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Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour 1 Mr Victor Lye asked the Acting Minister for Transport (a) whether studies were conducted on the impact of the revised Preferential Additional Registration Fee (PARF) rebate schedule on (i) car depreciation rates (ii) new car demand and (iii) COE renewal behaviour; and (b) whether the findings can be shared.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour 2 Mr Victor Lye asked the Acting Minister for Transport in respect of the revision in preferential additional registration fee (PARF) rebate announced in Budget 2026, whether transitional measures were considered to mitigate unintended financial impacts on car buyers who planned purchases based on the previous depreciation framework.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour 3 Ms Poh Li San asked the Acting Minister for Transport on the revised Preferential Additional Registration Fee rebate (a) how will it affect new car prices; and (b) what recourse is there for buyers who have purchased new cars but have not yet registered their Certificates of Entitlement before 6 February 2026.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour Mr Speaker, may I have your permission to take Question Nos 1 to 3 in today’s Order Paper together?
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour Yes, please proceed.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour Thank you. The Preferential Additional Registration Fee (PARF) rebate was designed to encourage the renewal of the vehicle population to keep the vehicle fleet younger and hence, safer and less pollutive. With electric vehicles (EVs) becoming more commonplace, there is now less of a need to encourage early deregistration through the PARF rebate. This is why we lowered the PARF rebate and also reduced the rebate cap from $60,000 to $30,000. We do not expect the changes to affect Certificate of Entitlement (COE) renewal behaviour significantly.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour The recent changes to vehicle taxes were implemented with immediate effect, in line with our general approach on market sensitive tax changes. In this case, it was to avoid bidders rushing to market, or distorting the COE market. This was the same approach we had taken in 2023 when the PARF rebate cap was implemented and the Additional Registration Fee (ARF) was raised. Vehicle taxes and rebates are also consistently levied at the point of registration, not the point of sale, to ensure all buyers in a specific COE bidding exercise are treated equally.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour Fewer than 2,000 car buyers with committed purchases are estimated to be affected. These include mostly buyers of higher-end internal combustion engine cars. Buyers with existing purchase agreements who have yet to secure a COE may wish to discuss with their dealers to come to a mutually acceptable agreement. We understand that some dealers have already made alternative arrangements with affected buyers.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour Mr Lye.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour Thank you, Speaker. Thank you, Minister. With the changes in the PARF policy, does it signal a shift that we are now moving from ownership pricing to usage pricing? And if so, can Singaporeans have a sense of the roadmap so as to make better transport decisions, private or public otherwise?
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think we will always need a balance of both ownership as well as usage controls, both of which are necessary and important to keep road congestion in check. With Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) 2.0 and other usage tools, we have the ability to sharpen our usage policies to make it more targeted and perhaps to then make the usage of our roads more efficient. And depending on the outcomes, potentially we can then adjust our ownership policies and our vehicle quotas accordingly.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour Ms Poh.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour Thank you, Speaker, and Acting Minister. I would like to ask, does this shift in the PARF framework indicate the Ministry of Transport's (MOT's) intent to accelerate the uptake of EVs further, given that in the past few years, the take-up rate for EVs has already increased quite a fair bit?
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour Thank you, Mr Speaker. We had decided to make adjustments to the PARF rate precisely because the take-up of EVs has increased, and this has made the original objective of PARF, which was to encourage early renewal of vehicles and therefore, have a younger vehicle fleet that is less pollutive, that initial objective is now less relevant with the take-up of EVs.
Impact of PARF Reduction on New Car Prices, Depreciation Rates and COE Renewal Behaviour We are watching the adoption of EVs very closely. I think the trend is positive. And as Members know, what we are trying to do is to encourage more emission friendly cars, and we will continue to do that in the coming years.
Community Support Services to Address Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults 4 Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health (a) what more community support services are being developed to address gaming disorder among young adults; (b) whether the Ministry has studied jurisdictions that implemented playtime limits or identity verification to curb problematic gaming; and (c) beyond public education, what direct measures are taken to ensure the gaming industry embeds responsible features in digital products.
Community Support Services to Address Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults There are counselling and intervention programmes available in the community for those seeking help with gaming addiction, such as TOUCH Community Services and WE CARE Community Services.
Community Support Services to Address Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults The Government has also progressively introduced regulatory measures to better protect users from harms associated with gaming. The Code of Practice for Online Safety – App Distribution Services requires designated app stores to put in place measures to minimise users’ risk of exposure to harmful content, including those found in gaming apps. Designated app stores must also put in place age assurance measures by March 2026 to reduce the likelihood of young users accessing and downloading age-inappropriate apps, including gaming apps.
Community Support Services to Address Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults The Government will continue to monitor developments in other jurisdictions, including playtime limits or identity verification, and study if safeguards for online video games are required.
Community Support Services to Address Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults Mr Giam.
Community Support Services to Address Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults Sir, I think the Senior Minister of State for his reply. In view of the 10.3% prevalence rate for Internet gaming disorder among young adults in Singapore, will the Government take more urgent measures and more strictly regulate the gaming industry? For example, will it mandate game developers to have ethical design features and implement real world currency mandates, cool down periods, and regulate gacha and pay-to-win mechanics, while protecting skills-based competitive gaming? This will help curb predatory dark patterns without stifling the e-sports industry.
Community Support Services to Address Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults And second, could the Senior Minister of State provide an assessment of whether the current intervention, such as generic cyber wellness talks, are effective and well-received by young people and their parents? Will the Ministry consider holding more technical workshops that shed light on how algorithms actually work and engineer addiction, so as to foster more genuine digital literacy by both gamers and their family members?
Community Support Services to Address Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults Sir, the Member's first question would be more appropriately directed to the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI), which is the agency and the Ministry responsible for working with the app developers on app design and how they put forth products onto the market. So, I urge the Member to perhaps raise the questions with MDDI in a subsequent Parliamentary Question.
Community Support Services to Address Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults But on his question of whether we will do more to educate and protect users from some of the harmful things that might be available on apps, the answer is yes. But we will need to look at how we can balance between increased protection for users versus personal autonomy, and the practicality of enforcement. Because at the end of the day when we – I am not sure whether the Member was referring to young adults as in adults or if he was referring to teens – because if we are talking about a young adult, he is still an adult and he does have personal autonomy. So, our approach has been to go more upstream to educate, to raise awareness, but also to work upstream with developers and app stores to make sure that there are some age appropriate safeguards, so that for those who are below a certain age threshold for which they are not deemed as adults, put some barriers in place so that they are not actually exposed to it when they are still teens or young people.
Community Support Services to Address Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults So, I think that that is something that we will continue to do in a evidence-driven way – looking at the proportionality of the measures that we are going to do, but also make sure that it is feasible and ensure that there are no unintended consequences of any measures we put forth.
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued The following question stood in the name of Mr Vikram Nair –
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued 5 To ask the Acting Minister for Transport (a) whether the steady increase in Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licence is a sustainable trend; and (b) whether there are plans to manage the number of private hire car drivers.
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued Question No 5.
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued Who is answering?
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued I apologise, Mr Speaker, the question is Question No 5, which is on whether or not there is a steady increase in the vocational licences, whether there is a sustainable trend and whether there are plans to manage the number of private hire car (PHC) drivers.
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued The number of PHC Driver’s Vocational Licences has continued to be roughly maintained at the same level for the past few years. There are no plans at the moment for us to constrain the total number of drivers. It is important for us to have PHCs continue to be an important mode of transport in our transport system, largely because they provide for people who are unable to drive or are unwilling to own a car but yet would like to have access to private transport on a pay-per-use basis. And I think we want to be able to continue to do that.
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued The taxi or the point-to-point population has increased from 28,000 10 years ago, to roughly around 70,000 today. That represents a significant increase. But at the same time, I think if you look at the number of total rides, it is about 400,000 a day, that is substantial and it complements our public transport provision, which is still going to be our main focus for our transport policy. So, we have no intention at the moment to curtail the number, but I think the number has stabilised over time.
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued Mr Nair.
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued I thank the Minister for the response. I think generally leaving the numbers to the free market is not objectionable. The only caveat is that in the case of PHC drivers, people may be giving up opportunities to engage in other professions in order to have the freedom of being a PHC driver. And if the numbers were to go up too much, they may not be able to earn a livelihood. I suggest there might be some basis to intervene in the market, if the numbers appear too large, or PHC drivers' incomes and all that keep going down.
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued Thank you, Mr Speaker. I agree with the hon Member that indeed there are alternative occupations that, particularly this group who are Singaporean, can potentially take in the economy. But this group of PHC drivers, it is a diverse group. There are professional drivers who are doing the same thing as taxi drivers, driving full-time. There are people who are also in transient employment and this is a good way for them to come in and continue to earn an income, maybe when they are in between jobs.
Plans to Manage Numbers of Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licences Issued And so, to that end, we have not intentionally tried to restrict the numbers But as the Member has pointed out, this is a important pool of labour. Certainly, I would appreciate if some of them go into the bus industry, help us address the constraint that we have for public buses. But we have to leave it to the market and to let them decide.
Intended Role of Community Mental Health Services within Singapore’s Care Continuum 6 Dr Hamid Razak asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health (a) how does the Ministry define the intended role of community mental health services within Singapore’s care continuum; (b) whether community mental health services are primarily designed as (i) first-contact services (ii) post-hospital step-down care or (iii) both; and (c) how does this inform service design and resourcing.
Intended Role of Community Mental Health Services within Singapore’s Care Continuum Mr Speaker, my response will also address written Question No 9 filed by Dr Hamid Razak and filed in yesterday's Order Paper.
Intended Role of Community Mental Health Services within Singapore’s Care Continuum Community mental health teams include Community Outreach Teams (CREST) and Community Intervention Teams (COMIT). CREST is designated as one of the First Stops for Mental Health to improve access to screening, basic emotional support and other mental health resources. On the other hand, COMIT provides higher level psychosocial interventions, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, for individuals with moderate mental health needs. Both CREST and COMIT attend to patients referred for follow-up after undergoing treatment at the acute hospitals.
Intended Role of Community Mental Health Services within Singapore’s Care Continuum So, the short answer to his question today is, yes, both these resources are to cater as a first stop and also, for follow-up in the community.
Intended Role of Community Mental Health Services within Singapore’s Care Continuum The Ministry of Health (MOH), together with the Agency for Integrated Care, monitors several indicators of these services. These include clinical and functional outcomes using tools such as the Patient Health Questionnaire, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.
0. We also monitor the service utilisation and intensity of care needs of clients, including the referral sources. We use such data in our ongoing review and refinement of community mental health services, and to determine the resourcing for these services.
Intended Role of Community Mental Health Services within Singapore’s Care Continuum Dr Hamid.
Intended Role of Community Mental Health Services within Singapore’s Care Continuum Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Senior Minister of State for his answer. My question really stems out of, when we look at a parallelism in terms of physical care, when we talk about community care in the aspect of physical health, we often look at step-down care in terms of intermediate and long-term care. So, this space of community mental health, since they are dual-purpose for both first touch as well as follow-up care, how does the Ministry ensure that our community mental care workers are adequately resourced and staffed so that the care itself is not compromised, as well as for the welfare of our community mental health workers?
Intended Role of Community Mental Health Services within Singapore’s Care Continuum Sir, the National Mental Health Office works closely with various agencies, including the Agency for Integrated Care, as well as touchpoints with our community partners that are delivering some of these care in the community. Through the regular interactions and structured meetings, we do get a sense of what the resourcing gaps might be.
Intended Role of Community Mental Health Services within Singapore’s Care Continuum And right now, one of our measures is to push forth training resources and having some pocket guides to help the care providers right-site the clients to the right level of care so that they are not overburdened by those who need more care than they can provide. In these interactions and formalised meeting sessions, we will be able to get a sense of where the gaps might be and if need be, provide them with extra resources. It could be funding, could be training support to be able to deliver the services that they need to do in the community.
Steps to Reduce Vegetation Fires 7 Mr Vikram Nair asked the Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs in light of the increase in the number of vegetation fires since 2022 as well as the increase in Singapore's annual average temperature over the years, whether the SCDF is taking precautionary steps aimed at reducing vegetation fires.
Steps to Reduce Vegetation Fires Climate change has resulted in drier and hotter weather in recent years, increasing the risks of wildfire. The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) leads an inter-agency Wildfire Task Force, comprising members from relevant agencies, such as the Singapore Land Authority, National Parks Board, National Environment Agency and PUB, to proactively minimise the risk of vegetation fires.
Steps to Reduce Vegetation Fires The Wildfire Task Force actively monitors weather patterns and initiates preventive measures ahead of anticipated dry spells. These measures include identifying potential hotspots, such as areas with dense vegetation for closer monitoring, watering and trimming of overgrown vegetation, creating "fire breaks" or buffer zones to prevent fire spread during vegetation fires, and educating the public not to indiscriminately discard lighted materials, such as cigarette butts, onto grass patches.
Steps to Reduce Vegetation Fires Mr Nair.
Steps to Reduce Vegetation Fires I know in the past, the SCDF has managed to reverse the rising trend of wildfires. Does the SCDF envision that this can happen again with the additional measures that are in place?
Steps to Reduce Vegetation Fires Speaker, I think the Member is right in that, over the last few years, the number of vegetation fires has generally been kept under control – under 200 per year over the last five years.
Steps to Reduce Vegetation Fires However, we do know, especially for the weather, we do have to take a much bigger and longer-term perspective. When we look at 2018 to 2019, the numbers were much higher. In 2019, for example, it was in the 800s per year. That was also because during 2019, there were sustained periods of dry weather leading to spontaneous fires sparking off.
Steps to Reduce Vegetation Fires What is important here is that we need to watch the weather patterns very carefully. It is seasonal, very dependent on how much rainfall we get. It is important for us to stay vigilant and take proactive measures, the measures that I have mentioned above. Whenever we work very closely with the other agencies, when the Meteorological Service tells us we should anticipate dry weather, I think that is when we need to take even more proactive prevention methods.
Reason for Lower-than-projected Health Ministry Operating Expenditure in FY2025 8 Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health (a) what specific factors led to the $0.31 billion projected reduction in the Ministry’s revised FY2025 operating expenditure compared to the initial estimates; and (b) how does the Ministry reconcile lower-than-projected funding needs for public healthcare institutions with the increased care demands of a rapidly ageing population.
Reason for Lower-than-projected Health Ministry Operating Expenditure in FY2025 Mr Speaker, the reduction in the Ministry of Health's (MOH's) estimated financial year (FY) 2025 operating expenditure of $310 million is about 1.6% of the total initial estimate of $18.8 billion. It is mainly due to lower-than-expected increases in operating costs at the public healthcare clusters and is within an accepted margin of budget variance.
Reason for Lower-than-projected Health Ministry Operating Expenditure in FY2025 Overall, MOH's operating expenditure maintains an upward trajectory. The revised FY2025 estimate of $18.49 billion is $1.63 billion, or 9.7%, higher than the actual FY2025 operating expenditure. [Please refer to "Clarification by Minister of State for Health", Official Report, 4 March 2026, Vol 96, Issue 24, Correction By Written Statement section.]
Reason for Lower-than-projected Health Ministry Operating Expenditure in FY2025 The trend of increase will continue, as shown by the estimated FY2026 operating expenditure of $20.04 billion.
Reason for Lower-than-projected Health Ministry Operating Expenditure in FY2025 Mr Giam.
Reason for Lower-than-projected Health Ministry Operating Expenditure in FY2025 I thank the Minister of State for the reply. Can I get more clarity on what the operating costs that were lower than expected were?
Reason for Lower-than-projected Health Ministry Operating Expenditure in FY2025 Mr Speaker, the net decrease comprises many lines of reduction and these include the timing of some decisions. It is an operation, as the Member will know, so there are many different things that could happen. But actually, in total, it partially also offsets increases. So, there will be some decreases, some increases and largely because there are operational demands within the public healthcare institution.
Reason for Lower-than-projected Health Ministry Operating Expenditure in FY2025 Mr Giam. Mr Giam had another clarification.
Reason for Lower-than-projected Health Ministry Operating Expenditure in FY2025 Sir, I think I do want to request a bit more clarity on what are the operational costs that went down more than more than expected. Is it due to things like lower take-up rate of salary enhancement schemes or is it because of other aspects that might have led to longer waiting times for patients? Because we would have expected that because of an ageing population, operating costs should have gone up and if anything, it would have exceeded the expectations and the budgeted amounts rather than decrease. So, is patient care compromise in any way because of this?
Reason for Lower-than-projected Health Ministry Operating Expenditure in FY2025 I can appreciate the Member's concern, Mr Speaker. Some of the information are non-public information with regard to the operations. But Member can be assured that it was not an issue of compromising of care to patients. Largely, it related to the different projects and different decisions that were made on certain items, but healthcare services continued to be priority and continued to be delivered well to the patients.
Council to Provide Recommendations on Reasonable Integrated Shield Plan and Rider Premium Increases for Private Healthcare 9 Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health whether the Ministry will consider establishing a council to provide recommendations on reasonable Integrated Shield Plan and rider premium increases for private healthcare.
Council to Provide Recommendations on Reasonable Integrated Shield Plan and Rider Premium Increases for Private Healthcare Mr Speaker, Integrated Shield Plans (IPs) and riders are private, commercial products and IP insurers operate in a competitive market. Therefore, the quantum and frequency of premium revisions are subject to insurers' actuarial and commercial considerations which are best left to market forces. The Government's role should be to ensure affordable, accessible and good quality subsidised healthcare for Singaporeans.
Council to Provide Recommendations on Reasonable Integrated Shield Plan and Rider Premium Increases for Private Healthcare Mr Yip.
Council to Provide Recommendations on Reasonable Integrated Shield Plan and Rider Premium Increases for Private Healthcare Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister of State for her reply. My question pertains to seniors. Many retirees may downgrade or drop private coverage due to premium increases, even as MediShield Life premium also rises. Will the Ministry consider establishing a pricing council or having broader regulatory guardrails that helps in terms of financial security and access options for seniors as well as middle-income households?
Council to Provide Recommendations on Reasonable Integrated Shield Plan and Rider Premium Increases for Private Healthcare Mr Speaker, in response to the Member's question, I would just also reiterate the point I made earlier that we do want to take a balanced approach, because while we do want to actually protect consumers, it is important to appreciate that some of the premium revisions are really issues of market decisions and we do have to leave some of this to market forces.
Council to Provide Recommendations on Reasonable Integrated Shield Plan and Rider Premium Increases for Private Healthcare Having said that, I appreciate that there are concerns on the impact to consumers. As mentioned in previous Parliamentary Questions, firstly, information is made available, and there are a lot of guidelines to try and get people to make the best decisions.
Council to Provide Recommendations on Reasonable Integrated Shield Plan and Rider Premium Increases for Private Healthcare Separately, we have also been looking at different modalities and approaches, including introducing benchmark for private professional fees to guide pricing and guard against overcharging. We have taken enforcement actions against a small minority of doctors who made errant claims. We have also intervened to improve consumer fairness and transparency.
Council to Provide Recommendations on Reasonable Integrated Shield Plan and Rider Premium Increases for Private Healthcare We will continue to work on these to make sure that consumers are protected.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect 10 Mr Cai Yinzhou asked the Minister for Education (a) whether the Ministry has identified schools most vulnerable to urban heat island effect; (b) what progress has been made in applying cool paint and installing ventilations across older school campuses; and (c) whether building standards for new schools will mandate passive cooling designs so as to avoid the need for full air-conditioning.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect 11 Mr Cai Yinzhou asked the Minister for Education (a) what is the current number of air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned classrooms in schools; (b) whether the Ministry has conducted any studies to elevate the impact of thermal comfort on students' academic performance; and (c) if so, what are the results.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect As outlined in our reply to Mr Patrick Tay and Mr Kenneth Tiong for the Parliament Sitting on 22 September 2025 and Senior Minister of State David Neo's Committee of Supply speech on 3 March, the Ministry of Education (MOE) aims to provide a conducive learning environment for students, through heat-resilient school design focussed on passive cooling and additional heat mitigation measures.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect All new schools are designed to achieve Green Mark Platinum Super Low Energy certification, which emphasises passive design to reduce heat gain, reduce reliance on air-conditioning and optimise natural ventilation. For example, school buildings are oriented in a north-south direction for natural cross-ventilation, with shading to minimise direct sunlight and large window openings for enhanced airflow and passive cooling, supported by ceiling fans. Where possible, more shade and greenery are incorporated to further reduce the ambient temperature.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect On the additional heat mitigation measures that Mr Cai Yinzhou asked about, these are being implemented progressively. By 2027, all schools will be provided with additional and more powerful fans for classrooms as well as the coating of external building facades with cool paint.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect We have also been working with schools to identify those that may experience pervasive heat build-up due to specific site constraints, conditions or surroundings that impede natural wind flow. In cases where the current measures are insufficient, additional cooling measures may be deployed in a targeted manner. Air-conditioning can also be considered for classrooms that need to be enclosed for extended periods due to persistent dust or extreme noise, such as from nearby construction sites.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect MOE remains committed to ensuring that all students, regardless of which school they attend, have access to conducive learning environments. MOE is working with other agencies and researchers to study the effects of rising temperatures on student learning and well-being, including gathering more data on local conditions and their effects.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect As we gather more evidence on the local impact of rising temperatures on students, we will continue to refine our approach to achieve optimal thermal comfort across all schools in an environmentally sustainable manner. This includes exploring further heat adaptation and active cooling measures for classrooms, such as mixed mode air-conditioning.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect Minister of State, does your reply also cover Question No 11 as well?
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect Yes.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect Mr Cai.
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect I thank the Minister of State for her response. I was just wondering further if there are studies on in the impact of thermal comfort on academic performance and with effects, like the urban island heat effect, are there hotter schools than cooler schools, and is there studies on the correlations of academic performance based on that?
Number of Air-conditioned Classrooms in Schools and Schools that are Most Vulnerable to Urban Heat Island Effect I thank the Member for his question. Well, we did have a 2024 National University of Singapore study that identified that cognitive performance does decline above a certain temperature threshold. But this does not mean that all schools may need the same set of cooling measures. We will continue to look across our schools and target the measures at the ones where students may be experiencing more discomfort and this may be temporary or permanent in nature.
10.32 am 12 Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health whether the Ministry will consider establishing an independent and centralised helpline or oversight under the Tripartite Framework for the Prevention of Abuse and Harassment in Healthcare to enhance follow-up and accountability of internal reporting of abuse in all public healthcare institutions for all non-police cases.
10.32 am Mr Speaker, all public healthcare institutions have put in place internal mechanisms to ensure due follow-up of reported cases of abuse or harassment. These include protocols for immediate incident response and reporting, post-incident management including support provided to the affected staff, and follow-up actions against perpetrators.
10.32 am The Tripartite Workgroup for the Prevention of Abuse and Harassment of Healthcare Workers, comprising the Ministry of Health (MOH), union and healthcare employers from public healthcare, community care and private healthcare sectors, also convenes regularly to share best practices on the management of abuse and harassment cases.
10.32 am Mr Tan.
10.32 am Thank you, Mr Speaker and I thank the Senior Minister of State for the answer. The reason why I filed this Parliamentary Question is arising from a concern expressed by a resident who is a medical professional working in a hospital. The concern of my resident is that there should be an independent and transparent process of handling feedback, not by the hospital in question, purely because the concern that perhaps the hospital may, in certain circumstances, take the side of the patient rather than the staff.
10.32 am And also, in addition to that, for more independent tracking and monitoring, whether from a patient point of view or from a staff point of view, there would be more independence if it is done on a centralised and by an independent authority or body, rather than a hospital in question. There may be some conflict of interest as well when it comes to that hospital.
10.32 am Thank you, Sir. I want to thank the Member for expressing some of the potential concerns and indeed, as he has a resident who has spoken to him on this. I should take this chance to also reiterate that MOH and the Government takes a zero-tolerance stance against abuse of any healthcare workers. I am aware that hospitals do even report perpetrators to the Police for further investigation and take actions against them.
10.32 am The reason why it is important for the hospital to have an internal process is because the incident management itself does involve making an assessment on the perpetrator – sometimes, the perpetrator himself is the patient. And therefore, there are medical confidentiality issues to allow appropriate judgement on whether that action was something that ought to be taken to task for or if the patient is not compos mentis and he is actually not in the right frame of mind. And so, the action was committed because he has no self-control, because he could have mental illness, for example.
10.32 am So, there are real reasons why we keep this process internal to the hospital, because they are in the best position to make a judgement.
10.32 am If I can just illustrate this, there are three parts to incidence management.
10.32 am First, is the immediate response and that involves actually dealing with, sometimes, the patient who is the one causing the harassment or the patient's next of kin. That has to be something that is dealt with onsite, not by an external third-party.
10.32 am Secondly, is the reporting and review of the incidence. That is where I made the point earlier about reviewing the medical information behind this. The circumstances that led to the incident would involve some confidential information about the patient, for example.
10.32 am The third is the post-incidence management and this is where the zero-tolerance stance by the institution is something that we emphasise to management within the hospitals.