Hansard, Thursday, 23 February 2023

Order. Pursuant to Standing Order 92(7), I have fixed the times for the conclusion of consideration of the heads of expenditure in the Estimates of Expenditure for FY 2023/2024 in the Committee of Supply (COS).

In fixing these times, I have taken into account the reduction of Question Time to 30 minutes on the days allotted for the COS debates and the extension of Sitting times of the COS for each of the allotted days. Additionally, Members are notified that the Sittings on the allotted days of 27 February to 6 March will commence at 10.30 am. The "guillotine" times I have fixed have been notified to hon Members.

I would also like to remind Members to use slides and videos sparingly to keep the spirit of our debating Chamber. Focusing on the delivery of speeches to be made will create a greater impact in a debate. Order. Questions for Oral Answer.

1 Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry will consider holding consultations with the cleaning and waste management industry to introduce a system similar to the Foreign Construction Worker Directory to facilitate job matching between employers and foreign workers in the cleaning and waste management sector; and (b) if not, why not.

Sir, the Member had raised a similar question in 2019 and the position of the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) remains unchanged.

Job-matching initiatives should be initiated and led by the respective industries to ensure that they meet employers’ and workers’ hiring needs and are sustainable. Currently, most employers and workers work with existing employment agencies for their job matching needs. If the cleaning and waste management industry assesses that a sector-specific job facilitation system is necessary, MOM would be happy to work with the relevant industry representatives on their proposal.

Mr Louis Ng.

Thank you, Sir. I thank the Senior Minister of State for the reply. Could I just ask whether MOM can look at this from a different perspective? Which is that this could help to tackle this issue of power imbalance. I have seen first-hand that many migrant workers are very scared to report kickbacks, for example, because they are scared of losing their jobs and that the employer will send them back home. So, if they know that there is a directory out there where they can find an alternative job, we can also make sure that it is within the same salary range. So, we also address employers' concerns of migrant workers job-hopping for higher salaries. I think if we look at it from this perspective, perhaps this could help to tackle this issue of the power imbalance.

Sir, I appreciate the Member's concern about the power imbalance, but I do not think using job facilitation as a mechanism to create a balance in the relationship is going to be effective. What we need to do is, if there are kickbacks being conducted, if the workers feel that they have been victimised, then they ought to report it to MOM so that we can do the necessary investigations and take employers to task.

2 Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) in the past three years, how many individuals have leveraged on the Global Investor Programme and invested at least $2.5 million in a business, fund, or family office in order to qualify for permanent residency; and (b) what steps has the Government taken to facilitate their integration and eventual conversion to Singapore Citizenship.

Mr Speaker, about 200 individuals were accorded permanent residency through the Global Investor Programme (GIP) from the years 2020 to 2022.

Permanent Residents (PRs) under the GIP can join other new residents in Singapore in various integration activities organised by the National Integration Council (NIC) and partners. For example, the People’s Association Integration Council conducts the Heartland Orientation Trail to give participants an immersive experience of our heartlands and the Singapore way of life and help them understand and appreciate our local culture and norms. New PRs under the GIP are also able to tap on the Economic Development Board (EDB)’s networks to embark on philanthropic activities or contribute to community causes that benefit our society.

All applicants for Singapore Citizenship, including PRs under the GIP, are assessed independently by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.

Mr Yip.

I thank the Minister of State for the reply. For the individuals under the Global Investor Programme, which sectors are the businesses or investments in? And what is the total investment amount that they have brought in over the last three years?

I want to thank the Member Mr Yip Hon Weng for his two supplementary questions. He asked about the investment over the last three years. Let me give him the amount over a longer term. I have on hand, the numbers from 2011 to 2022, over an 11-year period. The GIP investors brought in more than S$5.46 billion in total business expenditure via direct investments. This is generating more than 24,000 jobs in Singapore.

As of October 2022, GIP investors have also injected S$1.62 billion into approved GIP funds. Of this S$1.62 billion, the fund managers have deployed 87.2% and this translates to S$1.41 billion into actual investments. If I could provide a further breakdown – 65.6% of this S$1.41 billion, which is S$930 million, has been invested in Singapore-based companies.

On the first question on sectors, I must say that GIP investors come from a wide spectrum of areas and sectors like technology, urban solutions and sustainability as well as financial services.

I want to use this occasion to reassure the Member Mr Yip and the House that EDB conducts regular reviews to ensure rootedness by the GIP investors in Singapore and that they contribute to our industries, to our economy and to job creation. In fact, the GIP PRs are required to submit documentary evidence of the Singapore-based companies that they have invested in. In addition to looking through all the documentary evidence, EDB will also conduct site visits to assess the companies' business activities and the employment situation.

Mr Pritam Singh.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just a quick question to the Minister of State vis-à-vis her response to the hon Member Mr Yip. For the GIP individuals who are PRs, does EDB or the Ministry track how many of them transit to being citizens in view of her reply to Mr Yip's question on rootedness?

Mr Speaker, I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition Mr Pritam Singh for his question. As I have shared in my answer to the Parliamentary Question earlier, over the past three years, 2020 to 2022, we approved about 200 GIP investors to be under the PR scheme. I would like to share with him and the House that 200 is over three years. As you can see, we are very selective about the GIP investors. The EDB evaluation process is very stringent and very robust. We will look at their economic commitments as well as residency commitments.

As for his question on Singapore Citizenship, I can say that a very, very low percentage of the PRs under the GIP has been granted citizenship.

I want to use this occasion to just elaborate on what I mentioned earlier about us requiring the GIP investor to submit documentary evidence and EDB mounting site visits to validate the numbers. I want to say that the PRs in GIP who do not meet the GIP economic and residency commitments as well as other renewable criteria will not have their re-entry permit renewed.

I think all Members in the House would know this is serious because once your re-entry permit is not renewed, this means that when the GIP PR subsequently leaves Singapore or if he or she remains overseas without a valid re-entry permit, their PR status will lapse; they will lose their PR status.

Mr Pritam Singh.

Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Minister of State for the helpful reply. Can I just confirm if the small percentage that the Minister of State speaks of is a number that she has on hand? And would the Government be prepared to release that number?

Mr Speaker, I would like to thank Mr Pritam Singh for his supplementary question. I would elaborate and say that the interest in the GIP has remained stable since its launch. GIP investors who are approved as PRs are much lesser than 1% of the total number of PRs approved each year. On the question about Singapore Citizenship, like I mentioned, the number of GIP PRs granted citizenship is even much lesser, as the Member can see from the PR numbers that have been granted over the past three years.

3 Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis asked the Minister for Home Affairs (a) what measures are being put in place to deter and detect road touts; and (b) whether there have been any convictions for road touting in the last five years and, if so, how many.

Mr Speaker, between 2018 and 2022, the number of road touting Police reports remained low, at two or fewer cases each year. This data was given in the reply to Member Melvin Yong’s question last month.

There was no conviction for road touting in the last five years.

Mr Louis Chua.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just a follow-up supplementary question to the Minister of State. Based on a CNA article I read about one to two months ago, one of the interviewees said that this appears to be a very prevalent occurrence. I am just wondering what measures are put in place to detect road touts and also not just on the touts themselves, but on the workshops that facilitate some of these egregious claims.

Sir, I thank the Member for the supplementary question. Our sense is that members of the public, especially the motorists, know how to handle road touts. In essence, while there are Police reports being made, there are those who also seek guidance and help from their insurers as well as legal counsel for civil remedies.

If you look at road touts, we will look at the case where there may be other offences that have been committed. For example, road touting itself is an offence and so, we will look at the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act. Within it, depending on the facts and the circumstances of the case, they may be involved in some road traffic offences, Protection from Harassment Act (POHA) offences and so forth. Essentially, we will look at the facts of the case and at the same time, it is clear that touting in any form is an offence. So, people are aware and our sense is that people know how to handle it, remain calm, they disengage.

If at any point in time there are reports and we see this as a serious matter, we will take action where necessary.

4 Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) whether the Ministry has studied the performance of managers of Singapore companies vis-à-vis those in other developed countries as measured in the World Management Survey; (b) if not, will it do so; and (c) whether the Ministry is considering how the current ecosystem of academic and non-academic training for managerial skills can be improved, to enhance the corporate performance of Singapore companies and hence their value add to the economy.

Sir, the World Management Survey (WMS) seeks to measure the quality of management practices in companies in selected countries and sectors. While the WMS provides useful data, it also has its limitations like any other survey. For instance, the WMS survey is not conducted on a regular basis nor on a consistent sample of countries.

We track the performance of our firms and our economic competitiveness through other data points and surveys instead.

We remain committed to raising the managerial capabilities of our workforce. Sector agencies monitor the performance of their sectors closely and provide companies with the necessary support to transform their business and workforce. The Government also supports ecosystem partners such as training providers, employers and trade associations and chambers on managerial skills training. For example, the Financial Sector Development Fund (FSDF) administered by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) co-funds eligible leadership programmes under the Asian Financial Leaders Scheme (AFLS) to develop promising Singaporean leaders in acquiring knowledge to navigate the diverse operating environment in the region, as well as leadership competencies in corporate governance, ethics and culture, as well as strategic thinking and execution.

In addition to the sector-specific initiatives I just highlighted, the Government also helps our local enterprises grow their business and leadership capabilities through programmes such as Enterprise Singapore’s Enterprise Leadership for Transformation.

Mr Perera.

I thank the Minister of State for that reply. Just one supplementary question. The WMS survey has its limitations, like all surveys. Singapore does not perform abysmally even on that survey, but it is behind a lot of other leading countries, like the US, Japan, Canada, Australia and so on.

Would the Ministry consider using this survey as well as other surveys to try to understand whether the ecosystem of training available in these other countries, which do better than Singapore on the WMS, could be made available here, be they from third-party providers or in-house training to understand where that gap lies?

The reason I ask this is because I have been reflecting on total factor productivity, where Singapore has a gap between other comparable countries. I am wondering whether managerial skills could explain our poor performance on total factor productivity.

I thank the Member for his supplementary question. The Economist had an article on the WMS in early-February which had a table and also talked about different managerial competencies and where Singapore, vis-à-vis other countries, is situated. I mentioned earlier in my Parliamentary Question (PQ) reply that the WMS is just one of many of these surveys and the Government is open to collaborating with private researchers, institutes to study Singapore's performances across a variety of indicators, a variety of performance factors and dimensions.

Maybe I take a step back and look at other such studies which may offer a variety of perspectives. For example, the Government tracks Singapore's performance in the annual Institute of Management Development (IMD)'s World Competitiveness Yearbook, which assesses countries' competitiveness and the ability to create and sustain long-term growth. In 2022, Singapore placed third in this IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook behind Denmark and Switzerland, but ahead of some of the countries which the Member mentioned in the WMS survey.

Our third place ranking in this IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook is an improvement over 2021, where we placed fifth. We remain Asia's top performing economy in terms of competitiveness and the ability to create and sustain long-term growth. It is not just on the whole but also our sector agencies examine the variety of indicators that are irrelevant to management, for example, competitiveness specific to their sectors.

But I think the bigger question that is embedded in the Member's question in part (c), is what we are doing as well. So, let me go into that detail a little bit. Earlier, I mentioned Enterprise Singapore's Enterprise Leadership for Transformation (ELT) scheme – that is targeted at senior leadership of promising small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). ELT supports business leaders, help them to achieve the next point of growth, help them to develop business strategies and to enhance their leadership skills. So, that is one example.

Maybe I will just update the Member that since we launched ELT in October 2020, we have onboarded more than 400 business leaders from over 300 companies. I also cited how a sector agency like MAS has the Financial Sector Development Fund (FSDF) which supports promising Singaporean financial leaders to navigate a very challenging regional environment.

We also have others like on the manufacturing front. We have our Smart Industry Readiness Index (SIRI) which help our manufacturers start, skill and sustain their manufacturing journeys. And on human capital, a key indicator also, we have Workforce Singapore (WSG) and the Singapore Business Federation's Industry 4.0 Human Capital Initiative (IHCI) to help companies strengthen HR planning and job redesign.

The Member had a question also in his question in part (c) on academics and non-academic institutions. The Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) helps administer this ELT that I mentioned earlier on.

So, there is a whole ecosystem. But I wanted to assure the Member that we are focused on this and we are looking to enhance some of these schemes, some of these initiatives. I welcome his ideas and suggestions on how to do this even better.

Mr Perera.

I thank the Minister of State for that comprehensive reply. Just a small clarification. You mentioned the World Competitiveness report of the IMD. My focus on this PQ is really on managerial skills.

So, I am just wondering if the Minister of State has data either as a subset of the IMD or from other surveys that speaks to this question of Singaporean managers' managerial skills vis-à-vis those of other countries?

I thank the Member. There is a variety of performance indicators of which managerial competencies is one. I mentioned earlier the WMS has its limitations; they do not do it on a yearly basis. So, even when you look at 2004 to 2022, they do not do it on a yearly basis; and from what I understand, it is snapshots of different countries across that span.

So, I think in that regard, we look at a variety of different studies. I think the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook provides at least some form of understanding. Competitiveness, performances – I think managerial competencies help to build competitiveness in any economy. But I think the crux of the question and the crux of the push for Government is to ensure that we remain competitive, of which managerial competencies is a core part. And the sectorial agencies as well as Government as a whole, on the upstream, with Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), for example, can play a very strong part in improving both our managerial competitiveness as well as our competitiveness as a whole.

5 Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan asked the Minister for Law whether an undischarged bankrupt is required to seek approval from the Ministry of Law or the Insolvency and Public Trustee’s Office before they can file an employment dispute to the Tripartite Alliance for Disputes Management.

Mr Speaker, an undischarged bankrupt is not required to seek the approval of the Official Assignee (OA) or a private trustee in bankruptcy, as the case may be, before he can file an employment claim at the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM).

If the mediation at the TADM is unsuccessful, the claimant will be issued with a claim referral certificate with which he may then file a claim at the Employment Claims Tribunals. If he chooses to do so, under the Bankruptcy Act or the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018, whichever is applicable, the bankrupt needs to apply to the OA or a private trustee in bankruptcy for a sanction. This requirement exists to protect the bankruptcy estate and hence, the interests of the bankrupt’s creditors, from costs that may be incurred by the bankrupt bringing or defending actions that are frivolous or legally unmeritorious.

Mr Patrick Tay.

I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for her reply. I think this is this question emanated from a case which I encountered last month. One of the residents in my Pioneer single member constituency (SMC), who is an undischarged bankrupt, had salaries including overtime payments owing to him. And therefore, when he went and approached TADM, he was unable to take the matter further. As the Senior Parliamentary Secretary rightly pointed out, after mediation, he still needed the approval of MinLaw to be able to take the claim to the Employment Claims Tribunals.

I am hoping therefore to raise this, because this is quite ironical. The very fact that he is working as an undischarged bankrupt is to earn wages so that he can repay his debt. So, it is a bit ironical that in late payment or unpaid salary situations, he or she is unable to take further action. Therefore, I hope the Ministry of Law can review this to make the process more seamless and easier for aggrieved workers.

I thank the Member for raising this issue which I think is important to the workers. I appreciate the point raised and perhaps what may be useful is to also understand the specific case in concern. There is that approval process and if it does appear that there is likelihood of success, it is something for the agency to think about.

But I do appreciate the point made that this may be a bit challenging. We will take this back to see how we can facilitate the process even better.

6 Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Manpower in each year since 2019 (a) how many employers have informed the Ministry in writing of modifications to the salary terms for a work permit holder to less favourable terms than declared and stated in their in-principle approval letter; (b) how many employers have been fined for not having done so; (c) how many notices of salary reduction have been issued to workers; and (d) on what grounds does the Ministry determine whether a salary reduction can be allowed.

When applying for Work Permits (WPs), employers are required to declare key salary terms, including the basic and fixed monthly salary, offered to prospective Work Permit Holders (WPHs). Employers are allowed to revise the salary downwards, provided they have obtained the worker’s written agreement and have notified the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). This is to provide flexibility for instances where the worker’s performance fell below expectation and cannot justify the salary paid. Workers can check their latest salary as declared by their employers to MOM through the MyMOM portal on MOM’s website. MOM is also working on sending a push notification to workers via the SGWorkPass app to inform workers of any salary changes in a timely manner.

From 2019 to 2022, MOM was notified of salary reductions affecting an average of about 3% of non-domestic WPHs each year.

Where there is a dispute over salary reduction from the amount stated in the in-principle approval letter, the employer is required to show documented evidence of the worker’s consent and that he had notified MOM beforehand. Otherwise, the original declared salary holds and the employer will be required to make good any salary shortfall, regardless of the reason for the salary reduction.

If the employer reduces the worker’s salary without their consent or does so before informing the Controller, they are liable to a fine of up to $10,000 per worker. From 2019 to 2022, administrative financial penalties were imposed on an average of 27 employers per year.

Mr Louis Ng.

Thank you, Sir. I thank the Senior Minister of State for the reply. I think he mentioned 3% of the workers. Could I just get an absolute number?

Second, could I just ask whether MOM can review my earlier suggestion? I do understand that there is a need for flexibility in terms of salary reduction, but could we at least cap it? Because I know there are cases where there can be a reduction of more than 50% of their salary.

Could I also just ask how does MOM proactively look for cases where there had been salary reduction but were not reported to MOM?

Sir, on his first question, I do not have the exact number per se but just to clarify that the 3% cited for notification of salary reductions does not necessarily mean that they are all illegal or in violation, because there could well be genuine reasons why these reductions take place. For example, if the worker is underperforming and the employer rationalises the salary to be paid to a non-performing worker in lieu of retrenchment or firing the worker, which would have been the only other recourse that is left.

So, I just want to make clear the point that the 3% notification does not mean that there has been absolute violations.

As I said in the later part of my reply, in the same time frame of 2019 to 2022, the administrative financial penalties were meted out to 27 employers per year. So, that gives the Member a sense of the gravity of the problem, which in the grand scheme of things, is a very small number of employers that has been taken to task.

I did not catch the second clarification. Perhaps the Member can specify that again.

Just to ask whether we can put a cap in terms of the salary reduction. Because I know there are cases where the salary could be reduced by more than 50% which is quite significant for some of the migrant workers.

Sir, I think the consultation with tripartite partners is that it is very hard to have an actual cap. Depending on the circumstances, there may well be true, justifiable reasons to vary the amount of salary reduction to be paid or to be deducted from the worker. For example, in a severe economic downturn, employers may have to cut cost significantly to save jobs. And in the instance, it may be preferable even for the migrant worker to continue to be in employment rather than to lose his job and be repatriated.

So, I think this is something which has to be negotiated between the employer and the employee and have written consent, and to be notified to MOM. And if there are disputes regarding that, this is where further reconciliation and investigation by MOM can take place.

7 Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (a) what does PUB check for during fire hydrant inspections; (b) what is the frequency of such inspections; (c) whether PUB can consider increasing the frequency of such inspections; and (d) what are the differences in the respective checks carried out by SCDF and PUB.

for Sustainability and the Environment): Mr Speaker, the Public Utilities Board (PUB) and the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) conduct periodic checks on all public fire hydrants in Singapore. For PUB, these are done as part of the broader inspection and maintenance regime for the entire water supply network, which takes around four years to complete. These checks complement SCDF’s annual serviceability tests on all public fire hydrants in Singapore.

During PUB’s checks, each hydrant is inspected to ensure that there are no obstructions that could impede its operation and for signs of corrosion or leaks. PUB also removes the hydrant’s valve pit cover to check that the valve pit is clear of debris.

During SCDF’s annual serviceability tests on fire hydrants, SCDF performs functional checks on the fire hydrant, including the removal of the hydrant’s valve pit cover followed by the measurement of its water flow and pressure. When defects are found through these tests, SCDF will alert PUB and PUB will take prompt action to rectify them.

The current frequency of checks by PUB and SCDF is sufficient to ensure that our fire hydrants continue to function effectively.

Order. End of Question Time. The Clerk will now proceed to read the Order of the Day.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No 22(3), provided that Members had not asked for questions standing in their names to be postponed to a later Sitting day or withdrawn, written answers to questions not reached by the end of Question Time are reproduced in the Appendix.]

[(proc text) Order read for Resumption of Debate on Question [14 February 2023] [2nd Allotted Day] (proc text)]

[(proc text) "That Parliament approves the financial policy of the Government for the financial year 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024." – [Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance]. (proc text)]

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

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of this year's Budget. It is assuring that quite a few pressing issues have been addressed by this Budget. Today, I would like to speak on two topics. The first, is how to provide greater support for our small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the second, is on assistance for special needs Institute of Technical Education (ITE) students from disadvantaged families.

Our SMEs contribute to almost half of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employ at least two-thirds of our Singaporean workforce, playing a crucial role in our economy. They need supportive measures to ensure their growth and sustainability in an increasingly competitive business environment.

Presently, businesses face logistics problems as supply chains remain disrupted amidst increasing geopolitical tensions. They also must deal with rising wage bills as there is a shortage of skilled manpower. The rising cost of business operations puts an enormous strain on their cashflows.

I am grateful for the various policies and schemes which the Government has implemented to assist them. The new Enterprise Innovation Scheme, the top-up of $150 million for the SME Co-Investment Fund, $4 billion for the National Productivity Fund and $1 billion for the Singapore Global Enterprises initiative, amongst others, are greatly welcomed.

The Government is also investing in the creation of innovation hubs, such as the Jurong Innovation District, to promote collaboration among companies, technology and education providers as well as research centres. What are the aims or KPIs of the new Enterprise Innovation Scheme? Is it to produce a certain number of unicorns by a certain timeline? How soon do these SMEs receive the grants or reimbursement from the time they submit their applications?

I would like to appeal for more assistance for SMEs applying for Government assistance, subsidies or grants because some struggle to understand suitable solutions for their business needs and complicated application procedures. Sometimes, the application process takes too long and they may not receive the subsidies in time to meet their operation cashflows. Some commerce and trade associations assist SMEs with their applications for Government schemes and support measures too. The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) may consider boosting financial support for chambers of commerce and business associations to better assist SMEs in this respect.

I understand that business consultants promote these Government schemes to their SMEs and their earnings are predicated on the loan amount approved or the amount of grant received. Therefore, if the application cycle is too long for a particular scheme, it is less likely that a business consultant would promote this scheme to his or her clients.

I also urge our Government agencies and Government-linked companies to support our SMEs by providing more business to them so as to benefit almost 70% of the Singaporean workforce indirectly. For example, the Government can divide big projects into smaller contracts, allowing SMEs to compete with one another to undertake such projects. The winners will be able to establish reliable business channels and prove their performance abilities and competence to Government agencies, going on to achieve growth, expand their scale and develop to a size big enough to compete with foreign companies and compete for larger Government projects. Mr Speaker, Sir, in Mandarin.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] In terms of funding and resource support, the Government may wish to consider providing more support to SMEs that are already established and connected to our local networks, before considering whether it should support their overseas ventures.

Our local companies should develop an ecosystem comprising SMEs and local large companies (LLCs) to market their products and services as a team to multinational companies or when expanding to overseas markets. Within this local network, our companies can share information on customers, other companies, industries and the economy, as well as services such as legal and translation services. It is more cost effective.

There is also room for further collaboration between our businesses and our Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) and research centres. This type of team strategy had been used effectively by companies from countries such as Japan and Israel. We can start from the 23 Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs).

(In English): As for the problem with manpower constraints, would the Government consider reviewing the foreign worker work permit quota? Some SMEs argue that the quota is too low and does not reflect their actual labour needs. As a result, they are unable to hire enough workers to meet their operation needs and are struggling to remain competitive. All these quotas are being taken up despite the high price of foreign workers levies. Does that mean that the quota system is not working as desired?

One of the major expenses for businesses is the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) for vehicles. The cost of obtaining a COE can be significant, especially for larger vehicles like vans that are used for commercial purposes. In addition, businesses must also pay for vehicle registration fees, road taxes and maintenance costs. The COE of a van is $87,000 currently. Can we have a separate category for commercial vans and provide grants to these companies so that end consumers can pay lesser?

How about establishing an Alliance-for-Action involving Ministry of Manpower (MOM), Enterprise Singapore (ESG), Land Transport Authority (LTA) and companies like supermarket chains so as to explore the possibility of operating a fleet of commercial vehicles like vans and trucks 24 hours a day? This is to minimise lull time and mitigate the shortage of heavy vehicles carpark. Can MOM issue more work passes to businesses like confectionaries, supermarket chain, essential services providers whose operations can function overnight? By doing so, our businesses can employ more foreign workers to overcome manpower shortages for roles which Singaporeans will not take up and as a result, the businesses' productivity will improve.

Generally, electric commercial vehicles may have a higher upfront cost compared to their conventional counterparts, but they offer lower operating costs, reduced maintenance expenses and environmental benefits. I spoke with a few SMEs owners who own diesel-fuelled buses and trucks. Besides the high upfront cost, they also need to upgrade their substation which requires another sum of capital expenditure. Can the Government look into this aspect?

Next, I would like to advocate for special needs students from disadvantaged families while studying in ITEs. I declare that I am the advisor of the Union of ITE Training Staff. I hope the Ministry of Education (MOE) can give more resources to the ITEs so that it can start to recruit teaching assistants like what the other public schools are already doing currently. With more teaching staff, the lecturers will be able to provide more individual attention to students and customise their teaching to the specific needs of each student.

Significant progress in providing support and services for students with special education needs (SEN) has been made. I applaud that. However, may I suggest the following for further improvement?

Would the Government consider targeted public education campaigns, community outreach and increase the visibility of special needs students in mainstream settings to raise public awareness and understanding of special education needs to reduce stigma and gain acceptance? Like Healthier SG, can MOE tap on private sector psychiatrists and psychologists so that deserving students can receive diagnosis quickly? I was informed that the current waiting time to be seen by Institute of Mental Health (IMH) or other restructured hospital can be long. Proper assistance can only be rendered towards the special education needs students who have been diagnosed formally.

There is also a need to expand support services, such as therapy, counselling and mental health services to meet the diverse needs of these students. This could include increasing funding for services, expanding the pool of qualified professionals and increasing the availability of assistive technologies.

More funding is required to develop more specialised programmes for students with different disabilities, including autism, visual and hearing impairments, and learning difficulties. These programmes can be tailored to meet the individual needs of students and provide them with the necessary skills to join the workforce.

I would like to request for more training for teachers to better support students with special education needs. This could include providing ongoing professional development opportunities and creating specialised training programmes. More inclusive classroom environments, providing more support services within mainstream schools and increasing the number of specialised schools and programmes would be a big step forward.

Parents of children with special education needs need more support and information on available support services, parent support groups and how they can be involved in decision-making processes related to their child's education.

ITEs can support and improve accessibility for students with disabilities by making its facilities and campus more accessible. This includes providing ramps, elevators and other assistive technology.

Last but not least, may I request support for ITEs to collaborate with community organisations and businesses and create internship and work opportunities for these students? Internships will help students to gain practical experience and improve their chances of finding employment after graduation.

Mr Edward Chia.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I welcome the 2023 National Budget announced by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Lawrence Wong. The crux of this Budget focuses on keeping our economy competitive and innovative, equipping our workers and providing a fuller range of opportunities for everyone to reach their potential.

Mr Speaker, Sir, as a Member of Parliament serving in Zhenghua, having done walkabouts at our coffee shops and hawker centers, visited homes of our constituents, and from my interactions at Meet-the-People sessions, there are some concerns raised by my residents. Like all parents, they hope to secure the children's future. They want to ensure that their parents can have an adequate and dignified retirement. They are concerned on whether they can keep up with the cost of living. These are on-going concerns of Zhenghua families which forms the central motivation of my speech.

As a nation, we need to ensure that we have the fiscal capabilities and revenue to sustain our social and healthcare needs. To ensure continued real income growth for Singaporeans and adequate retirement savings, we must support local employers to compete and stay relevant on higher value products and services.

How do we achieve this? First, by remaining competitive and relevant in an increasingly hostile world. And second, by continuing to build a resilient nation.

I will first touch on remaining competitive and relevant in the global market. As Singapore's workforce ages and the cost of doing business increases, we run the risks of pricing ourselves out of the region and becoming irrelevant.

While doing a regional comparison scan, Singapore has the highest median age of any population in Southeast Asia in 2022. We stand at 42.1 years old, compared to Indonesia at 29.4 years, Malaysia at 30.4 years, Cambodia at 25.6 years and Vietnam at 31.9 years old. It is clear we are dealing with an ageing population and a higher average age of our workforce. Our monthly average operating costs to do business is approximately 64% to 76% higher than other countries in the ASEAN region.

Despite the high costs, Singapore is still the top choice for companies with higher value-added manufacturing with complex processes and automation requirements. However, other countries with a larger, younger and increasingly educated labour force are catching up. The external environment is also becoming more hostile due to geopolitical tensions and rivalries. This has led to greater onshoring of key manufacturing processes which threatens our livelihoods. To safeguard our livelihoods and provide real wage growth for Singaporeans, we need to stay relevant in this new environment.

I would lay out three key areas of focus in my speech. First, we need to support employers to compete and stay relevant by providing higher value products and better service experience. Second, we need to ensure employers can compete for, grow and retain talent. Third, we need to support employers to compete on environmental sustainability credentials as more multinational enterprises (MNEs) and regional economic blocs are actualising emission cut targets and factoring this in their purchasing evaluations.

First, our nation needs to stay relevant on providing the best customer experience value. We are no longer competing based on costs, but rather on perceived value. To ensure continued real income growth for Singaporeans, we must support local employers to compete and stay relevant on higher value products and services.

The importance of building strong relationships between organisations and their customers has taken on added significance. As economies around the world develop in sophistication, consumers are offered greater choice and form higher expectations. Higher expectations specifically on the overall customer experience.

Singapore can do more to improve our service culture. The honesty in accepting that service levels can be improved marks the first step towards building a strong service culture. With it, comes the commitment to improve and it is believed that it is not an impossible task. Soft skills such as tone, general demeanour and body language need to be further developed.

Indeed, these "soft skills" are important horizontal skill sets that apply across industries and engender greater self-awareness. This is attainable for us. Our national airlines, Singapore Airlines, is a stellar example of what excellent customer experience is around the world. How can we achieve this in other sectors?

These soft skills are a part of SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG)'s Critical Core Skills and that it is a good start. Under the "Interacting with Others" cluster, identifying internal and external needs of customers to deliver an effective customer experience is mentioned as a key competency. How can we encourage more employers to send their employees for training in these areas, to support businesses and workers' growth? Importantly, how do we evaluate the effectiveness of this training?

One way to evaluate is to scale up national benchmarks yearly when measuring service delivery and customer service standards. We currently have the Institute of Service Excellence at Singapore Management University (SMU) doing a robust yearly review of the Customer Satisfaction Index in Singapore. It measures a gamut of customer satisfaction including customer expectations, the perceived overall quality of the product and service as well as its value. Can this review be expanded to do a horizon-scanning against other comparable and emerging economies?

Our enterprises will also need to compete for, grow and retain talent. To do so, our enterprises will need to benchmark human capital standards vis-à-vis industry and regional peers. At present, the Institute of Human Resource Professionals has a free Human Capital Diagnostic Tool (HCDT).

The self-diagnostic HCDT Navigator covers 11 areas of human capital measurements and provides a diagnostic report within 30 minutes. A more comprehensive diagnostic is led by a qualified assessor, the result is an organisation report detailing the calculated human capital maturity level for processes and practices. Employers will then be able to assess key areas to improve and benchmark against industry peers.

This is a good tool that needs greater awareness amongst employers and be scaled up as every organisation's basic tool kit. Through more tools like this, we can encourage higher adoption of human capital diagnostic and benchmarking.

In my Adjournment Motion on strengthening mental wellness at the workplace, I proposed that Enterprise SG grants, such as the Enterprise Development Grant (EDG) and the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) include a survey on employees' well-being before and after the implementation of the project to measure potential improvements on employees' wellness, in addition to employee's value add gains.

I would like to reiterate the call and make a further recommendation to include the HCDT diagnostic tool as a key requirement for all Enterprise SG grants. Any form of transformation needs to begin with human capital improvements. Human capital practices form a foundation for any ability to attract and retain talent. This foundation would also maximise the value of the new Job-Skills Integrator scheme announced in this Budget.

Conversely, if an employer has a weak human capital quotient, the resource to integrate jobs and skills would be wasted, as there will be eventual churn than integration. Certainly, we need to support employers to execute more progressive HR policies and I will share more recommendations during MOM's Committee of Supply debates.

Sir, we need to constantly benchmark our industries domestically and regionally. Two key areas of benchmarking, customer experience and human capital quotient, these provides a constant health check for employers on competitiveness based on perceived value to customers and manpower talents.

To stay competitive in the global markets, aspects such as the cost issue may be difficult to compete on. But we can be a strong contender in the realms of service culture, overall value and experience underpinned by strong human capital management.

Sir, before I proceed to my next point, I would like to declare that I am a business owner of a food waste valorisation company, which assists clients to reduce carbon footprint attributed to food waste disposal. We need to support employers to compete on environment sustainability credentials as more MNEs and regional economic blocs are actualising emission cuts' targets and factoring this in their purchasing evaluations.

Therefore, there is an increasing emphasis on carbon accounting in global supply chains. Carbon accounting is a way of measuring how much greenhouse gas an organisation emits. Like financial accounting, carbon accounting quantifies the impact of an organisation's business activities. There is now a focus on "Scope 3" of accounting, referring to indirect emissions that occur in the value chain of a company and are not already included in Scope 1 and 2.

Tackling Scope 3 presents an additional layer of complexities, including opaque carbon accounting and tracking practices, the need to work collaboratively with customers, supply networks and industry groups; and the difficulty of keeping stakeholders engaged in a complex change effort.

As such, Scope 3 measurements and management can be daunting for many companies in Singapore because the data coverage is comprehensive while the data sources fall out of the companies' direct control. Collecting this data requires collaboration with companies' value chain partners and is an important effort.

I would like to call on the Government to first assist local enterprises to adopt a nationally recognised standard of carbon accounting; and second, to rapidly support enterprises to build internal capabilities and tools to account for carbon. This will be seen as an effort to future-proof our industries and dovetails with the Singapore Green Plan.

I have heard of cases where MNEs prefer one hotel over another to conduct their yearly corporate conferences and Dinner and Dance (D&D) because it is more sustainable. Therefore, by equipping our local enterprises with the abilities and tools to account for carbon, we future-proof their relevance in a world increasingly being traded by green measurements. We can build this new capability on our competitive advantage, on our reputation as a trusted, transparent financial hub.

I will now move on to the importance of building a resilient nation. A very important aspect of "resilience" is climate resilience and adaptation, something which cannot be ignored. Singapore is not insulated from the impact of climate change. From 1980 to 2020, the annual mean temperature has increased from 26.9°C to 28.0°C. The mean sea level in the Straits of Singapore has also increased at the rate of 1.2 millimetres to 1.7 millimetres per year.

Last year, I spoke on climate resilience and adaptation. I am heartened that this year, it is mentioned in the Deputy Prime Minister's Budget. No matter what we do to advance the green economy and reduce the rate of temperature increases, we are already experiencing the effects of climate change. We need to safeguard our island.

Climate adaptation should not just be seen as a defensive mechanism. We should regard this as an offensive strategy by turning this into a new exportable technology and service to societies around the world. As Singapore is not endowed with renewable energy resources such as land for solar energy production or large river dams for hydropower production, our ability to create value in this area is limited. However, Singapore has built up deep expertise in engineering and design over the past few decades. Climate change adaptation is a tremendous economic opportunity for Singaporeans.

Sir, bringing back the issue to a pertinent concern: the average age of our Singaporean workforce in comparison to the region. Indeed, there are manpower constraints as businesses continue to face issues. If businesses do not have the available manpower, they will be hard pressed to deliver the best service experience in a timely manner.

With our ageing workforce and low birth rates, in comparison to the younger workforce in the region, in the longer run, other concerns emerge. Are the existing foreign worker policies sustainable?

There are fiscal implications, we continue to need tax revenue from an aging tax base. Also, it is important to note that foreigners do not just compliment Singaporeans in the workforce but also contribute to taxes and do not receive much of the social benefits. Hence, I call on the Government to continue to ensure Singaporeans have access to the best jobs. But growing jobs for Singaporeans is a non-zero-sum game. Employers need complimentary manpower to stay competitive and relevant.

Sectors still recovering from the pandemic need help to transform while those that are ready should be enabled to seize emerging opportunities. I, hence, call on the Government to continue to review more targeted manpower measures vis-à-vis key growth areas that bolster our economy with better jobs, higher wages and support our transition to a greener economy.

Mr Speaker, Sir, there are growing sentiments amongst SMEs and certain business segments that the Government appears to be shifting from a pro-growth, pro-business approach to one that is more pro-redistribution. While I do not believe that this is the case as supporting society and businesses goes hand-in-hand, I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister can allay such concerns.

We need SMEs to feel that they are being supported in their growth journey, so that we have more large local enterprises (LLEs). LLEs and SMEs are rooted to Singapore and can provide longer-term jobs for Singaporeans.

Mr Speaker, Sir, for Singapore to continue to provide good jobs and for our seniors to have sufficient retirement adequacy, for our young to achieve their dreams in Singapore and not have to leave Singapore for greener pastures, we need to ensure two things that I have touched on in my speech.

First, that we remain competitive and relevant by constantly benchmarking on two key areas, customer experience and human capital management, and equipping our enterprises with the ability to account for carbon as more MNEs and regional economic blocks are factoring supply chain carbon footprint in their purchasing evaluations.

And second, that we continue to build a climate resilient nation and turning this into a new exportable economic value. Overall, this Budget will continue to strengthen our common resilience agenda and reinforce Singapore's strong social compact. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Budget.

Ms Hazel Poa.

Mr Speaker, it was announced that the grant for resale Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats will be increased in order to make resale flats more affordable for first-timers. This is exactly the price spiral I spoke about during the debate on public housing two weeks ago.

The resale grant will push up demand for resale flats and therefore, increase resale prices, which would later necessitate a further increase in resale grants feeding into a continuous price spiral. More tax revenue would also be needed to fund the additional grants.

As land costs is determined based on resale transactions, the increase in resale prices would result in higher land cost. The amount that HDB pays to Singapore Land Authority (SLA) for land would increase, thereby, increasing the cost of new flats.

This would mean that either new flat buyers have to pay more, or subsidies and grants for new flats must be increased to make the new flats affordable. More tax revenue would be needed to fund any increase in subsidies and grants. Such a cycle of more and more tax revenue being needed to be paid into reserves in the form of land price is unsustainable and places an unnecessary tax burden on taxpayers. Let me explain why I say it is unnecessary.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister has said that we continue to be in a financially tight situation and the reserves drawn out to fund the COVID-19 packages were unlikely to be paid back. An occasional paper from the Ministry of Finance (MOF) on medium-term fiscal projections has also warned of the need to raise further taxes to fund the expected increase in expenditures.

Under such an environment, any increase in subsidies and grants for housing would necessitate an increase in taxes. This situation is caused by the way we treat land sales proceeds. Under current practice, the proceeds from the sale of land are put into reserves. The Government argues that to do otherwise would reduce the value of the reserves. Progress Singapore Party (PSP) begs to defer.

Back in the days when land was sold on a freehold basis, this practice made financial sense and was the prudent thing to do. PSP agrees with this approach. However, when land is sold on a freehold basis, this practice should have been reviewed.

Since land reverts to the state at the end of the leasehold period, there is no reduction in the value of the reserves at that point. On what basis do we claim that our future generations have been deprived? The same piece of land the Government now owns will still belong to the Government 99 years later, or 20 years later or at the end of any other lease period.

The land sale proceeds is payment for the use of the land over the lease period. This is similar to rental payments which is also payment for the use of land over a fixed period, albeit a shorter one. Whether the use of the land is given on a three-year basis, 20-year basis or 99-year basis, the same principle applies.

At the previous Budget, I have argued that land sales proceeds should be treated as revenue divided over the period of the lease. I have also illustrated via a table how this can grow into a significant revenue stream in a steady state.

MOF's response to my proposal then was that this is a different concept. They do not deny the soundness and financial prudence of the proposal. Today, I venture further to point out that the situation we are facing with home affordability issues highlights how the current practice of putting land sales proceeds into reserves is not sustainable and places unnecessary tax burden on taxpayers. The increasing land cost that necessitated higher subsidies and grants in order to keep houses affordable makes higher taxes necessary.

However, if the land sale proceeds were taken as revenue, higher land costs mean higher revenue which can fund the higher subsidies and grants without needing higher taxes. There is inherent stability in this approach and the concept is sound. Against the backdrop of the tight fiscal position shown in MOF's paper, if we continue with the current accounting practice, the tax burden of HDB subsidies and grants will get increasingly painful in the years ahead.

Proceeds on the sale of leasehold land is income generated from land reserves, similar to the investment returns from our Sovereign Wealth Funds. Treating the proceeds from sale of leasehold land as revenue is thus similar to Net Investment Returns Contribution (NIRC). Whereas in the case of financial assets, we may need to retain part of the investment returns to ensure the value of the assets keep up with inflation, the value of the land that reverts to the state at the end of the lease period is inflation-proof.

PSP therefore urges the Government again to review its accounting treatment of land sales proceeds.

Coming after the announcement of the 2% GST hike, MOF's paper warning of tax increases raises worries of further tax burdens on the people who are already straining under the rapid increase in cost of living.

The additional taxes in this year's Budget have fallen primarily on individuals rather than companies. For example, higher GST, higher taxes on tobacco and higher-end properties and vehicles. Companies, on the other hand, have either new tax incentives or existing ones extended.

PSP is of the view that the more profitable companies should pay more taxes. Based on MOF's reply to my Parliamentary Question (PQ) on corporate taxes paid by companies of different profit levels, it is seen that for YA2018 to YA2021, companies earning profits before tax of between $200,000 and $10 million paid on average 8% to 9% of their profits as taxes. Those with higher profits paid a lower percentage.

Companies earning between $10 million and $100 million in profits paid on average 5.1% of their profits as tax. For companies earning between $100 million and $1 billion in profits, 2.8%. For companies with profits beyond $1billion, 0.9%. Companies with the highest profits actually pay the lowest percentage of their profits as tax!

To illustrate, a company making $2 million in profits pays 9% of its profits as taxes. This is 10 times the rate of a company that makes $2 billion in profits, that is, 1,000 times the profit. This is highly inequitable.

In their reply, MOF stated that effective tax rate should be calculated based on percentage of chargeable income, not profits before tax. I disagree.

Profits before tax is calculated based on internationally accepted accounting standards but chargeable income is affected by things like which expenses are tax deductible and which are not, what income is taxable and what is not, which capital expenditure can be expensed over one year and which over longer and so on. In other words, chargeable income has already incorporated part of our tax policies and treatments.

Therefore, to see the full effect of our tax policies on companies in a holistic manner, not just of the corporate tax rate but also tax incentives, exemptions and other treatments, we should be comparing the amount of tax paid with profits before tax.

We should review the tax incentives and treatments given to companies earning profits beyond $10 million so that they pay more taxes. For example, if companies earning above $1 billion in profits pay just 3% of their profits as taxes instead of the current 0.9%, the additional revenue raised would be about $5 billion per year!

It is time for companies to pay a fairer share of their profits as taxes. Even in the absence of any global agreement, this is something we should do, not because we are forced to and it need not be tied to any global timetable.

We have traditionally used low corporate tax as a means to attract investments. When the global minimum corporate tax is implemented, this strategy will lose effectiveness. With the loss of this tool, it has become even more urgent for us to find ways to address the high cost in Singapore. With higher corporate tax revenue, we can use that to lower business cost and cost of living to offset the higher effective tax rate thereby making Singapore still an attractive investment destination and provide relief to Singaporeans. PSP therefore urges a thorough review of our policies on property and transport to bring down costs.

In conclusion, we urge that land sales proceeds be taken as revenue divided over the lease period to ease the tax burden on taxpayers and for more profitable companies to pay more taxes and to use that additional corporate tax revenue to lower cost in Singapore.

Mr Desmond Tan.

The Labour Movement welcomes Government's support for workers in this year's Budget Statement to grow our economy, improve training and job placement, enhance employment support for those who may need more help and to tackle the rising cost of living.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that trust between people, institutions, businesses and Government is critical. When businesses in some sectors were badly hit and jobs were uncertain, it is this trust that enables National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and our tripartite partners to work closely to save jobs, support our businesses and workers.

We cannot assume that the trust we have built with our workers will continue to be strong over time. We have to engage with each generation of workers to listen to their needs, anxieties, their aspirations and to provide assurance that we will walk the journey with them.

With these in mind, NTUC launched the #EveryWorkerMatters Conversations or EWMC in short, last year. The #EWMC aims to reach out to at least 20,000 workers through dialogues, focus group discussions and surveys to hear their views around work and to refresh NTUC's compact with workers.

Since its launch, NTUC has been listening to a wide range of workers from youths to mature workers, Professionals, Managers and Executives (PMEs), the self-employed, essential service workers, caregivers and to ex-offenders. We are excited to share our recommendations when they are ready, sometime later this year.

But what are all these for? Let me quote our NTUC Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng, "Through #EWMC, NTUC will ensure that our workers' voices are heard. We aim to put forth valuable feedback and useful recommendations that can shape policies with our workers' interests at its core. After all, workers are at the heart of our nation's progress."

Through the #EWMC engagements, key themes and preliminary ideas are emerging and taking shape, which my fellow Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) will cover in their respective speeches. This includes retirement adequacy, un-employment support, supporting younger workers and workers in the lower-wage sectors, workplace health and safety, caregiving, training, among others.

And in the next part on my speech, I will provide an update on NTUC initiatives to support training and upskilling of our workers.

I believe that to empower our workers with opportunities and abilities, we need to build a culture of lifelong learning.

In Randstad's recent 2022 Workmonitor study, 91% of employees surveyed in Singapore have indicated an interest in career learning and development opportunities. Despite this, only 22% said that they have received training and upskilling opportunities from their employers in the past 12 months.

That said, since 2015, around 30% of eligible Singaporeans have utilised their SkillsFuture credit. A steady increase over the past years.

I would like to take this opportunity to share three possible reasons observed from the #EWMC and research conducted by NTUC on why workers do not attend or complete their training.

The first reason is a practical one regarding time, money and manpower. At the focus group discussions, participants shared that manpower-lean firms may not allow workers to go for training and might call workers back even if they were scheduled for training due to operational needs.

Many find training course fees rather high despite subsidies from SkillsFuture Credit and other funds. Companies also do not provide protected time and employees often have to take time outside of work to upgrade themselves. And this often has to be balanced with other priorities like caregiving.

The second reason is the lack of confidence in the returns on training. Employees had expressed their doubts if training could bring about any real positive impact for their careers, in terms of job or wage growth. Employees also questioned how useful or relevant training could be, if there are no real opportunities for application within the company. Similarly, employers expressed concerns that employees might change jobs or change companies after receiving training.

The third reason is the lack of awareness towards training needs and opportunities. Workers may not have sufficient knowledge to diagnose their own skills gap and the skillsets required for their next intended career move. Similarly, employers find it challenging to identify the required skill sets or knowledge that employees might need for certain job roles.

These findings do suggest that employees are more prepared to go for training if they were initiated by the employers, when training is for purpose of meeting specific job demands within the company and with better assurance of time support and wage outcomes.

And that is why in 2019, NTUC introduced the concept of Company Training Committees (CTCs) between our unions and employers to support business transformation that can lead to company-initiated training and skills upgrading for workers.

We are thankful for Government's support with the $70 million CTC Grant which commenced in August last year. To date, I am happy to update that we had formed around 1,200 CTCs, approved 17 companies' CTC Grant projects, with many more applications being processed, as we speak.

One example of a CTC company is the Royal Plaza on Scotts (RPS). The company formed a CTC and had two rounds of Operations Technology Roadmap to transform its business and to redesign its jobs.

One direct beneficiary of CTC is Mr Hamid bin Selamat, who was an engineering supervisor. Positive and open-minded towards upgrading, he took up security modules and became a certified Security Officer at the age of 65. Now, he can perform two roles in the company – engineering and security – with benefits such as better wages and better work prospects.

Having experienced the positive outcomes from CTC for both business and workers, RPS has applied for the CTC Grant with a commitment to give wage increment for the impacted local workers.

We hope more companies will follow suit and will work with NTUC in forming CTCs, because we are committed to support you in the journey of enterprise and workforce transformation.

Last year, brother Chee Hong Tat spoke about the challenge of jobs-skills mismatch, where employers, on the one hand, are short-handed and could not find enough workers to fill vacancies, and workers, on the other hand, find the skills they acquired are not a good fit to what employers are looking for. The Labour Movement is therefore pleased to hear Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announce the Jobs-Skills Integrators pilot initiative, which will commence with three sectors.

With the involvement of industry, training and employment facilitation partners, we envisage that the Jobs-Skills Integrators will help to bridge the information gap for workers and employers, who may find it difficult to identify high-quality training which industries will find relevant. NTUC will fully support this pilot.

Our Government has always been supportive of continuous learning and skills upgrading. Many initiatives have been introduced to support workers’ upskilling, whether at work or during job transition. The SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme (SCTP) implemented in April 2022 is a good example. I am glad that the Government has decided to make this a long-term programme in replacement of the SGUnited Skills Programme (SGUS) and the SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways Programme which were implemented during the pandemic.

I hope SkillsFuture Singapore will progressively expand the SCTP to more sectors so that more workers can benefit from this scheme.

I also call on the Government to consider protected training leave for employees and review training fund and allowances, to support our workers in alleviating their concern for the lack of time and finances and for opportunity cost when they had to attend training.

For example, the Government can consider introducing training allowances that are tied to the trainees under the SCTP.

Mr Speaker, Sir, Singapore is experiencing persistently high inflation and uncertain economic outlook, just like the rest of the world. Supply chain disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted our economic and labour landscape significantly.

In many countries, this heightens the risk of conflict and instability. As risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft’s chief analyst said, and I quote, “We are talking about numerous powder kegs around the world simply waiting for that spark to be ignited. We just don’t know where that spark will come first”.

Recently, we have seen these “sparks” flying through bitter strikes in countries such as the UK, France and South Korea, which threaten the delivery of essential service in healthcare as well as in public transportation.

In the UK, strike actions were carried out by workers such as nurses, rail workers, postal workers, ambulance workers and airport staff. Workers there demand for higher wages due to higher inflation. Because of the strike by ambulance workers, residents with serious but non-life-threatening conditions might not be immediately attended to by an ambulance.

Closer to home in Asia, the truckers in South Korea initiated strike actions against their government. They were calling their government to make permanent a policy on minimum freight rates for container and cement truck drivers. To end the strike, the government had to issue “back-to-work” orders, by which the strikes had already lasted for two weeks and cost US$2.7 billion to the economy, according to their government’s estimates.

These strike actions had caused disruption to public lives, demoralised workers, discouraged investments and destabilised the economy.

In Singapore, we have managed to avoid such stand-offs through tripartite arrangement and with each tripartite partner doing its part and working hand in hand. One example is the Progressive Wage Model (PWM).

PWM was first implemented in 2014 for the cleaning sector. Since then, we have progressively rolled out PWM in seven sectors and two occupations. With PWM, workers can be assured that they will not only receive a minimum wage corresponding to their sector and occupation, but also defined career pathways that would ensure that their wages increase as their skills and responsibilities increase as well. For example, the landscape workers have moved up by 3.5% per annum from $1,300 in 2016 to $1,650 in 2022, more than twice the median wage increase of 1.4%. These wages will continue increasing, till about $2,385 in 2028.

This is not all. Together with the expanded Local Qualifying Salary (LQS), this would benefit more than 90%, in fact, 94% of lower-wage workers.

At this juncture, I would like to make a comment on the proposal by Mr Leong Mun Wai on "Living Wage", which is a guaranteed take-home of $1,800 for all Singaporean workers. It is noteworthy that Mr Leong agrees with the PWM, as he also said that the PWM can remain to help workers achieve a higher level of wage than the "Living Wage".

The PWM mandates fair and sustainable wages according to skill level. It is tailored to each sector and agreed upon by the tripartite partners – the Government, the employers and unions.

As mentioned, we have steadily expanded the PWM into seven sectors and two occupations, and together with the LQS which is set at $1,400, our low-wage workers can also receive a Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) of up to $350 per month. PWM and LQS combined already cover a wide base of 94% of all low-wage workers within this year. The remaining 6% are small family-owned businesses which would usually not be covered by minimum wage in other countries as well.

As for the level of minimum wage or "Living Wage" that has been proposed, we note that there have been different proposals: $1,300 by Workers' Party; $1,800 by PSP this year, which is $300 more than the $1,500 that they proposed in 2021.

We need a sustainable and systematic mechanism to set and review the floor. The LQS is a stable methodology and until COVID-19, the LQS has been increased $100 each year from 2017. My colleague Fahmi Aliman will suggest a way to review our LQS in his speech later.

I recognise that we all want wages to be high. In NTUC it is our raison d'être to have better wages, welfare and work prospects.

But we must also do this sustainably, without causing unintended consequences like disemployment. We want higher wages but we also want higher employment rates and there had been studies that showed clear downsides on minimum wage, including disemployment and the perverse outcome that the minimum wage becomes the maximum wage. And this is of concern especially in a small economy in Singapore where SMEs form the bulk of our workers. PWM has a proven track record of raising wages without the risk of job losses.

So, in NTUC, we support a PWM that is customised to sector or occupation, ensure productivity improvements with clear career pathways. In this way, we can move confidently with our tripartite partners and our workers get their assurance of a basic wage and a ladder for increase over the years as their skills upgrade.

Mr Speaker, please allow me to speak in Mandarin before I conclude in English.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mr Speaker, the challenges posed by the pandemic over the past three years have highlighted the need for Singapore to build a more flexible and adaptable workforce to respond to the rapidly changing labour market and industry needs.

NTUC must also constantly transform to better serve workers in all sectors regardless of job position, industry, full-time or part-time, platform worker or self-employed. NTUC is committed to safeguarding your interest and providing you with better wages, welfare and work prospects.

In this respect, tripartism is crucial. NTUC is pleased to receive a $70 million grant from the Government for us to continue to develop the training and placement support ecosystem for local workers and provide more employment assistance and support for them. For employers, we hope that they will continue to drive business transformation.

Although this year is the Year of the Rabbit, we should not adopt a wait-and-see attitude. Instead, we should be as nimble as a rabbit and use the keen sense of business acumen to drive business transformation and bring about business growth by leaps and bounds.

(In English): Charting our paths forward, the NTUC affirms the importance of tripartism. Since the NTUC Modernisation Seminar in 1969, generations of Government, businesses and union leaders have worked hard to build and sustain Singapore’s brand of tripartism.

I quote Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s speech during NTUC National Delegates Conference in 2011. He said this about tripartism, and I quote, “We have to preserve this ability, this trust at all costs. It’s an intangible national treasure; we built it up through our young history. It’s one of the most valuable things we can pass on to our future generations.”

Tripartism is Singapore’s national treasure. And we must never be complacent or take it for granted because one misstep can break this trust.

I thank Member Raj Joshua Thomas for agreeing that tripartism is our key pillar for our economic and social resilience. It works when all parties represent our constituents' interests well.

Regarding the case he mentioned of how NTUC raised an issue with the security agency, I want to assure him and his industry colleagues that in NTUC, our unions believe that companies must be given the flexibility to transform and right-size. But the company must also do so fairly and adhere to the established principles and guidances, such as in this case the Tripartite Guidelines for Fair Employment Practices both in substance and in spirit.

The Labour Movement will continue to work with our tripartite partners to resolve any differences that may arise every now and then amicably and through established processes. Ultimately, we want our companies to do well and to create good jobs for our workers.

Through the #EWMC, the NTUC will renew our social compact with our workers and bring to the table of tripartite partners the collective sentiments of our workers. And in so doing, strengthening tripartism, preserving industrial peace and building a more resilient nation as we move into the new era together.

To every worker in Singapore, on behalf of the Labour Movement, we want to thank you for your hard work and sacrifices throughout the pandemic. The NTUC will continue to champion for your interest to achieve better wages, welfare and work prospects because every worker matters. Sir, I support the Budget. [Applause.]

Mr Patrick Tay.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of Budget 2023. It is a thoughtful and forward-looking Budget which supports the diverse needs of society while ensuring judicious spending as we build our resilience to embrace future challenges and opportunities.

The nature of our economy as we know, is shifting and changing due to digital disruption and the green transition. We cannot shy away from these, and in fact, we must be at the forefront to ensure that Singapore remains a competitive and attractive investment location. In the longer term, this will lead to better jobs, better wages and better opportunities for our local workforce.

However, because of this rapid restructuring, the nature of work is transforming and the half-life of skills is shortening. Understandably, this has caused greater uncertainty and anxiety for our local workforce. This is further exacerbated by demand softening in various parts of the world, resulting in cyclical headwinds in sectors such as manufacturing in the electronics and semi-conductor space.

On top of this, there is also the challenge of soaring energy prices which is eroding profits of companies. Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong mentioned the extension of the Energy Efficiency Grant which would be welcome by eligible businesses. I do hope the Government will also consider helping other critical sectors to cope, such as through energy rebates for export-focused electronics firms, to keep these high-value industries afloat and ensure workers’ livelihoods.

In my past speeches, I have highlighted a segment of our workforce which has been impacted immensely. They are the Professionals, Managers and Executives – PMEs for short – especially those 40 to 60 years of age. They are in a particularly precarious position when they lose their jobs as they generally have more dependents. They also take a longer time to find a new job in view of their age and may lack relevant skills to take on the new and growing areas and jobs. Upon re-entry to employment, there is also an increasing propensity for them to suffer from a drop in wages.

As we move forward, we need to keep a look out for every worker and bring everyone along together on this journey of progress because every worker matters. To do so, we need a threefold approach, what I call the "three Fs": first, financial support for displaced workers to cushion them and their families in the short term as they actively search for new employment; second, facilitated employment and training to upgrade workers and help them seize opportunities in the new economy; third, fair access to PME roles to allow our local PMEs to compete with foreign PMEs, regardless of age, on a level playing field and boost local PMEs' employment outcomes and strengthen the Singaporean Core.

Some of these, such as the short-term financial support, are part of the recommendations presented by the joint NTUC-SNEF PME Taskforce which I co-chaired with the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF). I also spoke about them in my last Budget speech. I am heartened that the Government has taken these recommendations to help our local PMEs into serious consideration, but there is also still more that we can do to support our workers facing anxieties about unemployment. Allow me to elaborate.

First, short-term financial support for displaced workers.

Today, PMEs are generally less likely to receive support from the Government in view of their earlier higher income. However, as I shared earlier, PMEs are an increasingly vulnerable group because of rapid economic changes and cycles.

When complemented with active labour market interventions, unemployment support – or using another term, re-employment support – can help displaced PMEs in their job search journey. The support provides displaced workers the space to upgrade their skills and look out for suitable employment, with the knowledge that they would be able to continue supporting their family’s basic needs during this difficult period. This increases the likelihood of PMEs looking for jobs that are a good match to their skillsets or which offer progression opportunities. With a better job match, their employment duration at their next job could be longer and any under-employment mitigated.

There are understandably concerns that with unemployment support, workers will remain unemployed for longer periods, making it harder for them to re-enter employment and causing a strain on Government resources. However, in an online survey with 500 respondents conducted in April 2021 as part of the PME Taskforce's work, almost 80% supported the introduction of unemployment support, with most citing that it would help workers cover their basic needs during their job search. This finding echoed the calls I made consistently since 2014 when I first started lobbying for some form of unemployment support for our PMEs and workers.

We still hear the same today, as we carry out our #EveryWorkerMatters Conversation.

Indeed, we have seen how unemployment support can serve as a lifeline while facilitating workers to upgrade their skills and actively search for jobs. At the height of the pandemic, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) introduced the COVID-19 Recovery Grant (CRG) to provide temporary financial support to workers who experienced involuntary job loss, no-pay leave or income loss. To be eligible, unemployed workers must prove that they have actively participated in job search or training or attempted to improve their business revenue, if self-employed. NTUC’s e2i will contact individuals who are receiving their third tranche of CRG to refer them to resources that can support their job search efforts. In the same vein, we introduced the Self-Employed Persons Income Relief Scheme (SIRS) to help freelancers and the self-employed to tide through the first year of the pandemic for up to $1,000 per month and up to nine months.

I am grateful that the CRG has been extended till the end of 2023, as many workers are still recovering from the pandemic’s economic impact. However, I would like to reiterate the call for the Government to go a step further and introduce a permanent scheme that would provide short-term unemployment support for all workers who are involuntarily displaced, including PMEs. Beneficiaries could similarly be required to prove that they are actively trying to re-enter the job market. In this way, it provides targeted support, coupled with upskilling and job matching which NTUC is well-placed to support, to help workers rebound and re-enter employment.

I acknowledge that a scheme of such scale will be challenging to introduce, but I implore the Government to seriously consider this proposal. This scheme would reassure our workers that we will work hand-in-hand with them to navigate through the exacting changes and challenges in the global economy.

The second important element is facilitated employment and training.

Job-seeking can be a very daunting experience, especially when the individual is forced to seek new employment involuntarily. In another online survey with 1,000 respondents conducted in April 2021 as part of the PME Taskforce work, only 58% of mature PMEs were confident in getting a job with their current skills and capabilities. Our employment facilitation landscape must optimise the job-seeker experience by funnelling them seamlessly to the support they need at various stages.

This could be in the form of customised career counselling and advisory or training that would equip them to take on jobs in growth areas or redesigned job roles. Thereafter, we need to enable a good career match via schemes such as the Career Conversion Programmes, which allow workers to be placed in new roles, and then undergo structured on-the-job training to transit into the new role. Finally, we must continuously monitor outcomes for participants so we can come in and support them in a timely manner.

NTUC’s e2i is committed to working closely with the Government to support jobseekers, particularly the more vulnerable, mature tech mid-careerists as well as those most likely to be affected by the green transition, such as workers in the oil and gas industries. e2i’s Lift-and-Place model can be leveraged to facilitate the movement of workers from sectors that are declining to adjacent sectors that require similar skills, or sectors that need to quickly ramp up operations.

Our unions and union leaders will also work together to improve career matching and transition assistance to workers at the grassroots.

While we embark on these efforts, I hope employers will also do their part by recognising vocational certifications of mid-careerists who have upskilled or reskilled themselves and want to enter different sectors, such as the tech sector. In the long run, this will help the local talent pipeline and strengthen our Singaporean Core.

Beyond supporting displaced workers, we must also facilitate upskilling and reskilling amongst those who are still in employment. I urge the Government to consider incentivising more employers to send their employees for training, by providing higher funding support for Absentee Payroll and providing maximum funding for courses relevant to sectors where there is a shortage of local PMEs and workers. This enhanced funding of both training and absentee payroll can also be extended to sectors and companies facing difficult cyclical challenges such as in the electronics sector, even as most of our industries recover post pandemic.

We should also facilitate access to career coaching to empower workers to chart their career paths. Beyond larger establishments like NTUC’s e2i and Workforce Singapore, there are numerous private sector career coaches that individuals can tap on. I therefore ask for SkillsFuture Singapore to consider extending the usage of SkillsFuture Credits to engage personal career counselling and advisory as well as coaching services as these are currently limited to selected segments of the workforce.

The last element, or should I say the last "F" is fair access to PME roles for our locals.

We must ensure a level playing field for our local PMEs and the foreign talent that we bring in to complement our local workforce. NTUC as the Labour Movement have been lobbying for and watching this space, whether it is discrimination with respect to age, gender, nationality, or even disability, whether physical or mental, as well as all other forms of discriminatory practices. We now have the tripartite guidelines for fair employment practices, as well as the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP).

Employers should establish and implement policies and practices to foster a fair and inclusive workplace and provide a safe environment for workers to report concerns. To do so effectively, it is crucial for companies to have certified Human Resource (HR) professionals, either by the Institute of Human Resource Professionals (IHRP) or other internationally recognised organisations. SMEs with lean manpower should also be equipped with such HR professionals, perhaps through the introduction of shared HR services.

I would like to call for the Government and tripartite partners to generate more awareness on the importance of improving HR standards, possibly through the IHRP certification, and to further collaborate to improve existing policies and practices. Where retrenchments are inevitable, the Government must ensure fair and responsible retrenchment practices are adopted.

For the small proportion of egregious companies with discriminatory practices, there should be a penalty framework in place to bring them to task. I hope that the upcoming Workplace Fairness legislation will strike a good balance between protecting our local workforce and managing business needs.

Mr Speaker, Sir, to conclude, we cannot escape from disruptions and rapid structural changes in our economy. Our local workers, especially mature PMEs, will continue to face volatility and uncertainty. What matters is that we remain resilient, seek out opportunities amidst these disruptions and adapt to ride the waves of change.

To support our workers as they navigate these uncertainties, we need a threefold approach with the "three Fs" of financial support to cushion displaced workers in the short-term, facilitated employment and training, as well as fair access to PME roles.

We at NTUC will continue to champion these for all workers, so that every worker can secure better wages, welfare and work prospects because every worker matters.

I believe we have the means, the resources, the capabilities and the right people to make this happen in Singapore. The strong tripartite bond between Government, employers and the labour movement has been our secret weapon for many years and will continue to do so as we transition into a new and prosperous future. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Budget.

Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

Mr Speaker, while the Workers’ Party retains its opposition to the GST hike – believing that there are indeed alternative revenue sources available – and we recognise that this Budget embeds the self said hike, we also acknowledge that the Budget is a forward-looking one, aimed at both stimulating medium-term growth as well as improving progressivity. For those reasons, it has my support.

Nevertheless, I believe it falls short in a number of areas. My speech will begin by offering some direct responses to the Budget before moving on to offer suggestions on how we may inspire growth via three of its key drivers: labour, capital and productivity.

My first observation is that the fiscal policy stance will be contractionary. To be clear, the fiscal balance, using the Government’s accounting conventions, will result in a deficit of -0.3% of income in the fiscal year just past and there is projected deficit of -0.1% for the year to come.

But Members will undoubtedly be aware that this fiscally conservative approach tends to reduce the amount of available revenue, which in turn is more likely to throw up a deficit. I will not quibble over whether this methodology is justified. It has been litigated and relitigated already in this House. But I simply point out the fact, evident to all economists, that the Budget is, by conventional international standards, in surplus.

We may argue that this position is well justified; after all, we are not currently in a recession and we do need to build up a fiscal buffer should one visit us next year, and the Government is also constitutionally bound to run a balanced Budget during its full term. But let us just recognise that just two years after the worst recession in our country since Independence and notwithstanding the many giveaways in this year’s Budget, our fiscal impulse has decisively turned negative.

In my speech on the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill last year, I had suggested that one option available to the Government for rebating some of the unexpectedly higher revenue receipts to the people was to beef up of the GST Voucher (GSTV) scheme. In particular, I had suggested that the Government’s claim that GSTV would offset 20 years of GST payable had been eroded by inflation, by between one month and a year, depending on one’s flat size.

The Budget’s announcement that the permanent voucher scheme would be increased restores the Government’s original promise of offset years, and in fact, if anything, exceeds it with an additional $3 billion boost to the Assurance Package. It therefore offers much-needed support for coping with higher costs of living. Of course, the increase in cash quanta of between $100 and $150 has been somewhat diluted by higher sticker prices. Still, even taking inflation into account, the Budget still offers real increases of between $94 and $104measured in last year’s dollars, or $90 and $135 in 2021 dollars. This is welcomed.

In my speech on last year’s Budget Statement, I had also outlined a number of alternative revenue levers that the Workers’ Party believes are viable ways to raise revenue. These included an externalities lever, which would increase sin taxes as well as a wealth tax lever, which requires greater contributions from those who can afford to pay more.

As I explained then, it would be even possible to mix and match between the levers to derive a revenue mix that we can all accept.

I note that this Budget, by introducing additional taxes on high-end properties, luxury cars and tobacco, pulls some of the levers that we had previously suggested. While they do not go as far as we would like, they do add a cumulative $600 million to revenue.

To paraphrase Groucho Marx – a few hundred million here, a few hundred million there, and soon, you are talking about real money.

The Budget also raises the CPF ceiling from $6,000 to $8,000. Minister Wong explained that this was about "keeping pace with inflation".

I understand that this will not affect lower-income earners who earn below the ceiling and that, while it will reduce take-home pay for those earning more than $8,000 by about $400, the increased employer contributions mean that certain workers would enjoy a modest pay bump of around $340 as their employers' contributions rise.

Pay increases to cope with inflation are certainly a good thing as is making sure that our savings are adequate for retirement. However, for the typical middle-class family in Sengkang, the smaller take-home will stretch already tight budgets. The $400 could mean cutting back on tuition fees or that extra visit to the dentist for the family.

Is there an alternative way?

One wonders why the Government did not choose the route of returning the employer contribution to the full 20% instead. After all, this was the status quo in the 1990s until the Asian Financial Crisis. The employer share has since been cut and raised a number of times since but the equal share that was the case in the past has never been restored.

While I understand the need to provide employers with relief in the wage bill during a recession, we are not in one now. While restoring the employer contribution alone will not fully make up for the additional CPF savings that would result from an increased ceiling, one is still left to wonder why this approach was not part of the consideration for addressing the effects of inflation on CPF.

Mr Speaker, I mentioned that one important thrust of this year's Budget was to sustain long-term growth. I now move on to discuss three ways I think we can do even more.

During 2021's Committee of Supply debate, I sketched out the case for heightened total R&D expenditures, noting that its share – of a little shy of 2% of GDP – fell behind not only the global average of 2.3% but also those of leading knowledge-oriented nations such as the United States, Japan, Korea and Israel.

Two years hence, this remains the case. But if anything, the gap has widened.

The latest data reveal that spending by these other nations have all ticked up, as has world R&D spending, which is now up 0.3 percentage-points to 2.6% of GDP. In contrast, our national R&D rose only to 2.2% as a result of a collapse in output that year. As a share of GDP in the prior year, it remained mostly stagnant at 2%.

At the time, the Government stressed that our public expenditures do not significantly lag that of a number of advanced economies. It cited the spending of 0.7% relative to Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, all of which spend around 1%.

This Budget, to be clear, will inject the Productivity Fund with another $4 billion, which should bring our public share closer to that of our comparators.

But where is the discrepancy between the public and the private? It starts with an acknowledgement, which I believe that the Government will agree with, that public R&D cannot be expected to carry the load on its own. Rather, it needs to be a catalyst for our otherwise woeful private-sector spending on R&D.

Recognising this is key since there is evidence that the two are indeed complements and raising public R&D directly will contribute to greater business R&D. Moreover, such spillovers may be even greater for open economies such as our own.

But what is necessary to elevate our lagging national productivity is both of these working in tandem. Here is where a combination of increased spending in public R&D, coupled with strong tax incentives to foster private R&D would come in.

This Budget introduces an Enterprise Innovation Scheme meant to enhance tax deductions for innovation-related activities in Singapore. This will take advantage of exemptions for R&D credit in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) framework. Specifically, countries are indeed allowed to continue awarding R&D contracts to reduce the tax bills of multinational corporations (MNCs).

The strategy is straightforward. Generous tax credits create incentives for firms to locate their R&D activities in a subsidiary in Singapore, which in turn books R&D fees off revenue from the firm's entities in other jurisdictions.

Singapore is a signatory to the agreement and so adhering to the stipulations to BEPS eventually will be a given. R&D credits offer an opportunity for us to stimulate our domestic research activity in a perfectly legitimate fashion. But aspiration aside, up till now, the absolute number of firms assisted remains small – to the tune of about 520 companies.

The question is how the Government plans to scale up this assistance, especially among SMEs.

This echoes a point made by my hon friend, Leon Perera, in a speech that highlighted our missing mid-sized firms, way back in 2016.

What has been the main inhibitor to more enthusiastic take-up? Could these constraints be relaxed especially if we were to ease up on the need for recipients to demonstrate short-term results?

Minister Wong also announced that the SME Co-Investment Fund would enjoy an additional injection of $150 million. This is welcome, especially if it is directed towards investment and innovation.

Our public expenditure on R&D remains inadequate, especially, in my view, in the "D" part of R&D. In 2020, applied research expenditures actually declined by 4.3% even as spending in a number of other classes rose. This is especially worrisome since it is translational research of this form – basically, adapting basic research into commercially viable products, which often experiences a higher failure rate – where the Government can play a critical role in risk sharing, with a potentially high payoff for the economy.

Such vehicles already exist, such as A*STAR, EDBI or EDB New Ventures. But in my conversations with those in the sector, the need for officers in such agencies to meet short-term key performance indicators (KPIs) has been cited as a constraint.

Adopting the "venture" mindset requires tolerance of higher loss ratios. Would the Government consider setting up specific funding buckets that will allow the funding of moonshots with more flexible targets and fill more of the gap between seed and Series A funding?

Another approach is to undertake the exercise hand-in-hand via a more involved public-private partnership (PPP) model.

There is evidence that public credits directed towards PPPs can spur private sector innovation as can a better matching of universities with startups. Such an approach would be especially fruitful in areas such as biotech and pharmaceuticals where we have world-class upstream research produced by our universities along with excellent specialised downstream production capacity but, up till now, insufficient midstream capabilities.

Speaking of BEPS, it is worthwhile thinking carefully about the practical rollout of the treaty. The terms require that the global minimum corporate tax rate be set at 15%. Minister Wong shared that to comply, a domestic top-up tax would likely be implemented here in 2025.

My hon friend, Louis Chua, had previously made the point that the effective tax rate faced by MNCs and SMEs differ. According to the Government, the effective corporate tax rate averages between 8% and 10% for MNCs and around 3% for SMEs.

Notwithstanding the ongoing uncertainty about the implementation of BEPS, the Workers' Party continues to urge the Government to maintain this differential treatment of MNCs and SMEs, insofar as the effective corporate tax rate is concerned and to treat all MNCs regardless of size equally.

By our calculations, even with a reasonable loss of corporate and personal income taxes arising from the agreement, this approach to BEPS will still be a net positive for Government revenue. Placing the burden of higher corporate taxation on the shoulders of MNCs that are more able to afford it – a point that the hon Member Hazel Poa has mentioned earlier on – and who are the primary targets of the agreement in any case will provide a better business climate for our SMEs to eventually grow and become international companies in their own right and help rebalance our economy away from our historical reliance on multinationals.

Sir, in the 2021 Committee of Supply, I had spoken about how reskilling via schemes such as SkillsFuture could be better paired with a re-employment promise. At the time, I had also suggested a natural end-to-end complementarity between redundancy insurance at the point of separation, to re-training, to eventual reintegration into the workforce.

In his speech, Minister Wong spoke about introducing Jobs-Skills Integrators as a means of better empowering our workers. He also spoke about strengthening our safety nets but glaringly misses out how our net still provides inadequate support at the point of unemployment.

The Stanford economist, Paul Romer, once quipped that "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste". It is a pithy way to emphasise how competing interests may be willing to question their long-held assumptions and come together to confront a common problem. COVID-19 was our crisis du jour and the generous support we offered then to displaced workers offered us a tantalising glimpse of how valuable redundancy insurance can actually be.

This Government likes to reiterate that "a job is the best welfare." But what happens when our workers lose their jobs for reasons little related to their performance or ability?

It seems to me that as a society, we need to help these workers get back on their feet. In other words, we need a backup support system for redundant workers to access their first-best welfare system – which is a job.

One of the common reasons cited for not deploying an unemployment insurance scheme is the potential corrosive effects that having such insurance could have on workers' incentives to search for a job, at least until the payout period ends. In the worst-case scenario, detractors fear that having unemployment insurance will encourage quits because workers are confident that they will have a fallback source of income.

This is the crux of the objection by the then-Second Minister for Manpower, Mrs Josephine Teo, in her response to then-Workers' Party Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Daniel Goh's speech on redundancy insurance.

Notwithstanding how our proposal is for involuntary redundancy and not all forms of unemployment, these so-called "moral hazard" concerns are well recognised. However, the theoretical fear does not find much support in the empirical data.

Studies of advanced economies that have rolled out such insurance schemes tend to find little adverse effects for employment outcomes. Moreover, we should not simply focus on the negatives and conclude that the scheme is a bad one. The flip side of a greater willingness to quit is the reduction of insecurity and worry associated with a lost job or an end to the helplessness and frustration felt when stuck in a job that is making one unhappy.

The converse of a possible free rider who is soaking up welfare payouts and therefore voluntarily remaining unemployed is a parent who does not need to worry about being able to afford sending their child for tuition or to the doctor just because they lost their job.

Indeed, economists understand full well this trade-off and suggest that the optimal design of unemployment insurance schemes is to properly calibrate the tenure requirement – that is, how long an unemployed worker can benefit from the scheme – with a monetary requirement, which determines how much payout a worker can receive.

Interestingly, optimal schemes tend to pair a larger monetary requirement with a low tenure requirement. Other tweaks may entail a diminution of benefits over the course of one's unemployment spell or to deploy a wage tax after re-employment that increases the longer an individual has remained unemployed.

The Workers' Party longstanding proposal, raised at least since our 2015 manifesto, on redundancy insurance is broadly consistent with these principles.

Our suggested coverage duration of about six months is lower than the one year or more common to schemes in other countries, albeit still in line with our nation's lower than average unemployment spells of about two months. The proposed payout of 40% of the last-drawn salary is about average but still on the low side for advanced economies.

We were deliberately conservative here to ensure financial sustainability. However, we leave open the door for increases based on consultation and social consensus.

We also stress the importance of flexibility. Workers made redundant may choose to front-load their benefits if they have urgent bills to pay but may opt to rely on savings initially and only receive payouts later in the event that their unemployment turns out to be longer than anticipated.

In the spirit of encouraging risk-taking and entrepreneurship, we can also consider including the self-employed in the scheme, perhaps with different contribution shares, as we did during COVID-19.

Another major thrust of Mrs Teo’s critique of our proposal at the time was that it was better for the Government to bear the burden of unemployment support, rather than to layer another cost onto our businesses.

But is this a fair characterisation? As this House is aware, the incidence of a tax differs from those who are asked to pay it. In our view, part of the contributions toward redundancy insurance will be passed on to the workers. This part amounts to workers taking care of other workers. But to ensure that the tripartite nature of the social contract remains intact, the Government should also step in and contribute regularly to this pool in the form of a special-purpose development fund.

Mr Speaker, there are many things in this Budget that I like, but as I have explained, I think it remains incomplete in a number of areas that I believe can inspire long-run growth, for our people and our country.

Mr Abdul Samad.

Mr Speaker, Sir, on behalf of my fellow union leaders, members and working people, I would like to express our appreciation for the various support measures – from mitigating rising costs through the Assurance Package, supporting Singaporean housing aspirations and my personal favourite item – piloting the Jobs-Skills Integrators. This would certainly make training more meaningful for both workers and employers.

The enhancements to the existing schemes reflect the Government's continuous commitment to support Singaporeans. For example, the $300 CDC vouchers can now be used at participating supermarkets in addition to heartland merchants and hawkers. This is over and above what we have received recently. As the sole breadwinner of my family with three children over the age of 20, I have always been receiving various forms of support, ranging from subsidised school fees for my children, U-Save rebates and many more.

Nonetheless, the Budget is not a "one-size-fits-all" and there will always be voices of unhappiness and complaints that the amount of support is not enough. Regardless, I have picked up this catchy phrase from my fellow technical officer – "life goes on!"

Sir, the focus areas in my last two Budget debates were about strengthening our Singaporean workforce and providing support for the middle-income group.

Today, I will reiterate on the former with a focus on desired outcomes for workers. But before that, I would like to give special mention to a group of fellow Singaporeans who sacrifice their personal time and commitments to be the heart of the Labour Movement by serving working people at workplaces. I will share more about their selfless contributions shortly.

Sir, prior to who I am today, I admit that I belonged to the group of Singaporeans that always complained that the Government was not providing sufficient support for our citizens, especially the middle-income group. As cliché as it sounds, all changed in 2004 when I had an exchange with my colleague on income tax matters. I was unaware that I could offset my income tax payment with the Parenthood Tax rebates. After writing to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) to seek clarification and further advice, I was shocked and beyond overjoyed to see that previous payments for my income tax were credited back to my bank account within a month. Since then, I started to acknowledge and appreciate more, as the Government does support fellow Singaporeans in a fair and responsible manner.

Curiosity got the better of me and the rest is history as I stepped into the shoes of a union leader, to be an advocate and voice for all workers, representing their interests in the areas of wages, welfare and work prospects. Since then, it has been an enriching and fulfilling journey, and I have not looked back.

The group of people that I would like to give special mention to is none other than my fellow unionists. Many take this group for granted and often overlook their contributions. Unions are one part of what we call tripartism. This model is unique only to Singapore due to the strong collaboration between all three parties – unions, Government and employers – to achieve a common outcome of harmonious labour management relations resulting in better wages, welfare and work prospects for Singaporeans.

I have had the privilege to get to know and work alongside many senior leaders in my short span of 16 years as a unionist to ensure that our members in the represented group of companies are rewarded fairly and well taken care of. Like myself, this group of people are not chosen by the management. Rather, we made the conscious choice to volunteer, or are volunteered by fellow workers, to be their voices at the workplace.

Unionists are ever ready to represent their members in any instances of workplace grievances or issues relating to unfair practices. Cases are primarily settled amicably with management partners at the earliest possible moment. However, when the situation warrants, cases will then be escalated to either MOM or the Industrial Arbitration Court (IAC). With the presence of union leaders, I can attest and assure that such cases are few and far between.

At this juncture, I would like to call on MPs who are advisors to our unions to consistently engage with them so as to hear, understand and feel first-hand the challenges faced by my fellow union leaders, especially when dealing with unsupportive and stubborn management partners. I strongly believe that you can value-add to the respective unions.

I say this with the benefit of hindsight when I presented the case to our advisor and he exerted his influence over the management partners, hence ensuring that our workers were treated with dignity. This particular MP has since retired, but I will never forget his commitment to be by the side of the union leaders when we needed him most. This is just one of the few incidents that I have personally experienced. I also believe many other union leaders have had similar experiences like me. I call upon on workers to reach out to your union leaders, join the union, be part of this family of the Labour Movement as we will always be alongside you because for us, "Members First, Workers Always".

Sir, our recent battle against COVID-19 is not just purely about saving lives. It is also about ensuring that the livelihoods and dignity of our fellow Singaporeans are protected and being ready to step forward quickly to help workers when they face any issues or unfair practices at the workplace.

One such example that I would like to highlight is the unfair retrenchment exercise carried out by Eagle Services Asia in July 2020. Our union leaders from the aerospace and aviation industry conducted a secret ballot to sanction legal industrial action against the company.

Another example is concerning our security officers who were often subjected to verbal and physical abuse. Our leaders from the Union of Security Employees (USE) played a very active role to step in whenever they hear of such cases and ensure the perpetrators are dealt with by the respective authorities. Many of us remember recent cases such as the one where a luxury car driver had injured a security officer stationed at a primary school, or another, where a security officer was assaulted in a lift at a condominium located in Bukit Batok. For these two cases, USE made their presence felt and extended support for the affected officers even by helping to lodge Police reports. We are grateful that the perpetrators for these cases have since been charged in Court. This are just few examples of our unions in action.

Besides standing up for the rights of our workers, how many of us can recall when NTUC volunteered to administer the Self-Employed Persons Income Relief Scheme (SIRS) for self-employed personnel (SEP), where eligible individuals received a total of $9,000 from the Government? Many of the NTUC-Affiliated Unions and Associations (NTUC-ARU) staff and industrial relations officers were activated and mobilised to man the centres at Devan Nair Institute, One Marina Boulevard and Downtown East to assist our SEP in their claim submissions while in need.

Also, let us not forget our social enterprise NTUC Club which supported our nation through the COVID-19 crisis practically and housed our affected COVID-19 patients.

Sir, we must not take the peace and harmony in the employment front for granted. It took years of painful lessons to achieve what we have today. On this note, I want to record my appreciation for all my fellow union leaders for all your hard work at the workplace. Concurrently, I encourage all management partners to increase your appreciation for our union leaders in your company and industry. The peaceful and harmonious industrial relations that we experience today did not happen by chance, but only through the efforts, and sacrifices of our union leaders.

Not forgetting also, I would like to thank the NTUC staff for their tireless support and efforts in going the extra mile to support the administration for the SIRS scheme and other schemes that NTUC rolls out for members and workers.

While there is no doubt that NTUC and our unions have been the voice of workers, we will not and never rest on our laurels. We recognise the need for continuous training and upskilling of our workers, so that they will be skilled, efficient and productive contributors to Singapore.

Sir, training is fundamental for every worker to learn, unlearn and relearn skills that add value to them as individual and for their employers. Under the guidance of our Secretary-General, brother Ng Chee Meng, we envision the model, Worker 4.

0. This model targets the training needs of every worker based on three broad areas, namely, adaptability, technology and training. With our workers attending the relevant training lessons and applying their new skillsets, we hope to achieve the wins for our workers; and also strive for better wages, welfare and work prospects.

To achieve this mission, NTUC embarks on what we called the Company Training Committees (CTCs). This training is not just business as usual, but new skills to transform the workforce to meet the new business demands.

The recently announced Jobs-Skills Integrators model is one that I really welcome and wholeheartedly support. It requires an intermediary body like NTUC to ensure that training benefits both workers and employers.

After our workers attend the training, we hope and strive that workers will progressively achieve the "three Ws", while employers get better skilled workers. This would also make training more meaningful and not just clocking the hours and collecting allowances.

Hence, I remind myself and call on fellow workers to learn, unlearn and relearn the skills to broaden your knowledge that will increase your value at current workplace. Do not miss out to seize any opportunities for growth and self-improvement that come with better pay and work prospects. Allow me to speak in Malay.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] This year's Budget signifies the Government's promise to help Singaporeans cope with the cost of living, raise families, empower Singaporean workers, and most importantly, to take all Singaporeans towards a new direction.

This year's support is rather unique because the Government is focusing on efforts to expand the available support by increasing its amount appropriately. In fact, the Government also promised to continue monitoring both the economy and our people and is willing to render more support if the situation requires it. This can be seen last year when additional assistance was given to the people in their Assurance Package.

But we must acknowledge the challenges faced by Singaporeans working in the platform industry who need to make CPF contributions. This is a responsible measure to ensure that such workers possess enough savings to own a home and secure their retirement later. Let us not see this step as an obstruction to one’s livelihood. Instead, it displays responsibility on the part of the Government. Many within our community, I believe, have the qualifications and capabilities that enable them to secure permanent employment. If it this is not the case, we should redouble our efforts in upskilling to secure permanent employment opportunities that are available. There are many Government support schemes that enable you to undergo training and acquire the necessary skills so that you can seize the available job opportunities.

For Singaporeans who are newly married and intend to start a family, there are many support schemes available and the amount has been increased in this latest Budget. I would like to remind everyone that there is adequate support to raise a family and you should not worry.

On a personal note, I have friends who work as postmen and technical officers but manage to start a family with six to 12 children, still with the same one wife and residing in an HDB flat. This is because there is adequate Government support to ensure that every child gets the necessary assistance from childhood until they finish school at the tertiary level. Have faith that every child is a blessing. Do not just stop at two children. If possible, have at least three children. The more the merrier, and Singapore will not have to go through the trouble of finding outside talent in the future.

(In English): Sir, before I conclude my speech, I would like to put forward four requests based on the conversations I had with a group of young union leaders. Will the support for those living in bigger HDB houses be reviewed based on income and number of dependants instead of just annual value of the house?

While there are measures to support people with physical disabilities, will the Government also support families who have children with hidden disabilities like Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as these are equally challenging scenarios?

Will the extended childcare leave of two days per year be extended to parents who have children above 12 years of age, perhaps till the child completes secondary school? Will there be additional support for families with more than two children and with their parents staying with them?

In conclusion, the Labour Movement will continue to support our fellow members and workers because Every Worker Matters. Speaker Sir, I am thankful and support the Budget. [Applause.]

Ms Yeo Wan Ling.

Mr Speaker, I would like to second Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's commitment to strengthening the social compact. Indeed, the three long years of COVID-19 winter has brought about significant shifts in our community and workforce. As we adjust and settle into new equilibrium, we need to pay particular attention to social, economic and livelihood inequalities that may have bubbled to the surface during the pandemic.

Two tectonic shifts have impacted our workforce norms and they are: one, the rise of the gig and self-employed workers and the need for level playing fields; two, the prolific adoption of flexible work arrangements, its impact on women returning to work and balancing caregiving with work responsibilities.

Mr Speaker, the rise of the gig economy has been ongoing for quite some time, even before the COVID-19 pandemic added tailwinds to the growth of the industry with higher demands for home delivery services. And I would argue that the self-employed gig workforce will continue to grow as more Singaporeans embrace the flexibility freelancing work allows for.

However, this flexibility does come with its trade-offs and these trade-offs are numerous. Unlike the self-employed of yesteryears, where our self-employed persons (SEPs) have total control over their terms of work – when they work, where they work, how much they charge – many self-employed of today no longer have full control over their terms of service as they: one, depend on platform partners to hook them up for gigs; two, are less skilled or have no core technical skills; and three, are price takers impacted by controls from the platforms, doubled down by the lack of control on mitigating the changes in the greater geo-economic environment.

Thus, as the fortunes of our gig workers ebb and flow with the gig platforms and with the general flow of life, many of our self-employed workers find themselves caught in a bind where they hope to transit out of a vulnerable situation. They are unable to do so easily as upskilling and training can be costly. But it comes at a greater cost as it impacts the gig workers' daily takings and hence, their livelihoods.

Indeed, our self-employed workers, like Alexander the Great, face a Gordian knot when it comes to their financial future. And as the legend goes, a headless knot cannot be undone, unless one takes extreme measures to cut it apart. I believe as a society we need to support and arm our vulnerable, self-employed workers better when they decide to face their Gordian knots.

A headless Gordian knot to a typical freelance driver looks like this: Gabriel is one of our leaders at the National Private Hire Vehicles Association (NPHVA) and he is about to turn 50. He is a provider to his very young family. He has had several recent conversations with me on his plans for retirement and is making serious decisions on his CPF contributions. However, he is worried. To improve his income, he hopes to upskill, but to upskill, he must take time off for training. Yet, training will take time up and eat into his daily income, coupled with fluctuating fuel prices in an unstable geopolitical landscape, inconsistent trip prices with his platform and daily rentals he needs to make, Gabriel literally has miles to go before his dream of a comfortable retirement can come true. We must assist our SEPs and improving their productivity through upskilling and providing level playing fields to mitigating their business costs. I would like to bring up some of the ways we can do so.

In the area of upskilling. First, expand the training allowance for self-sponsored trainees to include SEPs so that they can afford a few days off to upskill. Secondly, consider deeper support for SEPs upskilling in critical skills such as digitalisation and digitisation. This is especially so for SEPs working in sectors where there have been technological disruptions, such as the media and transport industries. Thirdly, develop skills frameworks for SEPs and crafts and trades-based professions, such as for photographers, videographers, plumbers, mechanics, and incorporating apprenticeship programmes into such training frameworks with Government support

In the area of levelling business costs due to the small size of the businesses, most SEPs are unlikely to grow to a scale where they can become GST-registered, but they face the full impact of GST increments on their business cost and may not enjoy the Government support given to businesses as they are freelancers. Consider providing GST rebates for SEPs who are not GST registered to buffer the increase in cost. For taxi and private hire drivers specifically, we should consider the co-sharing of GSTs by SEPs with their operators and platforms.

Secondly, we call on the Government to review the 60% fixed expense deduction ratio to better reflect the thinning margins experienced by drivers, especially with global inflationary pressures and in the same vein, to consider increasing the relief limit for business expenses and allow insurance, such as prolonged medical leave, to be categorised under business expense.

Thirdly, for Government procurement to take the lead in recognising SEPs who trained under the abovementioned craft and trade skills frameworks when awarding Government contracts. The COVID-19 situation has allowed us to celebrate the contributions of our freelance community.

At the height of the pandemic, our drivers ferried COVID-19 patients to isolation facilities while we stayed in the safety of our homes. Our riders brought warm food to our tables while we settled in our comfortable work from home pattern. While we celebrate and thank our gig workers for making the pandemic safer and more comfortable for everyone, the last three years has also allowed Singaporeans a glimpse into the lives of our SEP workers and a deeper appreciation of the challenges they face.

The SEPs in Singapore are capable of generating incredible value for our economy and society if only we would hand them the tools they need to loosen their Gordian knots. By supporting them to upskill, providing skill frameworks for their professions and alleviating their cost of businesses, I have confidence that the investment they receive will leverage disproportionate returns for our economy.

Mr Speaker, Sir, even as we move forward into a new post-COVID-19 era, we have not wavered in our core priorities, especially the imperative highlighted by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong to equip and empower our workers, while building a Singapore Made for Families.

The call echoes the Labour Movement's own advocacy of enhancing support for workers with caregiving responsibilities, of which women constitute a large proportion of those who managed to double shift in the workplace and at home. MOM has noted that there are 260,000 women of employment age currently remaining outside of the labour force and their immense potential to power our economy and industries cannot be underestimated.

It was interesting to note that according to MOM's annual labour for statistics, the two most cited reasons why women are not in the workforce are: one, home caregiving duties; and two, housework. And yes, I can completely relate to this.

During COVID-19, many women came up to me wanting to look for work. Some wanted to supplement their diminished household incomes, others wanted to do their part to bolster the Singapore economy during our times of need. However, even as we match jobs to them through job fairs and job mentorship programmes, the same caregiving concerns that keep our women out of the workforce are still barriers that do not go away. The seniors are still seniors, the young are still young and unfortunately, the infirm are still infirm.

To allow our women back into the workplace, the workplace will need to evolve and the prolific adoption of flexible work arrangements (FWAs) and the consequent need to job redesign was a silver lining that happened in the dark cloudy days of the pandemic. It is with this in mind that I underscore the urgency of enhancing the inclusivity of our jobs and reimagining the way we work by adopting family-friendly FWAs.

Let me elaborate. First, encourage employers to implement flexible work hours and allow employees more autonomy in calibrating their schedules. Flexi-time arrangements help workers better meet their personal responsibilities such as those tasked with taking care of young children and their loved elderly family members.

Secondly, through the introduction of the compressed work week, this will allow workers the option of re-allocating the same number of work hours to fewer days, giving them longer blocks of personal time.

Third, implement telecommuting arrangements so that employees can carry out their work in a location away from the conventional office. Flexible work options facilitate work-life balance and can accommodate workers with diverse and varied responsibilities and needs.

Fourth, while embracing these changes, it is imperative that companies fairly assess their employees on FWA for their work performance and opportunities for promotion. A worker who works on FWA must never be unfairly compared to a worker who works full-time in the office. I believe that this would be key to the long-term norming of FWA in workplaces.

Fifth, while the dust settles on FWA norms, we must ensure that there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect them from workplace discrimination and to the extreme, harassment. Owing to the power of symmetries that workers faced, a fear of repercussions such as losing one's job while being marginalised at work and the lack of anonymity may discourage our employees from reporting incidents of discrimination. Employers therefore need to be engaged and educated on strategies to manage these cases while creating safe independent avenues for workers to seek recourse without fear of backlash.

Silver linings and silver bullets notwithstanding, it is paramount for us to recognise that some companies and industry face greater hurdles in adopting FWAs in a sustainable way due to the current nature of work and the sector they are in. These includes SMEs and sectors with front-facing, customer-facing workers and those which include workers using specialised equipment. Some of these sectors where hurdles are more acutely felt include the retail, food services, healthcare, manufacturing, wellness, security, cleaning and landscaping sectors. It is also of note that these are also the very same industries and sectors that face manpower shortages. And while the task of job redesigning can seem to be daunting or impossible, I believe that with some innovation, some thinking out of the box and support from the Government, the impossible can be made possible.

I have seen this being done in several sectors to very good outcomes. The health and wellness sector is often one where FWA seem to be out of the question, given the high touch nature of frontline job roles. However, innovative companies such as the Singapore Spa Institute have started to pilot out a ninja workforce. This is a float of part-timers or gig workers, who would take up short stints when the regular full-timers are on FWAs.

Job redesigning can also be a clear and transparent part of HR practices. When we introduced the Progressive Wage Mark at Uniqlo, I was very impressed by how transparent the company was in terms of what employees need to achieve in order to be promoted to the next level. This includes clear indications of internal exams that needed to be taken, scores to be achieved, daily tasks to be completed and these were all available for all employees to see on their staff notice boards.

And one of the most innovative job redesigns that I saw was also one of the simplest. I am sure we all love the fluffy and light dough fritters for breakfast, what we call "you char kway", but the process of making these dough fritters sure is not light.

Flour sacks can weigh up to 50 kilogrammes, and the boss of Xi De Li, a 100-year-old you char kway company here in Singapore, was finding it hard to get employees. In a eureka moment, she asked the supplier to repackage the flour sacks to 25 kilogrammes and below. And then, she started to get more females and seniors to join her company.

These are wonderful and effective examples of how thinking out-of-the-box can allow companies to job redesign. And I believe that with more targeted support from the Government and focused action from businesses, more SMEs can reap the benefits of FWAs, while allowing caregivers to stay or return to the workforce.

During the job redesign process, companies may face manpower crunches and need help through redesign consultancy or facilitation. For this, the Labour Movement can work with the Government on a combination of grant support, road maps and specialised consultancies through a job redesign support package.

While FWAs and job redesign processes bode well for our back-to-work women, it is worth noting that facilitating the transition back to work is equally as important.

The NTUC's Women and Family unit has, over the past 24 months, introduced a Women Supporting Women Mentorship Programme, and this has been introduced in over 10 locations all over the island. This growing programme is targeted at supporting women returning to the workplace and addresses the issues that women face when they are looking for a smooth transition back.

Together with the larger NTUC family of social enterprises and our partners in the Labour Movement, we have put into place:

A mentorship network, consisting of community leaders and unionists to support women returners who report challenges in adjusting to the culture and pace of the workplace, and thereby, a lack of confidence in their new job roles.

A suite of training programmes conducted by NTUC Learning Hub to uplift skillsets which are outdated or irrelevant, especially if our women returners have been out of the workplace for a longer period of time.

A network of connections to career opportunities and job vacancies through NTUC's e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) and our trade association partners. To this end, crafts and trade programmes promoted include tailoring and dressmaking with TaF.tc; confinement and infant nanny care with NannyPro; plumbing with the Singapore Plumbing Society (SPS) and logistics with the Singapore Logistics Association. We have seen some good progress on this front, for instance, we saw a doubling of women returners joining the tailoring programme from 2021 to 2022.

And for the same time period, a doubling of women joined us in the SPS networks. In this light, we call for the Government to continue the support of our women returner programmes, in particular, for the popular trades and crafts person programmes, and for employers to join hands with NTUC in designing and adopting positive returnship programmes.

Mr Speaker, this is an especially important Budget, as this is our nation's first post-COVID-19 Budget, and we have an opportunity to co-create together, as one Singapore, the new norms that will impact our lives and our livelihoods. It is exciting times ahead for Singapore, and with a keen focus on balancing inequalities, opening up new livelihood opportunities and building safety nets for our vulnerable, I look forward to creating a new social compact. I support the Budget.

Mr Desmond Choo.

Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to join the Debate. The world is opened for business after COVID-19 has eased globally, but it is a world marked by geopolitical tensions and high inflation. The Government's Cost of Living support packages will help Singaporeans to cope better with inflation.

Critical to coping with inflation is to ensure wages keep pace with rising prices. Inflation is likely to stay for quite some time. The measures announced in this Budget to improve productivity structurally, are especially important. Many of these improvements will require many years of effort, and central to long-term productivity gains resides with our younger people and our younger workers.

I will first speak on helping our in-school younger Singaporeans. Second, on younger Singaporeans already in the workforce, who are currently in their first and second careers.

Our younger Singaporeans in the Institutes of Technical Education (ITEs) who are soon to join the workforce face a daunting challenge. The starting salary gap between university and non-university graduates continues to widen. From 2016 to 2021, the gap between university and polytechnic graduates increased by $200; and $300 between university and ITE graduates.

The wage premium given to degree holders is understandable. The degree holder has spent more years preparing for the workforce compared to the Nitec or diploma holder. An ITE graduate enters the workforce in three years, while a university graduate takes another three to four years.

However, in the longer term, the same phenomenon occurs. For example, the median salary for Singaporeans in their 20s and 30s with a university or post-graduate degree is $4,200. This is more than double of that earned by those with only secondary or lower education and ITE qualifications. Studies have also shown that a large proportion of non-university degree holders took up roles as associate professionals and technicians (APTs). In comparison, university degree holders largely took up roles in professional occupations.

The value APTs bring to our economy might not be valued fairly by the market currently. Without APTs, those in professional occupations possibly cannot complete their work with quality, or at all. We need to move towards a better balance in valuing both technical and academic routes of career advancement.

First, we need to strengthen vocational training and apprenticeship programmes for ITE students, or even graduates. Recently, National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) engaged ITE students who took up the ITE Work-Study Diploma to understand how their experiences have helped them in their careers.

One participant, upon completing his higher Nitec, took up a Work-Study Diploma in Automation Engineering. Through his diploma, he was given the opportunity to undertake full-time employment in the host company he was attached to during his studies. The company has set out a good career pathway for him. There are structured avenues for deepening industry knowledge and skillsets. This includes a company-sponsored overseas study programme with a bond to work in the company's overseas branch for at least three years, which he is considering taking up.

While early days yet, the future for him is bright. The issue for us is: can we scale this up further? We can incentivise more companies to develop structured work-study diplomas, and even overseas training stints. This improves not only productivity but also Singapore's pool of talent.

Next, we need to have better quality internships to strengthen the nexus between school and work. This can reduce the number of younger Singaporeans not going into jobs that they are trained for. Through the NTUC Youth Taskforce surveys and engagements, we found that internships rank highly in easing the transition from school to the workforce.

Our engagement findings also suggest that students who had internships gained valuable work experience, better understanding of the industry and career prospects within their sectors. They were also able to appreciate prospective job roles better.

The reticence of employers to offer internships is not unfounded. Resources must be dedicated to guide interns; this can be difficult when manpower is tight. But, at the same time, this is what our social compact is about; companies in Singapore offering younger Singaporeans opportunities to build a stronger Singapore. It requires thinking beyond just a company's immediate needs.

Therefore, unions and schools can work with companies to put in place good internship programmes. Clear standards of internships should be established. Government can provide more resources, perhaps in the form of tax incentives, to companies keen to support such a social compact.

Next, on mentorship. Structured mentorship programmes can be a vital tool in easing career navigation and improving studies to work nexus. We often associate mentorships for older working people, but there is equal value to extending this to ITEs and polytechnics.

By connecting students with mentors from their interested industries, their ideas on potential careers and aspirations are potentially broadened. They receive targeted career advice and counselling particular to their field. An example is the SIT-Young NTUC's Industry Mentorship Programme (IMP), which is in its sixth iteration this year. Young NTUC plays a bridging role in IMP, providing linkages to career mentors for SIT students and also hosts various networking opportunities.

This is also another way for us to strengthen our social compact. Our compact is strengthened when more successful Singaporeans provide career mentorship to those who might not have easy access. There is scope for the tripartite partners to extend and scale structured mentorship programmes across the different Institutions of Higher Learning (IHLs), especially, in part, ITEs and polytechnics. The labour movement is committed to build such a compact and would share more information soon on its mentorship centre.

Next, on our youths who are in the workforce in their first or second careers. These younger Singaporeans, as I shared in Budget 2022, comprise of Generation COVID-19. Generation COVID-19 is now coming out of the previously uncertain job market. As our economy recovers, we are also faced with structural labour issues. Certain job pathways are still undervalued and the demands of employers are rapidly evolving alongside job opportunities, in sunset and sunrise industries.

This affects not only non-degree holders, but our degree holders too. The 2022 Joint Autonomous Universities Graduate Employment Survey found that, compared to 2021, more graduates remained jobless six months after leaving school, though wages are higher if they land a job.

To help Generation COVID-19 emerge stronger from the battle, I would like to focus on two areas. First, enabling Generation COVID-19 to tap on overseas work opportunities; second, allowing for smoother career conversions.

First, on overseas work opportunities. Singapore's strong performance during COVID-19 has buttressed its reputation as a regional hotspot for business opportunities. The question then becomes: how can we enable our people to capitalise on this, and go out in the world to explore and build greater networks to bring opportunities to other Singaporeans? Supporting our young people, including Generation COVID-19, would be a good way to start.

Earlier this year in January, Young NTUC conducted a focus group discussion with 38 working younger Singaporeans. Sixty-six percent indicated their interest in working overseas. They believed that this would be beneficial to their longer-term career prospects, gaining essential transferable skillsets and building professional networks. Support measures cited include remuneration support, relocation incentives and of course, mentorship with others who have been in their position.

We could consider changing the current IHL overseas exchange programme for our students into something a more work-based or company-centric. This can give our students an early taste of working overseas while sharpening the studies to work nexus.

The Government can look into providing targeted support such as co-funding remuneration and relocation incentives where the placements are done in strategic industries, where Singapore is short on talent.

Next, on smoothening career conversion. As I mentioned in Budget 2022, the pandemic has hastened the emergence and decline of multiple industries, professions and skillsets. It is not inconceivable for youths to now find themselves on the opposite end of the growth trajectory, unable to seize opportunities in bright-spot industries due to skills mismatch.

Even if our younger Singaporeans choose to specialise in a bright-spot industry now, no one is to say how bright the said industry would be in a few years' time. I believe this has partly contributed to anxieties amongst our younger people. They do stress over having to choose the "right" first degree. This could partly be due to the fact that only the first degree is being subsidised by the Government, or too much emphasis is on getting it right the first time.

An anecdotal example of this is one of our ex-colleagues with over 10 years of experience. Recently, at age 35, she decided to switch from the public sector to merchandising and commercial space, which was her lifelong interest. Her biggest challenge in making the switch was the lack of experience or training for the new role.

Although she possessed transferable skills, her employers were looking for the latest skills and experience, even for an entry-level position. Thus, she took up an entry-level position, took a pay cut and juggled working full-time and night classes. This anecdotal experience shows that the pains of career conversion can similarly affect those who are relatively younger.

The current support for career conversion is weighted towards older workers. This is rightly so, as older workers do find it even more difficult to switch careers. However, the ever more dynamic economy will require Singaporeans to make more career switches even earlier in life. A failure to switch decisively earlier can result in downstream difficulties to seize growth opportunities or even going down the wrong career trajectory.

I encourage the Government to consider offering graduated subsidies and loans for second diplomas and degrees to younger Singaporeans. This can help in making career pivots easier and earlier.

Mr Speaker, Sir, as Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong mentioned, this Budget is centred on forging ahead together as a nation amidst the uncertain global environment. The Labour Movement will work closely with the Government and employers to do right by our workers and ensure that no worker gets left behind. We need to ensure that the successes enjoyed by Singapore today will continue to be shared with future generations by enabling our young workers to be well-equipped and form our new future-proof workforce. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Budget.

Mr Ang Wei Neng.

Mr Speaker, Sir, as our DORSCON status was just lowered from Yellow to Green, it sends a clear signal that Singapore has truly exited the pandemic. But it is not all back to normal as we face many challenges on the global and national front.

The Budget unveiled by Deputy Prime Minister Mr Lawrence Wong is one which acknowledges that Singaporeans are going through hard times. The financial help and various relief schemes announced are much welcomed and recognised as a means to help Singaporeans cushion what might be a hard landing to come.

I believe that resilient families are the pillar of our society. I would like to focus on what the Budget means for families and give some suggestions on what can be done for Singaporean families.

Many people in Singapore feel that property prices are high. Back in 2011, I recall relating this to our former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. I told him that young people were very concerned that property prices are very high in Singapore. His reply was very sharp. Mr Lee said that if Singapore continued to be successful, property prices will remain high or continue to rise.

If we think deeply about it, land has no value unless there is a future for it. The more successful Singapore is, the more expensive the property prices will be given the limited land supply.

I share this anecdote also to remember Mr Lee, for whom we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth later this year.

If we followed the paths of many successful cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, New York, it is likely that many young Singaporeans will never be able to own their own homes in their lifetime. It is thus important that HDB flats are made accessible to young Singaporeans.

Budget 2023 has provided additional support to this specific group of Singaporeans and the support ranges from an additional Build-To-Order (BTO) flat ballot for families with children and young married couples aged 40 and below who are buying a flat for the first time, as well as an increase in the CPF Housing Grant for first-timer families purchasing resale flats.

Apart from pricing, there is also timing. In May last year, National Development Minister Mr Desmond Lee said that median waiting times for new BTO projects should come down slightly to four to 4.5 years, compared to the previous waiting time of four to five years.

In 2017, HDB also introduced a scheme where construction on selected BTO projects in Sembawang, Sengkang and Yishun started about one year ahead of their launches and buyers can expect to get their flats in less than three years from the time they selected their flats. Minister Desmond Lee also announced in early this month that HDB would resume building 2,000 to 3,000 such Shorter Waiting Time (SWT) flats per year by 2025.

I hope HDB will not stop there. I urge HDB to continue to increase the supply of SWT flats to comprise up to 50% of all BTO flats and possibly shorten the waiting time to below two years.

This is important especially since home-buying has accelerated in the wake of the pandemic and many young Singaporeans who are working from home more than ever want to create their own work-from-home (WFH) havens.

The significant increase in SWT flats would still be relatively safe in terms of the Government's commitment and capital expenditure.

Having 50% of the SWT flats would most likely not lead to many empty and unwanted flats as demand for HDB flats is unlikely to drop by 50% overnight. Having 50% SWT flats would still allow HDB sufficient leeway to adjust its pace of building BTO flats according to changing demands and this would go a long way to help young families to get their flats earlier.

The perennial issue of how to raise Singapore’s birth rate is a challenging one. But for those who do choose to have children, easing the financial burden always helps. I am glad that couples will be given an extra $3,000 as part of the enhanced baby bonus for eligible Singaporean children and now raising from $8,000 to $11,000. I am also happy that it would start immediately which is very important as this relates to my personal experience.

When the Baby Bonus scheme was first introduced by then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong during his National Day Rally speech in August 2000, it was a big thing. It was a sharp reversal of the two-child policy. At about that time, my wife was also pregnant with twins and that was the third pregnancy. We thought we would be able to receive the baby bonus. However, the bonus was only meant for babies born after 1 April 2001. While my wife was due to deliver in mid-April 2001, our twins were born earlier in March. We did not get our baby bonus, which is why I am delighted that the Government today is dispensing the enhanced baby bonus with immediate effect after Deputy Prime Minister Wong’s announcement on Valentine’s Day.

I also applaud the decision to double the paternity leave to four weeks from 1 January 2024. This is a welcomed move. However, what I have heard from the ground is that more childcare leave is required. Currently, an employee is entitled to a maximum of two days of childcare leave per year if the youngest child is between seven and 12 years old, regardless the number of children they have.

One teacher related to me recently that parents were reluctant to fetch their children home even when they were sick in school. The parents often request the school to hold their children at the sick bay until the parents finish work. Childcare is a marathon, not a one-off effort after birth. Hence, I hope Deputy Prime Minister Wong could consider increasing the childcare leave to two days per child when the child is in primary school, up to a cap of say four days a year.

In Singapore, Mr Speaker, Sir, the percentage of seniors over the age of 65 living alone or with other seniors increased from 29% in 2010 to 41% in 2020. This represents a 41% increase over just 10 years and the proportion is growing. Apart from the concerns arising from the elderly living alone, it is clear that if this trend continues, the elderly will require smaller living spaces which are easier to maintain.

I suggest that the Silver Housing Bonus scheme, which enables the elderly to supplement their retirement income if they downsize to a three-room or smaller flat, could be made more attractive to improve the take-up rate. The cash bonus, which is currently up to $30,000 for seniors 55 years and above, could be doubled. At the same time, the resale levy, if any, could be halved.

For the elderly who move to a smaller flat and want to stay within close proximity to their families to promote family bonding even while maintaining a separate household, HDB could provide additional subsidies.

The above suggestions to improve the Silver Housing Bonus scheme would not only provide elderly Singaporeans with more options to increase their retirement nest but would also increase the pool of resale flats to better meet the housing needs of families with young children.

Mr Speaker, Sir, it is time that we signal to all Singaporeans and employers that we are serious about encouraging more Singaporeans to have babies and that we are ready to help ease the burden of bringing up their children by making it easier for the parents to stay near to them. I support the Budget.

Mr Derrick Goh.

Mr Speaker, Sir, we ended 2022 and emerged stronger from COVID-19, demonstrating resilience and trust between our people and the Government. However, Singapore and the world entered 2023 facing a confluence of continued geopolitical tensions and slower economic growth alongside persistent inflation and higher interest rates. We therefore cannot take our past successes for granted.

Notably, Budget 2023’s expenditure is 2.6% lower than last year, although higher than prior Budgets before the pandemic. To me, this signals the balance of fiscal prudence along with continued support to Singaporeans to overcome near-term challenges and secure long-term prospects.

Last year, during the GST debate, I expressed my concerns from my Yishun residents about the impact of a GST increase to the cost of living, so I am heartened by Budget 2023, given the improvements to the Assurance Package and further enhancements to the Permanent GST Voucher scheme. Evidently, the Government has followed through on its commitment to make a regressive GST increase even more progressive, when taken as a whole.

The pandemic has changed the way we live significantly. As such, it is critical for the Budget to continue focusing on how we can move Singapore forward to increase our standard of living and strengthen our social fabric. There are three areas I would like to highlight: one, strengthening our economy and workers by better supporting and transforming our SMEs; two, enhancing the safety and security of Singapore by boosting efforts to tackle worrying crime trends, particularly scams and youth crimes; thirdly, fostering greater social harmony by improving the way we manage community disputes.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) forecasted our economic growth to be between 0.5% and 2.5%, down from 3.6% last year. Our SMEs continue to navigate a challenging environment with many forces beyond their control. Higher business costs are being driven by higher energy prices, wages and a tight labour market where vacancies are hard to fill. The interest cost businesses will shoulder will easily be twice given that rates are expected to be higher for longer, while revenue growth are less certain despite some bright spots, like China’s early reopening.

Given the above, some local businesses have given feedback that Budget 2023 seems to be pro-distribution and seemingly a shift away from pro-business growth. They wonder if this means that they should fend more for themselves and expect less help going forward. If indeed Budget 2023 is being rated by many as an A-grade for families and individuals, I suppose SMEs would score this Budget as a B or even a C!

Nonetheless, while much has been said about more support being provided to families, individuals and vulnerable households, I do note that Budget 2023 has also factored some help for our SMEs. I welcome the extension of the Enterprise Financing Scheme and the Energy Efficiency Grant and am also glad to see the Government attempt a new initiative to address the jobs and skills mismatch through the Jobs-Skills Integrators. While I look forward to more details, I hope this can benefit SMEs, particularly smaller ones lacking a full HR function, through more relevant training with a targeted outcome to improve productivity. Crucially, better training and job-matching will give residents who are unemployed opportunities to learn by doing and gain confidence to re-enter the workforce. Hopefully, more incentives can be considered for SMEs to take a chance to hire them to fill the vacancies and help improve the mismatch between labour supply and demand.

I also hope that the administrative journey for grants and support schemes can be made more seamless. This will improve accessibility for more SMEs to benefit swiftly and minimise the need for intermediaries and documentation. This view is echoed by the industry such as the Association of Trade and Commerce, from which I had earlier received feedback.

Beyond the tactical aspects of the above schemes and from a strategic perspective, I wonder if these business initiatives, including the innovation grants, are enough to help our local businesses and SMEs capture new opportunities in the longer term.

Globally, the green movement is gathering momentum. For Singapore, we progressed with our Singapore Green Plan 2030 and committed to net-zero by 2050 alongside many countries. Our SMEs must hence: one, boost efforts to reduce carbon footprint and two, be ready to capture new business opportunities.

Little has been said in this Budget specifically about SMEs strengthening capabilities in Environment, Social and Governance (ESG). I am glad that Budget 2023 retains existing measures such as the Resource Efficiency Grant for Energy as well as the Enterprise Sustainability Programme by Enterprise Singapore. However, I am uncertain if these are enough to help push our SMEs to step up their game sufficiently and in time as changes in the ESG space are rapid and exponential.

Notably, MNEs are focusing on ESG to meet demands from regulators, investors, lenders and consumers. They in turn expect their SME suppliers to be ESG-compliant.

Our SMEs must therefore adopt greener practices in their delivery of services and products. They too must apply the mind-boggling methods to measure, track and report their own carbon footprint. Otherwise, they could risk being disregarded as a preferred supplier or worse, being entirely left out of tomorrow's greener supply chain.

Beyond internal transformation, SMEs who are more advanced in their green transition should venture out and capitalise on regional prospects such as helping businesses in the region to accelerate their sustainability efforts. Businesses should also be encouraged to co-create and contribute to the establishment of a sound classification and regulatory framework for voluntary carbon credits in Singapore to develop a transparent, liquid and scalable market.

These efforts will help establish Singapore as a growing and leading green hub, leveraging on and furthering our status as a trusted international centre for finance, consulting and legal services. In a nascent and growing market, it is not size but trust, credibility and speed that are fundamental, which we should capitalise as our competitive advantage.

Like ESG, not much was discussed specific to digitalisation in the 85-page Budget speech, so I hope that the Government can re-emphasise the continued measures to encourage SMEs on their digitalisation journey, which is difficult but also very rewarding.

To SMEs who may give Budget 2023 a B or C grade, I would encourage them to adopt a holistic view and factor the generous support measures provided by the Government over the last few years. Nonetheless, I hope the Deputy Prime Minister can clarify the Government's commitment to local businesses in this Budget debate so that we can achieve a vibrant and growing SME and startup landscape, which can offer good jobs and opportunities for Singaporeans.

Sir, of equal importance to economic progress is the continued assurance of the safety and security of our people as well as the strengthening of social bonds.

I welcome Budget 2023's estimates for the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)'s expenditure to increase by 4% compared to a 1.8% increase last year, which I previously said seemed low. I hope this represents the re-doubling of efforts to tackle some worrying trends such as scams as well as youth crimes.

Despite commendable efforts by MHA and its partners, scams remain unabated and continue to evolve. Year 2022 saw both record cases and losses of $660 million. So far, close to $1.3 billion has been lost to scams in the past two years. A further $146 million would have been lost last year had our Anti-Scam Command not partnered banks and telecommunications companies or telcos for a swift intervention.

I look forward to hearing more details of MHA's plans in terms of resources and capabilities to fight scams with a concerted all-hands-on-deck strategy, through deeper partnerships with entities in the digital value chain. Singapore has often been lauded as one of the safest cities in the world and we should extend this standing into the digital sphere.

Our youths, our perpetuating crimes are also under the spotlight. The Singapore Police Force (SPF) reported that the majority of those arrested for e-commerce scams were youths and the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) also highlighted a worrying trend of more youths abusing cannabis. Some abusers were even as young as 14 years old.

Our youths are the future of Singapore. I hope that MHA can continue to engage with all in the ecosystem – schools, parents, youth groups, media and so on – for swifter intervention so that their lives will not be marred by crime.

Finally, overcoming the crisis of our generation has taught us that our most formidable reserves lie not in our financial strength but in the unity and resilience of our people. We therefore need to keep investing and working on improving our social harmony as attitudes and norms evolve.

One significant way our lifestyles have changed is with hybrid working. Many continue to work and learn from home, which inadvertently results in more friction in our high-density heartlands, particularly regarding noise. I raised this point at last year's debate and want to again highlight the need for a better framework to manage and resolve community disputes.

In my recent engagement with Dr William Wan, Chairperson of the Community Advisory Panel on Neighbourhood Noise, he too echoed the need for more legal teeth to make attending mediation and to strengthen the enforcement of agreements between quarrelling neighbours. Residents have also provided feedback that the current framework remains cumbersome and hence ineffective.

I look forward to the Government's consideration of the Panel's proposals as well as other measures for more proactive engagement by agencies, for quicker and more effective dispute resolution.

Sir, in conclusion, I would describe this Budget as big-hearted and forward-looking. I support the Budget and am confident that it can move Singapore and Singaporeans forward in a new era.

Mr Melvin Yong.

Mr Speaker, I stand in support of the Budget, which seeks to chart Singapore's path towards a new era.

My speech will touch on how we need to strengthen our social compact for a post-COVID-19 world, specifically, how consumers will need to adapt to a new era of higher for longer inflation to better protect themselves and the need to urgently refresh our social compact to engender a safer workplace for every worker.

Sir, let me first declare my interest as President of the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE).

Budget 2023 comes on the back of significant global inflationary pressures and at a time where central banks globally have significantly hiked up interest rates to tamper inflation.

I am therefore heartened that the Government has recognised inflation concerns and will provide significant cash assistance under the Assurance Package to provide comprehensive help to the majority of Singaporean households. During my house visits over the weekend, many residents told me that they appreciated the various help packages, in particular, the CDC vouchers, which come in very handy as they purchase their daily necessities in the neighbourhood.

At CASE, we believe more can be done to help consumers make informed purchasing decisions. That is why we launched the Price Kaki mobile application – to allow consumers to compare prices of household essentials, groceries and cooked food and help to stretch their dollar.

I am glad that Price Kaki has been well received by consumers. Since its launch, the application has been downloaded more than 130,000 times. With our sizeable community of price transparency advocates, CASE will expand Price Kaki this year by introducing community and gamification features to benefit more consumers. Through these features, we hope to encourage our advocates to share deals with other like-minded users and help them compare prices across a wider range of products and promotions.

We will also integrate Fuel Kaki, a fuel price comparison website, into Price Kaki. This is but a first step in Price Kaki's evolution into a one-stop platform for all consumers.

To combat and mitigate the issue of shrinkflation, I announced last year that CASE would display unit price for items listed on Price Kaki. Today, we have unit pricing displayed on over 1,200 items, including groceries and beauty products.

Consumers have told us that this is an effective way to compare prices and found this feature useful. I am happy to announce that CASE will expand unit pricing to more than 6,000 items on Price Kaki by the third quarter this year.

But the efforts of CASE alone cannot stop shrinkflation. I call on the Government to mandate the display of unit pricing. With digital price tag displays, I do not see a reason why companies, particularly our supermarkets, cannot do this.

In my Budget debate speech last year, I called on major supermarket chains to do their part to cushion the impact of rising prices and support everyday consumers. I am heartened that these major supermarket chains have leaned in to do just that.

Last year, NTUC FairPrice provided customers with more than $11.5 million in savings through various discount schemes. FairPrice will extend these schemes for 2023, which is expected to cost the social enterprise an additional $10 million more. FairPrice is also absorbing the additional 1% increase in GST for 500 essential items for the first half of 2023.

Elsewhere, Sheng Siong provided a 4% discount for senior citizens while Giant is absorbing the GST increase for 700 essential items.

Beyond supermarkets, DBS has also launched an initiative to subsidise five million hawker meals for Singaporeans and residents for a year.

Sir, I applaud the actions of these big Queen Bee companies and I am certain that there are numerous more. I encourage all companies with economies of scale to do the same in the coming months.

Lastly, we need to pay special attention to vulnerable consumers who might be struggling to adapt to a new era of high interest rates.

Our sandwiched class, in particular, often face a financial squeeze due to the need to care for their elderly parents and younger children. According to a report on the auctions market by real estate consultancy Knight Frank, more homes in Singapore could be put up for auction this year as the number of bankruptcy petitions rise.

I would like to ask how the Government intends to support the sandwiched class, many of whom had bought their homes in a "dream scenario" of low interest rates but will now be required to refinance in a high interest rate "nightmare"?

We also need to address the vulnerabilities of consumers in markets where high prepayment sums are involved but the sector does not provide any prepayment protection. I will speak more about mandatory prepayment protection during the Ministry of Trade and Industry's (MTI) Committee of Supply (COS) debate.

Mr Speaker, in addition to refreshing our social compact to adjust to a higher for longer inflationary environment, we urgently need to review and strengthen our compact on what a safe workplace means.

Sir, I am dismayed at the current poor workplace safety and health (WSH) outcomes despite the many interventions in the past two years.

Last year, a total of 46 workers did not make it home after work. This is a significant increase from 37 workplace fatalities recorded in 2021. Even more appalling was the news that many of the lives lost were due to a fundamental lack or inadequate workplace safety arrangements that could have and should have been in place.

In September 2022, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) introduced the Heightened Safety Period (HSP). In the initial three months of its implementation, we saw a promising decrease in the number of workplace fatalities. The Labour Movement had hoped that the HSP would prove decisive in preventing workplace accidents, injuries and fatalities. Unfortunately, this has proven to be a false dawn, with the number of cases rising once again in the later months.

We are barely two months into 2023 and we have already recorded five fatalities at the workplace. This is simply unacceptable.

Could it be that companies had become complacent with the HSP’s end within sight? While I am heartened that the HSP has been extended for another three months, I would like to urge the Government to seriously consider making permanent some of the HSP requirements, such as higher penalties for WSH breaches, so that we send a strong message that every worker deserves to return home safely at the end of each workday.

Sir, the NTUC and our affiliated unions have been stepping up efforts to enhance safety standards at the workplace. We have trained more than 1,000 union leaders as safety ambassadors. We have also worked with our unionised companies, through the Company Training Committees (CTCs), to redesign jobs and to redesign the work environment to improve workplace safety.

One example is the sectoral tripartite committee on rail safety comprising the National Transport Workers’ Union (NTWU), the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and our two rail operators. If we compare the data from January to June 2022 versus the same period in 2021, the number of workplace injuries for rail operations fell by almost 30%.

Sir, the majority of our workplace accidents involved SMEs and more than four in five workplace fatalities recorded in 2022 involved non-unionised companies. I would like to call on all companies, regardless of size, to work with NTUC and our unions to improve safety standards at your workplace. I would also like to reiterate my call on the Government to provide greater support to our SMEs to adopt new safety technologies at the workplace. I will speak more about this at MOM’s Committee of Supply debate.

Beyond the dangers at the workplace, I have also raised numerous times, in and outside of this House, on the importance of ensuring the safety of our workers’ transportation. I strongly urge the Government to end the practice of allowing workers to co-mingle with goods and heavy equipment at the rear deck of lorries. Man and machine simply do not mix and should not be placed together, especially at the rear deck of lorries. I will further elaborate this point during the Ministry of Transport (MOT)’s Committee of Supply debate.

Sir, physical safety is but one measure of a worker’s total workplace safety and health. A more comprehensive social compact on providing a safe workplace needs to also incorporate mental health.

I first spoke about the need to give employees a right to disconnect from work in July 2020. MOM, together with NTUC and the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), subsequently published the Tripartite Advisory on Mental Well-being at the Workplace in November 2020 which included recommendations on after-hours work communication.

Almost a year later, in September 2021, the Alliance for Action on Work-life Harmony issued a policy template to help companies set clearer boundaries for after-hours work communication. But how many companies have actually adopted these recommendations? Are company leaders simply paying lip service to disconnecting after work, but continue to expect their employees to respond anytime and anywhere? I will speak more about this during MOM’s Committee of Supply debate.

Sir, Budget 2023 helps Singapore chart the way forward in the post-COVID-19 era. As the Government does its utmost best to help Singapore and Singaporeans navigate an increasingly complex global environment, I hope that more emphasis can be placed on strengthening our social compact to better protect consumers and workers, because every consumer matters and every worker matters. Sir, I support the Budget.

Mr Henry Kwek.

Mr Speaker Sir, I stand in support of the Budget. Deputy Prime Minister Wong mentioned that as part of the Forward Singapore exercise, we would rethink about how we want to augment the range of care and support options within the communities. This will, of course, enable our seniors to age in place. And therefore, I would like to contribute to this discussion today.

Many seniors wish to stay in their familiar surroundings, near family, friends, neighbours or even their beloved pets. As they age, however, their lives become more restricted and they require more assistance near or within their homes. More resources are needed to care for them.

Caring for seniors is not an easy task for any society; yet, Singapore faces unique challenges as one of the fastest ageing societies in the world. There will be fewer young Singaporeans to support each senior, as many of our youth are needed for our economy and our society. We must not over depend on foreign manpower to care for our seniors because even our neighbouring countries are ageing fast.

Furthermore, as a small city-state, our seniors cannot just move to rural areas with cheaper cost of living and there is not enough land for purpose-built retirement villages for everybody. Therefore, we must retrofit our existing towns and estates to meet their needs.

To achieve this ageing-in-place vision, we need bold and creative ideas. I would like to share four of them today.

First, we need to ramp up care and supporting services in the estates. In his Budget speech, Deputy Prime Minister Wong proposed reviewing the operating model of Active Ageing Centres (AACs). Last year, during the Healthier SG debate, I shared with the House how Kebun Baru provides assisted living services through a piloting a communal centre at Block 115 in Kebun Baru.

I feel that we must increase the number of AACs substantively and ensure they are thriving communities for seniors, offering loving care, connecting them to doctors, nurses, social workers and assisted living providers, while encouraging our seniors to stay positive and healthy.

Additionally, we should consider providing overnight respite and palliative care for seniors living nearby. AACs can be largely staffed by part-time and full-time seniors and be homely rather than clinical. Residents can work with the community to make it feel more like a group home and conversions can therefore be done relatively cheaply.

Furthermore, in both HDB and private estates, we need assisted living service centres staffed by a combination of foreign and local part-time workers. Not all seniors can afford a live-in domestic helper so we need such centres to provide affordable and basic services to a number of our seniors.

Secondly, I hope the Government can review transportation options within HDB estates and private neighbourhoods so as to support seniors and healthcare professionals.

HDB can consider allowing AACs and service providers to potentially use golf carts and other small service vehicles to transport frail travellers. This is already done in airports today. It is done in Sentosa Cove. Town Councils today have small service vehicles where we shuttle things around. It is conceivable that we can introduce a small number of these in the estate to support our seniors, as long as we start with proper trials and enforce speed limits.

For private estates, I feel that autonomous vehicles can provide that last-mile connection to MRT stations, bus stops, healthcare facilities, and AACs. This will help seniors who no longer drive or cannot afford private hire cars. These autonomous vehicles can contribute to congestion. Therefore, we should focus their use to seniors, the disabled, and parents travelling with infants. Kebun Baru's Teachers Estate, with many seniors, could perhaps host a pilot programme if the Government is interested.

Third. I hope that the Government can adopt IT aggressively to take care of our seniors. We must get as many of our doctors, nurses, and therapists to adopt tele-consulting for suitable seniors. We should allow as many services as possible for seniors to be coordinated digitally and deploy AI-powered services to interact with and care for our seniors.

Over the last few months, AI developments have skyrocketed. I am now far more optimistic about leveraging AI to support senior care. ChatGPT, for example, can understand, communicate, break down tasks and complete them.

In the future, imagine, seniors could use AI-powered services over the phone or use home-speakers to ask the AI to coordinate appointments, seek general help and even get basic counselling. Although it seems impossible now, the technology already exists. Just last week, I tried an AI service that played the role of a psychologist. I am not saying that it replaced one, but it is just supplementing whatever care that our service providers are providing.

AI will also radically reduce the cost and time to develop software. Today, AI can already write low-level code automatically if you can articulate clearly what needs to be done. Therefore, seasoned programmers can achieve much more with less. It will also significantly lower the barrier for non-IT professionals, including our healthcare professionals to learn computing. With some training, they can quickly come up with good proof-of-concepts and pass them on to IT professionals to scale up. In short, AI will help turbocharge IT, which can be used to improve the lives of our seniors.

My final point is, we should empower our seniors to tap into their own assets to pay for services related to ageing-in-place. HDB owners today already can do Lease Buybacks, but more solutions are needed, including for those in private estates. Recently, DBS and CPF started a collaboration where DBS would offer a loan using houses as a pledge at an affordable interest rate. Seniors do not have to pay back the loan until the house is sold many years down the road. This loan is used to then top up their CPF account, allowing them to earn higher interest rates and enjoy higher monthly payouts from CPF.

I hope that MAS can perhaps consider mandating more banks to join this programme and also increase the loan quantum, which would benefit more residents from private housing estates.

We should also think about changing our insurance regulations, permitting seniors to withdraw a portion of their life insurance for aged care. This reduces the amount due to their estate and it lowers returns, but this is a fair trade-off to allow our seniors to fund these services using their insurance.

Also, we can consider introducing a default Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) for seniors who have lost mental capacity and do not have an LPA in place. This will allow the next-of-kin or the Government to use maybe just a portion of their wealth, depending on the net worth, to provide the necessary care.

To conclude, Singapore has taken many steps in the past decade to prepare for ageing. We have increased healthcare capacity, fine-tuned financing frameworks and enhanced befriending services. Through Healthier SG, we can also help our seniors stay happy and healthier for longer.

Even as we prioritise the roll-out of Healthier SG, we must also act swiftly to create the infrastructure and the care services and a whole ecosystem to allow our seniors to age-in-place with dignity. To do so, we must pilot and scale ideas, while also supporting, but not supplanting, caregivers. Finally, we must find a way to embed genuine care and concern in our system, even as we roll out more and more complex solutions. So, let us get to work!

Mr Mohd Fahmi Aliman.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I am encouraged by the central theme of this year's Budget, “Moving Forward in a New Era”.

As we continue to find ways to deal with the ever-evolving nature of the pandemic, we must also set our eyes on how we can prepare Singaporeans for a post-pandemic future riddled with uncertainty. My esteemed colleagues and I in the Labour Movement strongly support and welcome the slew of measures introduced to strengthen our social compact, thereby helping Singaporeans cope with the rising cost of living amidst global uncertainties.

Strengthening our social compact means uplifting marginal groups as we progress in society. During the Budget Statement this year, I was heartened to learn that the Government will be allocating more resources to help all Singaporeans, especially our brothers and sisters in the vulnerable facets of society.