Hansard, Monday, 17 February 2014

1 Mr Hri Kumar Nair asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs if he will give an update on the investigations by the immigration authorities as to how a breach at Woodlands Checkpoint on 17 January 2014 resulting in an illegal entry into Singapore could have occurred.

2 Assoc Prof Tan Kheng Boon Eugene asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs if he can provide an update on the investigation over the breach at Woodlands Checkpoint on 17 January 2014 and the subsequent inadequate response actions by ICA and the Police; and (b) what immediate corrective measures have been taken to improve security at all checkpoints and improve coordination and response by the Home Team agencies to security breaches.

3 Ms Lee Li Lian asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs (a) what is the type of alert raised by the immigration authorities to the Police and security forces upon finding out that a vehicle has illegally entered Singapore on 17 January 2014; (b) whether it is a high-priority warning and, if not, why not; and (c) what are the specific actions taken after such an alert is out.

4 Ms Lee Li Lian asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs (a) in the past three years, how many cases of attempted immigration checkpoint evasions occurred; (b) how long did the authorities take to solve these cases; (c) what are the penalties meted out to these perpetrators; (d) whether there are any new procedures introduced to prevent recurrences; and (e) whether the current number of immigration officers is enough to deal with the surge in travellers during peak seasons.

5 Mr Yee Jenn Jong asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs with regard to immigration and security functions at our checkpoints (a) what percentage of the work is outsourced to Auxiliary Police or private entities and for what types of job functions; (b) what percentage of the officers in charge of checkpoint clearances are outsourced personnel; (c) what training and supervision are given to outsourced staff to ensure

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compliance with checkpoint procedures; and (d) whether outsourced functions are being reviewed in light of the alleged security breach at the Woodlands Checkpoint on 17 January 2014.

Mdm Speaker, with your permission, I will take Question Nos 1 to 5 together.

Yes, please.

Thank you. Mdm Speaker, on 17 January 2013 at 1.58 pm, a woman arrived at Woodlands Checkpoint in her Malaysian car. She drove past the ICA officer without going through the mandatory checks by tailgating the car immediately in front of hers, and slipping past the drop-arm barrier. The ICA officer did not immediately trigger an alert.

The car then proceeded to the secondary checking area for security checks to be carried out by an Auxiliary Police Officer (APO). The car did not stop for the APO to carry out his checks and the APO also did not sound the alarm.

Mdm Speaker, there are alarms installed at all immigration counters and also the secondary clearance area. The immediate activation of such alarms, as required in the Standard Operating Procedures at the checkpoints, is critical to stopping cars that evade immigration and security checks.

If the ICA officer had sounded the alarm faster than the two and a half minutes she took, it would have triggered a lock down which would have stopped the car from leaving the checkpoint. This was compounded by the APO not raising the alarm when the car did not stop for secondary security checks. Indeed, the prompt triggering of the alarm by the officer on duty was how similar previous attempts to evade immigration and security checks – either intentionally or inadvertently – at the checkpoint have been stopped in the past.

If, however, a vehicle does make an unauthorised exit from the checkpoint, there is a security protocol for Police and ICA to treat the incident as a breach of border security and issue a high-priority alert to all ground resources.

In this case, however, the ICA and Police ground commanders did not follow the protocol. They made an error of judgement and classified the incident as a less serious one – as an immigration offence. As a result, Police did not

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trigger an alert that would have immediately directed patrol cars to mount road blocks at possible travel routes of the car in major parts of Singapore. ICA and Police also did not issue a heightened and persistent alert with the description of the car and driver that would have alerted all ground forces to continue looking for them when they conducted vehicular searches, checks and screening.

Three days later on 20 January 2014 at 1.32 pm, Police received a "999" call from a taxi driver who said that he was being followed by a Malaysian car. On Police's advice, the taxi driver drove to a location outside the Police Cantonment Complex with the Malaysian car continuing to follow him. When police officers tried to engage the female driver of the Malaysian car, she was unresponsive and then drove off. The police officers decided not to pursue her and missed the opportunity to detain the driver for further checks. The officers showed weak situational awareness and exercised poor judgement.

Forty-five minutes later, at about 2.18 pm, the same driver and car intruded into the MFA compound by tailgating another car. MFA's security officers stopped the car in the compound and arrested the driver for criminal trespass.

Mdm Speaker, when the driver and vehicle evaded the required checks, they should have been stopped within the checkpoint. This is a serious security breach. It is also unacceptable that the woman was only arrested three days later, after she had intruded into the MFA compound. On receiving the incident reports, I expressed my deep dissatisfaction to the Commissioners of ICA and Police at the way the incident was handled. I directed them to conduct a thorough investigation, report to me how this happened and recommend corrective actions to prevent a recurrence.

Mdm Speaker, the Commissioners of ICA and the Police have presented to me their recommendations on the corrective actions. I have accepted the findings and recommendations and have directed ICA and Police to implement these measures.

ICA and Police will work closely to improve their coordination and responses, and ensure that such lapses do not occur again. Existing SOPs will be thoroughly reviewed to ensure officers act quickly and effectively to deal with such security threats at the checkpoints. Police will treat all checkpoint security breach cases as high-level security threats and take all necessary steps to locate the intruder, until such time the threat no longer exists. Both departments will also conduct more frequent drills and joint exercises at the

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land checkpoints to maintain the officers' vigilance and validate the emergency response plans.

ICA will also use more advanced technology as it becomes available, improve infrastructural design to depend less on the reaction of the officers on duty and enhance the overall security of the checkpoint.

While the bulk of the critical immigration and security functions at the checkpoint are performed by officers from ICA and the other Home Team agencies, APOs are an integral part of checkpoint operations. They constitute about 20% of the officers deployed at Woodlands Checkpoint for immigration and security clearance functions. The APOs are trained and equipped to carry out specific security functions. ICA conducts regular drills, exercises and audits to maintain the vigilance of the APOs, and reviews the operational procedures and responses regularly. In light of this incident, ICA will also enhance the supervision and deployment of the APOs to ensure that they carry out their duties in accordance with established procedures.

In the past three years till the end of 2013, there have been 26 cases of attempted or inadvertent evasion of immigration checks at Woodlands Checkpoint. Twenty five of these cases were stopped immediately within the checkpoint upon the prompt activation of the alarm. The last such case before this incident occurred on 29 December 2013. The most recent case was on 14 February 2014, just last Friday, when an APO gestured to the driver to stop for checks but the driver drove on. The APO then activated the alarm and the entire arrival car zone was locked down and the vehicle stopped within the checkpoint, as per the SOP. The matter was investigated and it was determined that the driver had inadvertently driven on, with no malicious intent. The vehicle and driver were allowed to proceed after the investigation.

Mdm Speaker, every such case is investigated thoroughly. Most of the 25 cases were found not to have malicious intent. In four cases, the offence was committed without mitigating factors and the subjects involved were prosecuted. The maximum punishment is imprisonment of six months.

The one previous case in the last three years that ICA failed to stop within the checkpoint involved a subject who crashed through a security barrier and exited Woodlands Checkpoint through the staff access lane. The driver was detained within two hours, prosecuted and sentenced to 12 weeks' imprisonment for offences under the Immigration Act, Penal Code and Road

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Traffic Act.

Mdm Speaker, the security breach at Woodlands Checkpoint on 17 January 2014 and the subsequent actions taken until her arrest on 20 January 2014 are not acceptable. I have described the measures – technical, infrastructural, procedural training and exercises – that ICA and Police together are taking to prevent a recurrence.

Lapses can fall into two categories. The first is when there is some negligence on the part of one or more ground officers in carrying out their tasks. The second, and more serious situation, is when there has been a serious error of judgement. This occurred in the current case.

The ICA and Police ground commanders made a serious error of judgement in deciding to treat this intrusion as a less serious immigration offence, instead of a serious breach of border security, as required in the protocol. This was a major reason for the subsequent inadequate response which resulted in the vehicle and driver not being detected and arrested much earlier. Both ground commanders have been redeployed to non-operational posts pending disciplinary action. Their supervising officers overseeing operations should also have realised this and acted to rectify the situation. They will be subject to the appropriate disciplinary action, along with other officers involved in the incident.

Mdm Speaker, as seen in this episode, the way that our officers and our commanders carry out their duties, their vigilance, diligence, sense of urgency, operational instincts and judgement are key to operational effectiveness.

I do not under-estimate the challenges our officers face at Woodlands Checkpoint. It is one of the world's busiest land checkpoints, with more than 300,000 people and 130,000 vehicles passing through each day. I will repeat those numbers: 300,000 people and 130,000 vehicles passing through Woodlands Checkpoint each day.

The security regime there is multi-agency and multi-level, involving various Government agencies such as ICA, Police, Central Narcotics Bureau, Singapore Customs and LTA, as well as the Auxiliary Police Forces. This incident shows that the coordination between ICA and Police at the checkpoint needs to be further strengthened.

It is important that Home Team departments work together closely in carrying out their duties. They must ensure that the concept of a Home Team is

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fully internalised and operationalised, both on the ground and by commanders at all levels, to tackle our security challenges as one united entity.

Mdm Speaker, the public expects us to do our job well. MHA holds our Home Team officers to a high standard of professionalism and takes a very serious view of the security lapses that occurred during this episode.

I have had a thorough discussion with the Commissioners of ICA and Police, and their senior leadership. They acknowledged and apologised for the shortcomings and are implementing the remedial measures. Apart from the physical and procedural measures, they recognise the need to set the tone from the leadership through to every ground unit, and every officer, that we have to remain vigilant and alert, and not let our guard down in the face of the serious threats that can arise.

Mdm Speaker, I have worked closely with our Home Team officers for some three years. I have met and talked with many of our officers on the ground to understand the work that they do, and what they need to carry out their duties better. I appreciate the good work of our officers. They have a good record in ensuring the safety and security of Singapore and Singaporeans. Our overall crime rate is at its lowest in 30 years. The number of immigration offenders arrested has been declining since 2001 and is less than half of what it was five years ago.

I have made it clear to the Heads of all our Home Team agencies and departments that when officers perform well, I will recognise their good work and commend them publicly. If they act professionally and discharge their duties properly and to the best of their abilities, but the outcome does not turn out so good, I will speak for them and support them publicly – for this is the difficult and challenging nature of the job that our Home Team officers are called upon to do, and we all need to support and encourage them.

However, if they have not discharged their duties properly and have fallen short of the required performance standards, as some officers have done in this episode, I will hold them accountable and where warranted, admonish and discipline them. Acknowledging mistakes allows our officers and our organisations to learn and improve.

Mdm Speaker, when Home Team officers report for duty, when they put on their uniforms, they carry a heavy responsibility. The duties they discharge, the decisions they make every day can have immediate and serious consequences

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on the safety and security of their fellow Singaporeans and Singapore. We all depend on them and place our trust in them to do their duty well. And this is a trust that has to be earned in all that our officers do, every day.

Mdm Speaker, I would like to thank the Deputy Prime Minister for the update. I have three supplementary questions. First, why did both the officers allow the car to go through without raising an alarm? Secondly, whether any attempts were made to locate the car while it was in Singapore for the three days and why those attempts were not successful? Finally, I understand that disciplinary proceedings are in motion; I would like to ask how many officers will be subject to disciplinary proceedings for this incident.

First, why did the officers not sound the alarm, I think they made a mistake. As far as we know, the first officer at the counter consulted another officer, and hesitated and took two and a half minutes, instead of sounding the alarm immediately. So, that caused a problem. The second officer at the secondary security checkpoint did not do so either. I do not know the reasons why he did not raise the alarm.

The officers are not new officers; they have been on duty and in the service for some years. Looking back at their records, they have generally been good officers. So, we do not know the reasons why they did not sound the alarm immediately, but they had been trained to do so.

As I had explained, it is not a frequent occurrence, but it is not infrequent either. It occurs once in every couple of months. So, officers who have been on duty or have been in the service for some years, would more likely than not have experienced this occurrence, which is not unusual.

We also emphasise to our officers that if they err on the side of caution and sound the alarm, no action will be taken against them because they are actually safeguarding Singaporeans' safety.

With regard to disciplinary proceedings, I have pointed out a number of officers who have failed in their duties quite clearly. Disciplinary action will be taken against both officers. There are a number of other officers in the operational supervisory chain who could have and should have noticed and rectified the situation. But they did not. And so, we will assess and see what is the appropriate disciplinary action to be taken. The officers, of course, will have the opportunity to explain and defend themselves. So, I would not want to go

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into numbers right now.

What efforts were taken to locate the car over the three days, as I had explained, the major factor in this was a misclassification of the incident of the breach as an immigration offence and not a major security breach. As a result of it not being classified as a major security breach, the Police did not put out a high-level persistent alert to all ground forces. Therefore, they were not looking for the vehicle and the driver as actively and vigorously as they should have.

Thank you, Madam. Two supplementary questions. The first is from my original Question No 4 on the Order Paper, part (e): whether the current number of immigration officers is enough to deal with the surge in travellers during peak seasons. The second question: what has been done to ensure that the attention of immigration officers is not compromised as a result of tiredness and/or long working hours?

Mdm Speaker, as I have said in my reply earlier, I do not underestimate the challenges of our officers working at the Woodlands Checkpoint. It is one of the busiest land checkpoints in the world. There are 300,000 people and 130,000 vehicles passing though every day. The workload is high, and officers need to remain vigilant and alert at all times.

To manage this, we have, over the years, put more resources into Woodlands Checkpoint. For example, we have increased the manpower at Woodlands Checkpoint by 42% in 2009 as a result of a study that was conducted on workload and work factors at the Woodlands Checkpoint in 2008. So, in 2009, we increased the Woodlands Checkpoint's manpower by 42%. Over the last few years, we have added another 11% bringing the total increase between 2008 and now to 58%.

During the same period, the total increase in travellers and vehicles is 26% and 36% respectively.

In addition, ICA has leveraged on technology and expanded the physical clearance capacity of Woodlands. ICA introduced the enhanced Automated Clearance System (eIACS) and the Biometric Identification of Motorbikes (BIKES) system in 2006. Both eIACS and BIKES are self-service immigration lanes that offer secure immigration clearance by biometric identifiers. Today, eIACS and BIKES are available to Singapore citizens, PRs, Long-Term Visit Pass holders and Malaysian nationals who qualify as frequent travellers. In 2013, 50% of bus and train passengers passing through the land checkpoints used the eIACS, and

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30% of motorcyclists used BIKES. More can still be done to push up the usage rate. ICA will continue to channel passengers and vehicles to use these self-service modes.

Other examples of how ICA leverages on technology include the installation of flexible immigration counters which can switch between manual and automated clearance modes depending on traveller volume.

ICA has also increased the clearance capacity at Woodlands. The current Woodlands Checkpoint was commissioned more than 10 years ago in 1999. It had 40 counters for cars, 12 counters for lorries and 30 counters for motorcycles. I repeat that – 40 for cars, 30 for motorcycles and 12 for lorries.

To alleviate congestion at the Woodlands Checkpoints, ICA re-activated the old Woodlands Checkpoint for lorries, with four additional lanes to add to the 12 in December 2008 and added 20 counters to add to the 30 for motorcycles in 2009.

In the next phase, we will see 30 car counters to add to the 40 we currently have. So, we will have 70 car counters in total, which are expected to be operationalised in 2016. The lorries and motorcycle counters are already in place.

Since the reactivation of old Woodlands Checkpoint, we have seen an improvement in the waiting time for vehicles at the checkpoint. We will continue to monitor the situation at Woodlands Checkpoint.

The crossings are very susceptible to peaks. For example, on a given day, there are very sharp peaks at times when workers come to work or when Singaporeans go across. There are peaks during public holidays. ICA tries to man the counters to the full extent possible. It also means our officers work a bit longer and also on public holidays but peaks being what they are, it is very difficult to design a checkpoint or a system to cater to the peaks, and especially the peak of peaks. So, there will be some delays, but it is also important to understand that security is very important. Even during the peaks, we maintain security.

To put this into context, as I have said, we had about 26 such incidents of checkpoint breach by vehicles over the last three years. There are about 50 million vehicles per year coming through the Woodlands Checkpoint. So, 25 to 26 breaches over slightly more than three years translates to one breach in

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every five million vehicles, which is contained within the checkpoint. And for about every 75 million vehicles, there is one breach that goes beyond the checkpoint for which a fuller response is required.

That is one of the challenges: how to maintain a system which is able to manage a very high throughput and at the same time respond immediately to an abnormal incident in the checkpoint and an even more abnormal one beyond the checkpoint, without clogging up the whole checkpoint. This is a big challenge for us.

Madam, I have three supplementary questions for the Deputy Prime Minister. First, I fail to understand how the investigation could have classified the security breach as an error of judgement by the officers concerned, given that the alleged intruder jumped both immigration and custom clearance. Is it because to classify it as a major security breach, rather than a less serious immigration offence, would entail a lot more consequences for the officers responsible? So, is this a question of officers trying to downgrade the seriousness of the breach?

Secondly, this incident revealed systemic issues within the Home Team. The intruder had gone undetected for three days until a taxi driver made a "999" complaint. I just fail to understand how is it that the different agencies could not coordinate in a situation like this.

Finally, this is a very embarrassing incident. I certainly hope that the disciplinary action that will be meted out will not dampen the morale of the Home Team because I think they do do a good job. Nonetheless, I am unable to appreciate how this lapse could have occurred, in light of many other incidents involving the Home Team.

Well, I certainly agree with Assoc Prof Eugene Tan. I find the decision that was made by the ground commanders unacceptable. There is a protocol to classify these as security breaches. This was an error of judgement made by the officers, as this is a major security breach. It was also a breach of protocol, which was supposed to be observed. It is not that I have misclassified it as an error of judgement. That is what the officers did on the ground. They made an error. That was the judgment they made. It was wrong, and not only that, they breached the protocol. Therefore, it is a serious error on their part.

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Thank you, Madam. I have four related supplementary questions. The first is: what is the kind of arrangements between the Home Team and the private security company in ensuring the suitability of the APOs for the various types of job functions? The second is: what sort of decisions go into deciding what type of job functions can be outsourced? The third is: is the training the same for the APOs and full-time officers performing the same duty? The fourth is whether any of the APOs are allowed to start their work before completing all the trainings required of them.

Well, none of the APOs can start their duties without having completed their training. None of the ICA officers can either. The APOs are deployed to carry out certain specific functions. In the case of this particular APO at the checkpoint, although this is the green lane, his duty is to make sure of two things. One, that the number of passengers in the car tallies with the number cleared through the immigration checkpoint. Second, do a security check of the boot and other things in the car to make sure that the security of Singapore is maintained. These are very specific functions and the APOs are trained to do this before they go on duty.

In general, we will employ APOs where there are very specific functions to be carried out. Where there are functions which would require a broader range of judgement, or a broader application of policies, then we will employ our own Home Team officers who will be able to understand and apply these more complicated and complex protocols in a better way. That is roughly the apportionment between them.

Mr Nicholas Fang, last question.

Mdm Speaker, one supplementary clarification for the Deputy Prime Minister. I appreciate the fact that the officers on the ground had chosen to report this as an immigration offence as opposed to a breach of border security. Does this mean that the particulars of the driver and vehicle were then not circulated to all the other ground forces? Is that the reason why, at Cantonment Complex, when the officers responded to the "999" call by the taxi driver initially, and then at MFA, the officers failed to respond or recognise immediately that this was a vehicle involved in the breach three days earlier?

Exactly so. That is why the mistake in classifying the incident was a major factor in the subsequent inadequate response. But even

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on its own, when a suspicious incident does occur, even without any of these other precursors, the officers at Cantonment Complex could have responded better.

6 Ms Foo Mee Har asked the Acting Minister for Manpower how the Ministry plans to strengthen and enforce safety measures at construction sites to prevent recurrence of workplace accidents which have led to nine deaths in the month of January 2014 alone.

7 Assoc Prof Tan Kheng Boon Eugene asked the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) whether there is a general malaise towards workplace safety and health among key stakeholders; and (b) what plans does the Ministry have to enhance workplace safety and health standards, norms and values among stakeholders beyond increasing penalties.

Mdm Speaker, I would like to take the questions from Ms Foo Mee Har and Assoc Prof Eugene Tan together, please.

Yes, please.

Thank you. My Ministry shares the concern of the House over the recent spate of accidents in construction sites. Let me first briefly give an update on the state of safety in the construction industry.

We have made steady improvements since we overhauled the national Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) framework in 2005. Injury rates in the construction industry fell from over 1,200 per 100,000 workers in 2005 to around 480 per 100,000 employees in 2012. Similarly, the fatality rates dropped from 11.9 per 100,000 employees in 2005 to 5.9 per 100,000 employees in 2012.

However, starting from around the second half of 2013, we began to see a decline in WSH performance. In those six months, there were 22 construction workplace fatalities. This was twice as many fatalities compared to the first half of the year, and five more compared to the same period in 2012. This worrying

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trend continued into 2014, with eight out of the nine workplace fatalities in January coming from the construction industry alone. MOM stepped up its inspections over the last two weeks of January and uncovered 114 contraventions of the WSH Act at 89 construction worksites. A total of seven Stop Work Orders, 45 Composition Fines and 69 Notices of Non-Compliance were issued.

Feedback from industry indicates that the recent spate in construction accidents could be due to two contributing factors. First, companies are rushing to complete construction projects on time, as the demand for construction activities continue to rise. Second, a tighter labour market could have contributed to companies overstretching their workers.

However, regardless of the constraints faced by the industry, there should not be any compromises where safety and lives are concerned.

Many of these accidents are preventable if rules and safety procedures provided in the law are followed. For example, legal obligations are imposed on contractors to engage Professional Engineers (PEs) to design and supervise the erection of formwork systems for concrete structures with higher risk. This includes concrete structures that are more than 300 mm thick or more than 9 metres high. The risk of formwork collapses can be avoided if PEs design the formwork adequately, ensures that the formwork structures built are inspected and certify that they are safe for use before any concreting commences.

I note that Ms Mary Liew had asked a related question for written answer* for which I would like to address here because it is related to the two Parliamentary Questions (PQs) asked by our two Members.

[(proc text) *Question subsequently withdrawn – Ms Mary Liew: to ask the Acting Minister for Manpower in view of the recent spate of construction site accidents, whether the Ministry will (i) review the role and obligations of professional engineers in the design and construction processes; and (ii) implement measures for accountability if professional engineers are culpable for negligence resulting in construction site accidents." for sitting on or after 20 February 2014. (proc text)]

In response to the series of formwork related accidents in January this year, my Ministry had issued an advisory to PEs to remind them of their obligations. My Ministry takes a firm stance to any contraventions by PEs, and will not hesitate to take them to task if they are found to have violated their duties under the WSH Act. We will also refer them to the PE Board for any possible

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contravention under the Professional Engineers Act.

To ensure that companies do not undertake work at the expense of the safety of their workers, my Ministry will adopt a multi-prong strategy on both the enforcement and regulatory fronts.

First, to provide adequate deterrence, my Ministry will continue to apply for stronger penalties for cases where there are serious breaches of the law. We have in severe cases obtained fines of up to $200,000 against employers who have failed in their duties. We will also ask for custodial sentences on individuals who have blatantly disregarded the law and press for maximum sentencing as allowed under the WSH Act for egregious cases.

Second, MOM will tighten the conditions for lifting of a Stop Work Order (SWO). This is to ensure that companies resolve specific as well as systemic lapses through the effective implementation of their WSH management system. New conditions for lifting the SWO may include the conduct of refresher training on any areas of weaknesses as well as re-audit of the WSH management system.

Third, we will expand the scope of the Business Under Surveillance (BUS) Programme to more companies that require assistance to address serious systemic weaknesses in their WSH Management Systems. The BUS Programme is a strategic enforcement programme that targets poor performing companies for close monitoring and supervision. Companies in the programme will be required to thoroughly review their WSH system and processes, with their WSH performance closely monitored by my Ministry. Companies can exit from BUS only upon fulfilment of the action plan and demonstrate improvements in its WSH performance and management. To help these companies sustain their WSH improvements, MOM will start them on a WSH culture building journey, leveraging on the WSH Council's CultureSAFE programme.

Fourth, we will review and strengthen the Demerit Points System. The Demerit Points System was first introduced in Year 2000 to identify contractors with poor work practices and restrict their access to foreign manpower if there is no improvement in their safety records. Demerit points are issued to contractors or sub-contractors for breaches under the WSH Act and relevant subsidiary legislation. Information on the changes will be released after the review is completed by the middle of this year.

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As we step up our enforcement actions, we will continue to extend support to smaller construction worksites through assistance programmes such as the Safety Compliance Assistance Visits (SCAV). The SCAV involves appointed WSH professionals visiting and providing onsite practical guidance at worksites. Last year, 800 SCAV visits were conducted and the industry has requested for more, and we are happy to work with them. My Ministry recognises the value and need for these services and will be doubling the number to 1,600 SCAV visits this year.

Mdm Speaker, these measures, while necessary, will not be effective without the involvement of all stakeholders in the construction value chain taking proactive ownership for workplace safety. These include the developers, designers, professional engineers, contractors, sub-contractors, project managers, supervisors as well as workers. The WSH Council, through its Construction and Landscape Committee, is proactively engaging all these stakeholders through various programmes to address this challenge together. One such initiative is Design for Safety, which involves the developers, designers and other project stakeholders working together from the start of the project to ensure that construction, maintenance and even demolition safety have been taken into consideration at the design stage, before construction even starts.

The Singapore Contractors Association Ltd (SCAL) has also implemented a SCAL Safety Site Visits programme where the more established contractors help educate the less established ones on how to manage safety at the worksites. This is done through briefings and site visits hosted by the more established contractors' worksites. Such an initiative bodes well for the industry and I encourage more contractors to participate in this programme.

Indeed, the involvement of the Developer is key to good WSH performance in a construction project. A good example can be seen in the construction projects for the London 2012 Olympics. From the onset of the projects, the developer, Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) set a goal of achieving "Zero Harm" and put in place several initiatives to align all project stakeholders towards the goal. As a result of the strong WSH commitment by ODA and collaborations with other stakeholders, the project achieved zero workplace fatality. This was the first Olympic construction programme to have achieved this and was not easy considering that an estimated 75,000 companies were involved in this mega project.

Madam, allow me to conclude by reiterating that Workplace Safety and Health is everyone's responsibility. MOM will continue to work closely with the

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industry to raise WSH standards but we will take stern action against errant stakeholders.

Thank you, Madam. I have two supplementary questions for the Senior Parliamentary Secretary. The first question is whether MOM sees a link between workers' health and workplace safety, and whether it will establish requirements for companies to check that workers are indeed fit before they start work, because unfit ones can pose a danger to themselves and others. The second question is whether the Government will consider using record of workplace safety as a factor for approving building projects and also tenders for Government projects.

Madam, the short answer to both questions is yes. I think many companies are involved in the health programmes initiated by MOH and HPB, and MOM and HPB are working very closely on this matter. I would take it that most companies would not allow their workers to work if they are not fit, because they can be a danger to themselves and to other fellow workers. On whether the Government is using WSH record, yes, all Government agencies take the safety records of all contractors bidding for Government projects into consideration and they all know this.

Mdm Speaker, I have two supplementary questions for the Senior Parliamentary Secretary. The first question is whether the current approach of promoting WSH is working. It would seem as though when it comes to the crunch of tight deadlines and a tight labour market, the current methods do not seem to work as well. The Senior Parliamentary Secretary has gone through what I call the "bold strokes" – enhanced penalties, stop work orders and all – but how do you encourage all the stakeholders to go on the "long march" of imbibing the norm of safety at the workplace? I think that is important. My second question is how do you get the stakeholders to recognise that safety is actually a key productivity driver.

Madam, if we take a look at the safety records in the last seven or eight years, I think we can establish that we have done quite well. Since we revamped our regulations and the law, as well as the approach towards improving safety at workplaces, we have made much improvement. We had seen a plateau in safety performance and we are addressing it. We saw a huge increase in the number of fatalities in the construction industry in the second half of last year, and we are now addressing it. I think the approach, in general, in getting the industry involved through the WSH Council and for industry

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associations to take a lead role in reaching out to their fellow members as well as the regulations are working. But what we need to do is to ensure that the errant ones, the repeated violaters, will understand that they cannot get away with it, and that will send a very strong signal to the others to ensure that the workers will continue to work in a safe environment.

As to whether we can improve further the approach in deepening the culture of safety, the answer is yes. I have mentioned earlier in my reply that we have a programme called CultureSAFE. This will require a lot of learning and a lot of teaching of the workers. It has to start right from the top to bottom and it has also to be initiated bottom up. It is not easy but we recognise that if it can work elsewhere, it can work here as, indeed, it has shown some improvement in all the industries in Singapore. We have seen some decline in performance, and I think we can work with the industry to address it.

Whether companies will take WSH record as a key productivity driver, I think it will take some time for this to sink in. But, certainly, as in my reply to Ms Foo earlier, contractors know that both safety performance and safety record are taken into consideration when they bid for Government-linked projects. And I think they know the cost of not maintaining a good safety environment for their workers.

Madam, many of the accidents actually involved foreign workers. I would like to ask the Ministry whether it will do a more focused review and whether it has plans to help this group of workers to understand, identify and, if need be, blow the whistle on any WSH risk at work, so that they can avoid compromising on their safety just for the deadline or the work target required by their employers.

Thank you. I think this is a good question. We recognise that a large number of workers in the construction industry, in particular, are foreigners. Indeed, the employers normally engage workers from the same country, who speak the same language as the supervisors, and when they conduct toolbox meeting before the workers start working, it is always conducted in the languages of the workers. I think we will encourage workers to blow the whistle. In fact, the workers have the right to not work if they find that the environment they work in is not safe. They can report it to the management and they can actively work with management to ensure that the unsafe environment is removed before they start work.

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8 Er Dr Lee Bee Wah asked the Minister for Transport if he will update the House how the public transport operators are addressing the issue of frequent breakdowns and undue delays of train services.

9 Mr Alex Yam asked the Minister for Transport with regard to transport network breakdowns and disruptions in January 2014 (a) what reassurances have the transport operators given to LTA that their trains, buses and tracks are fully operational; (b) what contingencies do the operators and LTA have in place to ensure that inconveniences to commuters are kept to a minimum; and (c) what does the Ministry intend to do to reassure the public and boost confidence in our transport network.

10 Mr Hri Kumar Nair asked the Minister for Transport how does the disruption rate of train services in Singapore compare to similar systems in other major cities, taking into account factors such as age, load and frequency of services.

Mdm Speaker, may I have your permission to take Question Nos 8 to 10 together?

Yes, please.

Mdm Speaker, I fully understand and empathise with commuters' frustrations over the recent spate of rail disruptions in January at Kranji, Ang Mo Kio and Tanah Merah. I had called in SMRT's senior management to convey my grave concerns and find out the reasons behind the spate of disruptions and what SMRT was doing to ensure that this was not the start of a new trend of disruptions.

I was especially perturbed because I knew that there had actually been a lot of hard work put in by the team at SMRT as well as the SBST team, together with LTA, to improve train reliability over the last two years. And we had actually made good progress in so doing. I monitor two indicators very closely. Firstly, the number of delays that are more than five minutes; and secondly, the number of unplanned train withdrawals, because some of these train withdrawals may be shorter than five minutes, and yet if it occurred during peak hours, it can be very disruptive. That is also a very pertinent indicator that I ought to pay close attention to.

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On the first indicator, last year, we reduced the number of train delays longer than five minutes by 20% across the whole MRT network, from 1.49 delays for every 100,00 km travelled in 2012, to 1.18 in 2013. The number of delays in 2013 was lower than that achieved back in 2010. What it means in terms of the number of trips that are made every day on the main lines – the North-South East-West Lines as well as the North East Line – is that it works out to just under one such delay for every 2,000 train trips that are operated on these two lines. Put in another way, 99.95%, or except one out of every 2,000 trips would not experience any delay, or a delay of less than five minutes.

On train withdrawals, the rates for the North-South and East-West Lines have also fallen, from 3.32 withdrawals for every 100,000 km travelled in 2012, to 2.25 withdrawals in 2013. This is about a 30% improvement. Again, what we have done is to have restored the train withdrawal rates close to the 2010 levels. For this year, the target for the North-South and East-West Lines is to bring this figure from 2.25 further down to about 1.8.

Likewise, we have also seen a more than 25% reduction in train withdrawal rates from 2012 to 2013 for both the North East and the Circle Lines. Indeed, the withdrawals for the Circle Line are at its lowest since it first opened in 2009.

It is not easy to compare service disruption rates across different countries and systems, in part because of differences in age, length of networks, loading frequency of services and so on, but more so because such data is generally not made publicly available by the operators, unlike our practice which is that every three months, we put this data out on the LTA website, so that Members of Parliament and interested members of the public can actually scrutinise the data comprehensively.

But I note that that for each of the past two years, Hong Kong's MTR – which has a very good record – its domestic rail lines have experienced about three to four major service disruptions of more than 30 minutes, which is similar to SMRT's North-South and East-West Lines. But, again, obviously the size of the network, the loading, the frequency of services are not quite the same.

The improvements in reliability we are seeing have come about because the operators have invested substantially more in maintenance and system upgrading, especially over the past two years. We estimate that SMRT has increased its annual repair and maintenance expenditure for its two rail lines by about 65% over the course of these two years, with $64.5 million spent in FY2013 compared to $38.3 million in FY2011. Even when we normalise the

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repair and maintenance expenditure per train-kilometre for the North-South East-West Lines, so as to reflect the higher usage as well as the ridership that had taken place in these lines, the maintenance and repair expenditure had gone up by over a third in these two years.

It clearly reflects a considerable step-up in resources and efforts to intensify maintenance and fix reliability issues. Beyond this, the LTA-SMRT Joint Team is working on other measures to upgrade the trains and systems of the Compass Lines, which will involve major investments of about $500 million to overhaul the older trains by 2016 and upgrade the signalling system by 2018. Likewise, SBST has stepped up improvement works to rectify tunnel leakages and change out problematic components of the overhead power system in the North-East Line tunnels. It will be commencing a comprehensive mid-life upgrading programme for the North-East Line trains, which are just over 10 years old. The two operators have also ramped up their engineering capabilities and processes, and hired more engineers as well as expanded their maintenance teams.

On LTA's part, we are upgrading the rail infrastructure to improve reliability. The replacement of ageing timber sleepers with concrete sleepers on the North-South and East-West Lines has been under way since 2012, while the replacement of traction power cables on the Circle Line has been completed. These traction power cables were the cause of a series of disruptions back in 2012. Some of you may remember this. In 2014, the North-South East-West Lines' third rail system will undergo a full, system-wide change-out. We will also be improving the North-East Line's overhead power system with new corrosion-resistant materials, to minimise the recurrence of stress-corrosion cracking in its components that afflicted parts of the tunnel, particularly to the south, back in 2012 as well as the earlier part of 2013.

So, we have, overall, made some strides in the right direction, but there is certainly room for further improvement. Thus far, the joint teams that LTA has set up with SMRT and SBST have adopted a fine-and-fix approach to rectify existing issues with the rail systems. Following the completion of separate consultancy studies that we have activated on both of the operators, both operators will, going forward, adopt a new predict-and-prevent approach to their respective maintenance regimes. Under this new approach, operators will undertake active condition monitoring of rail systems and formulate maintenance processes to optimise the performance of the assets over their life cycles.

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In our perspective, we understand that service disruptions do happen from time to time, especially as the rail network expands and ages, and as we run more and more train trips. But in the case of the January incidents, SMRT could have done much better in service recovery, especially to provide timely information to affected commuters. The LTA's Code of Practice requires operators to put out announcements at stations and through various media platforms to provide clear and timely status updates and to advise commuters on alternate travel options, such as the free boarding of public buses and shuttle services between affected stations.

As part of its investigations, LTA will highlight gaps in the SMRT's communication with affected commuters and work closely with both operators to share learning experiences and to further improve their incident management. The SMRT senior management team has already committed to review its contingency plans on a station-by-station basis and to refine its command-and-control structure in times of disruption so as to provide better ground support to its staff.

Madam, I have two supplementary questions for the Minister. First question: the disruption of 20 January 2014, which was at Ang Mio Kio station, had affected many of my residents because they were travelling to the city to work. I understand that the disruption was for more than 20 minutes and the residents said that there was no communication, they did not know what happened and it was very stuffy – no ventilation. I would like to ask the Minister what can be done because the train operator has been doing this all the time and still such things happened.

My second question is: it is good that the Minister called in the higher management of the train operators when this thing happened. I would like to ask the Minister whether the Minister would call in the higher management again to ask them to forgo the fare increment which has been recommended by PTC because the service is still not satisfactory.

As mentioned in my reply, certainly for the recent spate of disruptions, we do find shortcomings in how it was handled by SMRT in terms of the announcements not only to the affected commuters but also in making sure that people who are joining the network understand where the disruptions are, approximately how long it may take to recover, as well as to find and offer alternative modes of transportation.

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On fare increment, it is best to separate these two issues. While I understand the emotions involved in it, we also have recently completed the Fare Review Mechanism Committee (FRMC) report. The FRMC report came up with a formulation that all parties ought to try to abide by and follow, which is to compute the fare adjustment on an annual basis, with room to roll over by taking into account the macro factors of wage increases, core CPI, as well as the energy index.

I thank the Minister for his response. Just two supplementary questions. One, in terms of communications, it is not the first time that we have had disruptions over the last three to four years. However, it seems that every time something happens, the transport operators are reacting to remedial situations that are happening when they could easily have projected them. Is there any reassurance from the Minister's meeting with higher management that they will take this into serious consideration? Two, the Minister mentioned the condition monitoring system that the companies are to introduce. Is there a timeline that we can see this put in place so that we can reduce further disruptions in the transport network?

I thank the Member for the supplementary questions. I meet up with the senior management of SMRT and SBST roughly on a quarterly basis to run through reliability issues, what they have managed to accomplish and what is still outstanding, to urge that they put in greater resources, for example, for re-sleepering, resignalling works and so on.

My feel after talking to the SMRT team is that they take it seriously. As the CEO himself told me, the team was actually very disappointed themselves with the series of incidents as well as with how staff on the ground had handled them. We agreed that SMRT should review their contingency plans on a station-by-station basis rather than to have a more generic plan that covers stretches of their rail system because you do need very specific drawer plans that you can activate at a time of contingency.

On condition monitoring, which I believe is the Member's second supplementary question, already some of that has been done. For example, there are a couple of trains that have been instrumented – these are operational trains so, therefore, they run across the entire network, that is, the North-South Line and the East-West Line – to, for example, detect whether there are sags in the third rail. Indeed, there was a recent incident where we had to require the train to, fortunately, make a bypass through the Bishan Depot because one of these trains picked up a minor sag in the third rail around the Ang Mo Kio-Bishan area and, because we were able to pick it up in time, the team decided

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that they would want to rectify it as quickly as possible, and we were in a position to be able to do a bypass for the train. Within about 10 minutes, they had managed to rectify it. That is one.

The second, for example, is a system to monitor the collector shoes. Members will remember that this was the cause of the major disruptions back in 2011. There is a system now to monitor the health of these collector shoes on an ongoing basis.

These are the things that we continue to explore to try to make sure that they have real-time, including telemetric data that is being sent back, so that they can be analysed as well as, in certain instances, trigger rectification action on an urgent basis.

May I ask the Minister whether he will consider another metric of measuring delays? He did talk about the number of delays of more than five minutes. Would it not be better to look at the number of commuters affected multiplied by the number of minutes delayed because a delay that is 45 minutes in duration involving two major East-West station is much more significant in terms of commuter impact than one in an off-peak period for six minutes?

I did not give Members all the statistics because we measure greater than five minutes' delay, greater than 10 minutes' delay and greater than 30 minutes' delay. We also measure whether any incident affects more than 20,000 commuters. These are some of the different metrics.

The reason why I mentioned unplanned withdrawal rates is that if you have a train carrying 1,400 passengers during the peak period, and if you withdraw the train, it may take you a couple of minutes because that is almost as quickly as they can do it, but it will take quite a long time before those thousand over passengers continue on their journey. That is something that is harder to quantify in terms of impact. To me, it is an indicator that if we do not bring down the withdrawal rates, then we do run the possibility that it will one day happen during the peak hour and affect far more commuters than it would during, say, the middle of the afternoon.

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11 Dr Lim Wee Kiak asked the Minister for Defence in view of Transparency International's Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index which gives Singapore a poor rating, whether Singapore's defence budget oversight and procurement processes are sufficiently robust.

Madam, Singapore and its various Government Ministries and agencies have achieved a reputation for zero tolerance against corruption for many years. For MINDEF, we have strict procedures to ensure that our procurement systems adhere to the highest and most rigorous standards and I think defence experts acknowledge this. For example, credible defence journals, such as Jane's Defence Weekly and Jane's Defence Industry, have acknowledged our robust and comprehensive system for procurement. The Financial Times also noted the "stringency and transparency" of our processes while the Aviation Week publication lauded Singapore's Defence Ministry as a "reference customer" and a "model of cost-effectiveness" to suppliers and buyers of defence equipment.

Among global defence companies, it is common knowledge that MINDEF buys equipment at very competitive prices and has stringent standards of performance for its purchases.

So, the difference between MINDEF's hard-earned and well-known reputation of being stringent, transparent and cost-effective in our procurement practices, and that of Transparency International's defence corruption risk reports which place us in the same category as countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, point to a credibility gap of Transparency International's reports.

We examined Transparency International's assessment and found their assumptions to be flawed and processes weak. For example, Transparency International (TI) stated that while there is "no evidence of illicit economic activity", they further went on to add "we may assume some off-budget allocations, perhaps on a limited basis". I do not know what is the basis of that assumption, but it is a very, very serious allegation.

Further, the evaluator, a person called Mr David Fouquet, added that he has "on good personal authority" that there was a phantom employee on MINDEF's payroll, without giving any details. We would suggest to TI that their processes need to be strengthened by relying on more authoritative sources and substantiated facts. In fact, Transparency International's analysis seems to be

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based mainly on Internet sources. We have endeavoured to reach out to this organisation to give them more information but they have flatly declined our offers of more information to debunk their false assertions.

TI also asserts that "parliamentary and legislature process to scrutinise the defence budget is not robust due to a lack of opposition voices in the political system". This is a rehash of old debates that if Singapore does not conform closely to their model of parliamentary democracy, we must be corrupt. TI's reports do injustice to our Members of Parliament here and ignore the strong legislative oversight as well as strong executive controls in our system.

The Defence Budget is presented and passed by Parliament and approved by the President each year. The Parliament appoints a Select Committee, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), to work closely with the Auditor-General's Office to conduct regular scrutiny of our expenditure and accounts. This is further complemented by strong executive oversight. We have a robust system of checks and balances, an independent Auditor-General who reports to the President and a clean Civil Service. Detailed information on our anti-corruption, budget, audit and procurement checks and balances are available on public sites.

In fact, more established publications, such as the Asian Intelligence Report by the Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Limited, consistently ranked Singapore as the least corrupt country in Asia since 2002. Other reputable publications, such as the Governance Matters report published by the World Bank Institute, has also consistently ranked Singapore in the top fifth percentile out of over 200 countries in the area of Control of Corruption. The findings from this Governance Matters report are drawn from over 20 different indicators, some of which include reputable sources, such as the Economist Intelligence Unit and the World Competitiveness Yearbook by the renowned Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development.

Indeed, TI's Headquarters' most recent Corruption Perception Index 2013 placed Singapore as the fifth least corrupt nation in the world. The fact that the same organisation, albeit through two different publications, gives us quite different assessment, again calls into question TI's credibility.

My Ministry reiterates that we are committed to upholding Singapore's reputation as a country that is clean, honest and trustworthy, and a Ministry which emphasises the highest levels of integrity and incorruptibility.

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Mdm Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister for his reply. I would like to ask the Minister two supplementary questions. First, within the TI's website, it was mentioned that based on their methodology, there are 77 questions and apart from the evaluators, they are also peer reviewed two times, and they invited the governments to review their draft reports. I would like to ask the Minister whether we were invited to view the draft report before they published this. Secondly, this is not the first time an organisation has accused the Singapore Government of having very poor transparency in terms of our defence procurements. What is MINDEF doing now to further improve that perception or to correct that perception?

Mdm Speaker, yes, TI does engage with us and there have been instances where we offer and we want to give them information. Sometimes, they have accepted but, as I have said, in this particular instance, they did not. Dr Lim Wee Kiak said this is not the first time that MINDEF or the SAF had been accused of not being completely open about our processes. I agree with him. For instance, one of the reasons for TI's ranking us in the category as it did was, I quote, "no information exists on asset disposal or any scrutiny that may be subjected". In other words, I must tell you what I am disposing, but in order for me to tell you what I am disposing, you will know what I have. Or that "the percentage of defence expenditure allocated to secret items is not known publicly". Well, that is the reason why I do not tell you.

So, I think there is a difference in form in terms of what they want. We are not about to compromise our security by revealing the exact dollars and cents for each thing that we purchase. I come to this House; we tell you what we are going to purchase as I did with the Aster 30 systems, upgrading our submarines, that we are looking seriously at certain aircraft platforms. But it has not been our habit to publicly announce the minutiae because we take that stance to make sure that it gives us a more robust security system in the SAF.

12 Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai asked the Minister for Education what is the rationale behind the lowering of Government funding to several schools and whether this will adversely affect the ongoing programmes at these schools.

13 Mr Yee Jenn Jong asked the Minister for Education in 2013 (a) how much funding for secondary level education is given, on average, by the Ministry to (i) independent schools (ii) autonomous schools and (iii) schools

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which are neither independent nor autonomous; and (b) how will this funding level change with the recent revision to the funding formula for schools.

14 Mr Lim Biow Chuan asked the Minister for Education if he will clarify the amount of funding provided by the Government for Singapore schools and whether all schools will be funded appropriately to meet the school's requirements and programmes.

15 Mr Ang Wei Neng asked the Minister for Education in light of the new funding formula for schools (a) what is the rationale for cutting the funding for the Integrated Programme rather than the Gifted Education Programme; and (b) which primary and secondary schools have more than 80% of their normal classrooms installed with air-conditioning units and whether the operating costs of the air-conditioning units are funded under this new formula.

Mdm Speaker, may I have your permission to take the next four questions together?

Yes, please.

I thank Mr Lim Biow Chuan, Mr Edwin Tong, Mr Ang Wei Neng and Mr Yee Jenn Jong for their interests in how our schools are resourced.

Mr Lim asked whether all schools will be funded appropriately to meet the schools' requirements and programmes. This is the crux of the matter. Indeed, MOE funds our schools on the basis of their requirements and programmes, so that each school has adequate resources to develop the students under its charge. MOE also aims for the resources to be used prudently to achieve the desired educational outcomes.

Mr Ang and Mr Tong asked about the rationalisation of funding for school programmes. I appreciate that recent media reports may have caused concerns. Please allow me to set out the context.

Our schools provide a range of programmes to develop the students under their charge, taking into account their strengths and interests. We have a school landscape that is made up of diverse offerings. Within this landscape, independent schools play an important role in exploring new approaches of developing and stretching students with a strong academic foundation. We are

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committed to supporting and resourcing independent schools appropriately so that they continue to stretch their students in their areas of strengths, and, just as important, to inculcate a sense of service to our society.

All schools, including independent schools, are resourced based on the programmes they offer and their enrolment. The Ministry conducted a review recently to assess if independent schools are resourced appropriately, taking into account factors such as the higher overheads in schools with smaller enrolments. Allow me to clarify several points on which there may be some misunderstanding.

First, let me set the record straight on the issue of independent school funding. As a result of the review, more schools received increased funding this year. Six out of 10 independent schools received up to 5% more funding, and only four did not. For these four, their funding is around 3% less, at the most. The main reason for the review is that schools with higher enrolment can spread their overheads better, while schools with lower enrolment cannot enjoy the economies of scale. To adjust for this, MOE introduced a fixed component and a variable component depending on the student enrolment number.

Second, there is no change to funding for the Integrated Programme. Apart from the independent schools, the Integrated Programme is also offered in some of our Government and Government-aided schools. For students who are on both the school-based gifted education programme and the Integrated Programme, our review found that the students can develop well and fully with the funding provided by one programme grant. For these students, schools will receive only the funding for the school-based gifted education programme. This streamlining allows us to use resources more efficiently, without affecting educational outcomes.

Third, in rolling out these changes, MOE engaged the key stakeholders and management teams to ensure that schools are able to manage. We are confident that the schools can continue to provide quality and holistic education for their students. Our aim is to ensure that we continue to pursue excellence at all levels, regardless of where the students are – it is never to level down. We also want to encourage our schools to use the resources prudently to achieve maximum impact.

Fourth, some parents are concerned whether, as a result of the changes, independent schools may have to raise fees. As I indicated earlier, more schools are receiving higher funding. Those that did not actually enjoy greater existing

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economies of scale. I would like to assure parents that an education in an independent school will continue to remain affordable and accessible to all eligible students.

In fact, just this year, the Ministry enhanced the independent school bursary (ISB) to better support Singaporean students in independent schools. Independent schools have not increased school fees for 2014. We must keep our schools, including independent schools, open to all, and continue to encourage excellence in all our students' pursuits. The Ministry will continue to work closely with our independent schools to ensure that fees remain affordable.

As part of the resourcing review, the Ministry also discussed with the management of independent schools the areas where resources can be utilised more effectively to achieve good educational outcomes. For example, we have discussed with schools the judicious use of air-conditioning as we strive to be ecologically sustainable and cost-effective in operating our schools. We also engaged with the independent schools on focusing their fundraising efforts on areas with strong educational merits and to do so at a pace that would not overly burden teachers, parents and students.

The Ministry appreciates and welcomes the strong support of the alumni of these schools in donating funds and in volunteering their services. In fact, the strengths of many of these schools include their long histories and a tradition of alumni support. At the same time, we should not put too heavy a burden on teachers, parents and students to raise funds, as that may deter some students, especially those from less well-off families, from applying to the school. This is all about striking a good balance.

I am heartened that independent schools have responded positively. Some principals have noted that this is an opportunity to review existing programmes, such as immersion programmes, to explore whether the same outcomes can be achieved in a more cost-effective way. I am happy our school leaders understand and support the intent of the review.

I now turn to Mr Yee's questions on the resourcing of different categories of schools.

Singapore is fortunate to be in a position to invest heavily in education. Funding for the various schools is not a zero-sum game – we do not have to cut funding to one school to give to another. With good economic growth and a

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healthy fiscal position, MOF provides sufficient resources to fund every school to meet our educational objectives. MOE has significantly increased its investment in education across all levels and schools in the past decade. The per capita cost of educating a primary school student more than doubled from $3,600 in 2004 to $8,700 in 2013. Likewise, the per capita cost of secondary education almost doubled during this period, from $5,700 to $10,800.

The Ministry appreciates the resources that have been given and it is our responsibility, at every level, to continue to ensure that we are prudent in the use of these funds in our schools.

Schools are resourced on a needs-basis. The actual resources provided to each school depend on the needs of the students, the programmes offered and the enrolment. Resourcing for each school varies, even within the same category of schools that Mr Yee has asked about.

Resourcing can vary depending on the programmes offered by the school as well as enrolment. For example, if a school offers a language elective programme or a particular niche or a learning support programme, its funding would reflect the additional resources for the programmes offered. For the same programme, the resources provided are also dependent on the number of students in the school on the programme since not all students in the school are on the same programmes.

We also resource schools based on the profile of the student body. For example, for schools with more at-risk students, more resources are provided for counselling support. The overall school enrolment will also affect the level of funding. On the other hand, comparison by per capita funding has its limitation as it does not take into account similar overheads that schools have to bear regardless of the enrolment.

A comparison across different groups of schools based on the averages would therefore not be meaningful. Resources are part of the story, but the fundamental question is how each school can best cater to the holistic learning needs of each student and best achieve the desired outcomes of the programmes.

In summary, let me thank all the Members who have raised questions. While it is understandable that attention is paid to specific items and numbers, I hope that we can take a step back to look at the broader principles and values that undergird these changes. MOE will continue to invest adequately in all

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schools to develop our students fully and holistically. We will continue to encourage our schools to use resources prudently and effectively. This will also have the effect of inculcating the right values in our students. We will continue to encourage all schools to strive for excellence and are confident that independent schools, as with other schools, will continue to deliver quality education for many years to come.

Order. End of Question Time.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No. 22(3), Written Answers to Question Nos 18-19, 22, 25, 27-28, 30, 32-35, 37-40, 44-45, 47-50, 53-54, 56 and 58-59 on the Order Paper are reproduced in the Appendix. Question Nos 16-17, 20-21, 23-24, 26, 29, 3136, 41-43, 46, 51-52, 55 and 57 have been postponed to the next available sitting of Parliament.]

[(proc text) "to amend the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority Act (Chapter 2A of the 2005 Revised Edition) and to make consequential and related amendments to certain other written laws", (proc text)]

[(proc text) presented by the Senior Minister of State for Finance (Mrs Josephine Teo); read the First time; to be read a Second time on a Sitting on or after the 1 April 2014, and to be printed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) "to amend the Plant Varieties Protection Act (Chapter 232A of the 2006 Revised Edition)", (proc text)]

[(proc text) presented by the Senior Minister of State for Law (Ms Indranee Rajah); read the First time; to be read a Second time after the conclusion of proceedings on the Estimates of Expenditure for FY2014/2015, and to be printed. (proc text)]

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Mdm Speaker, I beg to move, "That the proceedings on item 2 on the Order Paper for today be taken after item 7". That is, the Public Order (Additional Temporary Measures) Bill will be taken after the Singapore Institute of Technology Bill.

[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Resolved, "That the proceedings on item 2 on the Order Paper for today be taken after item 7." – [Dr Ng Eng Hen]. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Order for Second Reading read. (proc text)]

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

Mdm Speaker, this Bill seeks to amend the Land Titles Act to improve our laws on land administration and for greater operational efficiency.

The amendments proposed in this Bill were arrived at after consultation with the relevant Government departments, the Law Society of Singapore, experienced conveyancing lawyers and they are also in response to public feedback.

The Bill does several things. It empowers the Court to create easements and to vary or extinguish existing easements. It improves the remedies available to a property owner in response to a caveat lodged on his property. It introduces a list of dealings in respect of which registration cannot be prevented by a caveat. It makes miscellaneous changes for greater clarity or consistency and for better administration of the Land Titles Act.

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The Bill also makes related amendments to the Building Maintenance and Strata Management Act (BMSMA) and the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act (CLPA).

I will now take the House through the main features of the Bill.

At present, access by non-owners through another person's property is established by use over a long period of time or the landowner granting a right of way, also known as an easement.

When land is re-parcelled and developed, it can give rise to situations where previous easements are affected or new easements are required. For example, owners who previously had access to a main road may now find their access blocked, or the historical easement may now no longer serve its original purpose. This results in less efficient use of the land.

The Court, currently, does not have the power to vary or create easements under the existing provisions of the Land Titles Act.

In the recent local case of Botanica Pte Ltd v Management Corporation Strata Title Plan No 2040, the High Court suggested that in light of increased activity in the redevelopment of properties, it was perhaps timely for the Legislature to consider the need for the Court to have an express power to modify easements.

My Ministry has considered this issue and we are of the view that it would be useful to give the courts power to modify easements. This is addressed in the Bill.

The Bill will empower the Court to create, vary or extinguish an easement over land if it is reasonably necessary for the effective use or development of the land that will have the benefit of the easement or that is affected by the easement and if it is consistent with the public interest.

Where necessary, the Court may also award compensation to any party affected by the Court's order.

The Land Titles Act deals with registered land. Related amendments will be made to the CLPA to confer similar powers on the Court in respect of the creation, variation or extinguishment of easements over unregistered land. We

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envisage that these amendments will facilitate more efficient and optimal use of land.

They also align our practices with those of Commonwealth jurisdictions, such as Australia – for example, New South Wales and Queensland – New Zealand and Canada, which have similar provisions.

The next amendment relates to the lodging of frivolous or vexatious caveats.

Under the current Land Titles Act framework, when a caveat is lodged, the onus of getting the caveat removed is on the property owner. The procedure, as it currently stands, is as follows.

When a caveat is lodged against a property and the property owner is of the view that it is frivolous or vexatious, the property owner must file a statutory declaration with the Registrar of Titles to that effect.

The Registrar will allow the caveat to remain if the caveator is able to:

produce documentary evidence to show that he has an interest in the property; or

obtain a Court Order for the caveat to be retained.

Usually, the caveator will produce evidence that, on the face of it, justifies his claim of an interest in the property.

Should the property owner disagree, he would have to obtain a Court Order to remove the caveat.

We have received feedback that this practice is unfair to property owners, as they have to bear the burden of removing frivolous or vexatious caveats.

As such, clause 57 amends section 127(2) of the Land Titles Act to require the caveator, within 30 days, to obtain a Court Order for the caveat to remain if the property owner lodges an application with the Registrar to challenge the caveat's validity.

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This amendment puts the onus on the caveator to justify his claim of an interest in the property. This is in line with the normal burden of proof that he who asserts must prove his assertion.

This is also the position in Australia, namely, New South Wales and Victoria.

The next amendment deals with registration of dealings in land. The general rule is that a caveat prevents the registration of any subsequent dealing in the land identified in the caveat, unless the Land Titles Act provides otherwise.

Presently, section 129 of the Land Titles Act sets out a list of dealings which can still be registered, despite a caveat having been lodged against the property, unless the caveat specifically prohibits the dealing on that list.

Examples of such dealings include release or extinguishment of easements or restrictions on land.

However, this is not entirely satisfactory as the current list contains dealings which would not necessarily conflict with the caveator's claim of interest in the property, for example, a change or correction of the property owner's name.

Presently, such dealings are included in the same list and will be prevented from registration if the caveator chooses to extend the prohibition to the list of dealings.

The Registrar would have to issue a notice to the caveator giving him 30 days to apply to the Court if he wishes to prevent its registration.

It is not desirable to prevent the registration of such dealings when they will not conflict with the caveator's claim of interest in the property.

It also causes unnecessary delays in registration and increases administration costs.

To do away with such delays and costs, clause 58 of the Bill therefore proposes to amend section 129 of the Land Titles Act to create two separate lists of dealings.

First, a "permissive list" of dealings the registration of which the caveator can still prevent by lodgement of the caveat; and secondly, a "non-conflict list"

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of dealings the registration of which the caveator cannot prevent by lodgment of the caveat. These are dealings which do not conflict with or have any impact upon the caveator's claim of an interest in the property, for example, a name correction or an application for a new certificate of title.

The Bill updates the maximum fines for offences involving fraud under section 169 and for falsely certifying the correctness of any application, dealing or caveat lodged at the Land Titles Registry under section 59(6) of the Land Titles Act.

This ensures that penalties are commensurate with the offences committed, especially in the light of the higher values of property transactions today.

The updated penalties are also in line with those of similar offences found in other legislation.

Finally, the Bill makes several technical and housekeeping amendments. Mdm Speaker, I beg to move.

[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House. (proc text)]

[(proc text) The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Ms Indranee Rajah]. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Order for Second Reading read. (proc text)]

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

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Tourist guides play an important role in the Singapore's strategy to create high quality, authentic and differentiated travel experiences for our tourists. They are licensed by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) to ensure that they have the necessary knowledge, language proficiency and professional conduct to do their job well. This licensing framework is provided for in the Singapore Tourism Board Act and its subsidiary legislation. It was last reviewed almost 30 years ago.

Our tourism landscape has clearly evolved since then. Tourist arrivals to Singapore and the region have risen steadily, fuelled by the rise of affluent Asian middle class travellers. Visitor arrivals to Singapore have almost doubled over the last decade. In 2013, we welcomed 15.5 million visitors who spent $23.5 billion in Singapore, marking four consecutive years' of growth in visitor arrivals and tourism receipts since the global financial crisis in 2009.

These growth opportunities have encouraged more locals to take up guiding and higher value work, such as bespoke travel experiences for the discerning traveller. The number of licensed tourist guides has increased over the years, growing from less than 1,500 in 2004 to almost 2,400 today.

However, competition from other destinations has been rising and we need to take steps to maintain our competitive edge. We need to strengthen our regulatory framework to uphold guiding standards and accommodate new guiding models that will help Singapore diversify our offerings to tourists.

It is thus timely for Government, in consultation with industry stakeholders, to review the regulation and the development of the tourist guide industry.

The Singapore Tourism Board (Amendment) Bill marks the culmination of almost a year of work by MTI and STB officers to strengthen our regulatory framework for tourist guides. MTI and STB had consulted extensively with some 150 stakeholders, including the Society of Tourist Guides Singapore (STGS), the NTUC Tourist Guide Chapter, other members of the guiding community, travel agents and key attractions operators.

The tourist guide industry has, in general, welcomed the proposed changes to the regulatory regime, while travel agents and attraction owners recognise the benefits of higher guiding standards and improved service quality that the proposed changes will bring. I want to thank all who have contributed to this effort, for their valuable suggestions which have helped MTI and STB to develop

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and refine the Bill.

Let me now outline the key amendments proposed in the Bill.

Unlicensed guiding tarnishes the image, and impedes the professional development, of the industry and licensed tourist guides. It has become more apparent in recent years with the rapid growth in visitor arrivals. While STB has stepped up enforcement against unlicensed guiding, legislative amendments are needed to address limitations in the current regulatory regime. For example, STB cannot compel uncooperative suspects to submit to investigations. Foreign offenders may leave the country before investigations are complete. STB also does not have the powers to search premises and take evidence. This has made it difficult for STB to follow up on suspected cases of unlicensed guiding.

Clause 6 of the Bill introduces sections 19L to 19N to strengthen STB's investigative and enforcement powers against unlicensed guiding. With these provisions, STB's officers will have the necessary and proportionate powers to arrest suspects who refuse to provide their personal particulars during preliminary investigations. They will also be able to search premises and the people found within, and take evidence, when they reasonably believe that unlicensed guiding has taken place in the premises. STB's officers will also be empowered to question persons who may be linked to suspected cases of unlicensed guiding. Anyone who obstructs STB's investigations or provides false information can be fined up to $5,000 under sections 20 and 21, as described in clause 7.

Today, STB's officers face an additional challenge in taking enforcement action, even when they reasonably suspect that unlicensed guiding is taking place. This is because, to prosecute a person for unlicensed guiding, STB must also prove that he or she has been or will be remunerated for his guiding work. However, as tourist guides often do not transact money in public places, and the parties involved are generally not forthcoming with evidence of such transactions, STB's officers are often unable to take immediate or effective action against unlicensed guiding.

Clause 6, section 19C aims to address this limitation. This provision allows for the presumption that an individual carrying out guiding activity of a certain scale and degree of organisation is doing so as a vocation, that is, they are doing it for remuneration. The individual thus has to be licensed as a tourist guide to carry out such activity, failing which he would be deemed to have committed an offence. This provision facilitates the proving of the offence and also allows

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STB to take timely enforcement action against those who are reasonably suspected of unlicensed guiding activity. A suspect can rebut this presumption by showing proof that he or she has not been, and will not be, remunerated for the guiding activity.

Complementing these provisions is clause 8, section 25A which empowers STB to compound offences on the spot for swift enforcement. If the suspect refuses composition, STB can serve him or her with a notice to attend court under section 19O, as described in clause 6.

Clause 6, section 19B expands the offences of unlicensed guiding and hiring unlicensed guides, and section 19F prohibits certain activities that are related to unlicensed guiding. For example, some tourist guides allow their tourist guide badges to be used by unlicensed guides. Such improper conduct is made an offence under section 19F.

The maximum penalty for each offence has also been raised to maintain its deterrent effect.

Besides enforcement against unlicensed guiding, we also need to work with industry to raise the professionalism of licensed tourist guides. To this end, clause 6 introduces section 19G which empowers STB to issue codes of practice. These codes of practice will be developed by STB in consultation with industry.

Non-compliance with these codes, licensing conditions and other provisions of the STB Act will be dealt with under section 19I. This section allows STB to impose financial penalties administratively, and set the quantum in line with the severity of non-compliance, subject to a maximum of $1,000. This allows for calibrated action against licensees, beyond the current options of warning, suspension or revocation of licences.

Madam, tourist guides also need to upgrade their skills, and be able to differentiate themselves by their capabilities and experience. This in turn allows for greater differentiation in remuneration and more avenues for career progression. For example, a tourist guide may choose to specialise in a particular field through professional development courses that equip him or her with the requisite domain knowledge and skills.

Formal recognition from STB and the industry is an important incentive for tourist guides to pursue such upgrading and differentiate themselves. Hence, clause 6, section 19E will empower STB to tier licensing categories according to

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the capabilities, experience and other proficiencies acquired by tourist guides.

At the same time, we want to accommodate emerging guiding models, and facilitate innovation and productivity enhancement efforts across the tourism industry. For example, owners of attractions and galleries are increasingly engaging their own guides and volunteers, with rigorous in-house training and curated itineraries, to cater to various visitor segments at their premises. Volunteer guides, like the Tiong Bahru residents who banded together to curate heritage trails in their neighbourhood, are also doing their part to help visitors understand and experience their community with greater depth and nuance.

STB wants to support more of such ground-up initiatives, including some which need not be subject to licensing requirements. The exemption framework provided for in sections 19B and 25C under clauses 6 and 8 of the Bill will allow us to do so. Certain groups, like heritage and nature guides, could be exempted from licensing, and can continue creating new experiences for visitors so long as they meet certain conditions which STB will establish with the relevant stakeholders and lead agencies.

Madam, the legislative changes I have outlined are one aspect of our efforts with stakeholders to raise the quality of the tourist guide industry. STB, WDA, NTUC and STGS are studying various non-legislative measures to help local tour guides enhance their guiding skills, take on higher value work and improve their career prospects. These include reviewing the competency roadmap and training curriculum for tourist guides, making training more accessible, and tailoring capability development initiatives for their members.

Mdm Speaker, the Singapore Tourism Board (Amendment) Bill will help STB tackle unlicensed guiding more effectively, raise the professionalism and standards of guiding, and accommodate new guiding models. Together, these initiatives will sharpen Singapore's competitive edge as a tourism destination.

STB will continue to work closely with the industry on capability development and other initiatives to position our tourist guide industry for quality growth. Mdm Speaker, I beg to move.

[(proc text) Question proposed. (proc text)]

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Mdm Speaker, the tourism sector is, indeed, a growing and important economic driver. As illustrated by the Second Minister earlier, it has received an increased number of visitor arrivals and tourism receipts. Many make their living, whether directly or indirectly, in this sector. Indeed, to grow this industry, we need quality attractions, F&B, hotels, and to upkeep our status as a premier destination for tourists, we need to ensure that our visitors have an enjoyable experience.

To make the visit a memorable one, having a quality experience with our tour guides is, indeed, an important component. The key to what constitutes a good tour guide is their level of professionalism; whether they are constantly updated with information on events and attractions. Do they attend training courses? Are they knowledgeable about heritage, history and tourism offerings? And do they possess good language proficiency and maintain professional conduct?

In Singapore, only licensed individuals and those that are certified by the Singapore Tourism Board can carry out guiding. As mentioned earlier, about 2,400 of them possess such a licence. The ground feel that I get from speaking to tour guides is that there are about 400-plus to 600 who are active on a full-time basis. In this instance, what it really needs is that many depend on guiding as a career, not just as a part-time job.

I look at this amendment Bill and assess how will it contribute to enhancing the quality and livelihood of our tour guides. Understandably, the legislative changes focus on enforcement and strengthening the regulations against illegal guiding. Whilst most of the amendments are in the right direction, there are a few areas that I hope to get some clarity from the Minister.

Firstly, a "tourist" is now defined as an individual who visits Singapore for recreation, pleasure, business or any other purposes. And a "tourist guide" is defined as an individual who personally provides guiding services to a tourist for remuneration. Singaporeans, Singapore PRs and those on social visit pass are excluded from this term.

Tour guides I spoke with are concerned that existing activities that are fee-paying may become confused and unclear. They feel that this may impact on their livelihood, increase the chances of travel agents trying to bypass their services to cut costs and, consequently, impact the experience of our visitors. For example, there are guides who conduct heritage or history tours for expats who are living here for long term. In this case, are those who take part in such

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activities considered "tourists" under the amendment since they are locals and also they pay a fee for the guiding services?

Some guides shared with me that they felt the definition of a tourist should instead be activity-centric rather than person-centric, that is, not so much their ICA status but what kind of activities they participate in. They feel that anyone who participates in a sightseeing activity and where guiding is needed can be deemed a visitor, whether you are local or international. I also recall that during the SARS period, STB also actively promoted domestic tourism to keep the industry going.

Another related question is: how will the amendments impact on the livelihood of our guides? Despite the rapid growth in visitor arrivals, the number of tour guides has remained fairly constant over the last few years. Based on the figures, can we assume that existing guides are, therefore, taking more assignments and earning more income? Or that more visitors to Singapore are free and independent tourists who may not rely on tour guides for their visits?

Guides have shared that their income has remained stagnant and, most of the time, they attribute this to the fact that illegal guides are undercutting them and, therefore, resulting in stagnant income. And, therefore, many do welcome the amendments and the strengthening of the legislation to take care of those who are illegal guides.

It brings me to the next question, which is, do we have a manpower plan in place to ensure that Singapore has sufficient tour guides to provide good quality guiding services? Do we have a clearly mapped out capability development plan for our tour guides? Do we know the age profile of our guides and whether or not they are an ageing workforce and there is a new pipeline of guides coming onstream to ensure that we have a constant flow of tourist guides to serve our visitors coming to Singapore?

I have three specific recommendations for the Ministry to look at.

Firstly, some guides face conflicts in their payment and unfair contract terms with travel agents. Instead of pointing them to legal recourse, can they be better served through processes, such as mediation? Perhaps, STB can, in addition to looking at the code of practice, also consider setting up a mediation centre with the involvement of agents, tour guides and the union.

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Secondly, guides currently pay about $72 every three years to renew their guiding licence. I would like to suggest that this amount be waived, reduced or even tiered in accordance with the professional level of competency attained by the guide. This is in recognition of, and serves as an incentive for, those who invest heavily in skills deepening.

Thirdly, I would like to recommend that the marketing collateral by STB, especially those in their overseas office, feature prominently the identification and value of using licensed guides. Perhaps, STB can also strengthen its assistance in marketing the services of our tour guides on its websites.

Madam, at the end of the day, for visitors, we want them to have an enjoyable and memorable experience in Singapore. I believe that good guides will enhance their experience to appreciate and understand the significance of an attraction or cultural tradition in Singapore.

For guides, they will need an effective market to operate in and where their professionalism will be acknowledged and supported.

For the industry, I hope that they will work closely with STB to understand the amendments and to comply with the rules.

Finally, for STB, I urge that, apart from enforcement, they do two other things. One is to have in place plans to ensure a pool of professional and licensed guides. And, secondly, to strengthen their own enforcement team within STB with experienced staff who will be able to carry out and conduct the enhanced regulations that we will put in place following the passing of this amendment Bill. With that, Mdm Speaker, I support the Bill.

Mdm Speaker, I rise in support of the Bill. As the Second Minister has stated, the issue of illegal tour guides is a growing problem, rising with the tourism boom in Singapore in recent years. Tour guides in Singapore need to undergo recognised courses and examinations in order to be licensed. There are over 2,300 licensed tour guides here, made up mostly of Singaporeans and Singapore Permanent Residents. Illegal tour guides not only affect the livelihood of local guides but they may provide wrong information about Singapore and damage our efforts to promote Singapore as a tourist destination.

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Hence, I support the measures in this Bill that will provide greater powers for the authorities to act against illegal guides, such as fines for both the illegal guides and tour agencies that knowingly engage their services, and greater clarity on what constitutes illegal guiding.

I have two areas which I wish to highlight for operational considerations. The first is about the Taxi Tourist Guide scheme launched in 2004, 10 years ago. The scheme is to train and license taxi drivers to allow them to act as tour guides for small groups of tourists. Section 19C of this Act defines a tour guide as somebody who "provides any guiding services to eight or more tourists".

A taxi can never take eight or more passengers. Hence, there seems to be some discrepancies here. Does this mean that the taxi drivers who wish to act as tour guides do not need any licensing and the Taxi Tourist Guide scheme is now redundant? On the topic of taxi tourist guides, I would like to understand from the Minister if the scheme has been popular and, if not, what may be the reasons.

The second is that this Act provides the power for the inspecting officer to detain and arrest any suspected illegal tour guide if the officer reasonably believes that he or she has committed a crime as defined by the Act. The arrested person can be brought to a police station for questioning. The tour guide may be in the midst of handling a busload of foreign visitors. The arrest would leave these visitors stranded in the middle of a tour destination. For practical considerations, inspecting officers must handle the situation carefully, or it may leave a bad impression in the eyes of our foreign visitors.

Procedures on how to inform the tour agency involved and getting an immediate replacement tour guide from the agency and other arrangements to allow the suspect to settle the visitors first will be important. This is to minimise disruption to the innocent visitors who are just out here to enjoy Singapore.

Second Minister Iswaran.

Madam, I want to thank Mr Ang Hin Kee and Mr Yee Jenn Jong for speaking in support of the Singapore Tourism Board (Amendment) Bill. It is noted the proposed amendments are an important part of a larger effort between the Government and the Ministry to review and enhance the tourist

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guide industry's capability and development.

Mr Ang and Mr Yee have observed that strengthening the regulatory framework will help our tourism industry to enhance standards, retain its competitiveness and continue offering differentiated experiences to visitors.

Let me now address the specific points that Mr Ang and Mr Yee have raised. Mr Ang asked whether the definition of "tourist" could be broadened to encompass guiding activities for locals. Mr Ang is concerned that such a definition might adversely affect the livelihood of licensed tourist guides, as those excluded from the proposed definition of "tourist" would not be required to engage guiding services by law. If I may make one clarification, those here on a social visit pass, up to 90 days, are covered by the definition of tourists. It is really those who are here for a longer period than that.

Madam, there are good reasons for the Singapore Tourism Board to adopt this definition, which, in fact, is already the practice today in Singapore. It is consistent with international practice. For example, guiding regulations in Queensland, Australia and Taiwan, one can see, are similarly focused on tourist-based facilities and activities. This is understandable as tourists, given their limited local knowledge and time, are probably the most susceptible to being exposed to unlicensed guiding.

Moreover, it is important that we guard against over-reaching in regulation, even as this Bill proposes to strengthen STB's investigative and enforcement powers against unlicensed guiding. We must also recognise that new guiding models are emerging; also, technology is being more widely adopted as part of the industry. If the boundaries within which these powers are exercised are broadened too much, we may end up regulating even school groups and community groups on excursions to places of interest like the Zoo, and require them to hire licensed tourist guides. I do not think that is the intent of this exercise.

I do want to add, however, that though we are not mandating that locals use licensed guides, it does not preclude licensed tour guides from offering their services and for locals to avail themselves of their services where relevant. And this is really something for which the market has to find its level. If the licensed tour guide is offering a valuable service, I am sure the demand will continue to be there, as Mr Ang has described.

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Mr Ang has raised an important point on the welfare of tourist guides. I personally met representatives of STGS and NTUC in the past year and I understand their concerns and that of the industry's.

Travel agents should offer fair contractual terms and clear payment schedules to tourist guides as this affects their livelihood. These arrangements are important and underpin the relationship between tourist guides and travel agencies. We need to enhance the working arrangements between travel agents and tourist guides so that both can continue to thrive in our evolving tourism scene.

On the issue of mediation, tourist guides employed by travel agents are already covered by MOM's Employment Act. They can avail themselves of the mediation that exists under that Act, and, if it fails, they can then go on to the Courts.

I understand Mr Ang's concern is more for the freelance tour guides who have recourse to the Small Claims Tribunal, but this, in and of itself, may not always yield an outcome that the tour guides or the freelance tour guides are happy with. I understand and thank Mr Ang for his suggestion to set up a specific mediation centre. I have asked STB to consult NTUC and STGS to see whether this is a feasible proposal that can be implemented in discussion with other stakeholders.

On the enforcement part, Mr Ang's request was that STB ensure that it has adequate resources to do so, to give effect to the intent of this Bill. I assure him that is the case. STB has already been enhancing its enforcement efforts and, if this Bill is approved, then they will take additional measures, both in terms of in-house resources and also external support, in order to give effect to its provisions.

Mr Yee's point on how the enforcement is carried out is invalid. It has to be done in a manner that does not create an unsavoury experience for visitors, whilst ensuring that the intent of the law is carried out. And this is really the reason why we have other measures in the Bill, including composition, so that immediate composition can be offered, and it is only in extremis where we have an extremely uncooperative individual who is suspected of such an activity, then additional or more serious measures need to kick in. But STB is fully cognisant of the points that Mr Yee has made, and the enforcement measures will be sensitive to that.

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Mr Ang has asked about the capability developments for the tourist guide industry. Mdm Speaker, indeed, regulation alone can only do so much to raise the tourist guides' capability and improve their career prospects. The proposed legislative amendments are but one aspect of a broader effort to enhance the tourist guide industry for quality growth.

Let me share with Members some other specific initiatives that STB has undertaken with the industry to help Singaporeans enhance their guiding skills so that they can take on higher value work and improve their career prospects. First, STB, WDA and e2i have formed a task force to review the competency road map for tourist guides at various stages of their careers. This includes reviewing the training curriculum for entry level and seasoned guides, like the competency road maps will complement the tiered licensing framework which STB is reviewing, to create the conditions for tourist guides to differentiate themselves and progress in their careers.

Mr Ang would agree with me that such a structured progression would make a career in tourist guiding more attractive for Singaporeans and help us to attract more talent to the industry. The point about waiver of fees per se, I think the most compelling incentive here is really to have a clear career path, opportunities to upgrade and to be able to then command the remuneration that is commensurate with experience and capabilities. STB will ensure that those are the steps to undertake.

Second, the taskforce is working with the industry to make tourist guide training more accessible to those who are interested in the profession. We are studying various ways to do this, including increasing in the number of training providers. The taskforce is also looking at how training can be made more modular, and reviewing the training delivery modes to give trainees greater flexibility in acquiring the training they need.

Finally, STB will engage the industry associations, STGS and NTUC regularly to help them better appreciate industry trends and to support capability development initiatives of their members. One such trend that Mr Ang has mentioned is the rise of the free and independent traveller. These travellers are looking for bespoke and modular offerings which they can experience at their own pace and they are prepared to pay a premium for this. This is the space in which tour guides with the right skills and expertise, the niche offerings, can thrive.

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This is one reason why STB is supporting STGS' effort to collaborate with the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations to bring the latter's internationally accredited training programme to Singapore. The programme will comprise training and enhance hands-on guiding, including advanced storytelling techniques, as well as train-the-trainer elements for more seasoned guides who wish to take on trainer roles in the future.

This is the first for the tourist guide industry here. STB, STGS and WFTGA will share more details when available. In addition, NTUC and STGS have embarked on study visits facilitated by STB and this is really meant to foster greater understanding and to learn from best practices within tourism destinations overseas.

Mr Yee mentioned the Taxi Tourist Guide Scheme that STB and the Singapore Taxi Academy put in place in 2004 to enhance taxi drivers' employability and to better serve the needs of free and independent tourists. Even though the scheme has ceased since 2007, close to 50 taxi drivers continued to be licensed as tourist guides today under the National Tourist Guide Training and Licensing Framework, administered by WDA and STB respectively. And STB will continue to support these and other guiding models that are emerging. So, a taxi driver today, if he wishes to be a taxi tour guide in the sense that Mr Yee has described, he has to go for the tour guide course and take the test that is administered by STB, and then he will be licensed as such.

The point on eight or more tourists and otherwise you are not a tour guide, that is the point for the issue of presumption which can lead to enforcement. It is not to preclude those who have smaller tour groups from conducting tour guide activities. So, I hope that clarifies.

Madam, STB will continue to work with the tour guide industry and relevant stakeholders to capitalise on quality growth opportunities, and our tour guides, in turn, must play their part by upgrading their capabilities and constantly updating their offerings in line with industry trends so that they can fully benefit from these job opportunities. I think STGS and NTUC can also add value to their members by proactively marketing their members' services, and STB is ready to assist in such ground-up marketing efforts where needed.

Madam, the enhancement of the tourist guide industry is a joint effort. The industry and the Government today are embarking on one key aspect, which is, to strengthen regulation. STB and industry stakeholders can collaborate in more areas so that our tourist guides continue to contribute meaningfully to

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and benefit from Singapore's growth as a vibrant tourist destination. I urge all Members of this House to support the Singapore Tourism Board (Amendment) Bill.

[(proc text) Question put, and agreed to. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House. (proc text)]

[(proc text) The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Mr S Iswaran]. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Order for Second Reading read. (proc text)]

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

The Environmental Public Health Act was first enacted in 1969 to address the urgent need to improve our public health standards. And it is sobering to recall in this day and age that, in the 1960s, most of us lived in homes without proper sanitation or even regular waste removal. The streets were sometimes filled with rubbish – I think we can see some old photos of that – and clean drinking water and food were sometimes hard to come by.

This Act has served us well and, to be honest with this House, because of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the founding leaders' insistence on extremely high environmental standards, sheer force of personality, the willingness to enforce strictly, extensive public education, cooperation of the public and the relentless rollout of infrastructure – we have today solved our most fundamental public health and environmental problems. Today, Singaporeans enjoy a high standard of public health. Our air and water are much cleaner than before;

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refuse is collected daily; food and water are safe; our streets are swept daily.

However, we must not become complacent and we need to do more. We have, therefore, before us, a Bill to amend our Environmental Public Health Act (EPHA), which was last amended in 2008, to enable us to better address the emerging concerns we face today.

Mdm Speaker, I shall now highlight the main amendments and provisions in the Bill.

One area of serious concern is the state of public cleanliness. Although Singapore has transformed itself and we have a reputation for being a clean and green city, this is not something which we can afford to take for granted. It has been a source of competitive advantage and pride for Singaporeans. But I fear that, today, we are a "cleaned" city, in the passive sense of the word, rather than a "clean" city, as in the active adjective. In fact, if you take a walk in any neighbourhood before our long-suffering cleaners have done their work, I think Members of this House will understand what I mean.

In recent years, there are clear signs of increased littering. From 2010 to 2013, the number of complaints that we have received for littering has increased by almost 50%. Despite our constant urging and the cooperation of the vast majority of civic-minded Singaporeans who take pride in our clean environment, there is still a significant minority of litterbugs who persist in irresponsible behaviour. They litter and they dirty our public places. They indiscriminately discard their waste from their vehicles or their flats, and they cause damage to the environment and, more importantly, pose a danger to their neighbours.

We must not tolerate such irresponsible acts and we must not allow the inconsiderate minority to threaten the well-being of the majority. We must, therefore, take strong enforcement actions and ensure that our penalties will deter those who continue to act irresponsibly.

Pursuing enforcement actions against littering from cars and from high-rise residential flats is a particularly difficult undertaking as the litterbugs are rarely caught in the act. Gathering evidence that can withstand scrutiny of the Court is a big challenge. NEA has had to painstakingly deploy officers on the ground and install high-tech surveillance cameras to aid investigations into high-rise littering. After all their efforts and considerable expenditure, last year, NEA only managed to prosecute 19 high-rise littering offenders. Nineteen is a very small number, if you compare that to the fact that we received 1,300 complaints on

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high-rise littering last year alone. Therefore, we propose to strengthen the EPHA to facilitate investigations, as well as increase our penalties.

Clause 5 allows police officers and authorised officers to require the owners and occupiers of the residential flats to provide information that may lead to the identification of the alleged high-rise litterer. Similarly, where the driver or a passenger of a motor vehicle is alleged or suspected to be guilty of littering from a motor vehicle, clause 5 will allow police officers and authorised officers to require the owner of the vehicle to provide information about the driver and passengers at the time of the alleged offence. Any person who, without reasonable excuse, fails to comply with the requirement to provide the information within the specified time period shall be guilty of an offence. This provision is based on the existing section 19(3)(b) and (4) of the EPHA.

In a sense, this replicates the system that we have for our traffic offenders. If you detect that a car has committed or is suspected to have committed an offence, the Traffic Police will write to the owner and ask for details of the driver and, then, we will allow investigations to proceed from that point.

Clause 8 doubles the maximum penalties for littering-related offences from $1,000 to $2,000 for the first conviction; and from $2,000 to $4,000 for the second conviction; and from $5,000 to $10,000 for the third and subsequent convictions. The existing maximum fines of $1,000 and $2,000 for the first and second convictions respectively have not been revised since 1987. This proposed revision seeks to ensure that the penalties will continue to have deterrent effect.

Let me now draw the attention of the House to the plight of our cleaners. For many years, the cleaning industry has been subjected to cheap sourcing, which has resulted in low productivity and low cleaning standards in the sector, as well as depressed wages for our cleaners, who also tend to be less educated, less skilled and non-unionised. This has led to a vicious cycle of high attrition, poor training and poor employment conditions for this sector. We have, therefore, decided to press the "reset" button for this particular sector and to impose a mandatory licensing regime to regulate all cleaning businesses.

All businesses which provide general cleaning services, even if these services are only a part of the overall business or just one of a suite of services that they provide, will be required to obtain a cleaning licence. We have to insist on a level playing field. Otherwise, the better and more enlightened employers will risk being undercut by less progressive businesses. Through this licensing regime, we seek to ensure that cleaning businesses will offer better training and

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employment conditions for their cleaners. And this, we believe, will lead to a more motivated and more competent cleaning workforce that can deliver better service and higher standards.

Furthermore, as part of the licensing regime, the NEA will maintain a register of licensed cleaning businesses, thereby providing greater transparency to the industry and protecting service buyers against fly-by-night cleaning contractors. These enhancements will help reduce the disruption of cleaning services due to unreliable contractors. And I think Members of the House will be familiar with incidents from time to time even in our own hawker centres where the cleaning contractor just ups and leaves the place in a lurch.

We intend to, therefore, have enlightened, fair employers who would train and have productive cleaners who take pride in their work and can look forward to receiving wages that are commensurate with their training, skills and productivity.

Clause 15, therefore, inserts a new Part into the EPHA to provide for the licensing regime for the general cleaning industry. Under the proposed licensing regime, all cleaning businesses involved in general cleaning must possess a valid licence. Existing cleaning businesses will have to obtain their licences from the NEA within five months after the statutory provisions of this Act come into force. Cleaning businesses found operating without a valid licence, as well as service buyers who engage unlicensed cleaning businesses, shall be guilty of an offence.

Cleaning businesses must fulfil several pre-requisites in order to be eligible for a licence. For example, they must have trained cleaners; they must have a track record of cleaning contracts and submit a progressive wage plan that meets certain criteria. New start-ups must have at least one officer or employee who either has practical experience in supervising cleaning work or has attended the required training. Any person who, in relation to any application for a cleaning business licence, provides false or misleading information or documents shall be guilty of an offence. NEA will also maintain a register of licensed cleaning businesses so that service buyers can check whether their potential service providers are appropriately licensed.

Once the cleaning businesses are licensed, they must ensure that their cleaners undergo training as required by the Director-General and are issued with written employment contracts and payslips. Licensees who fail to comply with any of these licence conditions may receive a financial penalty of up to

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$5,000 and face the risk of their cleaning business licence being suspended or revoked.

One key feature of the licensing scheme is the adoption of the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) as recommended by the Tripartite Cluster for Cleaners (TCC). To deliver a good and reliable cleaning service, the cleaning industry needs a stable and experienced core of resident workers. It is, therefore, imperative to ensure that our Singaporean and Singapore Permanent Resident cleaners are motivated to work and to remain in the sector in order to help sustain the higher cleaning standards and the higher productivity levels which are expected to come with licensing. The Progressive Wage Model will provide them with better wages, in tandem with skills and productivity.

Mdm Speaker, it is worth my while to reiterate that our Progressive Wage Model is quite different from a national minimum wage. We are not ideological about these matters. We are focused on outcomes. Our key concern has always been to ensure that, first, workers with limited skills do not lose their jobs – these are our most vulnerable workers. Second, whatever scheme we come up with must create opportunities so that these same workers can receive better wages as they upskill and become more productive. Consequently, our uniquely Singaporean model of the Progressive Wage Model has three attributes which I hope the House would contemplate.

First, it is a targeted approach. The Progressive Wage Model enforced by the Government is not going to be necessary or even be considered across-the-board in all the different sectors. We have chosen the Progressive Wage Model for the cleaning industry because we believe there are certain peculiar characteristics of this industry. This has been one that for too many years has been characterised by cheap sourcing and where the majority of Singaporean and Singaporean PR workers have been older workers with low education, limited job choices, are non-unionised and have low bargaining power. The case for a targeted Government intervention is, therefore, stronger in such circumstances.

The second attribute: the Progressive Wage Model is determined through tripartite negotiations. It is not set by political decree. The unions and the employers must discuss and they must agree on the appropriate benchmarks used in the Progressive Wage Model wage-skill ladder. The licensing regime merely sets up the framework for these agreed benchmarks to be operationalised in a fair and transparent fashion in a level playing field. This tripartite approach is important – in fact, I think it is crucial – and it is a unique success ingredient for the Singapore model. It reduces the risk that workers,

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especially our older and more vulnerable workers, will lose their jobs as wages rise to unsustainable levels.

The third attribute is that the Progressive Wage Model is part of a wider and more comprehensive Government effort to raise wages of lower-income citizens and their families. Eligible low-income cleaners will continue to receive wage supplements in the form of the Workfare Income Supplement, which can constitute up to 30% of their wages, as well as enjoy generous training subsidies through the Workfare Training Support scheme. While the Government restructures the cleaning industry to raise productivity and income for the cleaners, such broad-based measures will help low-income cleaners to stay in their jobs and receive improving pay.

The Progressive Wage Model will, therefore, be given effect under the proposed new section 80H where the Commissioner for Labour will make an order to specify the progressive wage levels payable to Singaporeans and Singapore PR cleaners based on the TCC's Progressive Wage Model. The cleaning businesses must, as part of the licence conditions, ensure that the basic wages of these cleaners are not less than the specified wage levels for the respective classes of cleaners as recommended by the TCC. Cleaning businesses which provide employment contracts which are compliant with these requirements but which thereafter fail to pay their cleaners the wages stated in the employment contracts may be prosecuted under the Employment Act. The provisions in the EPHA seek to ensure that cleaners are provided with wages according to the Progressive Wage Model and also have prospects for improvement over time.

Let me move on to the next section which focuses on ensuring sustainable waste management. Maintaining a high level of public cleanliness is only one side of the coin to ensure a clean environment. Having sustainable waste management is the other. Given our lack of land resources, we must minimise our waste volume and prolong the usage of our only remaining landfill, Pulau Semakau, for as long as possible. The key, therefore, is to reduce, reuse and recycle our waste to the maximum extent possible.

Our overall recycling rate was 60% in 2012. However, for many large commercial premises, such as hotels and shopping malls, the recycling rate is still too low. Waste disposal costs typically account for only around 3% of their utilities bills even though they sometimes dispose of two or more tons of waste per day. Given that commercial waste disposed is less homogeneous, we believe that upstream waste segregation requires sustained management

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attention.

To improve our recycling rate, we announced in March 2012 that we would amend the Act to make it mandatory for large commercial premises, starting with large hotels and shopping malls in 2014, to report waste management data and improvement plans. This will better draw and sustain greater management attention on the waste generated by their activities.

Clause 10, therefore, empowers the Director-General to require any owner, occupier or lessee of a workplace to provide information on waste produced, maintain records and submit waste reduction plans. Any person who fails to comply can be fined up to $5,000 for the first conviction. For the second and subsequent convictions, the penalties are a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or both.

In addition, to ensure the continuity of waste collection, clause 11 allows NEA, under special circumstances, to manage the waste collection operation of the public waste collector licensees. Such special circumstances include, for instance, when a public waste collector licensee is likely to be unable to pay its debts, or when it is in the interest of security and reliability of waste collection services for the public for NEA to step in.

Clause 11 also imposes certain restrictions on the winding up of a public waste collector licensee. In particular, no public waste collector licensee can voluntarily wind up without the consent of NEA. Similar provisions are found in other pieces of legislation, such as the Electricity Act and the Gas Act. These moves would serve to minimise disruption to an essential service and ensure continuity of that service.

I will now move on to enhancing penalties for food establishment, market and hawker and water supply-related offences. Another important aspect of public health is having hygienic food and safe drinking water. The penalties under Part IV of the Act, which deals with the licensing of food establishments, markets and hawkers, have not been revised since 1987. Clause 12 enhances the penalties under this Act to be commensurate with the severity of the offences and the appropriate level of deterrence required. For instance, first-time offenders of illegal hawking offences will face a fine of up to $5,000 whilst those operating food establishments without licences or selling food unfit for human consumption will face a maximum fine of $10,000 for the first conviction.

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Apart from food, the safety of our drinking water is equally important. The current penalties for offences concerning purity of water supplies are drawn from the general penalties of the Act, which stipulates a fine of up to $5,000 for the first conviction and up to $10,000 fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or both. This is significantly lower than the piped drinking water regulations in the US and UK which stipulate fines of up to US$25,000 and £20,000 respectively. Clause 15 thereby specifies that the penalties under Part IX to be a fine of up to $20,000 and in the case of continuing offences, a fine not exceeding $1,000 for every day the offence continues after conviction.

Mdm Speaker, poor housekeeping at construction sites also poses a risk to public health, through, for instance, the breeding of mosquitoes and rodent infestation. The current legislation requires the occupier of any construction site with construction projects worth more than $10 million to engage a qualified Environmental Control Officer to help plan and monitor the control measures on site. However, we have noticed that in order to circumvent this requirement, developers would sometimes award work on site to different contractors under different contracts, so that the project comes in below the value specified by the EPHA. Even for those construction sites with more than one occupier where the total contract sum exceeds the specified value, the responsibility as to which occupier should employ an Environmental Control Officer becomes unclear. Clause 14, therefore, empowers NEA to require the developers of these construction sites with more than one occupier where the total contract sum exceeds the specified value to employ an Environmental Control Officer and ensure that the Officer is employed until the completion of the works on that site.

There will also be several other amendments to allow NEA to be more effective and responsible in carrying out its role.

Clause 16 allows the Director-General of Public Health to recover expenses incurred for carrying out emergency works. Clause 17 introduces an offence for knowingly providing false or misleading information to the Police or authorised officers. Clause 20 introduces a new section which will make the officers liable for an offence committed by bodies corporate if the offence was committed with the consent or connivance of the officer or was attributable to any neglect on his or her part. Clause 21 amends the computation of composition fines to be aligned with the Criminal Procedure Code.

Madam, we should not take our clean environment for granted. Keeping Singapore clean and green requires the cooperation of everyone in Singapore.

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My Ministry will continue to seek the support of all Singaporeans. At the same time, we have to adopt a stricter enforcement posture against irresponsible recalcitrants and deter them with enhanced penalties. We will also uplift the wages, skills and job prospects of our Singaporean cleaners, and this Bill will empower us to resolve emerging public health problems more effectively, and help us achieve our vision of a truly "clean" Singapore – a reflection of our values and our sense of collective responsibility. Mdm Speaker, I beg to move.

Order. I propose to take the break now. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair again at 4.30 pm.

Sitting accordingly suspended

at 4.11 pm until 4.30 pm.

Sitting resumed at 4.30 pm

[Mdm Speaker in the Chair]

[(proc text) Debate resumed. (proc text)]

Mdm Speaker, I rise in support of the Bill. The proposed amendments to the Environmental Public Health Act will achieve the following objectives: (a) upgrade and improve the performance standards of the cleaning industry; (b) increase the wage and welfare benefits of local cleaners; and (c) reduce the number of cases of high-rise littering in Singapore.

Madam, it is, indeed, timely to regulate the cleaning industry and improve the business practices and skills of our cleaners. Over the years, it has become increasingly challenging for cleaning contractors to recruit skilled local cleaners. As a result, the cleaning standard in many places has declined and more complaints were received.

The standard of services of the cleaning companies is further compromised due to cheap sourcing and intense competition. Competitive bidding for cleaning services based solely on lowest tender price has also suppressed the wage growth of local cleaners, and discouraged cleaning firms from adopting

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innovative solutions to improve productivity and quality.

Madam, in the 15 PAP-run Town Councils, we have a total of 107 cleaning services contracts provided by 19 conservancy contractors employing 2,500 local cleaners. As part of the ongoing efforts of the Town Councils to improve our services to residents, the Town Councils had implemented the Job Redesign Programme (JRP) for our cleaning contracts a few years ago. The Town Councils adopted a three-pronged approach, namely: (a) Performance-based tender system; (b) Performance evaluation system; and (c) Price-Quality Method tender evaluation system to improve the cleaning standards of our contractors.

In doing so, we have increased the skills and wages of our Town Council cleaners. With effect from 1 November 2013, all PAP Town Councils' local cleaners are employed under the Progressive Wage Model salary structure. At the same time, the Town Council cleaning contractors have started investing in the mechanisation of various cleaning operations, such as sweeping, washing, floor scrubbing and so on.

Madam, the PAP-run Town Councils fully support the licensing of the cleaning businesses, as stated in section 80A, to regulate and upgrade the cleaning standards and productivity in the cleaning industry. While it is good to regulate cleaning firms, it would be challenging for the Ministry to enforce as there are many small-sized cleaning sub-contractors in the industry.

Many of these firms will face difficulties in complying with the licensing requirements, such as sending all their cleaners for training, keeping training records, providing written employment contracts and pay slips. Therefore, the licensing will have immense impact on SME cleaning firms.

Madam, I wish to ask the Minister how the Ministry plans to enforce the licensing regime on all cleaning firms, and what measures can be taken to assist SME cleaning firms to fulfil the licensing requirements.

Madam, section 80H (1)(c) requires the licensee to enter into a contract of service for each cleaner. As there is no definition of "contract of service" in the Bill, this licensing condition may not protect the rights and welfare of cleaners. For instance, a written contract of service could be just a letter stating the salary and commencement date of work. It may not provide employment terms and conditions, such as annual leave, medical benefits, insurance or termination notice. As such, I wish to propose to the Minister to consider incorporating

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essential employment terms and conditions into section 80H (1)(c) as part of the licensing requirements for contract of service.

Madam, the job of a cleaner is a tough one in Singapore, and often not appreciated by many people. I would urge the Government and all Singaporeans to do more to recognise the efforts of our tireless cleaners.

Madam, each year, the PAP-run Town Councils receive about 2,200 complaints on high-rise littering. About 50% of the high-rise litter includes cigarette butts, food, rubbish, tissue, sanitary pads and so on. The other 50% are killer litter or potential killer litter, such as flower pots, bamboo poles, cages, windows, mops, glass, mattresses and so on.

Despite years of public education and enforcement efforts, high-rise littering remains a problem. These ungracious acts cause hygiene problems, and pose safety hazards to the general public. Very often, it takes a lot of effort to resolve the high-rise littering problem as it is difficult to catch the litterbug red-handed. Furthermore, the cleaning of high-rise litter trapped at building ledges, roofs or trees is difficult and costly. The Town Councils and NEA have been working closely to resolve this issue. In some cases, we encounter difficulty in seeking the cooperation of our residents to resolve the high-rise littering problem.

Therefore, I support the amendment to section 17 requiring the flat owner or occupier to provide information to the police or authorised officer which may lead to the identification of the alleged offender of high-rise littering. This new provision will deter high-rise littering, and facilitate enforcement efforts. But I am not sure whether the expansion of investigation powers of police officers and authorised officers will resolve the problem.

Madam, high-rise littering is usually attributed to two groups of residents, namely: (a) persons with mental illnesses; and (b) persons who are lazy to dispose of rubbish properly at home. Therefore, by obtaining information of the occupiers at the time of the offence, the authorities may identify that the alleged offender is a mentally unsound person.

What then can the authorities do to resolve the problem? We need further empowerment of the Police officers and authorised officers to bring such persons for proper medical treatment so as to resolve the root cause of the problem. Thus, I would urge the Minister to consider empowering the Police officers and authorised officers under section 17 to arrest and send such

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mentally ill persons for medical treatment.

As for repeat offenders, I support the increase of penalty to impose a fine not exceeding $20,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or both. This will provide a strong deterrence to high-rise littering. Madam, to further deter high-rise littering, I would urge the Ministry to consider investing in more technology, such as surveillance camera or DNA identification technologies, to identify offenders, and take strict enforcement action. At the same time, I would urge all residents staying in high-rise buildings to play a more active role to keep watch of these high-rise litterbugs and work closely with the Town Councils or authorities to make our living environment a safe and pleasant place.

Madam, I welcome the Bill as it puts in place a new framework to lift the low wages of cleaners and to transform the standards of this sector. It signifies a shift in the Government's mindset towards setting a sector-specific minimum wage or wage floor, something that I and a few Members have asked the Government to consider for sometime.

I commend the Government on its readiness to take this targeted approach for the cleaning sector with its preponderance of low-wage workers. This is a critical and urgent move, given how rapidly the income gap is widening and how the valiant efforts all these years to lift their wages in various ways have proven to be slow and less than satisfactory.

About 70,000 workers clean our HDB estates, offices, buildings, hawker centres and streets. About two-thirds, or 51,000, of them are resident cleaners. Yet, despite all that they do to provide us a high quality of life in this clean and green city, to keep our economy running, and to give us a competitive edge in the world, they are paid among the lowest wages in Singapore, with their median monthly wage being $815. They are working hard and playing by the rules, and they deserve a chance to build a better life for themselves and their families. That is why this legislation is so important.

Their wages have remained largely stagnant for many years and, in some cases, have also declined. This is due mainly to the market trends that are out of their control. The rapid rise in outsourcing and the growth in the number of cleaning companies have resulted in increasing competitiveness of

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subcontracting, with contracts going to the lowest bidder.

There are now more than 900 cleaning companies. At the same time, the heavy reliance on foreign workers, which are cheap with no bargaining rights, has depressed wages. These trends have combined to erode the wages, working conditions and potential collective power of resident cleaners.

The Government has been tackling these issues. It has tightened the supply of foreign workers in the cleaning sector and increased their levies. The new mandatory licensing scheme is another critical step to counter that dynamic. The challenge is how to move in a managed and effective way from the current framework to a far more equitable arrangement. This Bill provides a useful model not only for this sector, but also for other sectors which suffer chronically from low wages, such as the security and landscaping sectors.

To ensure that it provides a successful and effective model, we need to take a hard look at possible pitfalls and to scrutinise the details of the mechanism. Madam, I would like to make three points.

First, to succeed, the model must be relatively easy to implement and enforce. The principles are clear: a legislated wage floor and wage grid will be set, specific to this sector, decided by a tripartite committee which will negotiate the wages. What is not so clear are the workings of the mechanism and the objective criteria used for setting wages. It should be recognised that wage negotiations for low-wage workers for this sector all these years have not yielded significant increases. Unions in certain low-paid industries are constantly under pressure to keep wages low in an attempt to protect jobs in a competitive global economy. At their best, they work with companies to improve productivity and profitability so that they can afford to pay it. Indeed, this is the approach that the Progressive Wage Model seems to be taking.

The Tripartite Committee recommends $1,000 as the entry-level basic wage for cleaning jobs in offices and commercial buildings, as well as the F&B sector; and $1,200 in the conservancy sector. One may ask: why $1,200 for conservancy cleaners, and not $1,300 or $1,400, for instance?

It is useful to have a more systematic and objective criteria to set the wage floor, to provide wage security and fairness for the workers, and to provide predictability and transparency for the businesses.

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For this, I would like to propose that the wage floor be set with reference to objective criteria, such as a minimum living level and inflation rate. There should be automatic annual increases linked to changes in the cost of living, with regular reviews to the wage levels.

As it appears now, the mechanism seems to depend entirely on collective bargaining by the Tripartite Committee and the ability of the members to reach a consensus. Madam, we have cause to take pride in our tripartite model but, for the purpose of law, it would be prudent to provide for contingencies. What if the negotiations were to be drawn out or to break down? Will the Commissioner for Labour intervene?

In Germany, which implements industry-specific minimum wage, it has encountered such pitfalls. Renegotiations on a sector's minimum wages are renewed regularly. But when renegotiation fails, several months may elapse, during which no minimum is in effect. Employers have sometimes seized the opportunity to hire employees at wages that are 30% below the minimum amount. This is what happened, for instance, in late 2009 in the industrial cleaning business.

It is a delicate balance to set wages at the right level. Indeed, one of the Government's major concerns of introducing minimum wages of any sort, be it sector-specific or industry-wide, has been that it would lead to a job loss, and this is a serious concern. But with the right labour measures and business incentives, and the support of Singaporeans, we can mitigate against this for this sector. There is now a tight labour market for local cleaners. Businesses need not suffer the cost inflation alone – they can draw from the various funding schemes provided by the Government and also pass some of the cost on to their customers.

Madam, it is important to prepare for the various scenarios. I would like to ask the Minister for an analysis of the impact on jobs, cleaning contracts and the steps that would be taken to mitigate the impact on those affected. This leads me to my second point.

It is important to ensure that, as this Bill pushes through the reforms, the group which we intend to help – the low-wage workers – will, indeed, see fairer wages, better working conditions and a higher quality of life.

I hear the constant mantra that wage increases should be linked to productivity. In general, that is correct. But in this case, for this sector, I would

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argue that this productivity link should not be over-emphasised. The way I see it, we have been undervaluing and underpaying our cleaners for far too long.

We are now moving decisively, through these provisions of this Bill, to put this right, to correct an injustice, to hit the reset button, as the Minister said. So, let us pay them according to the job worth.

Education and training are important, and so is increasing productivity in the longer term. But, in the short term, we should accept that the scope for increased productivity in this sector is limited. This is not unique to Singapore. Even in Europe, they found that productivity increases in the cleaning sector are particularly difficult to achieve at the bottom of the earnings scale, compared to jobs in the manufacturing sector where productivity gains are easier and faster to achieve.

To compound the problem in Singapore, most of our resident cleaners are older and low-educated. They take this job because they cannot find a better one. Their options are severely restricted. It is a tough job. For example, a typical Town Council cleaner would have to clean two to three blocks a day on top of spot cleaning. They work from 7.00 am to 4.00 pm, sometimes later. To increase productivity, he would have to cover more blocks, or do the same blocks faster. Certainly, using machines would help. But the way the corridors of HDB blocks are designed, with scupper drains, the cleaner would typically still have to use a broom to sweep every floor. For block washing, the cleaner would use a high-pressure machine jet. But this requires strength and energy. This would usually be assigned to younger foreign workers, as our older local workers find this difficult to handle.

If it is required by fiat that they must show higher productivity for getting a wage rise, I fear that our older workers will get the short end of the stick. We need to assure our older workers that even as this Bill takes effect, they will have a place in our workforce with decent and fair wages.

I would urge the Ministry to ensure that employers do not exploit workers by increasing their workload or working hours to justify the wage increase. It should also track the wage levels closely, to monitor if they are stuck at the lowest level or if there is, indeed, progression over the years.

A related point is the pay of foreign cleaners. From an equity point of view, foreign workers should also enjoy a wage increase, which should go into their pockets and not siphoned off as Government levies. It should not be added as

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extra cost to the business, which already pays a $600 levy for a foreign cleaner. The higher salaries should be taken off the foreign workers' levies. Presently, foreign cleaners are already paid lower than local cleaners, although foreign cleaners generally work longer hours and do a greater share of the dirtier and heavier work. As a matter of principle, we should pay according to the value of the job.

Last year, in Tampines Changkat, my constituency, we held a Model Cleaner Award competition. We invited residents to vote for the top five cleaners, one from each RC Zone. It is our way of recognising the good cleaners in the estate. And all five cleaners that the residents voted for were foreign workers. The residents recognise their hard work. So, why then should a foreign worker who cleans the blocks as diligently as a Singaporean worker, or, as is often the case, more diligently, continue to be paid $800 a month while a Singaporean would be paid $1,200 a month under the Progressive Wage Model? Let the foreign worker also enjoy a fair wage. This will help to build a more stable and harmonious labour environment, given Singapore's high reliance on foreign workers in such sectors and also a more decent and fair society.

My final point is on the increased penalties for littering. I welcome this. I am not so sure, however, if the response of litterbugs to big fines is one of remorse and shame or one of anger at the Government for fining them. Will they go, "Oh dear, I am so sorry that I was caught littering. I will never do this again", or will they curse and swear at those who have identified, nabbed and fined them?

I would ask for more emphasis on the Corrective Work Orders (CWOs), which will help to bring home the point that this is an anti-social behaviour, it is irresponsible and, at the same time, give them a sense of how it feels like to pick up after residents. And I would especially ask the Minister to consider forcing litterbugs to do CWOs in their own neighbourboods, for those who litter in their neighbourhood. Be a cleaner for a day in their own block. This would raise public awareness of the working conditions of a cleaner, as well as respect for the job. Ultimately, what would improve the working conditions of cleaners would be if there would be less litter.

There is an unfortunate attitude among some who think that because they pay the Service & Conservancy Charges (S&CC), they can litter at all hours of the day and there will be a cleaner to pick up after them. And if the cleaners do not pick up fast enough, it is the cleaners' fault. Their dogs can urinate in the lift or staircase landing; they can leave rubbish all around the bins but not in the bins; they can chuck their bulky items – cupboards, mattresses – all over the

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place, anywhere, because they pay for the cleaners to remove all these. Madam, we must correct this attitude firmly. It is important to register the point that the cleaners are not servants. They are professionals deserving of consideration and respect.

If there is less rubbish left at the corridors and staircase landings, less urine and dog poo in lifts and corridors, fewer soiled pads and less leftover food thrown from windows, this will save a lot of time for the cleaner. And this will contribute to a reduction of cost for the client, in this case the Town Council and, ultimately, also the residents. Then, Singaporeans can justifiably take pride in being part of a clean city, because they help to keep it clean, rather than a cleaned city, as the Minister mentioned, which is maintained by an army of underpaid workers.

In conclusion, this Bill is a critical move to raise the wages of resident cleaners to enable them to secure a decent pay rise and feel a little more valued, a little more respected, a little more self-sufficient. If this model succeeds, there will be more low-wage people with more money in their pockets and with a better future to look forward to. We realise that such a development may be strongly resisted by certain vested interests. However, the alternative is to continue living with a large group of working poor and growing inequality, which will threaten to erode our social cohesion and the relevance of our social compact. On that note, I support the Bill.

I support the Bill but I have some concerns that I hope the Ministry can address.

Mdm Speaker, I would like to first address the new licensing requirement in the Amendment Bill. According to NEA, the new licensing regime for the cleaning industry will incentivise businesses to improve standards and productivity, and also help to enhance the professionalism and image of the cleaning industry.

In its current state, without the new licensing regime, almost 82% of the population enjoy a clean environment, as reported by the last Town Council Management Report (TCMR). All Town Councils receive a Green Mark in the area of cleanliness. Even without a 100% trained workforce today, cleaning companies, serving a large part of Singapore, are doing a decent job, according to the TCMR. So, is there any study done or proof that by imposing a 100%

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training compliance licensing requirement in the cleaning industry, standard and productivity will improve? I am thus concerned that the Government may be adding a lot more administrative burden on an industry which is already known for cheap sourcing practices, low wages, limited productivity gain and high turnover. The focus on getting all workers trained at each licence renewal cycle may take centre stage at the expense of further wage increases and productivity gains.

The new 100% training compliance licensing requirement will increase business costs for cleaning companies. It is costly to get all workers, local and foreign, trained under the Environment Cleaning WSQ (EC WSQ) Certification. A training grant for local cleaners is welcome. But the bulk of the cost pressure will come from training foreign workers under the new licensing regime. Will an assessment-only pathway (AOP) be extended to foreign cleaners as well? How much will AOP cost per session per worker? Will the foreign workers be classified as technically skilled after going through EC WSQ? Will the company then enjoy a lower levy payment, now that its foreign workers are technically skilled after going through EC WSQ?

It is also difficult to maintain a 100% trained workforce in an industry known for high attrition of workers. Local cleaners come and go in this industry. How would a cleaning company ensure all its workers are trained at any one time? If a company were to hire a group of local cleaners prior to renewing its licence, is there enough time to get these workers trained to meet the 100% training compliance requirement? Is NEA going to make AOP readily available to help such companies on short notice?

Looking at these scenarios, I have a few proposals for NEA to consider.

First, I propose to NEA to allow a company with new local hires of less than three months to be given a grace period to be trained at the point of renewing its licence. This will not only give the company more time to comply with the training requirement, it will also give the company more time to assess if these new hires are suitable for the job, and vice versa. This is to acknowledge the high attrition of cleaners in the industry.

Second, I propose to NEA to exempt part-timers from the 100% training compliance requirement. A cleaning company is in breach of licensing conditions any time it hires untrained part-timers for urgent jobs. This is not a technical breach but a material breach, and the company may risk having to pay

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a fine or having its licence suspended or revoked.

Last, I also notice that the new licensing regime seems to have taken a leaf out of the Clean Mark Accreditation Scheme (CMAS). And for some unknown reason, the new licensing regime not only subsumes the gist of the CMAS, it now makes the scheme compulsory for all companies that wish to acquire the new licence. Does it mean that the company now has to go through two assessment processes to comply with the new licence conditions?

I would thus propose that companies that have enrolled in the voluntary enhanced CMAS be exempted from the licensing requirement. This scheme is reported to be jointly developed by multi-agencies in consultation with industry representatives and unions. The scheme is comprehensive right down to paying resident cleaners progressive wages and more. Surely, any company that volunteers in this scheme is more than qualified to be in the cleaning industry.

There are many unanswered questions in this piece of legislation. I hope the Minister can shed more light on this new licensing regime and provide more clarity for companies in the cleaning industry to move forward.

Next, I support the move to enhance the investigative powers given to a Police Officer or an authorised officer to gather information from any occupier or owner of a flat, which may aid in the identification of the alleged offender in cases involving littering from a residential flat.

Littering from a residential flat is beyond just an anti-social behaviour. It poses a danger to lives and properties as well. Recently, I have a resident who was a victim of a reckless act committed by his neighbour which, thankfully, did not result in any serious fire in his house. And the cause of it all was just a tiny cigarette butt. Littering from a residential flat is hard to eradicate, and even harder to prosecute, due to the great difficulties in acquiring the necessary evidence to prosecute the alleged offender.

Many a time, residents, town councils and even MCSTs are at a loss on how to eradicate such anti-social behaviour. I hope these enhancements to the investigative powers of a Police Officer or authorised officer in cases involving littering from a residential flat will aid the collective effort by all stakeholders to make our living environment safer for all flat dwellers.

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In conclusion, the Minister has said that we are becoming like a "cleaned" society rather than a clean society. So, the problem confronting our cleaning industry lies beyond raising standards and productivity. The Ministry must embark on its sustained and comprehensive campaign to keep Singapore clean so that our hardworking cleaners will not be overworked and taken advantage of in our clean city.

Mdm Speaker, I rise in support of this Bill which marks a milestone change in improving the prospects of lifting cleaners' wages. There is market failure in determining the wages of the cleaners. Cheap sourcing and competition from foreign workers have depressed their wages for a long time.

There is a general trend among service buyers to select their cleaning service providers on the basis of price as the only criterion, without considering the quality of service, the working conditions and personnel training or even the professionalism of the companies bidding for the contract.

In the past, many service providers who have invested in training and equipment may still be at a disadvantage because other service providers leverage against them during tender competition through undercutting the price by depressing cleaners' wages or cutting corners to save costs.

By doing so, the cleaning industry is devouring itself from within through nonsensical pricing, with the service buyers cheering them on this uncontrolled race to the bottom on cleaning contracts. The result, all too often, is that cleaners' wages are low and their employment conditions precarious.

This Bill is a game changer in the industry because it would create a level playing field for service providers and they now have to compete with each other based on their cleaners' training, productivity and their professional track record since wage costs would be the same across all parties. It also creates a level playing field for service buyers because their competitors are also facing the same cost pressures while trying to maintain business competitiveness.

Mdm Speaker, in the grand scheme of things, mandating the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) is perhaps the easiest thing to do in our effort to help cleaners earn better wages. However, the road ahead is still fraught with challenges for us to ensure that the Bill achieves its intended outcome to

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improve the lives of our local cleaners.

A concerted effort must be taken to ensure effective implementation and compliance within the industry. Many cleaning companies have expressed support for this Bill, but they are concerned whether service buyers of their existing contracts would allow for contract sum re-negotiation to enable them to pay their cleaners according to the Progressive Wage Model.

They shared that their profit margins are thin at between 10% and 15%, with wages forming 80% of the total cost. Unless the service buyers allow for contract renegotiation, their continued operations may be untenable.

Mdm Speaker, the Progressive Wage Model may send shock waves through the industry, and cleaning companies will face difficulty in absorbing costs and staying afloat. If there is a way for all cleaning contracts to be renegotiated, I would like the Ministry to seriously look into this. I know this is a long shot, but I believe we must legally allow service providers affected by this Bill to renegotiate their contracts and allow them to withdraw, without penalty, should any service buyers refuse to renegotiate.

The Government has shown strong support for the Progressive Wage Model when it was first announced in 2012. Many cleaners working under Government contracts are already receiving wages recommended by the Progressive Wage Model. I hope all Statutory Boards and Government-Linked Companies would be next to support their cleaning service providers by agreeing to contract renegotiation. The private sector and MCST must also follow suit.

As service buyers, they must do the right thing and stop this modern-day slavery. Making it hard for service providers to pay wages according to the Progressive Wage Model on the excuse that the contract sum has been previously agreed upon is akin to the service buyers being unfair, cruel and without any sense of righteousness.

In some countries, service buyers or management are awarded the Golden Vacuum Award if outsourced cleaners working for them have poor working conditions and are getting low salary. Why the name Golden Vacuum? It is because these service buyers "suck the cleaners dry" through cheap sourcing. I want to believe that no management, company or any organisation here will take pride to be shortlisted for this award and will do the right thing to help the

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cleaners earn fair wages and have good working conditions.

Mdm Speaker, another concern expressed by service providers is the practice of imposing punitive and exorbitant liquidated damages for minor breaches in the service agreement. Service providers are worried that service buyers may attempt to recoup the cost increase because of PWM by imposing liquidated damages. This will lead to a vicious cycle of service providers cutting corners to save costs but at the expense of service delivery, leading to more liquidated damages.

I would like to urge the Ministry to explore the possibility of setting up an Industry Tribunal to mediate disputes over service level agreement, especially in a business environment where outsourcing is becoming more common.

Mdm Speaker, the cleaning companies were briefed that they would need to renew their licence on an annual basis. I would like to propose that the licensing checks be conducted at two-year intervals instead of one. This would ease the strain on cleaning companies to prepare and submit the requirements to NEA for auditing. Cleaning companies awarded the Clean Mark Accreditation should also automatically qualify for the licence as it has more stringent requirements.

Given that this is an industry practice that some cleaners are "cross-deployed" in terms of job requirements, I hope that MOM and NEA would allow for a reasonable grace period to allow cleaning companies to adjust the categorisation of their cleaners before taking action against non-compliance. They should be given an advisory or warning, but firm action must still be taken against recalcitrant offenders, with them being subjected to punishments as outlined in the Bill. On the part of the union, we will work with our unionised cleaning companies to ensure our union members are accorded the correct classification.

Some cleaning companies are also concerned with the training requirement stipulated for licence renewal. They would like NEA to take into account the size of the company. For a company with 2,000 cleaners to comply with a 100% training requirement is more challenging, compared to companies with a much smaller cleaning workforce. With regard to the issue of new hires raised by the hon Member Mr Png Eng Huat, there is a provision for a three-month grace period for them to be trained, based on the briefing given by NEA to the service providers.

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Another consideration is for NEA to give recognition to in-house and OJT training conducted by the respective cleaning companies. This would make it easier for companies to meet the training requirement.

Mdm Speaker, while I welcome this Bill, I am also concerned about its possible impact on the less privileged cleaners or the very elderly cleaners. They risk being unemployed or having their services terminated if their productivity does not match the salaries advocated in the Progressive Wage Model. I hope service providers and service buyers would allow them to continue working.

Mdm Speaker, the effectiveness of this Bill relating to the mandatory adoption of a Progressive Wage Model requires every cleaner, every cleaning service provider and every service buyer to do their part. Cleaners must acquire the necessary skills to provide better cleaning service and do their utmost to upgrade their productivity. Service providers must pay cleaners based on wages stipulated in the Progressive Wage Model and invest in equipment for greater productivity.

On the part of service buyers, they must best-source and move away from head-count contracts. Contracts must not be one sided, with all risks borne by the service providers. It is important that service buyers work towards establishing long-term cooperative relationships with their service providers to establish mutual trust to ensure no party tries to outwit the other in their attempt to survive in this competitive business environment. It is estimated that for most building owners, cleaning costs make up a very small part of the overall costs of maintaining a property, so that significant improvements in wages could be introduced with very little effect on the returns from rental income or impacting overall costs.

Establishing a long-term relationship may also entail service buyers giving the incumbent a percentage discount on the tender price, during evaluation, to prevent a situation where cleaners' salary are cut upon contract renewal. When all stakeholders work as one, the future of the cleaning industry will be brighter. Mdm Speaker, please allow me to speak in Malay.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mdm Speaker, the Environmental Public Health (Amendment) Bill is a proposal that is very welcomed by the Labour Movement because it can bring about a great change to the lives of 55,000 cleaners in Singapore who have been receiving low wages all this while due to the negative practice of outsourcing based on the lowest

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price. The arrival of cheaper foreign workers has also hindered pay increases in this sector.

The requirement imposed on cleaning companies to practise the Progressive Wage Model will bring about wage increments to cleaners that commensurate with the skills, productivity and responsibilities that they have.

The effectiveness of this Act depends on the ability of each stakeholder to play its part. The cleaners must undergo training and learn to operate machinery that can help them to become more productive. Cleaning companies must pay reasonable wages based on the Progressive Wage Model. They must also equip their workers with cleaning equipment that can make the job of cleaning easier, since many of these cleaners comprise mature workers.

The service buyers must also practise best-sourcing and avoid fixing the number of cleaners required. This is to allow cleaning companies to provide the best service using technology. They must also be willing to pay for contracts at a reasonable price in order to obtain good quality cleaning services.

(In English): I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Tripartite Cluster for Cleaners for their work in uplifting the cleaning industry. I would also like to express my appreciation to those involved in the Environmental Public Health (Amendment) Bill for supporting to make a difference to the life of the cleaner. Mdm Speaker, I support the Bill.

Mdm Speaker, this Bill enhances the powers of the Director-General of Public Health to improve the state of cleanliness and public health in Singapore. A prominent feature of this Bill is a new requirement for all cleaning companies to be licensed and adopt the tiered wage system for their cleaners.

The Government's intent appears to be to use licensing to compel all cleaning businesses to adopt its Progressive Wage Model (PWM). The PWM consists of a ladder of wage levels which is supposed to provide a pathway for cleaners to progress to higher wages as they become more skilled, more productive and take on higher responsibilities. The PWM was introduced to counter the practice of cheap sourcing which, the Government says, prevents the market from working well, to translate training, standards and productivity

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gains into improved wages for workers.

The Government has taken pains to emphasise that the PWM is not a national minimum wage because it believes that wage increases must be driven by productivity growth. Hence, the PWM does not just set wage floors; it also prescribes requirements for training and certification for cleaners.

I welcome any measure that will raise the incomes of low-wage workers on a sustainable basis over the long term, and I am glad to see the wage floors introduced in the PWM. However, the PWM contains several big assumptions which must be questioned. It assumes that training and certification will translate to better work performance, which will improve cleaning standards and lead to productivity gains, which will then justify higher wages.

I am not fully convinced of the causal link between training and improved productivity in the cleaning industry. What studies has the Government done to validate this assumption?