad and violence. Here, MUIS monitors our mosques very carefully, what is being preached at Friday prayers. I think in that way, we can help perhaps to moderate the possibility of an attack happening in Singapore. But I stress again, despite all the measures which we

have been taking, and we are taking, we cannot give a 100% guarantee that there will not be an attack in Singapore. We have to be prepared.

Winning the war on terrorism does not mean that there will not be an attack. We have to live with terror today. This is a stark message which all of us are confronted with. Our security agencies are working hard. We have a sound strategic framework which we have implemented. Our people are on the alert. We need to be vigilant all the time and we will prevail over terrorism. London has prevailed, so must we.

Sir, we learn that the London bombers were radicalised because of the visits to the madrasahs in Pakistan. I would like to ask the Minister whether he is aware of Singaporeans who have gone over to Pakistan to study at the madrasahs there, and what steps are being taken to restrict Singaporeans from travelling to such places and perhaps run the risk of radicalising themselves in the process.

Mr Speaker, Sir, on a quite different point, I wonder whether the Deputy Prime Minister can let us have his views on comments made, both locally and internationally, that London paid the price of Britain's involvement in the war in Iraq, bearing in mind that Singapore also supported the military operations in Iraq and there are fears that by doing so we have made ourselves more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Sir, with regard to the point about monitoring of Singaporeans who may have gone to madrasahs in Pakistan and be radicalised, yes, we try to keep track of who goes there. But we are a free society. So we cannot be sure of everybody. We do know that there are Singaporeans who have gone to some madrasahs, or

religious schools, in a neighbouring country and from there went on to Pakistan. We have to depend very much on feedback from relatives and friends about such activities. And in fact, Sir, it was a tip-off from a member of the public about a particular Muslim Singaporean who had gone to Afghanistan for training that led us to the arrest of the 31 Jemaah Islamiyah extremists in December 2001.

We cannot control the movements of Singaporeans. We keep watch on them. We try and make sure that we know who goes where. But for the other places, they can go to the southern Philippines to be radicalised. As to whether the bomb blasts in London were due to the involvement of Britain in the war in Iraq, there is no conclusive proof that one is linked to the other. There is no proof that if Britain had not joined the war in Iraq, there would be no bomb blast.

Sir, the agenda of the terrorists is not with regard to any particular incident or war. What they want is to overthrow the present international world order in which all of us are party and replace it by an Islamic caliphate, to bring Islam back to the practices of the 6th or 7th Century, to overthrow the open society in which all of us live in, and to close up the religion, be exclusive. Anybody who does not conform to the practices and beliefs of the radical Islam is a kafir, an infidel, and is therefore a fair target to be murdered. Sir, this is a murderous ideology. But it is real. It is not over there. It could reach here. We have to live with it. We support the war in Iraq. We believe that it is good for us to join the coalition led by the US against terror. The fight against terror is worldwide. We cannot opt out by not taking part. We are in it. We must continue whatever the difficulties. Ultimately, the civilised world will win out. The moderate Muslims will know that they cannot tolerate this radical

minority in their midst. Otherwise, Muslims throughout the world will be marginalised and regarded with suspicion. That cannot be so. We must win this war. There is no choice.

I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister if there are any plans ahead for us to conduct anti-terrorism drills at MRT stations, bus interchanges, and so on, like what UK actually had done previously, not just to educate the public but also to train the staff of the public transport operators as to how to react if such an incident were to occur. I would also like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister what more could be done to prepare Singaporeans psychologically if such an incident were to happen because, if you talk to some Singaporeans, many of them may feel that such an incident happening could be remote in Singapore.

Sir, as to whether we are conducting anti-terrorism drills in MRT stations and bus interchanges, the answer is yes. We are already doing so. We have conducted such drills in order to guard against terrorists and also to prepare our people to know what to do if there should be a terrorist attack in our MRT station or in a bus interchange. I think one of the lessons which we can learn from Britian is that practice does work. In Britain, they have, what you call, the Civil Contingency Secretariat which has practised this scenario again and again. What happens if there is a terrorist attack in a subway station, and that is why when it happened, all the systems went into place. There was no panic. People were evacuated, rescued, and life went back to normal within a day. That is what we have to do in Singapore, and we have practised the scenario, not only in the case of one terrorist attack at one MRT station, but the possibility of simultaneous attacks in many stations. We have to prepare for the worst. Only by preparing

for the worst, can we ensure that we will not be caught off-guard.

What can we do to prepare Singaporeans for a terrorist attack? Singaporeans must be ready. The message must get through and it is here that Members of the House can assist by participating in the exercises conducted by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Police, in order to prepare Singaporeans psychologically so that they will not panic. MHA, for example, has this very useful initiative of distributing, what you call, 'Be Ready' bags in all the constituencies - bags which have got a radio, a torch and some medicines. That is a useful psychological reminder to Singaporeans of the world in which we now live and the danger possibly in our midst. But we have to keep at it all the time. Unfortunately, the fact that terrorist attacks do take place, for example, on July 7th in London, the place which is familiar to many Singaporeans, brings home the message to all Singaporeans that, today, no one is immune from the terror threat. So keep at it, reinforce our resilience, strengthen our security, and we will prevail.

I would like to ask DPM whether he can enlighten us on how we can educate Singaporeans to spot possible terrorists within their midst. I know it is difficult. But the thought of having it so easy for terrorists to strap suicide bomb materials onto their bodies and just going into MRT stations to blow off stations simultaneously is too terrible to bear. I wonder whether it is possible because I saw an ISD video where there was a suspicious-looking man with a cap and sweater on a hot day in Raffles Place, with a fake bomb strapped onto him, and nobody around him batted an eyelid. So I wonder whether more could be done to educate Singaporeans on such matters.

I would say again, Sir, that what we should do is

when you see something which is suspicious, if you see a bag which is left unattended, report to some authority. We will look into it. We have to. And I am glad that we are getting more reports today, be vigilant. I saw a programme on television where they conducted a test and left a bag in Raffles Place, and two people who were alarmed from it were two foreigners - two American women - because they have been used to an attack. To be safe, do not wait until an attack in Singapore. After that, everybody will be vigilant, but it would be too late.

In view of the group of Singaproeans who have travelled to Pakistan and studied in a madrasah, and DPM had indicated earlier on that indeed there is a tracking on this group of people, I am just wondering whether there has been any detection of abnormal behaviour in this group of people and, since this group of people is in the midst of our community, whether there is any effort made to engage employers or people who actually do come into contact with these people so that this group of people who are in close contact can be made aware of the behaviour and movement of these people.

Sir, first, I note with some concern that the person accused of murdering Huang Na, Took, was able to just leave Singapore and go into Johore without a passport and without being stopped

by immigration on both sides. I think that causes some concerns among Singaporeans on the issue of security. So, I would like to ask DPM's comments on that.

My second point, Sir, is that one of the comments about these four men who were the bombers is that they came from the Beeston area of Leeds. There was a comment piece which I read which pointed out the fact that there is not much integration in that area. In fact, there was extreme segregation and

isolation among British who are Caucasians and those who are Asians living in the Beeston area. What I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister is whether, in his view, there is something else that we can do a lot, in terms of integration. We have already got the IRCCs in place. Are we comfortable with that or is there something more that we can do to ensure more integration in Singapore?

Sir, let me take Mdm Halimah's question first.

With regard to this suspect, Mr Took, who is accused of murdering Huang Na and who just strolled across the causeway, yes, that was a breach of border control. This should never have happened, and that this is something which our immigration authorities would have to tighten up. It is something which we will have to look into.

As to whether the segregation situation in Beeston contributed to the radicalisation of these Muslims, it is possible. But, as I said, the three young men were regarded as well-adjusted British people. They played cricket, they integrated well. One of them had British girlfriends, much to the worry of his parents, and yet he could be radicalised. Here, in Singapore, Sir, we are very conscious that there should not be segregation of the races, and that is why in our housing estates, CCs and all our activities, we encourage all the races to mix together, and I am happy that in our mosques as well, our mosque leaders and community reach out to other communities, and the more that we can participate in such activities the better. Let me just give a plug for brisk-walking. I think that is a good example where early this month we had an exercise and 5,000 people of all races and ages could take part in such an activity. And I think this

helps to create understanding and we should do more. It may appear trivial but it is not. It is a way in which one community or race can be comfortable with another, and we should never neglect this. It is very important.

As to whether we are monitoring people who have been to Pakistan and come back and what we are doing about them, the answer is, yes, we have a very efficient ISD. They monitor such people and that is why, from time to time, as hon. Members would know, people are arrested and detained, and it is necessary but it is a continuous job, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and this monitoring has to go on and we have to be very grateful to all our security people, ie, the police, ISD, SAF, SID, the people in our National Security Coordination Secretariat for the effort which they have made to keep Singapore safe, and I think that we cannot continue to do so without the help of Members to mobilise the public. This is not a job for the Government alone. This is a job for all Singaporeans.

Sir, if I may ask the Deputy Prime Minister, with our tight border control and security checks at the border, how do we expect that the smugglers or terrorists can actually manage to smuggle the bombs into Singapore when security is so tight?

Sir, I would say that just the fact that we have had no bombs in Singapore shows that our border controls work.

Sir, one of the successes of the British investigation after the fact was that they had a network of thousands of closed circuit televisions and there was one statistic which said that the chance of a Londoner being caught on camera is like 300 times a day. My question is whether or not we think that

this might be necessary for us to implement in Singapore.

Sir, we are extending the CCTV coverage in our bus stations, MRT stations and other places in Singapore where people congregate. It is a part of life now. For example, at our MRT stations, all our CCTV cameras are those where the films are recorded and we can analyse them. Surveillance is one of the effective ways of deterring terrorism. We have to expand this to areas where many Singaporeans go to in order to travel or to get together for meals and recreation. We cannot, of course, have a system where the whole of Singapore is under surveillance. So, one has to have a judicious balance between the needs for security and respecting the privacy of Singaporeans. That is a difficult decision which all societies in the world have to make today.

Sir, I would like to take up a point made by another Member on the connection between the war on terrorism and Iraq. I note that our engagement in Iraq was singled out in the joint statement between President Bush and our Prime Minister Lee in the Prime Minister's recent visit to Washington. But, Sir, even some years after the coalition intervention in Iraq, there has been no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. So, I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister for his views on whether the coalition intervention in Iraq has actually advanced or brought us backwards in the war against terrorism.

Sir, I am not going to enter into a debate about whether the war in Iraq is justified or not. That is another issue. But I would say, Sir, that with all the measures which have been taken over the last three years since 9/11, including the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the arrest of the Al Qaeda leaders, the detention of the JI leaders

here, breaking up of cells, on the whole, the world is a safer place today than in 2001, and it is because of the fact that the world is now alert to this threat of terrorism and it is a world-wide fight across many sectors, dimensions and areas. It is not a fight where you can isolate it in one territory. It is not a fight which is external. It is a fight which is everywhere, including in our midst, and that is why eradicating terrorism is going to take a long time, possibly two or three generations, and we must be prepared for this long struggle. That is life.

Mr Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister has pointed out that we should not deteriorate into paranoia. I fully agree with him. He has also emphasised the importance of prevention, particularly integration of society. I would like to make a point here that I think that we could do better with integration between the different races in schools. I know that a lot of effort is put into this, but I get the impression that, because of the mother tongue policy, a lot of school children today are perhaps not as well integrated with other races as they could be. For instance, my daughter went to school where there were hardly any Malay or Indian children because it did not offer those mother tongue languages. So, can I say that we should look more into integration at the school level because I feel that, as has been seen, a lot of these terrorists are actually very young, and I am sure the seed of this would be planted at the educational level?

Sir, the Minister for Education is in this House and I am sure that he has listened to the point which Dr Geh Min has said so eloquently. If the Minister would like to reply, he can do so. Or, if Dr Geh Min could file a Question for Oral Answer, I am sure the Minister would give her a comprehensive reply.

But, Sir, I think this is an important area that should be under the purview of the Coordinating Minister for Security and Defence. If we look at the Pakistani boys who were born and bred in London and they could not perhaps integrate and could then be cultivated for such terrorist acts, my fear is, not today but down the road, if our children are not cultivated to integrate with one another. And it is a real problem, particularly when we talk to the minorities. I was just discussing with Mdm Cynthia Phua that my daughter was asked to form a study group in her school in Cedar Secondary. All her group members were Indians, and I worry about this because I thought that she should have had a mixed group. And this is not an isolated story. There are many incidents like this. I hope that Members will bring up their experiences. Perhaps it is not just a matter for the Ministry of Education, but it is a security issue.

Sir, I will just make one general point, and that is in a multi-racial society like Singapore, we must use every means possible in order to foster more integration among our races, particularly among our young people and, wherever it is possible to do so, we should encourage such activities so that communities would have a better understanding of each other. That is why, while we understand that each religious group and each community will have some activities which they would prefer to do on their own in public places, in schools, for example, we should foster integration as much as possible, and I agree with Mr Inderjit Singh on that point. But, as to whether if we do all these, if other societies do all these, if we look into the problems of poverty, this will remove the terrorist threat, that is still to be debated, because the analysis so far is that it goes beyond social problems. It has an illogical, perverse religious inspiration, and no amount of

attention to social problems can remove that, although attention to social problems may help to alleviate or perhaps turn people away from the path of radicalism.

Order. I propose to take the break now. I suspend the sitting and will take the Chair again at 4.20 pm.

Sitting accordingly suspended

at 3.58 pm until 4.20 pm.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Sitting resumed at 4.20 pm

"to amend the Money-changing and Remittance Businesses Act (Chapter 187 of the 1996 Revised Edition)",

presented by the Minister for Education (Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available sitting of Parliament; and to be printed.

"to amend the Subordinate Courts Act (Chapter 321 of the 1999 Revised Edition) and to make a consequential amendment to the Government Proceedings Act (Chapter 121 of the 1985 Revised Edition)",

presented by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Law (Prof. S Jayakumar); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available sitting of Parliament; and to be printed.

"to amend the Professional Engineers Act (Chapter 253 of the 1992 Revised Edition)",

presented by the Minister for National Development (Mr Mah Bow Tan); read the First

time; to be read a Second time on the next available sitting of Parliament; and to be printed.

"to amend the Architects Act (Chapter 12 of the 2000 Revised Edition)",

presented by Mr Mah Bow Tan; read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available sitting of Parliament; and to be printed.

"to amend the Housing and Development Act (Chapter 129 of the 2004 Revised Edition) and to make related amendments to the Central Provident Fund Act (Chapter 36 of the 2001 Revised Edition) and the Residential Property Act (Chapter 274 of the 1985 Revised Edition)",

presented by Mr Mah Bow Tan; read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available sitting of Parliament; and to be printed.

"to amend the Weights and Measures Act (Chapter 349 of the 1985 Revised Edition)",

presented by the Minister of State for Trade and Industry (Mr Heng Chee How); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available sitting of Parliament; and to be printed.

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Background

As background, Members of the House may recall that in November last year, we amended the Copyright Act to strengthen our copyright regime and to ensure that it remained relevant in the face of technological advancement. Several of the amendments were also to fulfil the copyright aspects of our United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement obligations.

The Bill today, Sir, seeks to clarify and refine the law to address issues in the implementation of some of the provisions in the Copyright Act. This is in response to feedback received after the last round of amendments came into force in January this year. Due to the very fast pace of developments in digital technology in an online environment, let me say that we can expect refinements to the law to deal with various practicalities that arise from time to time.

Sir, we made available a consultation draft version of the Bill on the website of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore from 21st March to 19th April this year. All feedback, including responses from IP rights organisations and user groups, was carefully considered, and adjustments made to the proposed amendments, wherever appropriate.

Let me turn to the key features of the amendments.

Temporary reproductions/user caching

First, amendments to the provisions dealing with temporary reproductions and user caching. Sir, when a user receives or makes an electronic communication, or surfs the Internet, incidental copies of material are automatically made on the

user's computer. For example, when an Internet user visits a website, a copy of the website content is automatically made by the user's computer, primarily to speed up the loading of the webpage on a repeat visit. These copies are made automatically, and involve no direct action by the user. As such, the user should not be held liable for any copyright infringement occurring under such circumstances. Therefore, the existing Copyright Act exempts the making of such incidental copies from copyright infringement. Clauses 2, 4, 9 and 15 of the Bill amend sections 38A, 107E, 193E and 252D respectively to clarify, for avoidance of doubt, that the exemption only applies to short-lived incidental copies, and not to long-lasting copies even if they are made automatically.

Mr Speaker, Sir, clauses 2 and 4 of the Bill also stipulate that the exemptions under sections 38A and 107E do not apply if the material or the communication itself is infringing. In addition, these provisions do not authorise any subsequent use of the short-lived incidental copies. These conditions are further safeguards against abuse of the exemptions which are intended for cases of innocent technical copying.

Limitation of Network Service Provider (NSP) liability

Next, let me now turn to limitation of liability for Network Service Providers or NSPs. Sir, under the existing framework, NSPs must satisfy certain conditions to qualify for exemption from liability to the copyright owner for monetary relief. The proposed amendments affect two of these conditions, namely, the issue of acquisition of knowledge and the issue of financial benefit.

Acquisition of knowledge

On acquisition of knowledge, a condition for exemption from liability to the copyright owner for monetary relief is that if an NSP has knowledge of infringing material on its network or on another network to which it refers or links a user, the NSP must expeditiously take reasonable steps to remove or disable access to this material.

Currently, there are two conditions which must be satisfied before an NSP which is not an individual will be treated as having any knowledge. First, the actual or constructive knowledge must be acquired by a representative designated by the NSP to receive take-down notices from copyright owners. Second, any communication conveying such knowledge to the designated representative must be in the form of a prescribed notice.

Sir, we intend to strike a better balance between the interests of NSPs and copyright owners, and therefore, clause 7 and clause 12 amend section 193D(2), (3) and (5) and section 252C(2), (3) and (5), respectively, to do away with the condition that the actual or constructive knowledge must be acquired by a designated representative, and to allow the notice to be substantially in accordance with the prescribed form, without the necessity for strict conformance.

Financial benefit

I turn to the other condition for an NSP to qualify for limited liability which is, that it must not receive any financial benefit directly attributable to the infringement.

Sir, the Copyright Act currently sets out the conditions that determine if an NSP has received financial benefit. First, financial benefit does not include any benefit the NSP receives merely for

providing online services. Second, financial benefit can only be said to be linked directly to the infringing activity if the NSP knew at the time it received the benefit that copyright infringement was involved.

However, Sir, NSPs may be able to profit from infringing activity while still enjoying limited liability.

Therefore, clauses 7 and 12 amend sections 193D(6) and 252C(6) to replace the two conditions with factors which the courts can now consider in determining whether a financial benefit is directly attributable to an infringement. These factors are: firstly, the industry practices in relation to the charging of services by NSPs; secondly, whether the financial benefit was greater than the benefit that would usually result from charging in accordance with accepted industry practices; and finally, all other matters that the court considers relevant.

This change gives our courts a wider discretion in determining whether, on the facts of any particular case, an NSP should enjoy limited liability and would allow new developments, and innovative services and pricing policies, to be taken into account. Overall, we believe the amendments will provide a better balance of interests between copyright owners, NSPs and subscribers.

Mr Speaker, Sir, NSPs have expressed concerns that, in order to avoid or limit liability, they may, as a result of the amendments, be compelled to police their networks for infringing materials to ensure that they are not receiving financial benefit that involves infringing activities. This is because not having knowledge of infringing material will no longer automatically exempt NSPs from being considered to have received a financial benefit. Such policing could result in an undue burden for NSPs.

To address this concern, clauses 5 and 14 provide for the new sections 193A(3) and 252CF(2), respectively, which clarify, for avoidance of doubt, that NSPs do not need to monitor their services nor affirmatively seek facts indicating infringing activity. NSPs are also not obliged to gain access to, remove or disable access to online material where such conduct is prohibited by law.

Liability for authorising infringement

Next, I turn to NSP liability for authorising infringement. Sir, under our copyright framework, a person who "authorises" copyright infringement by the provision of facilities may, under certain circumstances, be liable to legal action. An NSP, by the nature of its business, may thus fall into this category. Sir, in order to ensure that NSPs are not subject to unreasonable accusations of authorisation liability, sections 193DA(5) and 252CA(5) of the existing Copyright Act provide that an NSP cannot be treated as having authorised an infringement simply because it has done one of three enumerated acts. These are, firstly, that the NSP has provided a facility that was used by another person to carry out the infringing activity; secondly, that the NSP has received a notice informing it of the infringing activity; and, thirdly, that the NSP has acquired any knowledge of the infringing activity.

Clauses 8(c) and 13(c) amend section 193DA(5) and 252CA(5), respectively, to allay concerns raised by copyright owners that the current wording might be misconstrued as immunising an NSP against authorisation liability even in a clear case involving such liability. The question of an NSP being liable for authorising infringement will continue to be left to the Courts to decide, based on the facts of each case.

Restoration of online material

Let me now turn to the restoration of online material. As Members may recall, the take-down and restoration procedure for NSPs provides that when an NSP receives a take-down notice from or authorised by a copyright owner relating to any material on a website, it will remove or disable access to the material if the material is on a website hosted on its network, or disable access to the material if the material is on a website hosted on another network. If the person who made available the material on the website disagrees, he can in turn file a counter-notice to have the material or access restored. If the copyright owner wishes to stop the restoration, he can institute court proceedings and inform the NSP of these proceedings before the material or access is restored. If no such action is taken, the NSP will proceed to restore the material or access.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the current provision does not specify the exact window within which the copyright owner must take legal action to stop the material or access from being restored, or exactly when the NSP should restore the material or access. Clauses 8(a) and 13(a) amend sections 193DA(2) and 252CA(2), respectively, to provide for specific time periods within which these actions must be undertaken by the relevant parties. Specific time periods will give certainty to all relevant parties of the expected actions on their part.

Sir, the amendments also provide that if the material was removed, or access to the material was disabled, in reliance on a take-down notice, the NSP must give a copy of the counter-notice to the copyright owner (or his representative) who furnishes the take-down notice, unless prohibited by privacy or data protection laws. The particulars on the

counter-notice may assist the copyright owner in determining his next course of action.

Just to conclude on NSP provisions, these provisions do not mean that an NSP is automatically liable for copyright infringement and monetary relief payable to copyright owners if it chooses not to meet the conditions to qualify for limited liability. Where the conditions are not met, the NSP's liability will simply be governed by the general provisions of the Copyright Act. This position does not change with this latest round of amendments to the NSP provisions. Overall, the amendments provide a better balance between the interests of NSPs, website owners and copyright owners.

Rights management information and circumvention of technological measures

Next, let me turn to rights management information and circumvention of technological measures.

Members would recall that the previous amendment to the Copyright Act criminalised certain prohibited acts in relation to rights management information and the circumvention of technological measures, if they are committed wilfully and for the purpose of obtaining a "commercial advantage".

Sir, clauses 16 and 17 amend the relevant sections 260 and 261C to expand the scope of criminal provisions to include acts wilfully committed for "private financial gain". Let me explain that this is necessary because in this digital age, it is possible for a person to potentially cause as much harm for private financial gain as for commercial purposes. The courts will determine on the facts of each case whether the act was committed for "private financial gain".

Conclusion

To conclude, Sir, these amendments, most of which are fairly technical, are important, and will fine-tune and enhance our copyright regime and provide a better balance between the interests of end-users, NSPs and copyright owners.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Prof. S Jayakumar].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Objective

Sir, the proposed amendments to the Town Councils Act will provide the legislative framework for Town Councils to carry out their own lift upgrading works using part of their sinking funds. This will help to speed up the lift upgrading programme and help us achieve our objective of providing direct lift access for all eligible HDB blocks within 10 years.

This Bill will introduce a new section on 'Lift Upgrading Works' under Part IVA of the Town Councils Act. It also seeks to widen certain powers of Town Councils to facilitate their day-to-day operations. The Bill will also impose penalties on a Town Council and its respective Chairman and Secretary, if the Town Council were to utilise its operating and sinking funds

for purposes not specifically authorised in the Act or its subsidiary legislation.

Let me now explain the various key provisions.

Town Councils' Lift Upgrading Programme

The Bill will empower Town Councils to carry out their lift upgrading works under the Town Council Lift Upgrading Programme (or TC-LUP). We will allow Town Councils to use up to 10% of their residential sinking funds for the TC-LUP. Clause 6 will introduce a new Part IVA on lift upgrading works by Town Councils. The manner in which Town Councils can implement the TC-LUP largely mirrors sections 65A to 65L of the Housing and Development Act, which cover the upgrading works carried out by the HDB. Amongst other things, this means that precincts proposed for TC-LUP have to be gazetted before they can be upgraded, and Town Councils will have the power to recover improvement contributions from their residents who benefit.

To implement TC-LUP, Town Councils will need to obtain HDB's prior approval and the support of at least 75% of residents in the block who will benefit from the lift upgrading works, the same as for HDB's upgrading programmes. HDB's prior approval is necessary, because as the lessor of HDB flats, it has an inherent responsibility to ensure that any improvement works that are carried out are carried out safely.

Currently, Town Councils are similarly required to obtain HDB's permission as landowner prior to carrying out improvement works to the common property in HDB estates.

Under the TC-LUP, residents will need to co-pay for the lift upgrading works, similar to HDB's LUP. This is to ensure that residents carefully consider their need for lift upgrading when voting for the TC-LUP.

Clause 6 of the Bill will empower Town Councils to recover from residents benefitting from the lift upgrading works their share of the TC-LUP costs. The contribution that Town Councils recover from each resident household benefitting cannot be lower than what residents would have paid had HDB carried out the same lift upgrading works in the precinct. Clause 6 also prescribes how Town Councils can impose interest and a penalty for late payments; how they can recover unpaid payments, including the sale of the flat as a last resort; and also the order of charge in which the sale proceeds of a flat will be disbursed.

As with HDB's upgrading programmes, residents who benefit from TC-LUP will be allowed to use their CPF balances to pay for their share of the TC-LUP costs. Clause 12 will make related amendments to the CPF Act to allow this. It will also create a charge on the HDB flat to secure the repayment to the CPF of the amount withdrawn for the TC-LUP works.

Offences for the misuse of Town Council funds

I shall now move on to the rationale for introducing offences under the Act if Town Councils were to use their funds in a manner not specifically authorised in the Act.

Sir, the control and use of Town Council funds are set out under section 33 of the Town Councils Act. Section 33(6)(a) provides for the circumstances under which Town Councils can use their sinking fund monies, while section 33(6)(b) allows Town Councils to disburse monies from their operating funds to carry out the duties and functions of Town Councils under the Town Councils Act or any other written law.

Town Councils have been in existence for 16 years. They have built up

substantial amounts of sinking funds and accumulated surpluses.

The sinking funds of Town Councils largely comprise S&CC contributions from residents. They are meant for the long-term cyclical maintenance of HDB estates. Works like the replacement of roofing systems, water tanks and electrical sub-systems, repainting, and major repairs and maintenance of common property, are necessary to ensure that our HDB estates are well maintained and provide a conducive and safe living environment for residents. The sinking funds need to be safeguarded so that they can finance these maintenance works when they are due.

Currently, there are no provisions under the Town Councils Act to take to task Town Councils that misuse their funds. Although this is not

a concern today, we need to strengthen the corporate governance of Town Councils going forward. This is the rationale for introducing provisions under the Town Councils Act that will make it an offence if a Town Council uses its funds in a manner not specifically authorised in the Act.

Clause 7 of the Bill will allow Town Councils to use their sinking funds to implement the TC-LUP. It will also make the contravention of section 33(6)(a) and (b), which governs the use of the Town Council's operating and sinking funds, an offence under the Town Councils Act. The penalty for the offence will be a fine of up to $5,000. The principal officers in charge of running the Town Council, that is, the Town Council Chairman and its Secretary, will also be liable if the Town Council commits such an offence with their consent or due to their negligence.

I earlier mentioned that Town Councils would be allowed to use up to 10% of their sinking funds to implement the TC-LUP. As a policy, we will only allow

Town Councils to implement the TC-LUP for blocks where the cost per benefitting unit does not exceed $5,000 per benefitting unit. We need to set a reasonable limit so that, within the budget, the benefits of lift-upgrading are spread amongst many blocks as possible. In other words, Town Councils do not use a disproportionate amount of their TC-LUP budget on a small number of blocks where the lift upgrading works are very costly. Clause 6 of the Bill will empower the Minister to make rules relating to the TC-LUP. In making these rules, we will make it an offence if a Town Council exceeds its expenditure limit of $5,000 per benefitting unit under the TC-LUP. As with clause 7, the Town Council Chairman and the Town Council Secretary will also be liable if the Town Council commits such an offence with their consent or due to their negligence. However, the Rules will be crafted with sufficient flexibility so that Town Councils will not be unfairly penalised if the cost per benefitting unit exceeds $5,000 under extenuating circumstances.

Let me reiterate that the penal clauses proposed in the Bill are very specific. They are to safeguard the use of Town Council funds, ensuring that Town Councils do not use their funds in an unauthorised manner or exceed the TC-LUP cost cap. These penal clauses will not cover other infringements under the Act.

Amendments to other sections

Sir, I shall now go through the other proposed amendments in the Bill. Clause 2 amends section 3(2) of the Act to extend the timeframe for Town Councils to be constituted after the publication of the polling results of a Parliamentary election from the current eight days to 14 days. This will give MPs and the relevant Government agencies more time to work out the boundaries of

the new towns, and to prepare and publish the required Orders.

Section 19 of the Act prescribes the functions of Town Councils. Currently, Town Councils can make improvements to common areas in HDB estates, subject to HDB's consent. They can also use their funds to maintain facilities outside common property, with the approval of the Minister. Clause 3 amends section 19 to empower Town Councils to also erect, repair and maintain facilities outside common property upon the Minister's approval and with the appropriate landowner's agreement. Clause 7 amends section 33(7) to clarify that Town Councils may use their funds for these purposes, ie, to erect, repair and maintain facilities outside common property, again subject to the Minister's approval and the landowner's agreement. These provisions will give Town Councils more leeway to propose improvement works within their towns, which will benefit their residents.

Clause 4 amends section 21(1) to clarify that Town Councils will be required to repair and maintain facilities erected outside common property upon the approval of the Minister and the consent of the landowner. This is to ensure that Town Councils are responsible for upkeeping those facilities outside common property which they have requested to build. Section 23 of the Act currently allows Town Councils, through their staff or agents, to enter a HDB flat to carry out works in the discharge of their duties and powers under sections 21 or 22 of the Act. However, it does not provide for Town Councils to carry out investigations before proceeding with the repair works. Clause 5 amends section 23 to enable Town Councils to carry out such investigations within the flats after giving sufficient notice to the owner.

Clause 8 amends section 39(14) to include the Personal Representative of a deceased lessee as a party who will be liable for any outstanding S&CC due from the deceased lessee. This is to overcome the operational constraints faced by Town Councils today in recovering outstanding S&CC in cases where the lessees have passed away.

Section 44 of the Act currently provides for the recovery of outstanding S&CC by creating a charge on the flat, prescribing the conditions under which a flat may be sold, and the order in which the proceeds are to be disbursed upon the sale of a flat. Clause 9 amends section 44 to alter the priority of payments to various parties in the event of a sale of flat to facilitate the recovery by Town Councils of unsecured payments under the TC-LUP. Clause 10 amends section 46 to enable Town Councils to offset their legal costs against the fines collected, before paying the balance amount into the Town Council fund. This amendment was proposed by the Town Councils to address the administrative constraints they face today in the prosecution of offenders under the Act or their by-laws. Under current provisions, Town Councils are required to pay all the fines and moneys collected from the composition of offences into the Town Council fund, before drawing from the fund again to pay for their legal costs.

Section 50 of the Act currently provides that the Minister may appoint any person to exercise or perform certain powers of a Town Council subject to certain timelines stipulated in the Act. This section has not been invoked. As section 50 is intended to address emergency situations, clause 11 amends this section to shorten the notice period the Minister must give to the Chairman of

a Town Council before he invokes his power to appoint another person to take over the powers and duties of the Town Council from 21 to seven days. It will similarly shorten the time given to the Chairman to make representations to the Minister from 21 days to seven days.

Finally, clause 13 seeks to make two related amendments to the Housing and Development Act. The first amendment seeks to extend the power to declare precincts for upgrading works, which is currently vested with the Minister for National Development, to the Minister of State for National Development. This is in anticipation of the larger number of precincts that will be declared for upgrading works, as we speed up lift upgrading. The second amendment is to bring the provisions under section 65H on the recovery of improvement contribution from the sale of flat in line with that under the new Part IVA of the Town Councils Act. It essentially requires HDB to defer the sale of a flat with outstanding improvement payments from the lessee if the flat has movable properties of sufficient value which could be sold to offset the debt.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Sir, the Prime Minister's announcement in January this year that the timeframe to complete lift upgrading will be shortened from 15 years to 10 years has brought cheer to many HDB residents. Allowing the Town Councils to use up to 10% of their sinking fund to undertake lift upgrading would help the Government achieve this 10-year target. This should benefit countless residents staying in the close to 4,000 blocks with lifts yet to be upgraded.

However, Sir, the proposed amendment to the Town Council Act to empower Town Councils to carry out lift

upgrading works has raised some issues. I would like to highlight five of these areas. Firstly, the timeframe to complete lift upgrading. The majority of the blocks in my ward were built before 1990. Many residents are asking me when they would be able to benefit from the lift upgrading programme. In their view, the 10-year timeframe is still too long. Many of the elderly folks tell me that since they are already so old, they may not have many more days to enjoy the use of the lifts. Sir, I am sure this is a common sentiment among the older residents in other estates.

Sir, the Minister for National Development noted in Parliament in March this year that there were some 3,000 high-rise blocks and 800 low-rise blocks that were still waiting for lift upgrading Of these, some 95% are eligible for lift upgrading under the new criteria which incorporate a cost cap of $30,000 per benefitting unit. If the target of completing the lift upgrading programme within the next 10 years is to be achieved, then, on average, some 360 blocks would have to undergo lift upgrading annually. I would like to ask the Minister if indeed, on average, some 360 blocks or thereabouts would undergo lift upgrading every year, starting from this fiscal year. If not, how is the Ministry planning to meet the target timeframe of 10 years? Furthermore, I would like to ask the Minister if the Ministry now has a more accurate estimate of how many of these blocks are eligible for lift upgrading under the TC-LUP. It was noted by the Minister in March that approximately 300 to 400 blocks could benefit under the TC-LUP. I would also like to ask how is the Ministry coordinating with the Town Councils and the HDB for the implementation of their respective LUP programmes, so that the LUP can be completed as soon as possible with minimum overlap and maximum efficiency.

Sir, while the effort to shorten the cycle of lift upgrading from 15 to 10 years is commendable, I urge the Government to look at more ways to further shorten this period. If the programme were to be completed in the next 10 years, it would, in effect, have to take some 15 years to complete the entire programme since its inception in 2001. For instance, my parliamentary colleague, Mr Ang Mong Seng, had previously suggested reducing the period between the announcement of the LUP and the commencement of the works. He also suggested looking into more innovative and effective ways to make lift upgrading more economical and also to hasten the process. I would like to ask the Minister if any headway has been made regarding these proposals.

Secondly, the proportion of sinking fund available for lift upgrading. Under the proposed section 33(6) of the Town Councils (Amendment) Bill, Town Councils can use a portion of the sinking fund to meet the cost and expenses of the TC-LUP. This requires the Minister's approval or direction and it only can be done with the consent of the owner of the non-common property. It is understood that up to 10% of each Town Council's sinking fund for residental properties, calculated as at 31st March 2004, can be used to fund the lift upgrading. However, the total amount of this sinking fund spent for the lift upgrading works must not exceed $5,000 per benefitting unit, excluding the lessee's co-payment.

Town Councils comprising older estates, with HDB blocks constructed before 1990, will have many blocks to be upgraded despite the fact that the LUP, IUP-Plus or MUP is still ongoing. For these older estates, this 10% of sinking fund cap as at a specific date may only cover a small proportion of the blocks in the towns that are eligible for LUP. This restriction will retard the speed at which all blocks in the estate can be fully

upgraded. Perhaps the Ministry could consider allowing a variation to this cap to enable TCs to accelerate their LUP. Every quarter, the Town Council contributes 30%, 35% or 40% of the service and conservancy charges to the sinking fund, as prescribed by the Town Council Rules. At the end of each financial year, the Town Council would know the sinking fund balance of that year. As the amount contributed and expended from sinking fund for each year can be calculated, perhaps the Ministry could look into allowing up to 10% of the surplus sinking fund contribution for that financial year after the accounts are audited to be transferred for Town Council-LUP. More blocks within that town could then benefit from the TC-LUP. This should help to speed up the lift upgrading programme significantly for residents, especially in precincts with a high proportion of flats built before 1990.

Thirdly, the provision for recovery of the improvement contributions. Section 44 of the existing Act provides for the recovery of conservancy and service charge from the sale of flat. This section is triggered when the conservancy and service charges remain unpaid on the expiry of 90 days after the Town Council had served on the owner of the flat a written demand of such charges. Before serving or publishing a notice of sale to declare its intention of selling the flat, the Town Council needs to obtain the prior written approval of the HDB. Under the proposed amendment, a similar provision is now introduced under section 24F for recovery of improvement contributions for the lift upgrading works under TC-LUP. However, there are differences. Under section

24F(1), the expiry period provided for is three months, instead of 90 days, although the practical difference is likely to be small. But it could be between 90 and 91 days. More importantly, unlike the existing provision, the new section

24F(5) provides that the Town Council may proceed to sell any flat which is subject to a charge without any mention of the need to first obtain approval from the HDB. HDB, as both reversionary owner and quite commonly the mortgagee, should surely be consulted before such drastic action is taken.

Sir, there is also some worry on the ground that, without additional safeguards, the Town Council may irresponsibly invoke this section and cause hardship, especially among the lower income families, the elderly who have little or no savings and no means of support, as well as those who may be facing temporary financial hardship due to retrenchment. There is a need to reconcile the two provisions on the recovery of conservancy and service charge under the existing section 44 and the recovery of improvement contribution under the new section 24F in order not to avoid confusion and for consistency and clarity. Explicitly stating that HDB's approval is needed before the Town Council can invoke section 24F to sell the flat to recover the improvement contributions would help allay some of the concerns of owners. Furthermore, it would be helpful if the Ministry could give assurance that the various modes of payment for the improvement contributions that are currently available to lessees under HDB's LUP, such as longer instalment payments and deferred payments for residents aged above 55 years, are also available to residents under the TC-LUP as indeed they ought to be.

Fourthly, the penal provisions. It is stated that any contravention of the provisions of the Act could subject the Town Council to be convicted of an offence and the sentence may be a fine of up to a maximum of $5,000. In addition, if the Town Council is guilty of an offence, the Chairman, Secretary or person who acts in such capacity may also be liable to the same maximum fine if

the offence is committed with the consent, connivance or neglect of that person. This clause is expanded to all expenditure from the Town Council fund - be it sinking fund or operating fund - and the Chairman, Secretary or any person would be fined if he has consented to or is in connivance with or has been negligent.

Sir, like MOS, I am all for sound corporate governance, whether the organisation is a commercial entity, a charitable or community institution, particularly in the light of recent events. However, while the counsellors can be likened to a company board of directors who have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders of the company, many counsellors have neither the technical training, nor the ability to keep an eagle eye on the affairs of the Town Council. Many of the Town Council members are volunteers and grassroots leaders. The duty by association thus appears very onerous and will discourage capable, honest and genuine people to serve in such capacities because they now run the risks of being sentenced for acts of negligence they were not totally responsible for. Is this clause really necessary as all persons in any event are subjected to the Penal Code? If any person has been guilty of, say, criminal breach of trust or misuse of funds, he will be brought to task under the more generic Penal Code. Is there a real need for such penal provisions in the Town Councils (Amendment) Bill which may breed a mentality of "spend less, less mistake made" or shao zuo shao cuo.

Fifthly, the provision for the eligible low rise blocks in upgraded precincts and ineligible high rise blocks. Sir, the Ministry's decision to include low rise blocks in the lift upgrading programme is indeed welcome. I would like to ask the Minister of State whether all the low rise blocks eligible for lift upgrading subject to a cost cap have been identified and made

known to the Town Council and grassroots organisations. Additionally, I would like to ask the Minister of State how the Ministry intends to handle those low rise blocks which are eligible for lift upgrading but are located in precincts which have already been upgraded under the MUP, IUP Plus or LUP. When will these blocks be able to benefit from the lift upgrading programme? The Ministry has also announced a cost cap of $30,000 per benefitting unit for its lift upgrading programme in order to maximise the number of blocks that can benefit from this programme. It was reported in the press that about 190 blocks had been identified to be too costly for lift upgrading. Considering that lift access is much coveted and would be even more so as the population ages, those blocks which are not eligible for lift upgrading may suffer from poor demand if existing owners were to sell their units. There could be a risk of such blocks suffering more quickly from urban blight with many vacant units as owners are unable to sell off their flats in the open market. I would like to ask the Minister if the Ministry has any alternative plans for these blocks which do not qualify for lift upgrading under the current criteria, such as Selective En-bloc Redevelopment for these blocks.

Mr Speaker, Sir, in conclusion, I would like to commend the Ministry for shortening the timeframe for the implementation of the lift upgrading programme from 15 to 10 years, and for initiating the Town Council lift upgrading programme. The announcement to focus more on LUP and to include low rise blocks in the programme is also timely and a welcome move. It shows that the Government is sensitive and responsive to the needs and feedback of the public. I would like to urge the Ministry to take into account the issues and concerns I have raised and further improve the LUP programme to benefit more residents.

Subject to this qualification, Sir, I support the Bill.

Thank you, Sir, for allowing me to join in this debate. I support this Bill in principle on the grounds that at least the Minister still allows Town Councils to replace lifts with their sinking funds. Other than that, I notice that this Bill has not lived up to the spirit of the Town Councils Act when it was first enacted in 1988.

in the Chair]

5.07 pm

When the Town Councils were formed, they were touted to be a progressive move. With the formation of Town Councils, residents in HDB flats were supposed to be given a bigger say in running the estate and that they would be developed into more responsible residents. Residents from then on can be developed into active participants in the affairs of their estates rather than only onlookers, and expect everything to be done for them. I do not see a more liberalising of the Town Councils Act in this new amendment.

Sir, may I comment on section 24D(3) and (4). I shall now read the relevant parts of the two sections. Under section 24D(3), it reads, "the amount of improvement contribution payable by the owner of a flat shall be determined by the Town Council whose decision shall be final" and section 24D(4) reads, "Any improvement contribution determined by a Town Council in respect of any lift upgrading works in a precint shall not be less than the improvement contribution that the Board might have determined ... if the Board had carried out similar upgrading works in that precinct.". Sir, I am surprised that the Minister wants to

make this law because he is presuming that the Town Councils cannot get a similar job done cheaper than the HDB and even when a Town Council can get a similar job done cheaper, it is not allowed to get the job done at a lower price. I wonder why the Minister wants the Town Council to pay more when it can save costs for its residents.

A case in point, Sir, is the recent lift upgrading carried out by my town council at Potong Pasir, Lorong 8 Toa Payoh. We replaced 29 lifts there at a cost of just over $2 million. The estimate of the HDB for that similar job like ours is about $4 million. In such an instance, is the Potong Pasir Town Council supposed to charge flat owners improvement contributions based on $2 million or $4 million? Under this Bill, the Potong Pasir Town Council will have to make residents pay their lift improvement contributions based on the higher cost at $4 million because the amendment seems to say that the Town Council cannot charge anything cheaper than the price paid by the Housing and Development Board for similar work done. This, of course, shall make the Town Council richer. But the flat owners would be terribly dissatisfied and unhappy.

The new section 33(6B) is particularly worrying and I strongly object to it. This section makes the Chairman and Secretary of the Town Council personally liable for certain breaches of the Town Councils Act. I see that it is completely unnecessary to implement criminal elements into the Town Councils Act, especially with such a severe punishment, ie, a maximum fine of $5,000. This kind of draconian punishment will certainly hold back the Chairman and Secretary of the Town Council from showing initiative to do good for the residents.

An example is the recent planting of 20 trees at Potong Pasir. Residents there requested for the trees to be planted by the side of the footpath linking the MRT

station and Blk 147 at Potong Pasir to give them shade. The land is not a common property but belongs to SLA, but managed by the HDB. The Potong Pasir Town Council wrote to the relevant authorities to obtain permission to plant those trees. There was delay, overly delay, as usual. After six months of correspondence, the Town Council was told that permission had been given to the Potong Pasir CCC to plant those trees. Members may think that this is laughable. But it is true. At Potong Pasir, the CCC wants to do the work of the Town Council at its own expense. Anyway, in this instance, the Potong Pasir CCC, after having been granted permission to plant the trees, was dragging its feet. On our part, we waited for a whole month and still the trees were not planted. As a result, my Town Council wrote to the HDB to tell them that if the trees were not planted within 14 days, the Potong Pasir Town Council shall go ahead to plant the trees, as requested by the residents. Failing a reply from the HDB and no sign of any trees planted by the CCC, the Potong Pasir Town Council went ahead to plant the 20 trees along that footpath. The HDB, of course, quickly got wind of it and was angry.

I believe the law is amended today to give the HDB powers to deal with such a situation where a Town Council goes into land that is not common property. The law is now amended to give the HDB powers to prosecute the Chairman of a Town Council who orders the trees to be planted on land which is not the common property without ministerial approval. So there you are, Sir, that is the reason for the criminal element in the amendments.

These amendments make the Chairman or Secretary criminally liable. I would say this is purely on political grounds because a Member of Parliament who is the Chairman of a Town Council can be debarred for five years without being dishonest or corrupt but for doing

good deeds, albeit maybe a breach of the Town Councils Act after its amendments. A case in point is the case which I have just cited. The Potong Pasir Town Council Chairman or its Secretary

can be fined up to $5,000 for planting trees at the request of the residents on land which is not the common property. In this case, the Potong Pasir Town Council has not acted irresponsibly, because it has given an undertaking to the HDB to maintain the trees and to pay for any damage caused by any of those trees. Those trees, by the way, are healthy and thriving well, and they are enjoyed by the residents. The HDB did not take any legal action against the Potong Pasir Town Council or any of its officers or Chairman or Secretary for planting those trees outside the common areas.

The next matter I want to comment on is the provision whereby powers are given to the HDB to force a sale of a flat where the owner fails to pay up his lift improvement contribution. I do not support this amendment. I think it is too harsh. How can you force a man and his family onto the streets just because he owes the Town Council some money? I have been running a Town Council for about 16 years, and I think this amendment is not necessary. It is too drastic. In our worst case scenario, our Town Council, in fact, sits it out when a flat owner owes us service and conservancy charges until the owner sells his flat then we recover all the arrears of the service and conservancy charges. I think other Town Councils can do the same, even in the case of improvement contributions.

Sir, if my Town Council, a very small one, can do it, I cannot see why other Town Councils with more funds cannot do likewise, ie, not to force a tenant to sell his flat to pay up his arrears, either in service and conservancy charges or in lift upgrading improvement contributions. In the case of lift upgrading, I think the

Town Councils should firstly accumulate enough sinking funds before embarking on a lift upgrading programme. In such a situation, there is no need to get contributions from flat owners. In any event, I think it is cruel to forcibly evict a man and his family from his lodgings. I think the adults of that family can still bear the trauma, but the children's emotions may be hurt irreparably.

Sir, another comment I would like to make is section 24(B). Under this new section, Sir, I would like perhaps some clarification from the Minister because, to me, it would appear that the Minister must declare a part of the precinct first before lift upgrading can be carried out in those blocks situated in that precinct. Is that right? Sir, what happens if there is a conflict between the Minister and the Town Council where the Town Council wants to improve the lifts of certain parts of the town but the Minister wants it to choose some other parts and there is a disagreement? I see that there is no provision of appeal in this part of the amendments. Maybe a section allowing appeal, when there is a disagreement between choice of precincts between the Minister and the Town Councils, should be made. And the appeal, I would suggest, Sir, should be made to some other body, or perhaps even a single judge, rather than to the Minister, because he is an interested party.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I wish to declare my interest as Chairman of Holland-Bukit Panjang Town Council.

Sir, I support the purpose of the Bill, which is to provide a legislative framework to empower Town Councils to carry out lift upgrading works and improvement projects outside its common property. In view of a fast ageing population in Singapore, it is crucial that

we expedite the HDB Lift Upgrading Programme so that all HDB blocks can attain 100% lift access at every floor level. The HDB Lift Upgrading Programme has benefited many residents, especially the elderly, handicapped, sick and young children. In order to expedite this programme, the Ministry is now proposing to tap on the Town Councils' sinking funds to co-pay the Town Council Lift Upgrading Programme. In addition, the Bill also empowers a Town Council to erect, repair, and maintain facilities on non-common property in its town. This amendment will provide more flexibility for Town Councils to meet the needs of its residents.

Basically, the proposed Bill has widened the scope of Town Councils' roles and responsibilities with regard to lift upgrading and the maintenance management of facilities or non-common properties within its town. However, the proposed Bill raises fundamental questions on the roles of Town Councils and various Government agencies in the management of our built environment.

Sir, I wish to highlight three concerns regarding the Bill as follows:

Use of Town Council's sinking fund for lift upgrading

Sir, although the Ministry has provided guidelines on the proposed use of the sinking fund for the Town Council Lift Upgrading Programme, which is at 10% cap, there are certain practical problems in implementing the programme.

First, the use of sinking fund will deplete the reserves of the Town Councils. The Town Councils have accumulated healthy sinking funds over the last 15 or 16 years. The purpose of the sinking fund is to carry out future cyclical works of HDB blocks, which are ageing. On paper, it looks as though Town Councils have lots of money in their

sinking funds. But, in reality, the accumulated sinking funds may not be adequate to carry out future cyclical works unless more service and conservancy charges are collected. This would pose undue financial burden on our residents.

Over the years, the Town Councils have prudently managed to save much expenditure on their cyclical works. This is attributed to the Government's HDB upgrading programmes. Most Town Councils would normally time their cyclical works so that these works need not be carried out in precincts selected for HDB upgrading. In this way, monies were saved, thus reducing the financial burden of residents having to pay higher service and conservancy charges. But, once the upgrading of the older estates is complete, the newer HDB high-rise blocks may not be suitable for HDB upgrading programme. Newer HDB blocks were built with higher plot ratios, and do not provide much scope for upgrading. The designs of these blocks are also more complex and sophisticated. These 20, 30 or 40 storey blocks are also more costly to maintain as they have different types of façade treatments and installations. The increasing price trends of building materials, labour and utilities have also imposed heavy financial burden on the Town Councils. Thus, I would caution against the use of the present accumulated sinking funds for Town Councils' Lift Upgrading Programme, which is very costly. The Lift Upgrading Programme is actually not cyclical work. It is a form of upgrading work to alter the design of HDB blocks.

Furthermore, based on the criteria as given by the Ministry, only some blocks are eligible for the Town Council Lift Upgrading Programme. But these blocks are scattered all over the estates as they were built at different times and with different designs, ie, some with standard corridors and some with staggered

corridors. Therefore, if the Town Councils were to carry out Lift Upgrading Programme for these blocks, there will be frequent construction works going on in different parts of the estates. This will cause much disruptions and inconveniences to our residents.

Furthermore, these upgrading works are "piecemeal" in nature, and do not enjoy any economies of scale. While I support the empowerment of Town Councils to carry out lift upgrading, I would propose that the Ministry consider integrating the Town Council Lift Upgrading Programme into the HDB's Lift Upgrading Programme. The Town Councils can co-pay the contribution for those blocks eligible for Town Council lift upgrading. In this way, we can expedite and better coordinate the Lift Upgrading Programme for our residents.

Erect, repair and maintain facilities on non-common property

Sir, clauses 3 and 4 of the Bill amend the Town Councils Act to expand the functions of a Town Council to include the erecting, repairing and maintaining of facilities on non-common property in the town. Although Town Councils manage the HDB estates within their defined town boundary, there are many public and private amenities in the town, such as covered linkways, footpaths, parks, drains, roads and open fields.

HDB residents are usually more familiar with Town Councils due to the daily presence of our Town Council staff in the estates. Many do not understand which parcel of land within a town belongs to which landowner. As a result, Town Councils often receive requests from residents concerning matters outside their scope of work. These include problems like cleanliness, pest control, mosquito breeding, overgrown trees and shrubs, illegal structures and requests for improvement projects relating to land

parcels belonging to HDB, SLA, LTA, ENV, PUB and even some private landowners.

This lack of understanding or confusion by residents has inadvertently increased the workload of Town Councils. It has also conveniently allowed various Government agencies to "transfer" their responsibilities to the Town Councils. Sir, this situation is unfair and unhealthy, as the added responsibilities have affected Town Councils in their delivery of services. It has also increased their cost of operations.

While the Town Councils are prepared to act as managing agents for a public authority or community-based association to provide facilities on non-common property in their town, I do not think the Town Councils should be held responsible to repair and maintain these facilities. Town Council funds should be used solely for the maintenance and management of common property for the common benefit of residents in their respective towns. Very often, facilities on non-common property are costly to erect and maintain. These include covered linkways, footpaths, lightings, landscaping and football fields. These facilities will add an undue financial burden on the Town Councils and their residents. Instead, we must ensure that the respective public authority or community-based organisation be held responsible for providing such facilities. This will provide a better check and balance approach in the provision of facilities on non-common property in a town. It will also ensure that such facilities are properly thought through, implemented, and properly maintained in a sustainable manner in the long run.

Criminal penalties for the misuse of Town Council funds

Sir, I

support the approach of encouraging more self-management of the Town Councils. At present, there are sufficient checks and balances in the Town Councils Act and other legislation to ensure the proper management of our towns. As we further empower and entrust Town Councils to take on more responsibilities, we should also review the Town Councils Act to facilitate self-management and self-responsibility.

Therefore, it may not be necessary for the Town Councils Act to impose criminal penalties on the Chairman and Secretary for the misuse of Town Council funds. There are existing legislation to prevent such abuses.

The introduction of criminal penalties for the Chairman and Secretary runs contrary to the spirit of entrusting elected members to run the Town Councils and encouraging self-management. Sir, we must understand that Town Councils are merely managing agents helping HDB (who is the land and building owner) to manage the common property of a town. Thus, it is not appropriate to impose such criminal liabilities on the Chairman and Secretary of the Town Council. Instead, HDB and Town Councils should design a corporate governance framework where there are joint responsibilities and liabilities of both parties should there be any misuse of Town Council funds.

Sir, the recent review of the Building Maintenance and Strata Management 2004 Act has decriminalised many non-compliances of the Act so as to facilitate self-management. Similarly, I would urge the Minister not to introduce criminal penalties in the Town Councils Act. On the contrary, we should make more provisions to encourage Town Councils to develop self-management capabilities.

Sir, although the proposed amendments to the Town Councils Act will not involve the Government in any extra financial expenditure, it will however help many Government agencies to save financial expenditures in the provision of facilities on non-common property in a town. Sir, may I seek clarification from the Minister as to whether various Government agencies will continue to manage and provide facilities such as covered linkways, footpaths, landscaping and other public amenities on non-common property in a town. If the proposed amendment is part of the devolution of Government's services to the Town Councils, there must be corresponding provisions of financial resources to the Town Councils for the proper management of such public amenities.

Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to join in the debate on the Town Councils (Amendment) Bill.

Sir, I strongly support the lift upgrading programme that enables lift access on every floor in HDB flats to improve the living environment of residents. Such lift upgrading to HDB flats has been done solely by the Ministry of National Development so far. Now, the Town Councils will also be conducting such lift upgrading. My concerns are several on this issue.

But before I go into it, may I remind Mr Chiam See Tong that there are 14 Town Councils that are chaired by PAP MPs, myself included. Therefore, rules with regard to criminal offence by Town Council Chairman are also applicable to all the 14 PAP MPs as well and not only to the two Opposition MPs. Therefore, it cannot be politically motivated, as suggested by Mr Chiam See Tong.

This Bill will inadvertently raise the expectations of residents towards lift upgrading. It is probable that, henceforth, residents may view lift upgrading obligatory on the part of Town Councils. It is likely therefore residents will compare the "works" of the 14 Town Councils on lift upgrading undertaken and make increased demands on their own Town Councils.

The use of sinking fund for upgrading of lifts will mean lesser funds for other cyclical works such as repainting, reproofing and other estate maintenance and improvement works. This is more acute for those town councils with lesser sinking funds and even more critical for Town Councils in older estates that require progressively higher demand on cyclical works due to older HDB flats.

Those active Town Councils with the capacity of doing more lift upgrading will have lesser precincts left for MND to offer for LUP. Therefore, the allocation of funds from MND for such works will be skewed towards less active Town Councils. This may discourage those active Town Councils in the long run and they may opt to leave lift upgrading to MND instead and save their own funds for cyclical works.

The recovery of the costs for the improvement contributions will be undertaken by the Town Council under this Bill. Sir, I feel that this will place Town Councils under a new task that is demanding. HDB will be in a better position to assume this role with existing software and hardware to efficiently manage such recovery of improvement contributions. There is no necessity for duplication of such set-ups by involving the 14 Town Councils. Individual set-up by the 14 Town Councils will cost a great deal and a waste of resources. One large recovery centre in HDB should have better "economy of scale" to deal with such recovery, especially in cases with smaller scale of improvement contributions.

The upgrading of lifts in HDB flats involves detailed planning of sites and designs and engagement of architects and engineers as well as the awarding of projects to contractors. This will best be carried out by HDB with the many years of experience rather than leaving them to the 14 Town Councils which have to start from scratch.

The lift upgrading requires residents to co-pay and majority "yes" votes will be necessary to proceed with upgrading. Sir, my concern is on those HDB blocks that had undergone previous Main Upgrading Programames but are still lacking lifts going to the top floors of these HDB flats due to technical constraints in the past. Due to newer technology, according to MND, these HDB flats are now eligible for lift upgrading that will allow the lifts to serve residents on the top floors of such HDB blocks. As these residents had shared the upgrading costs with HDB in the past, they may be reluctant to contribute a second time. Moreover, cost sharing for the upgrading involving and benefiting only the higher floor units may cost too much as there will be lesser units to share the payments. May I ask whether the Minister of State will waive the rules on co-payment and voting for such lift upgrading? Will HDB absorb the residents' share for such upgrading so that Town Councils do not spend beyond their stipulated permissible amount?

This Bill does not cater for instalment payment schemes like those offered by HDB. Should there not be a new section inserted to cater for instalment payment schemes instead of demanding full payment within one month from the date of the issuance of the payment advice, as set out in the Bill?

Sir, the latest Household Expenditure Survey showed that the monthly incomes of the poorest 20% of households fell by

3.2% a year between 1998 and 2003 and households grew smaller with fewer working people. Those in this group are the ones that most likely are staying in older flats which are eligible for lift upgrading but have dwindling free disposable income. They are the ones most likely also to have the least spare savings for improvement contributions. How do we assist those who really do not have the means for the improvement contributions?

This proposed amendment will empower Town Councils to sell a flat if the improvement contributions are not settled after 90 days of the Town Council serving a written demand on the flat owner (under a new section 24F). Should Town Councils take such a draconian action as selling the flat? Would not such demands be too harsh on these residents?

The Bill gives Town Councils the power to enter a resident's flat to value the movable properties for the purpose of seizing those movable properties to satisfy the judgment sums or arrears. Sir, Town Councils should only consider seizure of the movable properties in the flat if, in their fair opinion, they have exhausted all enforcement processes and have the view that seizure of the movable properties is the only way to recover such judgment sums or arrears. Moreover, the entering of a resident's flat to value the movable properties is an infringement of privacy.

I hope the Minister of State can address all the issues raised on this Bill.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to join in the debate on this Bill. I would like to make a few observations which I would appreciate it if the Ministry could look into them.

Just as a recap, when the HDB LUP was first launched in March 2001, the

cost of the lift upgrading work was co-shared between the Government, the Town Council and the flat owner. And to ensure that the flat owner's share of the lift upgrading cost is affordable, the Government subsidises 75% to 90% of the cost of the lift upgrading works and the actual proportion would depend on the flat type and the block configuration.

From my understanding, based on the information from the HDB's website, Town Councils are already allowed to use their sinking funds to co-pay for the HDB LUP programme. Again, an example from the website is that for LUP, for a typical four-room flat in a standard block, the Government would pay about $10,000 while the Town Council and the flat owner would each pay about $900, ie, the Town Council's share and the flat owner's share are equal. Flat owners in a segmented block would pay a higher amount because the lift upgrading would actually benefit less people.

However, there is also the cap where the Government would cap the maximum amount per household at $3,000. In the current Bill, the Town Councils are allowed to use their sinking funds for lift upgrading subject to certain guidelines that the Minister for National Development announced in Parliament on 7th March 2005, so that there are enough sinking funds for long-term use. One guideline states that the Town Council would be allowed to select HDB blocks where the Town Council's share of the upgrading cost per benefitting unit does not exceed $5,000. An observation here is that there is no guideline on the selection of HDB blocks with regard to the flat owner's share of the upgrading cost. Would the Ministry consider setting a guideline that Town Council would only be allowed to select HDB blocks where the flat owner's share of the upgrading cost per benefitting unit does not exceed $3,000 or even less, similar to the HDB's LUP programme?

A second guideline states that flat owners would co-pay for the works in the same proportion as the HDB LUP. Hence, that means that they would co-pay about 5%-12.5% of the total upgrading cost, depending on the flat type. An observation here again is, by comparing with the HDB LUP co-sharing package, does this mean that in the Town Council LUP, the owner's share would also be raised to $5,000, like in the Town Council's share of $5,000?

Sir, the cost-sharing package in this Town Council LUP programme is actually not clear as compared to the cost-sharing package in the HDB's LUP programme. I would like to urge the Ministry to provide more details so that residents can make a more informed decision during the poll for the Town Council's LUP.

The next area that I would like to touch on is the help measures. Currently, HDB has several measures and instalment plans to help flat owners who have difficulty in paying their share of the cost for upgrading programme and this includes extending the repayment period for the cost of up to 25 years, allowing the flat owners to defer payment for a certain period of time until they sell their flats to ensure that these flat owners can benefit from the upgrading. However, the new section 24F is contrary to the objective of these help measures that serve to ensure that flat owners would benefit from the lift upgrading. The new section 24 empowers Town Councils to sell a flat where any improvement contribution payable in respect of the flat remains unpaid 90 days after the Town Council has served the owner a written demand for payment. Is it not an irony when a household has voted for lift upgrading in his block only to be forced to sell his unit in that block of flats because of a change in his financial situation, for example, due to retrenchment or even chronic illnesses, such that he is not able to pay his share of the upgrading cost and hence be deprived of it?

Consider another scenario of a household who did not vote for the upgrading programme because they knew their financial situation did not allow

them to do so, but LUP was implemented in their block of flats because more than 75% had voted for it. Eventually, this household could not afford to pay for their share of the LUP cost and had to be forced to move out of their block of flats. Sir, it is no fault of theirs and it would not be fair to such households to force them to move out of the block.

Sir, we also need to look at the role of the Town Councils. Town Councils are separate legal entities formed under the Town Councils Act to manage and maintain the common areas in HDB estates. The functions of the Town Councils are to control, manage, maintain and improve the common property of HDB's residential flats and commercial property within the Town Council. Town Councils are not financial institutions to have the power to seize movable properties in flats or to seize flats for sale.

Earlier, we have seen reports in the newspapers of households living in darkness, without water and electricity supplies, because they could not pay their utility bills. Are we going to see families without a roof over their heads because they could not pay the upgrading cost and their flats are being sold by the Town Council?

One might argue that this is the ultimate last resort that the Town Council will do for cost recovery in upgrading programmes. Hence, if this is indeed going to be the ultimate last resort, should we not now take a step back and look at the current help measures to analyse why these help measures are not effective in helping residents pay their share of the upgrading cost, if indeed these current help measures are not effective?

One might also argue that this empowerment is to allow the Town Council to take action against those flat owners who can afford but refuse to pay up, ie, in Hokkien, the chau kuan residents, and that the existing provisions in the Act already allow Town Councils to sell a resident's flat if he is not able to pay his S&C charges. Sir, this does not mean that because the current provisions in the Act already allow for the sale of a resident's flat for outstanding S&C charges, it is therefore okay for the Town Council to now sell a resident's flat for outstanding upgrading charges. Can the Town Council elaborate on the current measures of identifying who are the genuine residents who cannot afford to pay and who are the chau kuan residents?

One might also argue that $3,000 in the HDB LUP scheme and $714 for the Town Council LUP, as quoted in the Today newspaper on 18th July 2005, are not a big sum of money. However, to the low-income earners, especially the bottom 20%, who live from hand to mouth, whose next month's wage is often spent before it even comes, where there is no extra money in their CPF accounts to pay for these upgrading charges due to the increase in MediShield premiums, some might really lose the roofs over their heads due to outstanding payments of these lift upgrading costs.

Hence, Sir, I urge the Ministry to reconsider the option of sale of a resident's flat by the Town Council. Should repossession and sale of flat be considered as an option at all in the upgrading cost recovery by the Town Council?

Lastly, I would like to touch on the misuse of Town Council funds. I welcome the new section 24I which spells out the penalties for the misuse of Town Council funds in order to strengthen the corporate governance of Town Councils to ensure that funds are used only for the purposes

spelt out under the Town Councils Act. The penalty is a fine of up to $5,000 if sinking funds are used for other than the purposes specified under the Act.

Sir, Town Council's sinking funds are built up from residents' S&C charges over the years. This is for long-term cyclical maintenance of the estates and to provide a good and safe living environment for residents. The Government has the responsibility to ensure that Town Councils use the funds appropriately for the benefit of the majority of their residents over the long term, and that no funds are being misused.

As opposed to Dr Amy Khor's and Dr Teo Ho Pin's views, I feel that this section is absolutely necessary. In fact, is not a penalty of $5,000 too lenient as compared to the "penalty" that a resident will face in the case of outstanding S&C charges, which is the sale of his flat by the Town Council? Can the Ministry also elaborate on what are the current checks and regulations that it has in place to prevent misuse of such funds?

Sir, I would like to query the rationale and logic of the amendment concerning lift upgrading under the new Part IV-A. Before moving into the details of the amendment, I would like to look at what is the current position of LUP before the Act is amended and what is the effect after the amendment which allows Town Councils to do lift upgrading.

Sir, based on the information from the HDB's website as cited by Prof. Ong just now, the HDB will pay 75% to 90% of the cost of lift upgrading works. For example, for lift upgrading of a typical 4-room flat, the HDB pays $10,000 whilst the Town Council and the resident each pays about $900. Say, for a block of 100 units of 4-room flats, effectively, this would mean that the cost for LUP is about

$1.18 million. Of this, HDB pays $1.003 million with the balance of $177,000 shared between the Town Council and the residents.

With the amendment today, the HDB will no longer pay its portion of LUP cost undertaken by the Town Council. Instead of paying $88,500, ie, 50% of $177,000, based on the above example, the Town Council will now have to cough out $1.092 million from its sinking fund.

Sir, nothwithstanding the Bill limiting the cost of TC-LUP to $5,000, the fact is that the Government pays nothing under the amendment. I am therefore of the view that compared to the HDB-LUP programme in which HDB pays 75% to 90% of the cost, a Town Council which goes ahead with the TC-LUP on its own will have shortchanged the residents, as the entire cost of the LUP is paid from the Town Council's sinking fund, with individual residents co-paying part of the cost with their own money, and the Government pays nothing.

I understand from the Minister for National Development at the Budget debate that the rationale for this Bill today is the outsourcing of LUP from HDB to Town Councils. This will shorten the time required for the Lift Upgrading Programme from 15 years to 10 years. My question: what role, if any, is the Government playing in achieving the objectivie of shortening the time span besides amending the Act to allow Town Councils to use their sinking funds for lift upgrading?

Sir, Town Councils' sinking funds largely come from service and conservancy charges paid by HDB residents. Since the amendment requires Town Councils to use sinking fund to pay for LUP, with residents co-paying the rest, it is effectively HDB residents who are

paying for the lift upgrading programme if a Town Council were to proceed with the TC-LUP under the provision of this amendment.

The Minister of State may respond to say that the Government has also contributed to the sinking fund via SC&CC grant to Town Councils. However, I wish to remind the Government that in 1999, the Ministry of National Development decided that SC&CC grant to Town Councils was to be computed based on room types instead of the age of the flats. The grant for 5-room flats was removed. In addition, the grant for 2-room flats was also reduced by some 9%. Though there were adjustments made to increase the grants of 1-room and 3-room flats, the change in computation had nevertheless resulted in overall reduction of grants paid out by the Government to some 9%, based on my Town Council's calculations. Other Town Councils may be different.

Correspondingly, the portion of the grant to the sinking fund was also reduced. In 2004, the percentage of SC&CC to be allocated to the sinking fund was further reduced by 5%. Moreover, as the grants given by Government are for existing cyclical works, the above reduction of contribution into sinking funds would mean that without grants for TC-LUP, Town Councils and residents are actually made to bear much more than what they should. If the HDB's concern is the pace of lift upgrading, grants should be given to Town Councils for such a purpose. Otherwise residents whose Town Council carries out the LUP on its own will end up paying more than residents in areas where LUP is offered by the HDB. This is unfair in terms of how the Government applies its funds as it benefits only a sector of the population.

I also note that under the new section 24D(4), the improvement contribution for LUP to be paid by the residents "shall not be less than the improvement contribution that the Board might have determined under section 65D(2A) of the Housing and Development Act", which was mentioned by Mr Chiam as well. Sir, I wonder if the Town Council is able to get LUP done at a cheaper rate than the HDB. Why should the Town Council not be allowed to pass the savings to the residents?

Finally, I have not forgotten that the PAP Government still owes upgrading works to Hougang residents. Hougang has waited for more than 10 years for upgrading, whilst flats newer than Hougang in HDB estates of PAP wards are being upgraded, some even more than once. I think the Minister of State knows this very well. I wish to remind the Government that residents of Hougang are citizens of Singapore who pay taxes, do National Service and fulfil all duties towards the country. Do residents of Hougang constituency deserve this discrimination?

Sir, very soon, we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the birth of our nation. The discimination against Opposition wards in upgrading programmes for political purposes which has become a political reality here, serves as a reminder to us as a nation in which democracy, equality and justice are represented as stars on our national flag which we always fly high.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I thank Members for contributing their views and perspectives. What I intend to do is to group some of the common topics and respond to them and then take up the individual comments by Members.

First of all, a comment about the objective of the TC-LUP and the use of up to 10% of the sinking fund. In terms of

the speed, originally, it was intended and it was hoped that we could complete the HDB lift upgrading programme in about 15 years. As it is now, there are some 3,000 blocks that remain eligible for lift upgrading, taking away those that have already been completed. We, like all Members, are keen to be able to speed it up. How do we intend to do that? I think some Members have also asked how do we intend to do that. There are a number of multi-pronged methods, eg, channelling more of the public housing budget towards LUP on the HDB side, enabling Town Councils if they so choose to mount Town Council-LUP projects; simplifying the finishes for lift works. Even for per project, you can simplify that and therefore the savings can then go towards initiating projects faster. And, overall, looking at lift technology, whether or not there might be scope to have different kinds of technology in future so that the cost of lift upgrading can be lowered over time by using these new methods. So through a combination of these methods, we, in MND, believe that it is possible to quicken the pace and bring it down from 15 years to 10 years.

Some Members have asked: is 10 years too slow? Dr Amy Khor mentioned that many of her residents very much look forward to it being further speeded up. Whilst the Government would like it to be as quick as possible, we also want it to be something that is practical and realistic. So it is a balance not only between the money that we have to do the lift upgrading but also in terms of the construction capabilities, and whether or not the sector will be able to take it all in.

In the balance, we believe that 10 years is actually a challenging target but an achievable one. So, we are shooting for 10 years as of now. Obviously, in the time to come, as we gain experience and if technology further improves, if there are opportunities to further speed up, then we are certainly open to reviewing. Our objective remains the same, ie, to have

this benefit enjoyed by as many of our residents as quickly as possible.

Town Councils would indeed play an important part in implementing lift upgrading in HDB estates because with the sinking fund available, and based on that $5,000 per benefitting unit cost cap, we think that there should be somewhere between 300 and 400 blocks that would be able to benefit if the TCs were to step in with the LUP on their end. If that happens, then, obviously, it is material to the speed at which all blocks in Singapore can enjoy lift to every floor.

Dr Teo Ho Pin, Dr Amy Khor and some other Members talked about how do we decide where to do these LUP works, which blocks belonging to the TCs that might be eligible and which blocks HDB will do. And if, in fact, the two are going to happen at around the same time, whether or not there could be a certain amount of consultation and coordination. Actually, as all Members will know, whenever there is, say, a MUP to be done and there are also re-roofing works that a TC might want to mount at that time, this consultation is something that is already happening on the ground. If the TCs are going to mount TC-LUP projects, then such consultation will also be part of the process, and HDB will work with the TCs in order to smoothen the process. But it is really not something that which block may be chosen for HDB-LUP or which block may be chosen for TC-LUP. It is not something that MND or HDB can unilaterally decide and then just tell the TCs, because there is a process every year where you are requested to nominate certain blocks for these upgrading projects. So you would not be able to do all of them, whether for HDB-LUP or for TC-LUP every year. It is also an iterative process where within the Town Council, and if it is a multi-ward Town Council, there has got to be also consultation within the Town Council in terms of its priorities.

Dr Lily Neo made the point about whether or not Town Councils looking after older HDB estates might be disadvantaged in terms of the sinking fund provisions. And if you have less there, then whether or not you might be able to proceed with enough speed and vigour in terms of your TC-LUP projects. If you look at the accounts of the various TCs, actually it is not true that the TCs looking after the older towns necessarily have less money in their sinking funds as compared with others. That is something which is not going to materially hamper any TC from undertaking these projects. It is quite the opposite actually. Some other Members - I think Dr Teo Ho Pin and Assoc. Prof. Ong Soh Khim - asked: if you start allowing TCs to use their sinking funds, when these sinking funds are meant for cyclical works, would it not then detract from the ability to undertake their core mission with these sinking funds? It is precisely for this reason that, on the one hand, we want to allow Town Councils to have the option to mount these lift upgrading projects if they want but, on the other hand, having to tap the sinking funds, we want to make sure that when you do tap those sinking funds, it does not detract you from the primary purpose of the funds, which is to provide for all those cyclical works. That is why there is a per benefitting unit cap, so that you do not overspend per unit basis. There is also a percentage cap on how much of your sinking fund you can actually use for TC-LUP. So it is up to 10%. In other words, the message that Government wants to send is flexibility but within rules of prudence.

Next, I would just like to address Dr Lily Neo's point about blocks that have already undergone MUP earlier but, at that time, technology did not allow the top floor of some of the blocks to get the lift. Now that it is technologically possible, they become, in principle, eligible. Again

being eligible does not necessarily mean that they will be offered in the immediate first phase. So, again, this is something that the Town Councils, if that block is chosen, would have to prioritise it against their other blocks. But, in principle, voting and co-payment would be required. If it is a TC-LUP, if you look at the kind of blocks that would be eligible, then the amounts that would be co-paid again would be relatively lower, simply because of how you choose TC-LUP blocks as against those that you would leave it to HDB to do under HDB-LUP. The other consideration is, of course, earlier on, when they voted under the MUP project, it was voted as an overall package. Therefore, when they are eligible for lift upgrading in this new exercise, then this is being offered to them anew and, again, they would have to indicate their decision. So, do not take the earlier vote one way or the other as binding on this one.

Prof. Ong and some other Members, I think Dr Lily Neo also, expressed concern about low-income households and whether or not some of these provisions might inadvertently actually cause them hardship. Definitely, it is not the intention of the Government to cause hardship to our low-income families. In fact, the entire purpose of this amendment, the one pertaining to TC-LUP especially, is to accelerate the benefit to all households so that everyone can enjoy lift to every floor as soon as possible. First of all, the amount that individual households will need to co-pay under the TC-LUP will be affordable, bearing in mind the $5,000 per benefitting unit cost cap and there is also a range of contributions. So the larger flat type will contribute more and the lower flat type will contribute less. Generally speaking, our low-income families, especially those who are staying in lower-flat type, would therefore find that the construction of the scheme is such that it is actually meant for their well-being.

Then there is this question: how do they actually pay - must it be a lump sum? That was the concern. No, it does not have to be a lump sum. If you look at how HDB goes around providing different options of payment for the HDB-LUP or MUP, there is a whole range of options. You can pay a lump sum, you can pay with your CPF, you can pay by instalments. So, all these options are also available for TCs to consider and adopt in order to help their low-income households. A word on that contribution, because I think there was a little bit of confusion over two sections and what do they mean that the TC can decide it has got to be not lower than the HDB. Mr Chiam made mention of that. That refers to actually the percentage rates at which the different flat types, as appropriate, would have to contribute to the cost-sharing, because it has to be co-paid. If you look at HDB, they have a certain percentage of co-payment, depending on the flat types. So, that is the contribution by the different households. It is to ensure consistency when the TC-LUP does it the same.

I just like to add also one remark, and that is a more general one pertaining to whether it is the provision for the sale of a flat or sale of a movable property within the flat and so on, when TC-LUP charges are owed and not settled within the notice period. First of all, these provisions are definitely not new. They actually, on the one hand, mirror the provisions in the Housing and Development Act. When the HDB does its HDB-LUP, these are the provisions. So, now that the LUP is going to be made available for Town Councils to mount, these provisions are then imported. At the same time, if you look at the Town Councils Act, these provisions are also already present there to enable them, as options, to collect their arrears on S&C charges. These are enabling provisions, they are not mandatory. It does not say that every TC must use these. Certainly, nobody says

that they must use it as a preferred option or first resort. Indeed, if you were to look at the track records of all Town Councils, I think Town Councils are very sympathetic towards the needs of their residents and they understand their difficulties. That is why I think all of us will agree that in every case, wherever possible, there will be discussions to see how to help them stretch the repayment of their arrears, eg, new instalment plans and restructuring of their plans. There are so many different ways before you would even try to do anything to seize and sell their movable property, not to mention their flat. So, if you look at the track records of how Town Councils have been so-called making use of these existing provisions in respect of S&C charges which, in many cases, would amount to much more than any of these TC-LUP charges can go up to, then you will know that these provisions are there but, on the ground, Town Councils would interact in a very positive way with the residents. It is something that the Ministry would really like the Town Councils to continue to make available different payment schemes, and continue to work with the residents for the betterment of the town and the quality of life there.

There are comments from various Members on the penalty clauses, eg, holding the Town Council Chairman and Secretary accountable if sinking funds are not used in the prescribed manner. For example, if you breach the cost cap in an intentional way, then that will constitute an offence. So, what is this all about? Before we have this amendment passed, Town Councils simply cannot use sinking funds to independently mount lift upgrading exercise. You can co-pay in an HDB lift upgrading exercise, but you cannot independently mount one. So this represents a relaxation of the Act to enable Town Councils to use their sinking funds to do that. I think Mr Chiam would also agree with me that with greater flexibility and authority, we should have

greater responsibility and accountability. So, this is two sides of the issue and this provision would enable us from the Government side, to signal very clearly where the lines are drawn. It is not meant to penalise, and certainly not meant to trap anybody politically, as Dr Lily Neo has correctly pointed out. The number of PAP Town Councils outnumbers the number of Opposition Town Councils by a multiple. And the same rule applies to all. So it is really to signal that with this relaxation, you have the flexibility as a Town Council to mount these exercises, but be careful. Because these moneys, as Prof. Ong Soh Khim has pointed out, were collected and they were put aside for cyclical works. Therefore, we want to make sure that people do not go overboard and intentionally breach these rules. Why? So that the Town Councils' work can be sustainable, viable and properly done. That is good governance. We just wanted to draw the line clearly. Everybody knows where it is and there is no misunderstanding so that these penalties, in fact, do not need to be used. We just hope that this signal is very clearly registered.

On non-common property, I would like to provide this clarification, and that is Town Councils can erect things on common property and then they repair and maintain them. Currently, Town Councils cannot erect things on non-common property but can maintain them, if they agreed. This relaxation or amendment would therefore give Town Councils, if they so wish, the option to erect

and then repair and maintain structures on non-common property subject to the Minister's agreement and subject to the land owner's agreement. Why are we doing this? It is certainly not to trap anybody into planting trees and then trap you under one of the other provisions. It is quite the opposite. We are doing this in response actually to

certain Town Councils which have looked at the entire town and said that, within this town, there are certain areas that they would like to do more and they would like to erect certain things on non-common property. But under the current provisions, they would not be allowed to do that. We are actually giving this leeway, and it does not mean that you have to do it.

So I just want to clarify with Dr Teo Ho Pin that this is not something where, as a result of such an amendment, the other agencies can stop doing their work or they just erect things on non-common property and then require the Town Council to maintain for them. That is not the case. What it says is that it gives you the opportunity, if you so choose, to erect on non-common property structures but, at the same time, not erect and disappear. Structures which you erect, you also repair and maintain. So this is actually to make it complete. That is the purpose of that particular section.

Mr Chiam talked about section 24B where he asked what if the Minister disagrees with the Town Council's Chairman on which precinct to gazette. If I may read section 24B, it says here, "The Minister may, after consulting the Board [and in this case, it means HDB] and the Town Council concerned, from time to time by order published in the Gazette, declare any housing estate or any part thereof within that Town Council's Town to be a precinct for the purposes of lift upgrading works in buildings therein". This gazetting is for the purposes of clarity, just as section 24B(4) that comes after that which enables the Minister of State to assist in the approval of this. So these are actually administrative measures to make clear and expedite the exercise. So it is not something that is put in there in order that the Minister can go and dispute with him. That is not the intention of this amendment.

Mr Low Thia Khiang spoke about the cost-sharing arrangement for HDB-LUP where the HDB pays for most of it and the remainder is co-shared between the Town Council co-paying with the household. His point is: why not ask the Government to then give the money to the TC so that the TC can mount this TC-LUP exercise by assisting the HDB? Did I understand you correctly?

Can I clarify the point, Sir?

Carry on.

The point is that, first of all, under the amendment, the Town Council will carry out TC-LUP. The Government pays nothing. It is paid by the Town Council and the residents. Why is it so in the first place? So I say, why not give a grant, because it is not fair for the Town Council to pay the lift upgrading entirely from the sinking fund because the sinking fund is also paid for by the residents. The residents pay into the Town Council's sinking fund to pay for lift upgrading and the residents pay again on the co-sharing. So the residents practically pay everything. The Government plays no role. The application of funds does not seem to be fair.

I would like to make the following clarifications. If we were to do the HDB-LUP formula, then obviously it is a HDB-LUP. The TC-LUP is a different arrangement for the Town Councils who wish to do so in order to bring that benefit, if they feel that they want to, to their residents over and above whatever the HDB-LUP might be currently doing. If they want to split it up themselves, then it is something that they can choose to do. So this arrangement is to facilitate that. Even so, as he correctly pointed out, part of the sinking fund is contributed by the Government through grants. So it is not true to say that the Government had not co-paid a certain amount even in the TC-LUP exercise.

I think just now, he also mentioned that last year, the Government allowed for sinking fund contributions to be reduced from 35% to 30% and that actually already reduced the inflow into the sinking fund. But just to be correct, again, that was an option that was given to individual Town Councils to choose. And in fact, I do know for a fact that some Town Councils have chosen to keep it at 35% contribution into the sinking fund. So I just want to clarify that when we enable Town Councils to mount these exercises, it is to give an option to Town Councils that wish to do so within clear rules. It does not say that they must do it. If Mr Chiam's Town Council wants to do it and Mr Low's Town Council does not want to do it, then it is their call and it is a choice for their respective towns. Just like many of the other provisions, like erecting on common property, repairing and maintaining those things, it is really to say that if you choose to do something, then take care of it along the way, do not just build and disappear. So it is actually giving more leeway and more options. So when Mr Chiam spoke about these amendments not helping to enable Town Councils to move towards more self-management and giving residents more flexibility through the Town Councils, I think he got it wrong. It actually does enable a lot of that.

Sir, the first clarification is concerning this enabling rule. Does the Minister of State agree that the residents whose lifts were upgraded under the TC-LUP will benefit much less if a block would be upgraded under LUP by the HDB?

Why do you say that?

Because, first of all, they have paid and the Town Council has paid through the sinking fund, which

is largely their money. The Government has paid nothing to the upgrading.

By the very design of the Town Council LUP, I would imagine that the Town Councils that are interested in mounting such an exercise will carefully look at the blocks to see which are the ones that would be very cost effective to do, not only from the Town Council's point of view, but after netting out their share of up to $5,000 from the cost divided by the units, the amount that would have to be co-shared by the benefiting units of the blocks that they choose would be attractive to the households there. I would imagine that is how they would go about doing it and, if so, I would therefore surmise that the amount that they pay would not be out of proportion. So I think it is really not something that is created out of this scheme. It is something that each Town Council will have got to see how best to choose their blocks. And I cannot be advising Mr Low on how he runs his Town Council.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, first, let me, on a point of order remind Members that when they speak, they should be addressing the Chair, rather than to talk to each other across the floor.

Next, I would like to respond to a point that Mr Low made just now about why he thinks that it is unfair for his residents if he were to implement the TC-LUP, instead of HDB-LUP. I suggest that he should go and talk to Mr Chiam about how to do it. Because Mr Chiam has a way of selecting certain blocks which are very cost effective and which will allow his residents to benefit from LUP, and he uses his sinking fund. I think he finds there is an advantage for him to do so. We are not, of course, by any stretch of the imagination, amending this Town

Councils Act for the benefit of Mr Chiam. Mr Chiam believes that we do it to fix him. But, of course, that is not true. What we are doing is to give all Town Councils in Singapore another option over and above what the Government is doing to bring a very, very important and a very beneficial programme to the residents. And that is the Lift Upgrading Programme. That is all we are doing. So I think for Mr Chiam, or in fact for Mr Low, to ascribe other motives to this is not very fair.

Sir, as I understand from the MOS' reply, in the TC-LUP, there will not be any subsidy from the Government and, as I understand from the HDB website, the cost for lift upgrading could range from $10,000 to $30,000 per flat. In this case, there is a regulation that sets the TC's share of the cost in the TC-LUP to be $5,000. Does it mean that the residents would then have to pay $5,000? Would the Ministry consider setting a cap on the resident's share of the upgrading cost in the TC-LUP?

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, as I had earlier responded to another Member, the Town Councils, when selecting the blocks, would take into account how much they would actually cost if they were to do it on the basis of this block versus that block, and they know that their own contribution on a per benefitting unit basis is capped at $5,000. Therefore, working backwards, they would know how much it would cost a benefitting unit if they would have to do it in that block. So through such background work and homework, they would actually know which blocks are best selected for TC-LUP. Because they also know at the end of it, it is not something where the Town Council or the Town Council's Chairman can then just dictate. It is also subject to a vote by the residents there. So if you do something that is out of proportion, they will vote against it.

Resolved,

That the proceedings on the business set down on the Order Paper for today be exempted at this day's sitting from the provisions of Standing Order No. 2. - [Mr Mah Bow Tan].

Debate resumed.

Sir, notwithstanding what the Minister had said that it is an option, the fact is that if it is a LUP under the HDB, HDB will pay up to 90%. If the Town Council decides to go ahead with TC-LUP, then it is the Town Council that will pay together with the residents. So where is the Government's part of the payment that they are supposed to contribute to the lift upgrading? Is it wrong to say that if the Town Council wants to go ahead with that lift upgrading, they actually pay more and the Government pays nothing? Is it wrong to say that?

The other clarification is that the Minister has said that the Lift Upgrading Programme will be shortened to 10 years. I would like to ask the Minister whether the 10-year target also includes lifts in the Opposition wards to be upgraded, or only the PAP wards.