Hansard, Wednesday, 12 January 2022

1 Mr Xie Yao Quan asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) how does the Government identify, groom and develop promising athletes to achieve success in their respective sports; (b) what are the different forms of support and assistance available to such athletes during their sporting careers; and (c) how many athletes have benefitted from such schemes in recent years.

2 Ms Poh Li San asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) what forms of support and assistance can be further enhanced to enable our national athletes to succeed in their respective sports; (b) how can world-class coaches in the respective sports be attracted and retained to coach our elite national athletes; and (c) what are the Government’s plans to enhance collaboration and partnerships with the private and people sectors to continue supporting and developing Singapore athletes.

Mr Speaker, I thank the Members for their interest in how we support our Team Singapore athletes. With Mr Speaker’s permission, may I take both Question Nos 1 and 2 together?

Yes, please.

Thank you, Sir. The Government has established a comprehensive approach to identify, nurture and develop Team Singapore athletes. There are two key overarching strategies in this approach.

The first is to provide broad-based, accessible programming and continually enhance sporting infrastructure to give every Singaporean the opportunity to pursue their sporting interests, and hone and develop their skills. The second is to provide holistic, but individualised and personalised support to talented athletes so that they can maximise their own potential and represent Singapore at elite competitions like the Major Games.

Sir, please allow me to elaborate on both these strategies.

To make sports accessible to all Singaporeans, the Government devotes significant resources on mass participation programmes and courses. This includes Sport Singapore (SportSG)’s ActiveSG Academies and Clubs, which offer a more structured way for Singaporeans to pursue their sporting interests and develop their skills.

MCCY and SportSG also work closely with the MOE schools, the People’s Association and the private sport academies to develop, coordinate and implement across the board sport programmes that allow young Singaporeans to experience sports and hone their skills and talents. This itself also helps to grow the base of available talent. The National Sports Associations (NSAs) also play a key role in providing exposure and training opportunities to young Singaporeans.

Our efforts extend beyond mass programming. It is also essential that there is quality infrastructure to enable Singaporeans to engage meaningfully in sports. Over the last three years, we have invested an average of almost $90 million each year to develop and operate stadiums, running tracks, sports halls, pools and other venues that are accessible to the general public.

This strategy not only allows us to foster a strong and broad-based sporting culture in Singapore, but provides opportunities to spot young sporting talents who can be offered pathways to develop their skills and potentially represent our country as national athletes, as Member Xie Yao Quan had asked about.

Sir, over the years, the Government has also developed the High-Performance Sport, or HPS, system which is designed to nurture each high-performance athlete, maximising his or her own potential. The HPS is administered by the Singapore Sport Institute, or SSI, and the National Youth Sport Institute, NYSI.

The HPS system provides athletes with end-to-end support and development. The system assists each athlete in a holistic and personalised way, as I have mentioned. We are able to go down to specific physical attributes, strengths and potential of each individual athlete, as well as determine the demands and requirements of their own respective sport, to maximise performance outcomes.

Central to this approach is the development of a Daily Training Environment for each athlete, under which they are given a range of support and guidance in areas such as sport science and sport medicine, coaching and counselling. All of this are part of the HPS system.

For example, the SSI and NYSI employ leading-edge technology to test, monitor and track performance, setting achievement milestones relevant for the individual challenge each athlete to meet his or her own full potential.

Let me illustrate how the HPS system has supported champion para-swimmer Yip Pin Xiu. Sir, I will use examples in the course of this answer to support and explain some of the points I make, but these examples serve as illustrations as no two sports, and indeed, no two individual athletes are similar, and the HPS system is designed to be curated to bring out the best in each individual athlete.

In Pin Xiu’s case, sport biomechanists at the SSI record and analyse her swim timings and performances, rigorously. They also work closely with her coach and performance director to make fine adjustments and optimise her strokes.

Pin Xiu’s SSI sport physiologist performs regular tests to monitor her own body conditions and provided valuable feedback to her coach on calibrating the volume, frequency and also intensity of her training. At the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games, for instance, the SSI sport physiologist employed various forms of heat retention to regulate Pin Xiu’s body temperature while she was in the holding room awaiting her events and this helped her to maximise her performance outcomes at the races. Taken together, SSI’s support for Pin Xiu – and many other athletes – has helped boost their competition performances.

The HPS system supports all our elite athletes by recognising each athlete as a unique individual with specific gifts and abilities. The Government invests in the system and continually enhances it so that our athletes will be supported and developed in a way that best addresses their own individual needs and maximises their potential. The focus is on enabling each athlete to be at their best, to do their best and to succeed against the best in their chosen sport.

Integral to this system is the provision of excellent coaching for our elite athletes, a point which Member Poh Li San asked about. The Government extends substantial grants to the NSAs to enable them to hire selected coaches to train our elite athletes. Additionally, SSI’s sport scientists, specialists and experts work closely with many of these coaches to better integrate them into each athlete’s Daily Training Environment. We endeavour to identify and hire the best coaches for our athletes – foreign or local coaches, and sometimes a blend, so that our coaching environment can also benefit from foreign expertise.

For instance, one of Team Singapore’s fencing coaches is Joseph Davin Engert, who was a former top German national youth fencer and a two-time World Cup Junior champion. Together with our own local coach Henry Koh, who was himself a double bronze medallist at the 2003 SEA Games, they recently led two of our fencers, Amita Berthier and Kiria Tikanah, to their maiden Olympic Games in Tokyo.

There is also local coach Pang Qing Liang, who guided national para-archer Syahidah Alim to her first World Championship title in 2019, an unprecedented feat for a Singaporean. Syahidah has also maintained her top three world rankings to-date over this period of time. For his efforts, Qing Liang won a Singapore Disability Sports Award for best high-performance coach in 2020.

Sir, top coaches are in high demand all over the world, and many talented expatriate coaches rarely remain with one team or in one country for long. Therefore, in hiring top foreign coaches for our athletes, we also want them to transfer their know-how, skills and expertise to Singaporean coaches, so that we can grow our own pool of talented local coaches.

For example, Mulyo Handoyo had coached several international badminton champions including former Olympic Champion Taufik Hidayat as well as guided our very own Ronald Susilo to a career-high world ranking of sixth. While he will step down soon as our national badminton singles head coach after a successful four-year stint to spend more time with his family after being away for an extended period due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he will leave behind a mentoring legacy which impacts not just our players but also our own local coaching pool.

One of them is badminton coach Kelvin Ho. Kelvin is a former national athlete who won a bronze at the 2009 SEA Games before retiring from competition a year later. He has since honed his coaching skills, using his own experience as a top class shuttler and also benefitting from the guidance of coach Mulyo. Many members in this House would have been familiar with the role which Kelvin played in guiding Loh Kean Yew and other shuttlers to their recent successes on the court.

There are many notable local coaches like Qing Liang and Kelvin within the Team Singapore fraternity.

Recently, ex-national swimmer Gary Tan was named as the successor national swimming coach, replacing Australian Stephan Widmer. Gary learnt his craft under Widmer and his predecessor Sergio Lopez. I am confident that Gary with continue in the fine traditions of our Singapore swimming sporting culture.

Sir, in total, the Government invests about $70 million in this HPS system each year, every year. Over the last five years, these investments have paid for many of the initiatives and efforts I have just described. These include: (a) purchasing and operating new technological systems to support the SSI’s sport science facilities; (b) funding the cost of coaches and training programmes, both locally and overseas; (c) providing world-class facilities to allow elite athletes to train in the most optimal conditions possible; and (d) undertaking research and development to offer new and innovative forms of support to our athletes.

Let me share two recent examples of these initiatives. Several years ago, the SSI established an environmental chamber in which factors such as temperature, humidity, wind and altitude can be closely controlled and calibrated. This chamber allows SSI’s sport scientists to monitor the effects of these variables on the performance of each athlete and calibrate their training accordingly. This in turn allows our athletes to acclimatise and to get used to factors such as altitude and temperature in their training environment for competitions.

The second example, when the Badminton World Federation announced that it would be switching to synthetic feathered shuttlecocks for environmental reasons, the SSI’s sport biomechanics team conducted an intensive comparative study of the flight and projection characteristics of the new shuttlecocks and how each of our individual Team Singapore badminton players perform with them. This study resulted in valuable customised guidance to each player on how he or she can modify his or her movements to adapt to the speed and flight of the new shuttlecocks. These are some of the examples of the intrinsic support which we provide to Team Singapore athletes, through the HPS system.

In the coming years, we will continue to commit a high level of funding to the HPS system because we believe this will enable us to continue enhancing the system, especially in areas that will maximise the individual performance of our elite athletes.

Sir, besides funding HPS at a broad infrastructural systems level, at the broad infrastructure, systems level, a significant portion of funding also goes to supporting our athletes directly. For example, there is the spexScholarship, which is offered to the most promising athletes to allow them to excel at the Major Games and who can then serve as role models for young Singaporeans.

The scholarship provides a monthly stipend that allows athletes to take care of their daily expenses. There is also funding to help offset their coaching costs, participate in local and overseas training and competitions, purchase equipment and obtain additional sport medicine and sport science support if they require it. There is, of course, a range in the amount of the financial support available, with our top athletes supported at several thousand dollars per month for those who can excel at the highest level of their sport.

The spexScholarship has been given to 168 able-bodied and para-athletes since its establishment in 2013. There are currently, at this point in time, 76 scholarship holders, coming from a diverse cross section of sports. Several of them have won medals at the Major Games and at the world championship level and a handful, like Pin Xiu and Kean Yew, are household names amongst Singaporeans.

But, Sir, the Government’s support for our elite athletes is not just a matter of dollars and cents, it is not just financial support, and not only about the technical or sports science support. It also extends to many other aspects of our athletes' lives and enables them to compete in sports while excelling as students, professionals and as exemplary members of society.

We recognise that each athlete will face different challenges outside of the sporting arena, at different stages of their own lives.

The Sport Excellence (spex) framework addresses these needs. It comprises several schemes to help athletes at various stages and across various facets of their lives, so that they can thrive in both sporting and non-sporting environments. Let me briefly describe some of these initiatives.

The spexEducation scheme was set up in 2013 to help athletes meet the demands of sports and education. I think it is a question that many parents, many athletes ask themselves: "How do we do both well at the same time?" The scheme assists student-athletes to balance their sporting and academic pursuits by supporting them with school admissions, scholarships and also importantly, scheduling their day-to-day classes and exams around their training sessions and competitions. This scheme has been made possible through agreements between SportSG and 16 partner Institutions of Higher Learning (IHLs), including the ITEs, Polytechnics, NUS and SMU.

More than 500 student-athletes have benefited from this scheme. One of them is national shooter Martina Veloso, who has won two Commonwealth Games gold medals and a gold at the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup in 2014. Martina, a graduate of Nanyang Polytechnic, is a beneficiary of the spexEducation scheme.

The Polytechnic, itself, is a strong supporter and partner of the scheme, proactively assisted Martina in managing her class and examination schedules, granted her extensions for the submission of assignments and offered her a customised path of study that accommodated her own training, and also travel and competition commitments.

There is also the spexBusiness network to help athletes who are stepping into the workforce secure jobs and pursue meaningful careers whilst at the same time balancing their own sporting commitments. The scheme also provides support to those who are retiring from active competition and training, in their transition to full-time work.

The network currently comprises more than 60 companies and organisations across more than 25 industries. These provide a wide array of career opportunities to Team Singapore athletes. They include Deloitte, Adidas, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and OCBC Bank, just to name a few.

Since 2013, 330 former and current athletes have been assisted through this scheme.

Take Sophie Soon for example, our national para-swimmer. She is one such beneficiary. Sophie started her internship in 2019 at Toyota Motors Asia Pacific, which is a spexBusiness partner. The company supported Sophie's rigorous preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games by offering her a flexible work schedule. Sophie has proven herself as both a top athlete and a model working professional. She finished fourth in her breaststroke final at the Games and was hired as a full-time staff with Toyota after she graduated from the Polytechnic.

Besides Sophie, other athletes who have benefited from the spexBusiness scheme include badminton player Jaslyn Hooi, taekwondo exponent Chelsea Sim, wushu exponent Ho Lin Ying and synchronised swimmer Miya Yong. These programmes help them to train and balance the commitments of working professional life, allowing them to do both meaningfully.

Next, the spex framework also offers direct monetary grants. These include spexGLOW, or Grant for Loss of Wages, which offsets any lost wages sustained from missing work either through preparation or competition at the Major Games. There is also spexTAG, or Training Assistance Grant, which helps to defray athletes' training costs. In the last five years, some 4,000 athletes have used these grants to pursue their sporting ambitions.

Apart from the spex schemes which I have just outlined, the SSI and NYSI commit time, effort and attention to promote the well-being of each athlete through his or her own sporting journey. Under the Athlete Life Management framework, the SSI and NYSI focus on integrating sports performance with interventions to promote mental well-being and stress management.

Since 2020, Sport Singapore has also engaged athletes to identify possible symptoms of psychological and mental distress, including eating and sleeping disorders. The HPS system recognises that athletic performance at the elite level can experience unpredictable peaks and troughs, and progression is rarely linear or predictable. The competitive sport environment is one that can exert and can impart tremendous, immense stress and pressure on even the most resilient of our athletes.

Mr Speaker, beyond just having the best training methods, employing cutting edge technology and sport science and giving financial support, the one other key success factor for us has been our talent, our people talent. The team behind Team Singapore. We have officers at the SSI and NYSI who are prepared to and often go beyond the call of duty and they become friends, counsellors, mentors and a source of personal support to our athletes. This personal, dedicated approach is a key feature of the care given to each athlete in the HPS system.

And one excellent example of this is Muhammad Hidayat Osman, a strength and conditioning specialist at NYSI. Hidayat works with our young wrestlers on areas such as their strength, explosiveness and flexibility. Hidayat was a former wrestler himself and he noticed that there were limited wrestling opportunities for athletes to improve their skills. He therefore volunteered his own time to be a sparring partner for young wrestlers so that they would have more avenues and opportunities to train.

He also embarked on a coaching course in wrestling, so that he can better understand the needs of wrestlers through the combined lenses of sport science, strength development and skills training, to do more, further and wider to help the athletes under his care.

Sir, the Government's support for our national athletes is therefore holistic and comprehensive, rendered in an all-round approach. We invest in the system and we also invest in our individual athletes. Additionally, we directly support athletes from the moment they are identified as a budding talent, through their development and growth as an elite athlete and in many cases, even as they transition away from active competition.

We also work with key stakeholders in the sporting ecosystem. For instance, the National Sports Associations (NSAs) play a key role in this environment. They not only help to identify future champions, but also support and coordinate their training and competition schedules. Some actively seek sponsorships and endorsements to finance the career and aspirations of their athletes. Others provide performance-based incentives to them. The Government enjoys a collaborative and constructive relationship with many of the associations and we will continue to work with them and support them as they seek to achieve the best outcomes for our athletes.

There is also the Singapore Sports School (SSP), which I would like to mention. This was established in 2004. It offers an integrated sports and academic programme for Secondary and post-Secondary students. The Sports School offers its students comprehensive training in a variety of sports in an environment that also allows them to excel in their academic pursuits. The school has produced Team Singapore Olympians like Kean Yew, sprinter Calvin Kang and swimmer Tao Li.

Earlier this month, the school announced its students' results in last year's "O" and "N" levels and International Baccalaureate (IB) examinations. I was pleased to learn that the students did very well and congratulated the school for its fine work in nurturing student-athletes. It shows that we have a system that can deliver outstanding athletes with a fine academic record as well.

An example of a sportsman who has benefited from this multi-stakeholder, multi-faceted approach to supporting and developing athletes is Izaac Quek. He is currently one of the world's top-ranked youth table-tennis players. Izaac was first identified by the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA) at age seven when he was in STTA's Bishan Zone Training Centre. He then enrolled at the Sports School and joined the national Junior Development Squad and Youth Training Squad, training under head coach Jing Junhong. Today, Izaac competes regularly on the world stage whilst at the same time, pursuing his Sports School studies and achieving excellent results in both of them.

Apart from these organisations, corporates and fellow Singaporeans can also play a role in supporting our national athletes. In 2017, the Government recognised this and launched the One Team Singapore Fund, which is a matching grant framework, to catalyse and encourage the support of private organisations and corporations and members of the public for our national athletes.

Donations to the One Team Singapore Fund are directed towards supporting athletes in areas such as enhancing their training environment and increasing their own competition opportunities. They benefit all athletes regardless of whether they win at competitions or not. So, the support is consistent and the framework ensures this. This provides athletes with certainty that they will be given support to achieve their best, regardless of the outcomes and not just have to rely on prize money.

To date, the Government has matched more than $15 million of donations from the public since 2017, of which in half that period, as Members would know, is the COVID-19 pandemic period. All of these funds go directly to benefiting the sporting infrastructure and to our athletes.

Mr Speaker, as I conclude, we know that Singaporeans cheer and celebrate our athletes achievements as a community of enthusiastic spectators, passionate sports fans and proud Singaporeans. There are very few things that can motivate, galvanise and inspire in the way sports can. Singaporeans were top of the podium on the world stage several times last year. Each occasion was an inspiration, bringing our community together, fostering a deep sense of national pride. By the same token, even in defeat, as our football Lions have shown us at the recent Suzuki Cup, sports can also inspire. We all rallied behind our team who fought hard, played with pride and even though they lost that match, they won our hearts. And this is what sports can do. Each moment of sporting success is special, uplifting and uniting us all.

The Government will therefore remain committed to sports in Singapore. We will keep our sports facilities, programmes and activities open and accessible to every Singaporean to promote a strong sporting culture and develop a pipeline of strong sporting talent. We will support every one of our national athletes with the assistance and resources they need to excel at the elite level and emerge as national champions and world-beaters on the best arenas and the world stages.

Mr Xie Yao Quan.

Mr Speaker, I thank the Minister for laying out in his response, the really comprehensive framework of support and the system that we have in place to support our national athletes. And I just like to acknowledge that this system has been built up and put in place over many years. And indeed, looking at the recent news coming out from a neighbouring country where the funding for their national sporting council was severely cut because of COVID-19 and with severe and direct impact to many of their national athletes, I think it lends perspective to the framework of support that we have in place for our athletes.

Nonetheless, I think there is always room to do more and in that respect, I have two supplementary questions for the Minister.

The first one, of course, inspired by Loh Kean Yew's historic win recently. I would like to ask if the Minister could share more information on how the Government plans to continue supporting world champions like Kean Yew to continue performing and excelling and winning at the highest levels.

The second question; more directly, I understand that Kean Yew did not win any prize money from his recent championship. But in the case of athletes who do win prize money, are they allowed to keep this money or are they expected to contribute some part of it to the Government?

I thank Mr Xie for the questions. I will deal with both. On the first question, I would have two or three points to make. First, it is imperative on us to continue to invest in the whole system. Because by doing so, providing holistic support and ensuring that the base is grown, then the possibility of more "Kean Yews", more "Shaynas", more "Aloysiuses", who all became world number one last year, will continue to be not just an aspiration, but a reality.

So, we have to expand our base. Build up better sporting infrastructure, talent spotting, talent development, nurturing, bringing them through the system and ensuring that these trailblazers, that Mr Xie has mentioned, will continue to inspire future generations of sportsmen for Singapore.

Our HPS famework, which I have taken some pains to lay out in some detail, allows us to insulate our athletes from the vicissitudes of reliance on just prize money – some high, some low, some competitions do not provide prize money – but provides a constant stream of support and ensures that is both targeted, focused as well as personalised for each individual athlete.

On the prize money, which Mr Xie has mentioned, this is up to the organisers of each competition. Some provide prize money. Others, like the recent World Championships, you play for prestige and of course, ranking points. Ranking points allow you to rise up in world rankings and allow you to be seeded subsequent competitions, thereby improving, enhancing chances of progressing further in the competition. All of these, whether prize money, or otherwise, the amount is determined by organisers. But I want to assure Mr Xie that the Government retains no part of this prize money. It is between the athlete and the relevant NSA. They deal with the prize money, they decide how that is best applied and the Government does not retain any portion of this.

On the contrary, regardless of whether they succeed at a competition or otherwise, as I have mentioned, the Government continues to support the athletes on his or her own journey, and also continues to support private donations, private sponsorships through the One Team Singapore Fund, which I mentioned earlier.

Ms Poh Li San.

I thank the Minister. I have a supplementary question on safety net for the athletes. To compete at the top class, international level, our athletes will have to give their best in training and in competitions. They have to make many sacrifices including taking time-off from work and from their studies. And in many cases, it will come to "make it" or "break it" point as they go full-time for many years.

So, what are the safety nets arrangements that our country can offer after they retired from competitive sports? These national athletes would have taken personal sacrifices to pursue excellence in their sport and that will assure athletes and their parents if they decide to go full-time to pursue sporting excellence.

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: I thank Ms Poh. I agree with the sentiment that the Member has expressed. We do need to ensure that our athletes are single-minded, focused and put all their energies and devote their time and mental focus on training and eventually, also on competition.

And so, the spex programme that I have mentioned – from scholarship, to education, to business, to GLOW and TAG – they provide a range of support and ensure that it is curated. As I said earlier, each athlete is at a different station of his or her own life. Some are students and studying, some are trying to ensure that they get a place in the workforce, some came out of school and yet others want to retain an interest in the sport that they so deeply and passionately care about.

So, we do want to try and ensure that through all of these spex programmes, at different parts of the athletes' life, they are supported in a way which allows them to focus on their training.

For the safety net that Ms Poh mentioned, it is also important. So, to that extent, in some cases, athletes transition from a playing career, a competition career to a coaching career. I mentioned coach Kelvin and coach Henry Koh earlier. Those are two examples. They were top tier athletes in their time and they transitioned, and we allow them to transition into coaching. SportSG plays a role in this.

Broadly speaking, we also want to ensure that we take advantage of and leverage the expertise of these athletes. So, they can find a post-competition career in sports science, in nutrition, in training, in physiotherapy, in physiology. All of these are adjunct to the sporting career and we will take opportunities as much as we can to continue to develop these adjunct areas, so that the sportsmen, the athletes themselves, can continue to serve in that capacity and, at the same time, still find a career after their playing days are over.

We agree with Ms Poh that we have come quite far on the HPS framework. We have also looked at the environment and working with private stakeholders like in spexBusiness. But we agree that more can be done and we will certainly press on with ensuring that athletes remain single-minded, focused on training and ensuring that they devote as much of their time and energy possible to achieving their best outcome and not have to worry about ancillary matters. We will continue to work with all our stakeholders on this.

3 Ms Tin Pei Ling asked the Minister for Communications and Information in view of IMDA’s assessment of the book "Red Lines: Political Cartoons and the Struggle Against Censorship" to be objectionable under the Undesirable Publications Act (UPA) (a) whether a redacted version of the book with the objectionable offensive images removed, will be considered by IMDA for the publication of the book in Singapore; and (b) how does the classification of the book compare with other publications previously deemed objectionable under the UPA.

4 Mr Sitoh Yih Pin asked the Minister for Communications and Information arising from IMDA’s assessment of the book "Red Lines: Political Cartoons and the Struggle Against Censorship” to be objectionable under the Undesirable Publications Act (UPA), whether a redacted version of the book can be considered for publication.

Mr Speaker, Sir, may I seek your permission to address Question Nos 3 and 4 and for Minister Masagos to address Question No 5, and for all related supplementary questions to be taken thereafter?

Yes, please.

Thank you. The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has assessed the publication "Red Lines: Political Cartoons and the Struggle Against Censorship" to be objectionable under the Undesirable Publications Act (UPA) as the book contains images that denigrate religions, including the reproduction of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of Prophet Muhammad.

The Government has made very clear its views on the Charlie Hebdo cartoons and on offensive images which denigrate religions and religious figures. We do not allow any religious group to be insulted or attacked, because hate speech and offensive content can easily be normalised and lead to deep social divides if left unchecked. To preserve racial and religious harmony in Singapore, we take a firm stance on such content regardless of their purpose of publication.

In the last five years, IMDA has assessed six other publications, besides "Red Lines", to be objectionable for denigrating various religious communities. These publications were assessed to be likely to cause feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will or hostility between different racial or religious groups and are thus not allowed for distribution in Singapore. For example, in 2020, IMDA deemed the book "Understanding the Evil of Innovation" objectionable as the book contained strong denigratory references towards Judaism and Christianity. Removal of the offensive content will not automatically lead to these publications being allowed for distribution. Revised versions would have to be re-assessed holistically and none of the publishers have sought to do so.

"Red Lines" was launched in the United States of America on 31 August 2021, before IMDA took a decision on its suitability for distribution in Singapore. There are multiple objectionable images throughout the book which are racially and religiously offensive. Singapore’s position on such content is well-known. The Singapore distributor of "Red Lines" itself, Alkem Company, had concerns about some of the book’s images being objectionable when they first approached IMDA.

In response to IMDA’s public explanation of its reasons for assessing "Red Lines" to be objectionable and unsuitable for distribution in Singapore, the authors Dr Cherian George and Mr Sonny Liew issued a public statement in which they expressed the view that "the regulator has opted for additional caution". Those were their words: "the regulator has opted for additional caution". It should be noted, however, that even with such caution, our society is not free from the frictions that strain racial and religious harmony.

At this point, Alkem and the authors have not confirmed their specific plans on the treatment of the offensive content. If and when they do so, they can approach IMDA to assess the suitability of a revised version of "Red Lines" for distribution in Singapore.

To ensure that publications which have been deemed objectionable are not distributed in Singapore, IMDA maintains a database of these publications which importers and book distributors can refer to. It is an offence for any person to import, sell, distribute, make or reproduce an objectionable publication. The penalty is a fine not exceeding $5,000 or jail not exceeding 12 months or both.

5 Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim asked the Minister for Social and Family Development and Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs what are the considerations and significance of IMDA classifying the book "Red Lines: Political Cartoons and the Struggle Against Censorship” as objectionable under the Undesirable Publications Act (UPA) to the Muslim community.

Mr Speaker, the book titled "Red Lines: Political Cartoons and the Struggle Against Censorship" was classified by IMDA as objectionable under the Undesirable Publications Act. It contained material that denigrated several religions and religious figures. These included caricatures from the Charlie Hebdo magazine of the Prophet Muhammad, which demean the Prophet and are extremely offensive to Muslims.

We found it shocking that demeaning and insulting images of the Prophet should be published anywhere. These images had led to rioting and deaths in parts of the world, including in France, United Kingdom, Middle East, Africa and Indonesia. Major media publications including in western countries have refrained from publishing the offensive caricatures.

MUIS reviewed the "Red Lines" book and found it contained several caricatures of the Prophet, as well as others that incited discrimination against Muslims, mocked the Holy Quran and the Prophet, and demeaned Islam. MUIS determined that these images are offensive to Muslims. MUIS also said that such content that negatively depicts Islam and Muslims, or any religion for that matter, are not acceptable, and even more so in a multi-religious society such as Singapore. Hence, MUIS supports IMDA’s classification of this book. I am certain the Muslim community also supports this move.

Beside the caricatures of the Prophet and Islam, the book also included images insulting to other religions. The authors may say that they do not intend for the publication to be insulting or demeaning, and their intention is to educate, but the Government rejects that. It is unacceptable to publish such caricatures and insulting images of the Prophet in the name of free speech, academia or otherwise. Let me reiterate that MUIS determined that the images are indeed offensive to Muslims. I can only imagine the feelings of our people, Muslims and non-Muslims, if such images are allowed to be published in Singapore.

In our multiracial and multi-religious society, it is vital that we treat every religion with respect and not denigrate religious communities. Instead, we should encourage dialogue and greater understanding among different religious communities, so that we strengthen our social fabric.

The harmonious race and religious relations that we enjoy in Singapore today require constant care and attention of the Government and the society at large. We do not want to risk anything that will begin unravelling the peace and harmony we enjoy from the due respect and consideration that everyone gives to each other. We remain committed to working closely with all our religious communities to preserve and strengthen our racial and religious harmony, which is a bedrock of our cohesive society. Mr Speaker, in Malay please.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mr Speaker, the book titled "Red Lines: Political Cartoons and the Struggle Against Censorship" was classified by IMDA as objectionable under the Undesirable Publications Act (UPA) because it contained material that denigrated several religions and religious figures. The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) reviewed the book and found that it contained several caricatures Prophet Muhammad, as well as other important figures that will incite discrimination against Muslims, mocked the Holy Quran and our Prophet, and demeaned Islam. MUIS determined that these images are offensive to many Muslims. MUIS also said that such content that negatively depicts Islam and Muslims, or any other religions for that matter, are not acceptable, and even more so in a multireligious society such as Singapore. Hence, MUIS supports IMDA's classification for this book. I am certain the Muslim community also supports this move.

Aside from caricatures of the Prophet and Islam, the book also contained images that denigrated other religions. The authors may say that the book is not intended to insult or demean anyone, and instead, their intention is to educate. The Government rejects this justification. Publishing such caricatures and images that insult the Prophet or other religions is unacceptable, even when it is in the name of free speech, academia and so on.

The harmonious race and religious relations that we enjoy in Singapore today can easily unravel and we must give it constant care and attention together.

Ms Tin.

I thank the Ministers for the reply. I fully agree that any insult to religions, especially in Singapore, is unacceptable. I would just like to ask whether the political nature of the cartoons in the publication has got any part to play in the decision.

Mr Speaker, I thank Ms Tin for her supplementary question. Political cartoons are not, in themselves, the problem. Some are already in circulation. It is very clear that "Red Lines" was disallowed for its offensive religious content. I have spoken about it, Minister Masagos has further elaborated on why these are of great concern in our multicultural, multi-religious context.

In my earlier reply, I have also said that IMDA had, in the last five years, deemed six other publications to be objectionable, for denigrating various religious communities. None of them were about politics either. They either contained offensive and prejudicial comments about other religions or espoused polemical religious teachings which were likely to cause ill will and hatred amongst the different religious groups in Singapore. "Red Lines" is objectionable for similar reasons. [Please refer to “Clarification by Minister for Communications and Information”, Official Report, 12 January 2022, Vol 95, Issue No 46, Correction by Written Statement section.]

Mr Zhulkarnain.

Mr Speaker, I thank both the Ministers for the clarifications. I think any words or images that are offensive to any religion is hurtful and the hurt remains. I have two supplementary questions for Minister Masagos. Given that the content in such publications can be replicated or duplicated and made viral in today's context, what can any members of the public – whether Muslim or otherwise – do to report or express their concerns to MUIS, especially if they feel that certain publications or images would be offensive to any particular group.

My second question is on the Undesirable Publications Act. The definition of a publication as "objectionable" is within the context of enmity or hatred between different races or difference religions. The question is, what about publications that may create hostility within the Muslim community itself? Would MUIS play a role in the determination of such publications being offensive? I would be grateful for such clarifications.

Mr Speaker, I apologise for keeping my mask on earlier, I have obviously become so used to it. Mr Zhulkarnain's questions are very important and let me address the first part of it first and I think Minister Masagos would probably like to supplement.

Social media platforms have terms of service, community standards as well as feedback mechanisms for users to flag or report inappropriate content. IMDA certainly expects them to adhere to their very own standards strictly. But in addition, when IMDA is alerted to the existence of websites that glorify, insight or endorse ethnic, racial or religious hatred, strife or intolerance, it may deem such content as prohibited material under the Broadcasting Act's Internet Code of Practice. Local content providers can be required to take down the content. IMDA can also direct Internet service providers in Singapore to block access to such websites.

In 2020, not so long ago, there was in fact a Facebook post by the NUS Atheist Society that was highly offensive to both Muslims and Christians. IMDA assessed that the post contains prohibited content on the grounds of national harmony and is in the clear breach of the Internet Code of Practice. IMDA issued a request to Facebook to remove the post and Facebook subsequently blocked it from access by users in Singapore. And so, that stand is very clear and also very consistent.

To Mr Zhulkarnain's other question regarding the role of MUIS. IMDA seeks the views of relevant agencies before making its decision on content that could affect religious harmony, and this is inclusive of content that may compare different religions or within the same religion, have different views. In the case of "Red Lines" and other content related to Islam, IMDA did and continues to seek the views of MUIS.

Mr Speaker, Islam puts the love of our Prophet at the highest plane among men. So you would expect Muslims to react when the Prophet's dignity is conned or when he is really ridiculed. Now, when Muslims are rightfully indignant at any derogatory remarks or insults made of the Prophet, but we must nonetheless, be guided by our prophetic principles of compassion, graciousness and magnanimity.

I say this because the Prophet himself, faced this when he was alive. In fact, once, when a group of men prayed publicly for death and calamity to befall him, A'ishah, his wife, wanted to do the same thing, to pray for death and calamity for the same people who prayed that on the Prophet. The Prophet stopped her and counselled her that, "Allah, our God, is gentle and he loves gentleness." So, I call upon fellow Muslims to follow what our religion teaches us: To conduct ourselves in the most exemplary way, even when we are rightfully hurt and indignant by the act put against our religion or our Prophet. Let us live by our laws because we can and where they are such literature that incite or endorse ethnic, racial or religious hatred, strife or intolerance, we will prevent them from happening and from such literatures from being published and distributed in Singapore.

As mentioned by my colleague, Minister Josephine Teo, members of the public who have concerns on a particular content in publications should inform IMDA, whether it is of one religion to another; persons against another religion; or even within the religion or their community. IMDA will always seek input from the relevant agency before it makes its decision on content regulation. In this example, IMDA had consulted MCCY and MUIS if the Islamic content involved was indeed derogatory, insulting and hurtful and they were so.

So, we hope that while we are indignant, we know the the content yet to be distributed are hurtful and derogatory to our religion, to our Prophet, I counsel ourselves, my fellow Muslims in my community, to behave and conduct in the most exemplary way.

Ms Yeo Wan Ling.

6 Ms Yeo Wan Ling asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether there have been studies done by the Ministry to understand the issues faced by women who are not in formal employment which prevent them from joining the workforce; and (b) what are the recent measures that the Ministry has put in place to encourage (i) employers to employ these individuals and (ii) these individuals to return to work after time away from the workforce.

7 Ms Yeo Wan Ling asked the Minister for Manpower (a) in the past year, what are the common issues brought up to the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) in relation to mediation cases on flexible work arrangements (FWAs); and (b) whether there have been any studies conducted on the impact of FWAs on work-life harmony and performance appraisals.

8 Ms Joan Pereira asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry is studying the impact of caregiving on a caregiver's career, finances and retirement adequacy; (b) in the last three years, how many caregivers have to (i) give up their jobs and (ii) switch to part-time jobs in order to provide care for an elderly family member, respectively; and (c) whether the Ministry will consider some financial support for such caregivers.

9 Ms Joan Pereira asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) whether the Ministry has conducted any survey to assess if caregivers find the support schemes for returning to the workforce sufficient; and (b) what other support measures are needed to help caregivers acquire relevant industry skills and prepare them for their return to the workforce, whilst looking after their loved ones.

Mr Speaker, may I take Parliamentary Question Nos 6 to 9 by Ms Yeo Wan Ling and Ms Joan Pereira together as a combined response.

Yes, please.

The Government provides support for caregivers in several ways. These include supporting their caregiving needs directly, enabling working caregivers to better manage both work and their caregiving responsibilities through flexible work arrangements, aiding their re-entry into the workforce through employment facilitation and training support, and strengthening their retirement adequacy.

The Government provides support for families with caregiving needs through subsidised care services and grants. For instance, all families with Singaporean children enrolled in ECDA-licensed childcare centres receive a universal basic subsidy, and some families receive additional means-tested subsidies. Eligible Singaporeans receive subsidies of up to 80% for non-residential eldercare services, such as day care and day rehabilitation services. We also provide financial assistance, such as through Home Caregiving Grant and Pioneer Generation Disability Assistance Scheme, to those with moderate to severe disability, to defray the cost of caregiving. Eligible caregivers of young children, elderly persons and persons with disabilities can also apply for the Migrant Domestic Worker Levy Concession if they need more help to look after their loved ones. Altogether, these allow caregivers to go back to work with peace of mind.

To further help working caregivers, the Government and tripartite partners are strengthening efforts to encourage the adoption of flexible work arrangements (FWAs). We have developed resources such as implementation guides and FWA policy templates, and conducted workshops to guide employers in implementing FWAs. Other than the Tripartite Standard and Tripartite Advisory on FWAs, MOM and tripartite partners had formed the Alliance for Action on Work-Life Harmony last year to facilitate the exchange of best practices, including in sectors that face greater challenges implementing FWAs. We are further sustaining this momentum by growing and equipping a community of Work-Life Ambassadors to support these efforts in the workplaces. Employers and employees who require advice or assistance on FWAs may also approach the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) for advice and assistance. In 2021, TAFEP did not receive any cases relating to disputes on FWAs.

One positive trend is that Singapore’s full-time female employment rate has been rising steadily over the last 10 years. However, there is still a small proportion of women who have not been able to participate in the workforce due to caregiving responsibilities. In 2020, 15% of women cited family-related responsibilities as the main reason for being outside the labour force, while 6% were working part-time due to family or personal commitments. When they are ready to work or to participate more fully in the workforce, women can tap on Workforce Singapore (WSG)'s employment facilitation programmes and services, as well as SkillsFuture Singapore's training programmes. For example, the Career Trial programme provides a trial period of up to three months, for the employer and jobseeker to assess their mutual job fit, with an allowance provided by the Government during the trial. Career Conversion Programmes provide training and salary support to employers who hire and reskill mid-career jobseekers for new occupations. Eligible working caregivers receive Workfare Income Supplement, which provides up to $4,000 in cash and CPF top-ups annually for those earning lower wages.

Let me share an example of how WSG's efforts have helped full-time caregivers get back to work. Ms Audrey Ong, currently in her 40s, quit her corporate job as a regional marketing manager in 2017 to spend more time with her son who was taking his Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) that year. When she was ready to return to the workforce in 2019, after her son became older and was a teenager, she wanted a second career that was both meaningful and manageable. Audrey came across testimonials on WSG's webpage of mid-career professionals who completed the two-year Career Conversion Programme for Registered Nurses (Degree) and she signed up for it. Her family was very supportive of her new endeavour. Audrey has since completed her two-year training stint and started her new job as a Staff Nurse with SingHealth Community Hospitals last year.

Staying employed is key to financial resilience and retirement adequacy. With increasing participation in the workforce and higher wages, successive cohorts of Singaporeans have been able to accumulate more CPF savings for retirement today compared to a decade ago.

Aside from helping caregivers accumulate more CPF savings through better employment outcomes, we have also introduced and enhanced measures in recent years to help all Singaporeans, including caregivers, build sufficient savings for retirement. For caregivers who had lower incomes during their working years and now have less to retire on, the Silver Support Scheme, which was enhanced in 2021, provides quarterly payouts of up to $900. About two-thirds of the Silver Support recipients are women, including many caregivers.

Incentives are also provided for caregivers and their loved ones to top-up their CPF in cash. For example, the Government enhanced the tax incentives for retirement, some topping up scheme from 1 January 2022. Eligible members can also benefit from matching contributions from the Government for CPF cash top-ups under the Matched Retirement Savings Scheme, which was launched in 2021.

Finally, older caregivers can tap on housing monetisation schemes such as Lease Buyback Scheme and Silver Housing Bonus to unlock their housing equity to supplement their retirement needs. The Government will continue to review our multi-pronged efforts to ensure that caregivers are well supported. Feedback from the conversations on Singapore Women's Development on greater support for caregivers will also be considered for the upcoming White Paper on Singapore Women's Development.

Ms Yeo Wan Ling.

I thank the Minister of State for her answer. Many of my female constituents have come to me citing that they have difficulties looking for a job due to the following reasons: not being able to fit into a typical 9-to-5 job due to caregiving responsibilities at home and also not being confident due to the lack of formal work skills while being away from the workforce for quite a number of years.

I would like to ask the Minister of State if there will be plans to put into place a database, perhaps for easier access to employers, who have FWA roles available and if there would be support from the Ministry to set up localised mentorship programmes across the island to help ease women into the workplace.

Further, as the dust settles on the effects of COVID-19 in the workplace, many companies are grappling with new HR standards, brought up by COVID-19 accelerated workplace matters. One big area, of course, is in particular, work-from-home. Our constituents have brought up to us that there seems yet to be best practices to measure and appraise the work of individuals in similar roles, but one having to work at home and one having to work in the office. Employees who have also joined the company during COVID-19 are understandably also experiencing steeper learning curves.

And so with this, will the Ministry, perhaps with HR thought leaders, be looking to support our employers, in particular our local SMEs, to set up better and clearer HR policies pertaining to these very new circumstances at the workplace brought up by COVID-19?

I thank the hon Member Ms Yeo Wan Ling for the two supplementary questions, very valid questions. Today, we have the Tripartite Standard on Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA), which provides recognition to companies that offer flexible work arrangements to their employees and put in place recommended practices, including informing employees on the flexible work arrangements available and the process to evaluate requests from their employees.

Adopters of the tripartite standard are provided with a Tripartite Standard (TS) mark on FWA that they can display on their recruitment materials to distinguish themselves as progressive employers who support the work-life needs of their employees. They are also identified as TS adopters on MyCareersFuture job portal and TAFEP's website. We encourage progressive companies who already offer FWAs or are considering doing so to adopt the Tripartite Standard on FWAs to distinguish themselves to jobseekers and employees.

On availability of mentorship programmes, Workforce Singapore's broad-based employment facilitation programmes and services provide support to all jobseekers, including to caregivers. Customised career coaching services have also been found to be very useful to jobseekers and caregivers alike who have individual and personal aspirations and skill gaps that need to be addressed. Mentoring is actually part of career coaching. I understand that NTUC's Women and Family unit is also starting a pilot programme to mentor women who want to get back to work. This programme, very interestingly involves women union leaders, as well as grassroots leaders coming together to support women in our community who want to return to work. I think this is an excellent Community Programme and I would encourage more community groups to introduce and to support women who want to come back to work in different ways.

As I said earlier, MOM and WSG will continue to review our employment facilitation programmes and services to ensure they remain accessible to jobseekers, including caregivers to help them return to the workforce.

On the second supplementary question, support for SMEs to implement work-from-home and also HR standards to help companies implement work-from-home for their employees, I would say MOM and the tripartite partners do provide resources on how employers, supervisors and HR can implement flexible work arrangements in a way that is fair, sustainable and effective. For example, the Tripartite Advisory on Flexible Work Arrangements sets out that supervisors should communicate expectations clearly upfront, manage and appraise fairly based on work outcomes instead of face time and also have to conduct regular check-ins with staff who are on flexible work arrangements.

At the same time, the advisory highlights the role that employees play in making flexible work arrangements work. Employees should utilise flexible work arrangements responsibly, including being accountable for work deliverables and remaining contactable and responsive while on flexible work arrangements, such as working from home.

Amidst COVID-19, the Institute of HR Professionals has set up a COVID-19 task force to curate resources to help employers and the HR community navigate the new challenges posed by the pandemic. These complementary resources include Institute for Human Resource Professionals' (IHRP) guidance on government advisories and HR tool kits to guide people in business strategies through this challenging period. In particular, the talent development and talent retention tool kits provide reference approaches and recommended practices on Virtual Learning (VL). HR leaders through the IHRP also came together to develop a playbook on hybrid workplaces to guide companies in planning and implementing hybrid work; I mentioned that yesterday.

I encourage companies and HR professionals who may need further support to tap on the wealth of resources and workshops offered by TAFEP and IHRP or join the Work-Life Ambassador and IHRP community.

Beyond resources provided, it will be critical for everyone involved – employers, supervisors, HR professionals and employees, of course – to shift our mindsets and adjust the way we work, so that we can collectively redefine workplace expectations and management processes to achieve more effective work outcomes.

Ms Joan Pereira.

Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Minister of State. I have one supplementary question. I am glad to note and hear that caregivers have successfully tapped on the various schemes of the Career Conversion Programme offered by Workforce Singapore. However, I have met many constituents who are elderly caregivers, who do not know where to turn to, how to navigate the websites. I was just wondering whether MOM is able to provide greater awareness publicity on the schemes in the Career Conversion Programme for these caregivers, especially the elderly ones returning to the workforce.

I thank the hon Member, Ms Joan Pereira, for the supplementary question. Indeed, one of MOM's focus in the last two years has been reaching out to elderly jobseekers, caregivers included, to make sure that they are able to navigate the wide spectrum of resources available. We have also set up 24 SGUnited Jobs and Skills Centres in HDB estates and these actually have been tremendously helpful, as senior jobseekers, caregivers included, are able to walk in and have face-to-face type of consultation sessions with the career advisers on the spot. Caregivers can also tap on the MrCareersFuture portal to search for jobs that best suit their skill sets and I think this is widely available and known to all.

I think we recognise that it is actually challenging for caregivers, especially those who have not been at work for a long time, to look for jobs. I fully support additional help and support to be made available to them, so that they can get back to work and be able to fulfil their career aspirations, regardless of their age.

The following question stood in the name of Miss Cheryl Chan Wei Ling –

10 To ask the Minister for Manpower what are the Ministry’s observations of the job market in terms of emerging trends or developments where female professionals are coming forward to apply their skill sets in emerging industries like digitalisation and sustainability.

11 Ms Tin Pei Ling asked the Minister for Manpower (a) which growth sectors currently see the largest dearth of women talents and leaders; and (b) what are the factors that could have contributed to this gender imbalance.

Someone pose the question, please.

Question No 10.

Mr Speaker, may I take Question Nos 10 and 11 by Miss Cheryl Chan and Ms Tin Pei Ling together?

Yes, please.

Singapore's female employment rate has increased over the past decade from 54% in 2010 to 57.7% in 2020. And this ranks well, compared to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

Women's share amongst Professional Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMETs) has also increased over the decade, from 41.1% to 45.6%. We are observing more women joining growth sectors such as in information and communication, financial services and health and social services. Altogether, women make up 52.8% in these three sectors.

The share of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) jobs, while lower, has also increased from 29.9% in 2015, to 32.4% in 2020. In 2019, MOM conducted a joint study on Singapore's suggested gender pay gap with Assoc Prof Jessica Pan from NUS and the study found that the differences in gender ratios across occupations could be due to gender differences in terms of personality and psychological traits, skills, different values placed on workplace flexibility, as well as social norms.

We will continue to work with our tripartite partners and community stakeholders to support women's participation in the workforce and help them enter and remain in occupations of their choice, including in emerging sectors.

12 Dr Wan Rizal asked the Minister for Health whether he can provide an update on the development and implementation of the five-year Child and Maternal Health and Well-being Strategy and Action Plan.

Mr Speaker, the Taskforce on Child and Maternal Health and Well-being was set up by MOH early last year to oversee the development and implementation of a five-year Strategy and Action Plan. The strategy will focus on supporting women and their children to attain good health and well-being, leading to a healthier next generation.

The efforts of the Taskforce are organised along three main thrusts. First, we are focusing on translating evidence-based findings into policies and programmes to address health risks. We will also go further upstream, as early as the pre-conception phase, in implementing preventive health efforts for women and children. Second, we are reviewing service delivery for children and their families to minimise the number of touch points that our citizens need to navigate across services. And third, we are reviewing our approaches to engage stakeholders and the public and to hear what matters most to them and to ensure that our messages and support to them stay relevant.

Over the past year, the Taskforce, comprising members from the public, private and academic sectors, has conducted focus group discussions with parents, parents-to-be and caregivers. We have also conducted some 20 site visits and engagement sessions with frontline officers from across the health, social and education domains to better understand what matters most to children and their families.

The Taskforce is reviewing and finalising its recommendations for the Strategy and we will be announcing more details soon.

Dr Wan Rizal.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State Janil for sharing with us the plans for this. One of my supplementary questions will be the involvement of the paternal part in this programme. We do understand that although this programme looks into child and maternal health, we do see the importance of others in this role. I hope that we can see more inclusion of fathers in the programme and in other programmes; and also, including the grandparents.

My second supplementary question is on screening as part of this programme. With more screening, inevitably, we will have more interventions, most probably. When we talk about intervention, I would think that there is a need for the task force to engage the workplaces. Are these in place? These will help the provision of workplace support for mothers in the future.

Sir, I thank Dr Wan Rizal for his questions. For the first question which is paternal and grandparent involvement, the answer is yes. We are looking at this from a mother and child view, with respect to the science, because that is really where we have the research in terms of pre-conception, what happens in pregnancy, early neo-natal period. But getting things done, the service delivery kind of programmes and activities are really from a family-centric point of view. And so, the whole family is indeed encouraged to join in, to be part of this and to come along the journey.

I hope that the fathers out there do not need a special invitation with their name. We are asking the whole family to turn up. So, as the father, he is part of the family, please come and get involved in looking after the young child and the young child's mother, and helping to support them through the journey. The grandparents are naturally involved in very much part of the caregiving in our society. So, we take a family-centric view to involve the whole family.

For the actual strategies around screening and interventions, these are still being studied and we have to look to see where we will implement programmes and activities. We will make the announcement in due course. But indeed, getting the right tools to make sure the interventions are effective are going to be important. We will be studying this.

13 Ms Hany Soh asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) what are the types of cases which the Family Violence Specialist Centres (FVSCs) handle; and (b) whether the FVSCs render any assistance towards victims of non-domestic sexual assault or harassment in the workplace cases.

14 Ms Carrie Tan asked the Minister for Social and Family Development what is the current strategy or practice in the social work and social services sector on the provision of therapy or support for families that have gone through family violence to aid in their psychological and emotional recovery from the trauma.

15 Ms Carrie Tan asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) what is the current capability and capacity of the social services system in providing support to survivors of sexual violence in their mental, psychological and emotional recovery; and (b) whether the Ministry is currently working or plans to work with educational institutions to ensure a trauma-informed and survivor-centric approach to post-violence care and support for youths.

16 Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim asked the Minister for Social and Family Development whether the Ministry will consider, on its own or in partnership with other organisations, implementing programmes to encourage a more proactive approach towards preventing family violence which goes beyond contacting the Ministry’s family violence hotline to also include bystander intervention training and strategies to empower all members of the public.

17 Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim asked the Minister for Social and Family Development with regard to male survivors of family or sexual violence, particularly those who have experienced such violence when they are young, what are the avenues of help available to these survivors in terms of counselling and support, awareness of legal rights and access to peer support groups.

Mr Speaker, Sir, may I have your permission to take Question Nos 13 to 17 together, as they are related to family violence and sexual violence?

Yes, please.

MSF works closely with the community-based Family Violence Specialist Centres (FVSCs) and PAVE’s Integrated Services for Individual and Family Protection Specialist Centre (ISIFPSC) to provide support to all persons, regardless of gender, who experience any form of violence.

The support provided includes safety planning to reduce the risk of violence recurring, facilitating alternative safe accommodation for survivors away from perpetrators, supporting survivors through the Personal Protection Order (PPO) application process, referring them to legal aid where necessary, making Police reports of violent or sexual offences committed against them, and working with them and their families, where applicable, on their longer-term needs.

Beyond addressing immediate safety risks, FVSCs and PAVE also provide counselling to survivors to address their psycho-social needs such as trauma arising from the violence. There are also various support and therapeutic groups run by the community, including FVSCs and PAVE, for survivors of family or sexual violence to speak about their experiences in a safe and supportive environment. Survivors who have mental health or trauma needs are also able to seek services from mental health professionals of restructured hospitals, including those with specialised trauma clinics.

MSF will continue strengthening interventions for families who have experienced trauma due to family violence. As recommended by the multi-stakeholder Taskforce on Family Violence, we will cater for a forensic-trained psychologist at each of the FVSCs and PAVE, to enable them to work more effectively with survivors and perpetrators. This includes addressing trauma and mental health concerns, providing assessment and intervention to identify and address risk factors and needs relevant to the perpetrators’ abusive behaviour and working with the social workers to engage in safety planning for survivors.

Taken together, the assessment, intervention and safety planning can help to reduce the risk of repeated violence.

MSF is also working with social service agencies to develop and implement a common assessment and intervention framework. This framework will enable frontline professionals to better identify family violence cases, make timely referrals and facilitate discussion of cases across agencies where relevant and support the agencies in managing the risks and addressing needs of both survivors and perpetrators.

There are currently three FVSCs, namely Care Corner Project StART FVSC, TRANS SAFE FVSC and PAVE ISIFPSC. Two of these – Care Corner Project StART and PAVE – are already able to provide comprehensive social and emotional support, including counselling and other interventions, for survivors of all forms of intra- and extra-familial violence, including sexual violence. These two centres also have the capability and capacity to provide social and emotional support to persons who experience sexual violence or harassment in their workplace. [Please refer to “Clarification by Minister of State for Social and Family Development”, Official Report, 12 January 2022, Vol 95, Issue No 46, Correction by Written Statement section.]

This support complements the efforts by the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP), which provides advice to persons who experience harassment at work, such as how to tap on workplaces’ internal grievance handling and workplace harassment management procedures. TAFEP will also require employers to provide an investigation report of the workplace harassment complaint in accordance with the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Workplace Harassment and take clear steps to prevent and manage workplace harassment in future.

Care Corner Project StART and PAVE are the only two agencies in Singapore with the capability and capacity to provide comprehensive support for survivors of sexual violence. MSF is working with the third FVSC, TRANS SAFE, to enhance its capability and capacity to provide similar comprehensive support to survivors of sexual harassment and violence in the second half of the year.

Children and young persons who experience family or sexual violence are supported by MSF’s Child Protective Service (CPS) or the community-based Child Protection Specialist Centres (CPSCs), depending on the severity of the presenting risks. Management and staff at the various touch points like preschools, schools, healthcare institutions and social service agencies are also trained to identify and report child abuse to CPS.

As part of the intervention, CPS and the CPSCs work with families to put in place safety plans to minimise the recurrence of harm. MSF and the CPSCs also have psychologists who are trained to provide evidence-based trauma interventions for children and their caregivers to treat their trauma and abuse-related psychological issues. Where relevant, MSF and our community partners may work with the schools and educational institutions, including their counsellors and student welfare officers, to ensure that school-going children receive the post-violence care and support that they need. MSF also works with community agencies that provide psychological services, including training for the agencies’ staff, to identify trauma needs in order to help the children and families heal from the trauma caused by abuse.

While post-violence support is important for survivors to heal and recover, MSF recognises that upstream, preventive efforts are equally important.

MSF has invested in public education efforts for many years. The Break the Silence public education campaign was launched in 2016 and was just refreshed in November last year to increase awareness of the different types of abuse, such as sexual abuse, psychological and emotional abuse, and to encourage bystanders, survivors and perpetrators to seek help. This is in line with the recommendations of the Taskforce on Family Violence. MSF has also started promoting the use of the “Signal for Help”, which is a hand signal that can be used by survivors to discreetly indicate that they need help. To further amplify this signal, MSF has incorporated it into its Break the Silence campaign logo.

On working with community partners to detect violence, MSF actively seeks out and collaborates with community partners and organisations to strengthen community detection of violence and refer persons experiencing violence to available support. In 2021, MSF worked with 16 organisations across the people, public and private sectors, including educational institutions, grassroots and religious organisations to provide Family Violence Awareness Training to over 1,100 staff and volunteers. MSF will continue expanding our outreach to more organisations, particularly partners that are likely to have direct contact with survivors of family violence or with groups that are at a higher risk of family and sexual violence. We welcome more organisations to step forward and partner us.

On preventive efforts, MSF works closely with our partners on various fronts. For instance, MSF has enhanced the marriage preparation programme to include topics such as adverse childhood experiences and its impact on relationships, with the aim of increasing couples’ awareness of family violence and building healthy relationship skills. Additionally, MSF has developed a set of respectful relationship narratives, which is aligned with ongoing efforts by the Government and community partners to educate youths on healthy and respectful relationships, with the aim of inculcating positive behaviours from a young age.

MSF is currently working with partners to align and incorporate these narratives into programmes. These will complement ongoing efforts by MOE to equip students with age-appropriate knowledge and skills to maintain healthy and respectful relationships, including through the Character and Citizenship Education curriculum.

Ms Carrie Tan.

I thank the Minister of State for her response. I am very heartened to know of the various efforts to increase capacity. What I would like to understand is, does MSF currently know what is the practitioner-to-survivor ratio in terms of the capacity for rehabilitative and therapeutic care?

And is there a concrete manpower plan to enhance the sector? The Minister of State and I have been doing our own engagements with social workers, and we are familiar that they are already using trauma-informed approaches but I think the practical consideration is that when social workers are overwhelmed, counsellors are overwhelmed, therapists are overwhelmed, they are not in the best space to hold space for their clients. So, we need to ensure that there is adequate resourcing and adequate manpower. So, is there any commitment that within the next three to five years, what numbers would we be training and putting in additional capacity in the system for the therapeutic care for survivors of violence?

I thank the Member for her supplementary question. MSF regularly and closely monitors the capacity of our FVSCs as well as PAVE to ensure that they are adequately resourced to be able to provide effective support to clients who need their help.

The FVSCs regularly report case numbers to MSF. We monitor to ensure that they are able to manage their case load and when necessary, MSF is prepared to increase the capacity of the FVSCs as a whole, to be able to effectively help survivors and perpetrators of family violence.

We had also recently announced that MSF will cater for a forensic-trained psychologist at each of the FVSCs to enable them to work more effectively with survivors and perpetrators.

I also want to add that there are, apart from the FVSCs, other social service agencies who also form their own therapeutic groups and support groups. And these support groups complement very well the Government's efforts to ensure that there is support for survivors and perpetrators alike.

If the Member would like further clarifications around the ratios, I would be happy to share them with her offline or to present them at the next available Sitting.

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

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

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

Sir, it is a truism today that economic growth is increasingly driven by innovation and the intangible assets (IA) and intellectual property (IP) that innovation itself generates.

Today's businesses compete with and differentiate themselves from their competitors through innovation. Those who innovate and make good use of their IA and IP have prospered and grown. In fact, 90% of the value of S&P 500 companies today lies in their IA.

Today, IA accounts for more than half of the global value of assets. This is significant, as it means that intangible assets are worth more than physical assets. In other words, ideas and innovations are more valuable than the physical assets that they animate.

Sir, we recognise this and announced the Singapore IP Strategy 2030 in April 2021. This is to strengthen Singapore's position as a global IA and IP hub, attract and grow innovative enterprises using IA and IP, and develop good jobs and valuable skills in IA and IP.

As our businesses generate more IA and IP, the IP registration operations of our IP office become increasingly important. An efficient and business-friendly IP office makes it easier for our companies to protect their IA and IP and enhance their value propositions.

Singapore has been consistently recognised for our IP regime. The World Economic Forum ranks us first in Asia and second globally for IP protection. The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) is constantly striving to improve its services. Last year, it was recognised as the third most innovative IP office in the world.

In our region, over 80% of all requests under the ASEAN Patent Examination Cooperation programme relied on IPOS reports, which is to say, applicants rely on the speed and quality of our patent examination work to speed up their corresponding applications in other ASEAN countries.

But the world does not stand still and neither can we. IPOS regularly reviews its operations and processes to be more efficient and more importantly, to be business friendly. This Bill is the result and product of such a review. And based on the responses we have received to our public consultation exercises; our stakeholders are generally supportive of the changes we have tabled today.

Today's Intellectual Property (Amendment) Bill makes changes to many of the IP statutes, specifically, the Patents Act, the Trade Marks Act, the Registered Designs Act, the Plant Varieties Protection Act and the Geographical Indications Act 2014. These changes will result in improvements across three broad categories: first, to ensure enhanced business-friendliness; second, on operational efficiency; and third, to enhance legislative and procedural clarity.

Let me now take Members through the changes in the Bill.

To improve IPOS' business-friendliness, the Bill introduces four major changes to improve the experience for applicants seeking to register their IP with IPOS.

The first change will streamline the administrative process for international patent applications which are not in English.

The Patents Act currently ties certain rights of a patent-holder to the date when the patent application is published, for instance, when determining damages for infringement. However, for the 15% or so of the international patent applications that enter Singapore which are not in English, these rights are only conferred if IPOS publishes the English translation of the applications upon the payment of a fee.

Clause 15 removes the requirement for a fee. Instead, as part of its routine process, IPOS will see to the publication of the English translation received from the applicant. This will reduce time, effort and cost for applicants.

Next, we will permit partial acceptance for national trade mark applications. This is already a common practice in other major jurisdictions, and IPOS already has this practice for international trade mark applications.

Currently, for national trademark applications, applicants may apply to protect a trademark across multiple types of goods and services. If a trademark examiner has objections to the application in respect of only some of the goods or services listed by the applicant, these objections might hold up the entire application.

Clauses 43, 44, 46, 47, 52 and 53 of the Bill will amend the Trade Marks Act to allow IPOS to partially accept an application, allowing the trademark to be registered for those goods and services for which there were no objections in such cases.

We expect that the change to permit partial acceptance for national applications will benefit up to about 13% of these domestic applications. That is approximately 2,100 applications annually, saving applicants time, effort and costs.

Third, clause 51(b) changes the post-deadline relief measure for trademark applications.

Under the Trade Marks Act and Rules, trademark applications are treated as withdrawn if certain deadlines are missed.

In the six months after the deadline, applicants can request reinstatement of their applications.

This six-month window affects third parties who wish to apply for marks that are identical or similar to the applicant's, as they need to wait for the six-month period to lapse to have greater clarity about the outcome of their own application. And so, in that period, face uncertainty as to how to proceed in the meantime.

To address this situation, applicants will henceforth have two months to request for the continued processing of their lapsed applications, instead of six months to request for reinstatement. Continued processing preserves the application and should the applicant wish to continue with his application, expedites the processing of the application compared to the current approach of seeking reinstatement.

The shortened period after the missed deadline will incentivise applicants to quickly put their application in order. The shortened period will also reduce uncertainty for third parties who wish to apply for identical or similar marks. The US and New Zealand similarly provide for a period of two months for applicants to file such a request. These changes will not affect the majority of applicants who actively monitor applicable deadlines and act in a timely manner.

The final change in this category introduces an opposition mechanism to facilitate the correction of errors in IP applications or registrations, where the correction may affect the interests of third parties.

This change pertains to the Geographical Indications Act 2014, the Plant Varieties Protection Act, the Registered Designs Act and the Trade Marks Act.

Examples of corrections that can affect third parties include those relating to the particulars of the applicant or rights-holder, or that affect the priority details of an application or registration. IPOS receives about 40 such requests for corrections per year on average.

The Bill will amend the relevant Acts to give IPOS the discretion to publish requests for corrections, so that third parties are made aware of such correction requests and can assess whether they wish to oppose the corrections. Resolving such disputes between the applicant or rights-holder and third parties before accepting the corrections enhances the certainty of the information on the Registers.

Next, Members will recall I mentioned changes across three broad categories. The second category of changes seeks to improve operational efficiency.

Let me highlight four key amendments to IPOS' internal processes.

To begin with, we will improve the patent examination process. At present, if a patent examiner assesses that a patent application does not satisfy one or more of the requirements to be eligible for the grant of a patent, he or she must issue a written opinion setting out the objections.

Clause 10 changes this so that if an examiner's objections can be overcome with minor amendments to the specification of the patent application, examiners can then simply invite applicants to make those amendments within a shorter period of time. This will obviate the need to issue a written opinion, thereby reducing turnaround and processing times for part of the 5,000 substantive examination requests that IPOS expects to receive annually.

We will also streamline the patent examination review process to remove unnecessary work.

Currently, once a patent examiner has issued a report objecting to the grant of a patent, the applicant can request that the examiner's report be reviewed by filing written submissions and/or amendments to overcome the objections. Another examiner will then review both the original report and the applicant's responses. However, if the applicant files amendments to overcome all unresolved objections mentioned in the original report, that report is no longer relevant.

Clause 11 of the Bill therefore changes this so that if the applicant files such amendments, the original report need not be reviewed, and the reviewing examiner can then focus on the proposed amendments. This is more direct; it gets to the point. This will save time and effort for up to 800 patent applications per year.

Next, clauses 22 and 23 introduce a new cooperative mode of examination for applications for the protection of new plant varieties. At present, during the course of examination, IPOS may appoint external experts to conduct the relevant tests and examination or rely on existing examination reports issued by foreign examiners from approved countries. However, the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, of which Singapore is a party, also allows for examiners to rely on relevant tests conducted and submitted by the breeder or another person, organisation or entity acceptable to IPOS.

We will therefore introduce this option to provide applicants with more flexibility and to reduce turnaround and processing time for such applications.

The last change in this category lays the groundwork for future improvements to operational efficiency by shifting technical and operational provisions from primary to subsidiary legislation. Such provisions are common throughout several of our IP statutes, for example, the Plant Varieties Protection Act goes into detail on related information that IPOS must regularly publish, while the Patents Act goes into detail on the amount of time a patent grantee has to renew their patent after expiry.

Moving such technical and operational provisions to subsidiary legislation will allow IPOS to adjust and adapt to changing needs more quickly, more nimbly, since amendments to subsidiary legislation can be made more speedily.

The third broad category of changes that the Bill seeks to introduce are those that seek to clarify the law and to smoothen IPOS' administration of the IP prosecution process. There are three such changes in the Bill today and let me take Members through.

First, clause 17 of the Bill seeks to improve the public's access to patent documents.

IPOS had launched the Patents Open Dossier in 2017 to provide easier access to a wider range of patent documents. This allows other inventors and the public to better understand inventions for which patent protection is sought or had been granted in Singapore. The change introduced in clause 17 clarifies IPOS' ability to make such documents available to the public, even in the absence of any request for the documents.

Next, clause 7 amends the Patents Act to empower the Registrar to issue practice directions on the manner of the filing of a patent application, in addition to the manner prescribed in the subsidiary legislation.

Moving forward, IPOS intends to amend the rules made under the Patents Act to require sequence listings to be filed with patent applications, where applicable. The amendment in clause 7 would allow the Registrar to issue practice directions setting out the format in which these sequence listings are to be filed.

Sequence listings are listings of nucleotide and/or amino acid sequences, which provide additional detail in patent applications, for instance, in biomedical or biotechnological inventions. Such detail can be useful for examiners and subsequent searchers alike. The law currently has no requirement for patent applications to include such sequence listings even when they might be relevant. Imposing this requirement in the rules and practice directions will strengthen the completeness of patent disclosures and make patent searches easier, more thorough, both for patent examiners and for the public.

Third, clause 41 will provide clarity on the period that an expired trademark will continue to be regarded as an "earlier trade mark".

Expired trademarks are currently regarded as earlier trademarks for a year after their expiry and also remain eligible for renewal or restoration during this period. Such expired trademarks continue to retain priority, potentially preventing the registration of other similar marks. However, trademark proprietors may have more than a year to renew or restore their expired marks in certain circumstances. For instance, when IPOS granted an extension of time as part of its COVID-19 relief measures.

The law is currently unclear as to whether such marks, which are still eligible for restoration or renewal after a year, will still continue to be regarded as "earlier trade marks".

Clause 41 will therefore amend the Trade Marks Act to clarify that expired trademarks will be considered "earlier trade marks" for as long as they remain eligible for renewal or restoration. This will ensure that trademark proprietors who are entitled to renew or restore their marks continue to enjoy the benefits of their registrations against later applications.

Sir, I have covered the three main categories of amendments to the Bill. Let me add that clause 55 also makes an administrative change to the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore Act to provide that any revenue from legislated financial penalties – namely, any fines or composition fines paid to IPOS – will go to the Consolidated Fund. This change will bring IPOS'. management of such monies in accordance with the best practices across the rest of the Government.

Mr Speaker Sir, Members will see that the Bill contains many different amendments across a variety of different IP related statutes. These reflect the continued and ongoing efforts of MinLaw and IPOS to review, to refresh and update, and improve the IP registration process in Singapore. This will support our businesses as they move towards the greater use of IA and IP both locally and globally.

If passed, we intend to implement the majority of the Bill by May 2022. The new cooperative mode of examination for plant variety protection applications, on the other hand, will be implemented later, after IPOS has finalised the procedural details. With that, Mr Speaker, I beg to move.

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

Mr Louis Ng.

Thank you, Sir. This Bill amends how intellectual property rights are registered in Singapore. This strengthens our position as a global IP hub and brings us closer to Singapore's IP Strategy 2030.

I am sure Minister Edwin Tong will be glad to know I have three quick fire points of clarification.

First, can Minister clarify when a Breeder’s test should be submitted when registering a new plant variety? The new section 18A of the Plant Varieties Protection Act phrases this as a voluntary option for applicants. This could create uncertainty whether or not to expend resources on the test. This is especially relevant as Breeder’s tests may sometimes take several planting seasons. Clarity will save applicants time and resources.

Second, will the Ministry clarify the principles for interpreting a disclaimer under the Registered Designs Act? The new section 30A only states that the rights are "restricted accordingly". This does not appear to consider that disclaimers may also expand the rights of a registered design. For example, can a disclaimer as to colour expand the protection to all designs of that type regardless of colour?

Lastly, our IP Strategy 2030 can play an important role in protecting the environment and fighting climate change. Innovation and technology has the potential to help us lead more sustainable lives and adapt to a changing world. I would like to ask the Minister to consider updating our IP strategy to include a focus on promoting sustainability innovation in Singapore.

Sir, notwithstanding my clarifications, I stand in support of the Bill.

Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

Sir, the proposed changes to the Bill will codify simplifications and streamline processes associated with intellectual property procedures. These changes relate to a wide range of IP classes, including patents, registered designs, trade marks, geographical indications and plant varieties protection.

While I support the Bill, I will offer some additional points for consideration. My remarks pertain to three areas, just like the other Member, but unfortunately for Minister Edwin Tong, I am both more verbose and more detailed.

I will talk about drawing a distinction, first, between protection afforded to trade marks and geographical indications vis a vis other classes of intellectual property. Second, I will talk about the application of information technology and digitalisation to IP processes and third, I will discuss a notion of a unified act for all IP classes.

In my prior speech on how intellectual property confers monopoly rights on ideas during the debate on the Copyright Act of 2021, I had spoken about the tradeoffs between granting IP protection and innovative activity and concluded that we should be sensitive to inherent tradeoffs between our pursuit of pre-eminence as a global IP hub and sanctioning potential abuse and overreach via rent seeking behaviour.

The moral of that argument applies with special force for the case of trade marks along with – to a lesser degree – geographical indications. Legally enforceable trade marks do not generally promote competitive innovative activity, unlike copyrights or patents. They do not generally enrich the public domain, serving as the germ of subsequent research ideas. Their function is largely market oriented to grant its owners a right to preclude others from the use of a particular established brand or symbol. More fundamentally, trade marks have a tendency to favour the business interests of incumbents against those of new entrants and challengers to the status quo. The public policy premise for their existence is therefore correspondingly weaker, and we should, in my view, be more guarded in our treatment of trade marks in our corpus of IP law.

The amendments in part 5 of the Bill on trade marks should therefore be scrutinised in this light. In particular, while the partial refusal mechanism is certainly more efficient from the perspective of expediting legal processes involved, institutional frictions may yet serve a purpose to inhibit excessively frivolous trade mark applications. The analogy here is how a small transactions tax, financial transactions tax, could throw "sand in the wheels" and discourage excesses from speculative trading in financial markets.

Sir, I understand that this approach is already in place in international jurisdictions and is consistent with the designations in the Madrid Protocol. Still, I think it is fair to ask whether as a small open economy with a strong interest in promoting indigenous innovative capacity, whether we should be granting IP rights that could be counterproductive to advancing that endeavour. More pointedly, are we approving trade marks on a partial basis? Excuse me – are we approving trade marks? Are we granting the registrar the right to approve trade marks on a partial basis instead of the existing default of requiring, a full resubmission, which may well be favourable for fostering a less inhibitive innovation climate? Put another way, do we wish to make it easier for applicants to quickly secure IP rights that could then be turned around and used toward profiteering. One only need to look at trade mark trolls worldwide such as Paris Hilton attempting to trade mark "That's hot!", or Donald Trump seeking to trade mark "You're fired!". Thankfully, they were not successful in these applications.

While not explicit in the Bill, there are also two aspects of information technology and digitisation that I believe merits some additional comment. In the initial public consultation document issued in August last year, IPOS explained that they have begun the deployment of artificial intelligence technologies for IP administration. In particular and relevant to this Bill, one use of AI was in assessing extension of time requests in response to correspondence from the registrar. The Bill itself proposes that the stipulated time periods be shifted from the Act to the rules across multiple IP classes as captured in amendments to section 35, excuse me, 36 of the Patents Act, section 19 of the Trade Marks Act, section 21 of the Registered Designs Act and section 51 of the Geographical Indications Act.

For instance, the two-month period for filing notices of opposition to propose corrections for patent applications would now apply. Presumably, this was inspired as Minister Edwin Tong discussed earlier on by the application of AI to ascertain whether such a two-month duration is reasonable, or at least consistent with the historical data with which IPOS has available.

Mr Speaker, it is worth noting that this power and promise of AI is an enticing one, but the strength of the technology should not be overwrought. The strength of big data rests on, well, access to data that are genuinely large. Some rules of thumb are data in excess of one terabyte or training data for machine learning that is in the order of millions of observations. While I do not have the visibility on the number of IP applications IPOS has in its internal databases, I would venture that these fall far short of typical applications of machine learning.

A perhaps more pernicious concern is that unsurprisingly, AI technology is only as intelligent as the historical data on which it trains. This has led to arguments by some data scientists who point out that callous applications of AI could exacerbate existing societal fault lines and entrench persistent inequalities. At the very least, AI prediction should be subject to scrutiny, not just by standards of fairness and transparency, but also whether historical decisions are being fed into the algorithm are actually truly just or optimal.

Amendments to section 108 of the Patents Act also touch on another element of information technology, namely, the requirement that published patents be made available to public. I believe that these amendments supplement existing open data practices, notably, the launch of the Patents Open Dossier (POD) database in June 2017, something that Minister Edwin Tong also spoke on earlier.

Mr Speaker, to this end, I went ahead and explored the e-Services portal myself. While such data access is surely welcome, I will only note that the existing design of the POD requires that the user know the parameters for a given IP such as the filing date, applicant name or application number. These are certainly useful for reverse lookups but is nevertheless relatively constrained, especially when engaged in the free form searches one typically performs in exploratory research. To this end, I wonder if the Minister will be willing to share their efforts by IPOS to further develop the database to allow for, say keyword or categorical searches so as to make it more useful.

I shall close with a metapoint. The substantial amendments tabled in this Bill span five existing Acts and exclude the Copyright Act, which was debated last year. Such multiple sources could lead to a proliferation of related laws that run the risk of potential conflict or making searches for IP relevant legislation comparatively less user-friendly. May I ask whether the Ministry has considered consolidating the various IP related laws into a single omnibus Act? The only justification I can think of for not doing so is the need to remain faithful to various international treaties to which we are party. Such consolidation, however, would not only make it easier for IP and legal professionals to reference laws related to IP while also remaining consistent with the ethos and body in the Statute Law Reform Act, which was passed last year in this House.

Minister Edwin Tong.

Mr Speaker, I thank both Mr Ng as well Assoc Prof Jamus for their support of the Bill.

Let me try and deal with it, in Mr Ng's words "quick fire fashion" response. Mr Ng asked about a breeder's test and also about the principles that will apply for interpreting a disclaimer. I will deal with these two points first and touch on sustainability issue later on.

The new section 18A of the Plant Varieties Protection Act introduces an additional mode of examination. This involves the breeder or another person, organisation or entity acceptable to the Registrar of Plant Varieties in IPOS, or the Examiner. This is known as the breeder’s test which Mr Ng referred to a moment ago. Mr Ng asked when a breeder’s test should be done, so that applicants would be clear when it would be necessary for them to expend the time and resources to do the test.

Sir, to qualify for plant variety protection, a candidate plant variety must, among other criteria, be: (a) distinct; (b) uniform; and (c) stable. These are known as the "DUS criteria". Whether a candidate plant variety meets the DUS criteria is established at examination.

Currently, the Registrar may either appoint external experts, as I mentioned earlier, as examiners to conduct examination, including the tests for the DUS criteria, or utilise an existing examination report with results on the DUS criteria, issued by a foreign examiner from an approved country.

The new breeder’s test mode will give the applicant another manner in which the application can proceed. So, breeders can now opt to perform the required tests by themselves, or to directly engage someone else recognised by the Registrar or the appointed Examiner to do so, before submitting the results to IPOS. IPOS will conduct further consultations with stakeholders on procedural details before implementing the new breeder’s test.

The second item for clarification by Mr Ng relates to the new section 30A of the Registered Designs Act (RDA). This relates to the disclaiming of rights in relation to a specified feature of a design. Mr Ng sought clarification on the principles for interpreting a disclaimer under the RDA.

IPOS’ approach to disclaimers under the RDA takes reference from our trade marks regime, and adopts the same intent and understanding as to the effect of disclaimers.

When applying for registered design protection, an applicant may identify what they wish to protect by providing a representation and description of their design, and if necessary, by clarifying which parts of that design they are not seeking protection for.

The intent in providing applicants with the option to make disclaimers is so that applicants can specify which features of a design they do not wish to protect.

So, the protection conferred on a registered design will include the features that have been described and represented, whilst excluding any features that have been disclaimed. Therefore, a disclaimer should only reduce the features that are protected under the registered design.

Next, let me turn to Mr Ng's third point on Singapore’s IP strategy and how it can support sustainability innovation and contribute to our fight against climate change.

Sir, climate change is not only an urgent global issue. It is an existential challenge for us in Singapore as a small island. We must get creative and pioneer technological and policy solutions for sustainable development.

Intellectual property (IP) is a useful tool to drive and support innovation, including innovation in clean technologies.

What we can do, and have done, is to help accelerate the pace of innovation by facilitating: (a) better support from our IP regime for the development and use of emerging technologies; (b) technology transfer from the public sector to the private sector to expedite the introduction of new innovations to the market; and finally, (c) faster protection to benefit innovators working in fields with short technology life cycles.

In my opening speech, I mentioned the Singapore IP Strategy 2030, or SIPS 2030. Part of our commitment under SIPS is to support technological advances through policy reviews. So, for instance, Assoc Prof Jamus Lim mentioned the new rules that were introduced last November as part of the Copyright Act 2021 to clearly permit computational data analysis. Future reviews will continue to take into account emerging clean technologies and, certainly, future reviews on a broader point will also take into account what Assoc Prof Jamus Lim said about AI and machine learning. All of these are developments that continue, they evolve and, over time, new changes will mean that we might need new rules. So, we are committed to ensuring that our regime, as a whole, given that we are dealing with a high technology, cutting edge space, we will have to continue to evolve to meet these changes.

Another commitment under SIPS is to increase enterprise access to publicly funded IP, including for innovations that can benefit our healthcare and sustainability efforts.

Unlocking the fruits of public sector research will benefit our businesses, even as their work in bringing research to the market helps realise the potential of these innovations.

And, finally, the Singapore IP Fast Track programme, introduced in 2020, expedites the processing of IP applications – whether they are patents, trade marks and registered designs, they can move from application to protection in as fast as six, three and one month respectively. That is very quick by international standards. And the sooner and quicker we are able to do this, the more confidence an innovator will have in the system that it will be able to register and protect its inventions.

This reduction in the time needed to acquire protection benefits innovation in fields with short product life cycles in particular and facilitates the rapid commercialisation and proliferation of new technologies which may include green technologies.

Sir, Assoc Prof Jamus Lim also spoke about how we might look at and review the IP regime and how we might want to be more circumscribed and, as I heard him say, reduce the scope and breadth of trade mark applications and recognition because of the need to ensure that there will be more competition for the incumbent's space.

Sir, the point really is quite the converse. A strong IP system that recognises invention, protects innovation is one that will promote innovation and promote this space. Assoc Prof Jamus Lim spoke about having more competition for the incumbents, but I will venture to suggest that if we had no IP protection or less IP protection, then in fact the space for the incumbents to be in Singapore will be far less ideal. And you will find that incumbents will take their innovations and inventions elsewhere where they can apply for and obtain trade mark protection.

In terms of competition, I would say that competing goods can actually be sold. There is no bar to that. It is just that you cannot misrepresent the basis or the source of your product. So, competition is not stifled but innovation is protected under our current regime.

Sir, having said all that, the point I made earlier about constantly evolving, constantly having to adapt and react to changes in this space remains true. We will not rest on our laurels. We will continue to ensure that our IP system fosters innovation, promotes commercialisation – and that includes in spaces like in green technologies – and helps new ideas, new innovators realise their potential.

Once again, I thank Members who have spoken – both Mr Ng and Prof Jamus – and support the Bill.

In summary, this Bill is part of our process, our continual process and efforts to ensure that our IP office and our regime and system that we use, and very often it is not just about the laws but about how they are implemented in practice, what is the procedure like, how quick can we do it, how fast is the turnaround time and how efficient can we deal with applications. All of this is part of our efforts to ensure an efficient and a business-friendly environment. This in turn helps our companies, innovators and inventors protect their IP and turn their innovations into a competitive edge and advantage.

MinLaw and IPOS will continue to work to review, update and improve Singapore’s IP regime. Mr Speaker, with that, I beg to move.

Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

Mr Speaker, just a very quick point of clarification in what I said about intellectual property with respect to trade marks. I wish to clarify that, in fact, I feel that there is a distinction between trade marks as a class versus other classes of intellectual property for the purposes of promoting innovations. So, here my question is more whether Minister Tong feels that trade marks should be treated somewhat differently, given that it tends to be conferred more for existing incumbents, as opposed to other classes of intellectual property that is often conferred to new entrants?

I had understood Assoc Prof Jamus Lim's point. There are different classes and that is precisely why we have dealt with it in different pieces of legislation, recognising that there are different intrinsic qualities that go behind each of these classes.

For trade marks, in particular, the point is a broader one. If we try to reduce the space or the recognition of trade marks or curtail them or compromise them, then the knock-on impact on innovators and inventors wanting to bring their products into Singapore to obtain that protection will be in turn affected. And that was the broader point that I made – about sounding a caution about trying to restrict the application of trade marks for these innovations.

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

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

[(proc text) The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai]. (proc text)]

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

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

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

Sir, over the years, MinLaw has dedicated much effort to strengthening Singapore’s position as an international dispute resolution hub. We continually look for opportunities to drive work to Singapore and Singaporeans, keep abreast of developments in other jurisdictions and also update our regime so that we can continue to remain an attractive place for businesses to want to be at and to deal with and address their legal needs.

[Deputy Speaker (Mr Christopher de Souza) in the Chair]

These efforts have yielded results. Singapore is recognised as a premier legal services hub, in Asia and also the rest of the world. In 2020, Singapore’s exports of legal services exceeded $0.9 billion, which is more than 40% of the value-added (VA) of Singapore’s legal services. In 2021, Singapore was, for the first time, selected as the most preferred seat of arbitration in the world, alongside London, in the Queen Mary University of London and White and Case International Arbitration Survey. This is a fine achievement, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has itself presented new challenges.

Even so, Sir, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. It is imperative for us to continually review, strengthen and update our framework, in order to stay competitive and meet the needs of businesses and users alike.

The proposed amendments in this Bill are part of these ongoing efforts to further buttress and enhance our offering and our position as a legal hub.

There are two key sets of amendments in this Bill: first, to introduce a framework for allowing a conditional fee agreement (CFA) in prescribed categories of proceedings; and second, to refine the scope of representation of foreign lawyers in the Singapore International Commercial Court (SICC).

The Bill also makes a miscellaneous amendment to clarify the date certain provisions relating to the regulation of foreign lawyers and foreign law practice entities were operationalised following the transfer of relevant regulatory functions from the Attorney-General to the Director of Legal Services on 18 November 2015.

Sir, let me now speak on the first set of amendments relating to CFAs.

The introduction of a CFA framework builds on our reforms in the litigation funding space, to enhance our offerings as a dispute resolution hub. To set the context, I will provide some background on litigation funding in Singapore, before going into the proposed legislative framework for CFAs.

Broadly, litigation funding refers to methods of funding legal proceedings. In Singapore, lawyers’ costs are typically paid by the client, as we have, historically, been more conservative about litigation funding. This is due to traditional prohibitions against maintenance and champerty, concepts which we have ourselves inherited from the English common law system. These rules were originally developed to guard against officious intermeddling in litigation and potential conflicts of interest, which lawyers providing financial assistance may face vis-à-vis their duty to their own clients, who may be vulnerable litigants, and also to the Court.

However, we have been taking incremental steps and looking at the landscape holistically. As legal costs can be substantial, we have observed a growing trend of alternative funding methods internationally. We have, therefore, been studying how to better meet the needs of businesses and individuals and also enhance access to justice. We have taken into account what has been done elsewhere in other jurisdictions – the safeguards that have been implemented, some of the learned experiences that they have since implementing and working out how we can better contextualise them for use in Singapore.

One area of reform we have introduced is in third-party funding (TPF), where a party unconnected to the dispute funds the claim, usually in exchange for a share of the damages awarded if the claim succeeds. In 2017, we introduced a legislative framework to allow TPF in international arbitration proceedings. Since then, funders have reported an upturn in requests for funding in Singapore, with funding provided in some cases. The legal and funding communities also shared that the reforms have been useful and beneficial. We have, therefore, extended the framework in June 2021 to domestic arbitration, certain proceedings in the SICC and also related Court and mediation proceedings.

Apart from the above, we also observed interest and needs for TPF in certain insolvency-related matters before the Courts and various reforms were worked into our insolvency legislation. Given the positive feedback received from the TPF reforms, with few risks and downsides observed, we have continued to study other potential reforms in the litigation funding space. This includes CFAs, which are the focus of this Bill.

CFAs are arrangements where a lawyer receives payment of a part, or all, of his or her legal fees only in specified agreed circumstances, such as when the client’s claim is successful. CFAs may take the form of a “no win, no fee”, or “no win, less fee” agreement, depending on how the fees are to be paid to the lawyer if the claim is unsuccessful. CFAs and contingency fees are, currently, prohibited and unenforceable in Singapore, under the rules against maintenance and champerty, which I referred to earlier. However, allowing CFAs can bring several advantages. Let me outline them.

First, it updates our litigation funding framework and aligns it with developments and practices on the international front. This helps to enhance the competitiveness and vibrancy of our legal industry and landscape. While Singapore lawyers are currently not allowed to offer CFAs, other common law jurisdictions have already moved away from these traditional prohibitions. For instance, England and Wales abolished the prohibitions in the 1990s and, together with the United States, Australia and Canada, allow CFAs in various forms today. The proposed framework for CFAs in this Bill, therefore, helps to level the playing field for our Singapore lawyers in certain practice areas vis-à-vis foreign lawyers in these other jurisdictions. Oftentimes, our lawyers compete on an international front internationally with foreign lawyers. In other jurisdictions, they can offer CFAs whilst our lawyers are not able to offer CFAs as part of their engagement with their clients.

Second, allowing CFAs can also enhance access to justice. This is particularly pertinent with current business interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses with legitimate claims, but themselves facing cash flow problems, may not be able to put out full legal fees at the outset. CFAs will help provide such claimants with an alternative method of funding meritorious claims, which they may otherwise not be able to pursue.

In jurisdictions that allow CFAs, other advantages have also been observed. As lawyers are typically better placed to evaluate the legal risks of a claim, compared to clients, sharing of financial risks of litigation between client and lawyer can also be beneficial. Just as CFAs can enable pursuit of meritorious cases, they can also discourage the pursuit of weak cases and frivolous claims, as lawyers’ fees are contingent on the outcome of the claim

Sir, we studied the approaches taken in other jurisdictions and sought feedback from stakeholders via a public and closed consultations. Having carefully reviewed all the feedback received and looked at the landscape and studied the outcomes in various other jurisdictions, we have designed a framework for CFAs in Singapore as set out in this Bill which, we believe, best allows us to make an initial move on CFAs whilst, at the same time, studying the impact it may have on a broader litigation funding landscape.

Let me now take you through the key features of the framework, as well as the safeguards that we have built into this framework.

Clauses 3 to 6 of the Bill set out the overarching framework for CFAs, while further details and safeguards will be prescribed in subsidiary legislation. Broadly, Sir, clause 3 states that lawyers will not be prevented from entering into a CFA that complies with the new Part 8A in the Legal Profession Act (LPA), where the CFA framework will be housed.

Clause 4 amends existing section 111 in Part 8 of the LPA, to clarify that Part 8 of the LPA does not apply to an agreement which is a CFA that complies with the new Part 8A.

Clause 6 sets out the proposed Part 8A of the LPA, which will provide the main framework for CFAs in Singapore. The proposed Part 8A will have six new sections, sections 115A to 115F.

Section 115A defines key terms in the CFA framework and sets out the scope of Part 8A. In that regard, similar to Part 8 of the LPA, Part 8A will apply to Singapore law practices and certain registered foreign lawyers and foreign law practices.

Section 115B creates a statutory exception for CFAs that comply with prescribed requirements. To be clear, Sir, the statutory framework for CFAs is not intended to override existing common law principles on CFAs relating to impecunious clients, which can continue to provide access to justice for such litigants.

CFAs will be enforceable only in prescribed proceedings. As a start, we intend to prescribe the following proceedings by way of subsidiary legislation.

First, international and domestic arbitration proceedings; second, certain proceedings in the SICC; and third, related Court and mediation proceedings. These will be, as Members may recall, the same categories as the extended TPF framework that we have put in place.

As CFAs are a new development in Singapore, we are taking an incremental and measured approach, more cautious at the start, starting with proceedings where litigants tend to be more commercially sophisticated. We are concurrently studying the feasibility of allowing CFAs in other categories of proceedings, such as domestic proceedings. The rationale for an extension of the framework would be aimed at uplifting the legal profession to further enhance and pursue access to justice for more litigants, who may otherwise not have such access.

But as these proceedings may involve more vulnerable litigants, we will study it more carefully. We intend to closely consult all relevant stakeholders in the legal industry and other interested parties before making a move on this.

Section 115B(6) provides that the range of work that can be covered by a CFA include (a) work done for the purposes of, and before, contemplated proceedings, such as preliminary advice, negotiations or the settlement of disputes. Oftentimes, these are matters which are a precursor to the substantive work, and the framework provides that the CFA can cover this kind of work as well. This is even if those proceedings are not eventually commenced, or if the claim or dispute in those proceedings is settled. But, obviously, in those cases, the terms of the CFA must appropriately reflect the specific conditions on which the uplift or the additional fee structure can then be triggered.

Another key feature of the CFA framework is that “uplift fees” may be provided.

Section 115A(1) provides for a definition for this “uplift fee”, which are the fees payable to the lawyer in specified circumstances, that are higher than what would have otherwise been payable if there were no CFA. The lawyer and client may and should agree on the specific circumstances under which the uplift fee should be paid. These circumstances can be amended as the case progresses, if agreed, because basically, the CFA is an agreement between the parties – the lawyer and his client – and these agreements can be varied or altered from time to time, subject to there being consensus by the parties. As I have said, because the CFA is, in essence, a contract between a lawyer and his client, parties would be free to determine a mutually agreeable arrangement for the payment of fees, subject to the prescribed requirements in our framework. As in any contract, the parties should ensure that the terms are sufficiently clear, which may include scenarios for when such a contract might be terminated.

I also wish to make clear that the CFAs are not intended to replace traditional fee structures but, instead, provide an additional funding option between a lawyer and his client. Lawyers and clients can agree on a traditional fee structure in one area of work, and a CFA in another. So, it can be a combination of both free structures, or it might also seek to convert one to the other – either way, depending on the circumstances.

There is no impediment to usual payment practices, such as collecting deposits for fees, except that no deposit should be collected for the uplifted portion, which depends on the triggering of a condition which will take place on a subsequent occasion. Parties may agree to include or exclude the payment of disbursements from the CFA. So, that is entirely up to the parties' choice and the terms they seek to write into the CFA. Lawyers and clients should also discuss and provide for how and when a CFA may be terminated and the fees to be paid should the CFA be terminated prematurely. This is for obvious reasons so that you have clarity upfront because, sometimes, the client may decide to choose a different lawyer halfway through the proceedings and you do not want the fact that there is a CFA cloud the question as to what the appropriate amount of fees is to be paid at that juncture.

The Bill and subsidiary legislation will introduce safeguards to mitigate the risk of any potential abuse of the CFAs by lawyers. So, under section 115B, a CFA must meet certain requirements for it to be valid. First, the CFA must be in writing and signed by the client. Second, it must not provide for the remuneration and costs to be payable as a proportion of the amount recovered by the client. Let me just be clear about this. It should not provide for remuneration and costs to be a proportion of the amount recovered by the client in the litigation. So, for example, it cannot be a proportion of the damages that a client might recover. Such arrangements, which are often known as contingency fee agreements, will continue to be prohibited in Singapore. The reason for this is because the payment received by lawyers in such agreements has no direct correlation with the work done. The amount of damages that the client may recover is dependent on the client's particular circumstances and the damage and injuries that may be suffered. If you allow such proportions to be part of the CFA, this may give rise to added risks of conflicts of interests for the lawyer. We will continue to study developments in this area.

Third, the CFA must comply with the regulations that will be made under section 115B(7). These include: (a) information that the lawyer must provide to the client, for instance, how the CFA operates and how uplift fees are calculated in a particular case; (b) terms and conditions that must be included in the CFA, such as a “cooling-off” period after the CFA is entered into, during which the client or lawyer may terminate the CFA by giving written notice.

Sir, we emphasise that CFAs do not change existing obligations of solicitors under statute or common law, unless expressly stated. Lawyers will continue to be subject to the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules (PCR), including obligations to: (a) act in the best interests of their clients; (b) evaluate whether any consequence of a matter involving the client justifies the expense or the risk of pursuing the matter; (c) withdraw from representing a client in certain circumstances due to, say, ethical reasons – these are obligations and responsibilities which a lawyer will be very familiar with; and, finally, of course, (d) an obligation not to overcharge. This will be clarified in amendments to the PCR.

MinLaw will also be working with the Law Society to develop a Guidance Note on CFAs, with the aim of guiding the profession through these new developments. MinLaw will also continue to review the landscape and the use of CFAs in practice and may also develop additional and different safeguards for different categories of proceedings as may be appropriate.

Finally, Sir, apart from the features mentioned above, the proposed sections 115C to F provide for ancillary matters relating to the CFAs. They are adapted from the current Part 8 of the LPA but with modifications, and cover matters, such as: (a) the effect of the CFA on legal costs, (b) how the validity or effect of a CFA is to be assessed, and (c) the consequences of a change in, the death, incapacity or winding up of, a solicitor or law practice.

Let me highlight two points from this range of amendments.

First, section 115C provides that uplift fees will not be recoverable as part of legal costs from the opposing party, that means the uplifted fees that are triggered or payable as a result of a fulfilment of the condition in the CFA will not be recoverable as part of party-and-party costs, should the client be successful in the proceedings.

This seeks to avoid the issues of satellite litigation faced by other jurisdictions, where it has been noted that CFAs were challenged by the unsuccessful party, to avoid paying uplift fees to a successful party as part of legal costs. So, in other jurisdictions, if the uplifted fees are payable as part of party-and-party costs, it provides an opportunity for there to be additional litigation for the losing party to challenge the validity and application of the CFA. We want to avoid this.

Second, section 115D concerns questions on the validity and enforceability of a CFA.

In determining such questions, the Court will examine whether the requirements of a CFA as set out in section 115B have been met, and whether the CFA is void or voidable based on usual contractual principles, such as incapacity, mistake, misrepresentation and so on.

The Court will also have regard to the circumstances in which the agreement was made and the interests of all parties to the agreement, that is, the client and the lawyer, taken as a whole.

The Court should also consider the purpose and context of a CFA when determining its enforceability. As an example, the mere fact of an uplift should not call the CFA into question, although the amount of uplift should be commensurate with the risk undertaken by the lawyer.

As the CFA is a contract between the client and the lawyer, such an approach is based on well-established contractual principles and provides certainty to parties.

Sir, let me now move on to the next set of amendments.

Clause 2 seeks to refine the scope of representation of a foreign lawyer in certain proceedings in the SICC, particularly international corporate debt restructuring and insolvency cases.

In the last five years, we have made tremendous progress to our corporate debt restructuring and insolvency regime. Our laws have remained progressive, open and modern, whilst balancing the interests of creditors, debtors and other stakeholders, all of whom have an interest in particularly large, cross-border, complex insolvencies. As an indicator, Sir, in 2020 alone, there were more than 100 restructuring–related applications.

The proposed amendment seeks to build on this momentum and enhance Singapore as a premier centre for debt restructuring and insolvency matters both regionally, as well as globally, internationally. Such matters typically involve a multi-jurisdiction dimension and significant foreign elements, including proceedings in foreign courts, which may otherwise not be heard in Singapore.

The SICC was identified by the Committee to Strengthen Singapore as an International Centre for Debt Restructuring in 2016, as a conducive forum to hear insolvency matters with international elements and multi-jurisdictional issues.

The SICC was established in 2015 to hear transnational and commercial disputes. It broadens and complements existing dispute resolution options.

The proposed refinements leverage on SICC's strengths and attractive infrastructure and seeks to facilitate the efficient and effective presentation of arguments and resolution of debt restructuring and insolvency proceedings in the SICC.

First, the SICC's jurisdiction over international restructuring and insolvency cases was clarified by the Courts (Civil and Criminal Justice) Reform Act 2021. And in connection with that, clause 2 of this Bill proposes to refine the scope of a foreign lawyer's representation.

Corporate debt restructuring and insolvency work can be complex, and proceedings will often involve transnational and interconnected issues, with mixed issues of foreign and local law, along with mixed issues of law and fact.

The proposed refinements here seek to facilitate collaboration between local and foreign lawyers for the efficient and fair resolution of such cases before the SICC. In turn, it will benefit litigants and other stakeholders and support the growth of international cases being heard in Singapore.

Let me just briefly take Members through the proposed amendment.

First, a foreign lawyer with full registration may submit on matters in the prescribed proceedings, subject to the following restrictions: one, the foreign lawyer will only be allowed to submit on matters with permission granted by the Court; and two, the foreign lawyer will not be permitted to make a submission on a matter of Singapore law.

Second, subsidiary legislation may provide for the various categories of specified proceedings that these refinements will apply to; factors that the Court may consider in deciding whether to grant permission to the foreign lawyer; and exceptions to any of these restrictions. So, these are the points that will be dealt with in subsidiary legislation.

At this juncture, I would like to highlight that I am also moving an amendment to the Bill, at the Committee stage, to clarify that a foreign lawyer with full registration will be able to appear and plead, subject to the restrictions proposed by clause 2 of this Bill, in proceedings preliminary to the prescribed relevant proceedings and relevant appeals.

This will align this Bill with the Courts (Civil and Criminal Justice) Reform Act 2021 that I mentioned earlier, which introduced a further category of "preliminary proceedings" in section 36P(1) of the Legal Profession Act, in which a foreign lawyer with full registration may appear and plead in.

Sir, with the introduction of the refinements above, the Bill will further MinLaw's efforts to enhance Singapore's attractiveness as a dispute resolution hub. With that, Sir, I beg to move.

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

Mr Murali Pillai.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I declare my interest as a lawyer in private practice.

Today, Singapore has established itself as a premier international dispute resolution hub in the region. This has a direct positive repercussion on our economy. Using the words of the hon Minister, "it drives work to Singapore and for Singaporeans".

But this position is hard-won and one which we must not take for granted. Adjustments must be made regularly to ensure that our country remains a trusted dispute resolution hub of choice, business-friendly and thick with legal talent and expertise. It is in this context that I welcome and support the proposed amendments to the Bill to allow lawyers to charge their fees on the basis of whether they have secured a good outcome for their clients.

These agreements, known as conditional fee agreements (CFAs) will have the effect of providing a litigation funding arrangement for businesses and individuals who may otherwise be unable to commence action owing to lack of funds. This in turn can have the effect of enhancing access to justice in Singapore and also level the playing field vis-a-vis other dispute resolution hubs, and this is also the point that the hon Minister made.

It is noteworthy that MinLaw had consulted extensively with various stakeholders since 2019 before introducing this Bill in Parliament in November 2021. The effort put in by the Ministry is commendable.

I have three clarifications to seek from the hon Minister.

First, I seek clarification on the scope of the Minister's power in clause 6 of the Bill that introduces the proposed section 115(B)(7) of the Act. This clause gives the Minister the power to prescribe proceedings to which lawyers may charge their fees pursuant to the CFA.

For a start, it is proposed that domestic and international arbitration, certain SICC proceedings as well as its related Court proceedings and mediation proceedings be prescribed. This is precisely the same grounds upon which third-party funding is available under Civil Law (Third-Party) Funding Regulations 2017. I do not have an issue with the proposed prescribed proceedings.

My question relates to how the Minister intends to exercise his power in the future to extend the use of CFA in other proceedings. The hon Minister, in his speech, mentioned that he is seriously considering extending CFA to domestic litigation. My question is: what would be the principal considerations? And he mentioned access to justice is one of them. What are the other considerations?

I also welcome the hon Minister's point raised in his speech just now that he would be consulting stakeholders. And if he could elaborate on exactly how he proposes to consult the stakeholders, that will be most welcome.

My next question relates to how concerns expressed by the Government previously, when this issue had been mooted in the past, have been dealt with.

When Senior Minister of State Indranee Rajah, as she then was, was asked in 2017 about the Government's position on event-triggered fee arrangements, she stated that the Government was looking into the matter but was concerned about two specific issues.

The first concern was how to deal with the potential conflict of interest that may arise on the part of the lawyer since he has a direct financial interest in the outcome of the litigation. Take, for instance, the case of a lawyer who has cashflow issues. As a result, he may decide to negotiate a settlement with a counterparty for a lower amount than what he would reasonably get for his client through a Court judgment if the matter was litigated to the end. In this case, the case would have been closed earlier, and he will get paid with an uplift under the CFA earlier too.

The second concern she expressed was the prospect of increased frivolous litigation and raised litigation costs. On this point, I agree with the hon Minister Mr Edwin Tong, that the no-win-no-fee structure should already make the lawyers think twice. But I believe that there could be situations where lawyers may engage in some form of sabre-rattling to deal with acts or maybe leverage of extra legal factors, for example, the concern on the part of counterparties to stay out of courts. These factors are obviously frivolous on their own because we are talking about legal merits of the case. How do we deal with such prospects? I would be grateful if the hon Minister could please outline steps to address the concerns.

Finally, I have a query in relation to what constitutes a reasonable uplift under the CFA without attracting allegations of overcharging.

Currently, a lawyer owes a duty not to overcharge his client. If he does so, he would be liable for misconduct and may be hauled up for disciplinary action. This is provided specifically under Rule 17 (7) of the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015, which the hon Minister referred to as well.

Under this provision, the legal practitioner must not charge any fee or disbursements, or render a bill, for an amount, which constitutes overcharging even if there is a fee agreement that permits the charging of the fee, disbursements or the amount.

I understand from the hon Minister that it is proposed the overcharging regime should also apply to a CFA. Under the CFA, a lawyer may charge an uplift should there be a favourable outcome. The question arises as to what will constitute a fair amount for the lawyers to charge as an uplift that will not be viewed as a case of overcharging.

Let me provide an example. Let us consider a case where a lawyer would have ordinarily charged $X for a case. Under the CFA with his client, it is provided that, if the lawyer loses, he gets zero. Should he win, how much can he charge as an uplift without being accused of overcharging? $2X? $3X? Would it make a difference if it is stated in the CFA that, if the lawyer loses, he may charge $0.5X instead of zero? And it seems to me that the hon Minister, by mentioning that the risk that the lawyer assumes, can go into the issue of the reasonableness of what he can charge, that seems to be the case.

We need to guard against creating perverse incentives with price signals that do not reflect the true value of services. In these kinds of cases, it is not just a simple matter of "willing buyer, willing seller". There must be a principled approach to determining the line between the uplift being viewed as a fair reward or unbridled profiteering that brings the profession to disrepute.

I also note that under the proposed section 115D(4) of the Act, the High Court is given the power to enforce a CFA in any manner that the Court thinks fit, even if the technical requirements of the CFA are met.

Under the proposed section 115D(7) of the Act, the High Court has the power to reopen the CFA and even order repayment of fees within a 12-month period after payment has been made under the CFA.

May I ask the hon Minister what are the circumstances in which the Court is permitted not to enforce the CFA on its plain words, even though all the technical requirements as set out in the Bill have been met and there are no vitiating factors, such as misrepresentation, duress and so on? Notwithstanding my queries, I support the Bill.

Mr Lim Biow Chuan.

Mr Deputy Speaker, like Mr Murali who spoke earlier before me, I declare my interest as a practising lawyer.

For many years, lawyers in Singapore are guided by the laws against maintenance and champerty. Section 107 of the Legal Profession Act provides for an express prohibition against a lawyer having an interest in the lawsuit of his client.

Section 107 says a solicitor must not (a) purchase or agree to purchase the interest or any part of the interest of his client or of any party in any suit, action or other contentious proceeding brought or to be brought or maintained; or (b) enter into any agreement by which he is retained or employed to prosecute any suit or action or other contentious proceeding which stipulates for or contemplates payment only in the event of success in that suit, action or proceeding.

Section 107(3) provides that "A solicitor is subject to the laws of maintenance and champerty like any other person."

In Rule 18 of the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules, it was stressed that "A legal practitioner or law practice must not enter into any negotiations with a client (a) for an interest in the subject matter of litigation; or (b) for remuneration proportionate to the amount which may be recovered by the client in the proceedings."

Sir, the rationale of these rules is based on the conventional wisdom that the “Advocate and solicitor must maintain his independent and professional standing (unaffected by any personal interest in the outcome of a matter) in order to act effectively in representing his client’s interests.”

As recent as in 2013, the Court of three Judges suspended a lawyer, Mr Kurubalan s/o Manickam Rengaraju, for six months for breaching section 107 of the Legal Profession Act and, at that time, Rule 37 of the Professional Conduct Rules because he entered into a champertous agreement with his client.

In the decision by the Court of three Judges, the Court went through the reasons for the law against champerty. At paragraph 40, the Court said:

"Maintenance is defined as officious intermeddling in litigation (see Hill v Archbold [1968] 1 QB 686 at 693) and champerty is a particular form of maintenance where one party agrees to aid another to bring a claim on the basis that the person who gives the aid shall receive a share of what may be recovered in the action".

Sir, I acknowledge that quite a few countries have abolished the law against champerty, for example, the UK, Australia and Canada. I also acknowledge the explanations given by MinLaw in its media release on 1 November 2021 explaining the Government’s rationale for amending the Legal Profession Act to allow for the Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). One of the key principles which I agree with is that CFAs help enhance access to justice by providing business or individuals with additional funding to pursue meritorious claims, which they may otherwise not pursue. Another advantage is that it levels the playing field for Singapore lawyers in areas, such as international arbitration or SICC proceedings, where the counterparts in the other countries may have access to such types of funding.

Nevertheless, I also wish to express my concern that the rationale for the rule against champerty and maintenance are still very applicable today, even if some countries have already abolished the law.

One of the rules, as stated in Rule 4 of the Professional Conduct Rules, is the lawyer's paramount duty to the Court as an officer of the Court and this duty takes precedence over the legal practitioner’s duty to the legal practitioner’s client. Let me say that again. A lawyer as a paramount duty to the Court as an officer of the Court and this duty takes precedence over the lawyer's duty to his client.

So, may I ask the Minister, what are the safeguards to prevent a lawyer from subverting the course of justice if he has a vested interest in the outcome of the legal proceedings? As Lord Denning observed in a 1962 judgment “in Re Trepca Mines (No 2): "The common law fears that the champertous maintainer might be tempted, for his own personal gain, to inflame the damages, to suppress evidence, or even to suborn witnesses."

Sir, currently, the amendment defines "prescribed proceedings" to mean proceedings as prescribed in the regulations. However, later, if "prescribed proceedings" is extended to other forms of litigation in the future, will it result in more litigation suits because of the personal stake of the lawyers in the outcome of the lawsuits? In 2008, 21 people were arrested in Hong Kong for champerty, maintenance and conspiracy. These people were recovery agents "helping" accident victims on a "no win, no fee" basis. One of the people arrested in Hong Kong was a lawyer.

How would the Police deal with an unscrupulous lawyer or his agents in Singapore who may decide to stake out hospitals to look out for victims injured in road accidents or industrial accidents? I believe there are complaints by insurance companies against lawyers or sometimes their agents who are seen as what we call “ambulance chasers”. These people are quick to ask the victims to sue in order to claim for more damages and legal costs. Would this group of people be able to circumvent the law by asking the accident victims to sign the CFA?

Third, who will protect the interest of the vulnerable clients if the lawyer has an interest in the outcome of the suit? For example, if a lawyer wishes to settle the case because his legal costs are protected, then that lawyer may then insist on a settlement even though the client may disagree to the terms of settlement. In such a case, the interest of the client and the interest of the lawyer may no longer be the same.

Finally, like Mr Murali Pillai who spoke before me, I am concerned about the uplift fees. For uplift fees, will there be a prescribed range of uplift fees allowed? Under what circumstances would the uplift fee be subject to a charge for overcharging made against the lawyer? I hope that the Minister can clarify my concerns because the Court does sometimes look to the debates in Parliament to understand the intent of the law.

Mr Louis Ng.

Sir, this Bill will take a landmark step in providing CFAs between lawyers and clients in certain cases. This will help level the playing field for Singapore lawyers in international dispute resolution and also increase access to justice. I have three points of clarification.

My first point is about the coverage of the Bill’s CFA framework. This Bill will establish a single framework for CFAs. For a start, it appears that CFAs will be permitted for international and domestic arbitration proceedings, proceedings before the Singapore International Commercial Court, and related Court and mediation proceedings. These are likely to be transnational, high-value commercial disputes.

The Ministry has indicated that it will continue to study whether CFAs can promote access to justice in other categories of proceedings, including domestic proceedings.

But the consideration for cases on the other end of the spectrum – domestic cases involving indigent litigants, will be different. In cases involving indigent litigants, there may be a greater need to be more protective of the interests of the litigant, as compared to those of parties in high-value commercial disputes who will likely be well-advised.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

In establishing the overarching framework under the Bill, can the Minister share what steps the Ministry has taken to ensure that the framework is sufficiently flexible to extend to all categories of disputes? The lessons learnt from initial applications of the CFA framework to high-value commercial disputes may have limited application to cases involving indigent litigants. How will the Ministry study the suitability of CFAs for enhancing access to justice for indigent litigants?

My second point is about plans for allowing CFAs to act in international mediation proceedings.

Singapore has taken steps to position itself as a global mediation hub. The passing of the Mediation Act in 2017 provided a framework for international mediation in Singapore. The Ministry has indicated that CFAs will be allowed, as a start, to international and domestic arbitration, certain proceedings in SICC, and related Court and mediation proceedings. Can the Minister clarify whether CFAs will be allowed to act in international mediation proceedings that do not arise from permitted categories of arbitration or litigation?

My third point is about the classification of cases that are transmitted to other forums. It is not unusual for cases to be transmitted for hearing before different forums. For instance, the current Rules of Court contemplate the transfer of proceedings from the General Division of the High Court to the SICC, and vice versa.

Given that CFAs will only apply to certain categories of cases for a start, can the Minister clarify how the CFA framework will take into account cases that are commenced in one forum, then transmitted to another forum? Is there a possibility under the proposed CFA framework that a case may be commenced in a forum where CFAs are permitted then transmitted to another where CFAs are not permitted? Sir, notwithstanding my clarifications, I stand in support of the Bill.

Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of this amendment Bill. At the outset, I declare my interest as an international commercial disputes lawyer.

Singapore is a leading international dispute resolution hub because our legal profession, judiciary and laws are not only leading the cutting edge on the forefront of legal development, but they have also adapted to keep us ahead of the curve to meet the ever-changing needs of global legal demands.

I welcome this Bill which seeks to continue to firmly strengthen Singapore’s position as an international legal and dispute resolution hub.

I will be focusing my speech on CFAs. CFAs will increase access to justice for litigants. Since 2017, the law has already provided availability of Third Party Funding as an option in limited circumstances, for example, in international and, subsequently, domestic arbitrations.

There is already a growing trend of alternative funding methods for litigation and arbitration globally. This is especially important given the economic downturn and conservative outlook faced by many corporate clients all over the world.

On contingency fees, Prof Patricia Danzon, an American economist stated: "The common allegation that the contingent fees induces attorneys to bring claims with little legal merit has no basis in logic. The fact that the fee depends on winning provides an incentive to screen out issues with little legal merit. An incentive that is lacking with an hourly fee." Further, various studies have shown that CFAs or similar arrangements discourage lawyers to take on unmeritorious cases. The CFAs provide a financial disincentive not to commence frivolous suits or claims.

However, I do have five clarifications for the Minister.

Firstly, with parties left on their own to decide on the uplift or finer details of the CFA, will there be some practice guidelines on the quantum of the uplift within the CFA? The Bill itself seeks to address this by placing a restriction that the uplift or contingent fee cannot be a percentage of the claim or damages to be recovered. However, should there perhaps be a mandated cap on the uplift in certain circumstances? This is to prevent the uplift from being too disproportionate to what would have been reasonable standard of costs?

I appreciate and welcome the fact that lawyers may still be held liable for overcharging under the CFAs, pursuant to amendments under the Legal Professional Conduct Rules. However, as alluded to by Members Mr Murali Pillai and Mr Lim Biow Chuan, guidance as to how much of an uplift can also provide helpful guidance as to what is excessive or overcharging in a CFA. In the UK, contingency fees, or damages-based agreements (DBAs), have been permitted for contentious work in litigation or arbitration proceedings in England and Wales. This means that lawyers can conduct litigation and arbitration in this jurisdiction in return for a share of any damages.

Depending on the type of cases, there are differences in the limit of cap for such a contingency fee. In this regard, would the Ministry also consider in the future to finetune the cap in the principles of proportionality, for example, a 50% maximum cap of uplift from the agreed fee. If the CFAs are extended to other categories of disputes, then this cap can be adjusted downwards to reflect the greater consumer or client protection required or vulnerability of certain groups of clients in the future. A cap may also help offer the best balance to prevent legal costs from spiraling upwards and, at the same time, attract the optimal amount of disputes to Singapore.

My second clarification is in relation to the resolution of disputes in CFAs. The new section 115C states that the uplift fees will not be recoverable from the losing party in respect of party-and-party costs. Thus, the uplift fees will have to be paid from the pocket of the client to the lawyer. I welcome this amendment as it means that there is a lesser risk that CFAs may impact party-and-party costs and costs of litigation all around.

The Bill also allows that such uplift in CFAs can also be based on reduced hourly rates, instead of a lump sum uplift. This is very progressive and much welcomed.

In the UK, the permissibility of such "hybrid" arrangements was not clear within its legislation and was the subject of an English Court of Appeal case which only recently clarified the position.

Given the possibility of disputes arising out of the CFAs, can I confirm if lawyers and clients can still refer their solicitor-and-client fees in the CFAs for taxation in the case of a dispute? This will be more straightforward and cost-effective than filing a separate claim in Court or arbitration for a dispute under the CFA.

My third clarification is in relation to protection of lawyers entering into CFAs. May I ask and confirm that lawyers agreeing to CFAs would not be held personally liable for adverse party-and-party costs when acting under such CFAs unless, of course, if there are circumstances of personal or professional misconduct in which case that attracts personal liability for costs.

My fourth clarification is on the duty of disclosure. To what extent should such CFAs be disclosed by way of statutory or regulatory obligations, for example, through SGX announcements or audited yearly financial statements? This is because in an ongoing litigation or arbitration proceeding, such disclosures may cause a certain perception of pressure to succeed on the part of both the client and the party to that CFA. This may impact the dynamics between the two competing parties or conflicting parties in the dispute, for instance.

My last clarification is centered on the protection for the client. I understand from MinLaw's press release that safeguards will be implemented in the subsidiary legislation. What are these safeguards to protect a client entering into CFAs and how long, perhaps, would be the cooling-off period for a client in the CFAs? After a CFA has been entered into and, for instance, a client changes lawyers, or the lawyer withdraws from the case, what are the safeguards or guidelines to prevent a client being left in the lurch after having already entered into the CFA.

Perhaps the Ministry can consider a public awareness campaign to assist potential clients on the pitfalls of a CFA and what can be done in the event of a withdrawal or termination of the same.

Sir, CFAs may inadvertently evoke a diverse set of views and responses among lawyers and users of our legal system. Some view such arrangements as the salvation for the impecunious. Others fear that they open the floodgates of litigation of frivolous claims. However, one thing for certain, the calibrated approach towards CFAs as taken by the Ministry in this Bill will help cement Singapore as a leading dispute resolution hub in the world.

Notwithstanding my clarifications and comments, I stand in support of the Bill.

Mr Raj Joshua Thomas.

Sir, I declare my interest as a practising litigation lawyer. And as a litigation lawyer, I have, from time to time, come across a situation in which a client with a genuine and reasonable commercial claim shies away from pursuing their claim due to the potential legal costs they could face if they were not successful in their action. Of course, all cases, regardless of the merit of the claim, have the potential of not succeeding due to various factors like the performance of witnesses or the introduction of new evidence or counterclaims. So, there is always a risk that a litigant could ultimately lose and be saddled with the costs of both its own lawyers and that of the other parties.

In this regard, conditional fee arrangements, or CFAs, will provide some comfort to potential litigants to pursue their claims as their lawyers fees will be contingent on them winning their case. A typical CFA in the UK, for example, stipulates that a lawyer acts on the basis that he will be paid nothing in fees if his client loses his case. In the event that the client succeeds, he would be paid his normal fees, and may also earn an uplift agreed in advance, over and above the normal fees. Importantly, the fee uplift must be based on lawyer’s normal fees, not the quantum of damages awarded. This same type of arrangement will now be allowed by the amendments to the LPA.

I support the amendment of the Act to allow for CFAs. As stated by the Minister, the amendments will help enhance access to justice, level the playing field for Singapore lawyers vis-à-vis other jurisdictions that already allow such arrangements and discourage lawyers from pursuing weak and frivolous claims, as they run the risk of not being paid in the event they do not win.

Aside from these, there are ancillary dimensions that the relevant authorities and lawyers should consider once CFAs are allowed. I will cover three areas. First, the ethical considerations in structuring and offering CFAs; second, After-the-Event Insurance; and third, ensuring that lawyers retain reasonable latitude to determine the terms of their CFAs.

As regards ethical considerations, lawyers are bound by duties owed to their client. These duties may sometimes create tension with the financial pressures of running the business of a law firm. CFAs may exacerbate these tensions as they give the lawyer a more pronounced financial interest in the outcome of the matter underlying the CFA. For example, depending on the terms of the CFA, a lawyer may find himself in a situation where although it may be in the client’s interests to accept a settlement offer, it may not be in his, because he may not get paid anything. The converse could also be true if a particular CFA treats a settlement essentially as a win – it may lead to the lawyer advising the client to take the settlement and to forego proceedings because there is a guaranteed fee to be earned as compared to going to trial or the arbitration hearing, which would still bear some risk. This could lead to undersettling, which is an issue that has been identified in the UK’s implementation of CFAs.

Ultimately, these approaches may lead to outcomes that are not the most advantageous to clients. Practice guidelines could be introduced to guide lawyers, for example, to reduce to writing their advice to clients as regards any settlement under a CFA, so that it is unambiguous as to what exactly was the advice provided by the lawyer in the event of a possible future lawyer-client dispute.

Another area of concern would be how the concept of CFAs are communicated by law firms to clients, including on their websites and advertisements. The use of the term "no win, no fee" may technically be correct as regards fees, but it obfuscates the fact that there would still be some cost incurred by the client, for example, filing fees and other disbursements. For arbitration, there would also be the costs of the tribunal.

In this regard, lawyers must be careful not to inadvertently mislead members of the public or clients that there is absolutely nothing to be paid if the litigant is not successful. Guidelines could be drawn up by the Ministry in this regard.

Clients are also unlikely to fully understand how a CFA works, especially the terms and conditions of what constitutes a "success" and when an uplift would apply. It is, therefore, essential that the Ministry sets out clearly the information that a lawyer would need to furnish its client when it is considering to engage a lawyer under the terms of a CFA.

The Ministry could, therefore, consider drawing up pro forma documents or templates in a form that would be easily understood by members of the public, that could be mandated for use by lawyers when they discuss CFAs with clients.

The hon Minister mentioned earlier that MinLaw will be drawing up guidance together with the Law Society and I hope that my suggestions above can be taken into consideration when drafting this guide.

Another area is the risk assessment that lawyers will themselves have to do when considering whether to offer a CFA to clients and on what terms. In this regard, I would also like to suggest that some training be provided, including in the Continuous Professional Development programme, for lawyers to pick up the knowledge required to undertake this type of risk assessment and how this risk will be translated into the terms of the CFA they offer including the quantum of uplift.

CFAs have been allowed in the United Kingdom since 1998, and I am moving on now to my next point on After-the-Event insurance. One feature that has emerged is the dependence of the CFA market on the existence of After-the-Event insurance or AEIs. AEIs are designed to assist litigants by allowing them to offset some of their legal costs in litigation, in particular, the costs of the other party’s lawyers if they lose their case. AEIs also allow a litigant who may have a perfectly viable case but limited financial means to obtain access to justice. Several insurers in Singapore already offer AEIs, not only for arbitration but for civil and commercial litigation as well. I am, however, unable to find statistics on how prevalent the use of AEIs are.

Nonetheless, AEIs are a useful feature for litigants to consider, as CFAs only ameliorate the risk of bearing their own lawyer’s fees if they lose their case, but not the opposing party’s costs. This will further the objective of access to justice, and the Ministry and the Law Society may wish to consider increasing public knowledge and understanding of this insurance. In this regard, the use of AEIs may increase with the introduction of CFAs. As such, it would also be important for the Ministry and MAS to monitor how AEIs are being offered, and whether it is necessary to introduce regulations on such insurance schemes to ensure that insurance companies do not occupy a gatekeeping position in the civil justice system.

Finally , Sir, the new section 115B(7) will empower the Minister to make regulations on CFAs. These include that the Minister may prescribe, amongst other things, the form, the terms and conditions of CFAs, the maximum limits on remuneration or costs including the uplift fee, information a solicitor must provide to a client before a CFA is entered into, and requirements as regards parties to a CFA. I would urge the Ministry to regulate the market with a light touch to allow lawyers to negotiate terms appropriate to the complexion of each case, for example, providing for the payment of basic or interim fees, or fees arising from ancillary proceedings that were not originally envisioned when the CFA was entered into.

Sir, on the whole, CFAs will support the development of the legal sector in Singapore and provide an avenue for litigants with limited means, as long as the ethical and commercial implications are addressed, through regulation where necessary. Provisions to make these regulations are also included in the amendments and will be rolled out by the Ministry accordingly. Sir, notwithstanding my clarifications and suggestions, I support the Bill.

Minister Edwin Tong.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank all the Members who have spoken in support of the Bill.

Before I go into addressing the specific queries raised by Members, let me just make three broad points.

The first is, we appreciate that in introducing the CFA Framework, we have moved away from some of the traditional structures that lawyers are used to – maintenance, champerty – Mr Lim spoke about it; Mr Murali Pillai as well. Which is why we have chosen to do this incrementally, cautiously. We set up a framework to deal with prescribed proceedings first, dealing with the scenario where in most, if not all, of those circumstances, the clients involved are likely to be sophisticated clients, understanding the commercial context and appreciating the need for this. And at the same time, putting our lawyers who compete with foreign lawyers for international work, on the same platform, so that they can also, like their foreign counterparts, go in to make a bid for work on the basis of using CFAs.

So, we start with that principle and to take up Mr Murali Pillai's point, as we study, and we have not completed our study – to extend this to other proceedings, we will carefully decide, we will consult widely – and in the same way as Mr Pillai has said we have done leading up to this Bill, we will continue to do so – all stakeholders.

We will decide at that stage whether an extension is appropriate and if so, with what kind of additional criteria as safeguards. As Members would know, even with this framework that we have put in a cautious manner for sophisticated clients, we are already putting in safeguards here. So, that is the first point that I would make about the framework.

The second point is that I have heard several comments about the agreement: should we regulate the agreement, should we put this in pro forma or should we put in some standard terms?

I also heard Mr Raj Joshua Thomas said earlier that we should also have a fee structure that allows lawyers to negotiate and that, in his words, is best "appropriate to the complexion of the case". This, really, is the raison d'etre behind the CFA – to let the parties decide what are the triggering requirements to allow a party to decide when an uplift would be appropriate, depending on the context of the particular case. And it is in this context that the interest of the lawyer and the client can best be aligned – not separated, but best be aligned.

Despite that, we continue to have oversight over the agreement because, just as we have done in Part 8 of the LPA for agreed fees, not CFAs but agreed fees, the Court continues to retain a discretion to have an inquiry into, and oversight of, these agreements. Likewise, in the context of the CFA, that remains the same. So, the Courts will still have oversight of the uplift, and in Mr Murali Pillai's words: "to determinate based on the reasonableness of the case, the context of the circumstances, the relevant weightage of the risks taken, the complexity of the case, the length of the case. All of these are factors which the Court takes into account. Which is why it would not be possible upfront to state, you can only uplift by X, or 2X, or 3X", because it may be appropriate in some cases, it may not be appropriate in other cases. So, that is the second point I will make.

The third point I will make is that throughout Members' speeches, I have heard that because this is a new development in our framework, we should be giving guidance. Certainly, we have committed to doing so upfront. That is the reason why we have consulted extensively, both open as well as closed, and we will continue to do so and work with Law Society to ensure that lawyers and users alike, clients, are familiar with the framework and, as far as we can, provide guidance which does not tie the hands of solicitors as they negotiate these CFAs but, at the same time, give guidance as to what the framework requires of the CFAs.

Sir, with that, let me now address the specific queries raised by Members.

Mr Louis Ng asked if CFAs would be allowed to act in international mediation proceedings that do not arise from permitted categories of arbitration or litigation. My Ministry is currently assessing standalone international and domestic mediation proceedings holistically, as part of a separate ongoing study of the CFAs. The potential benefits that CFAs can offer in the use of mediation have to be viewed against the interplay between international mediation proceedings and domestic mediation and litigation proceedings. So, for instance, at present, there is no clear delineation in existing legislation between mediation proceedings that are "international" and those that are "domestic". If parties to an "international" mediation do not reach a settlement, the dispute may proceed to be heard in the SICC or the High Court. As CFAs will presently not be permitted in the High Court, this may then create an ambiguity for lawyers and litigants, given that proceedings on one stream in the High Court will not be allowed for CFAs and those at the SICC will be allowed for CFAs.

Further, mediation proceedings that are more domestic in nature may involve litigants of a wide range of profiles that need differentiated treatment and protection, for the reasons I mentioned earlier. And so, this requires some further study and consideration.

For these reasons, to answer Mr Louis Ng's point, my Ministry has assessed that it would be prudent to consider standalone international and domestic mediation proceedings holistically, as part of an ongoing study of CFAs.

Second, Mr Louis Ng asked how the CFA framework will take into account cases that are commenced in one forum and transferred to another, and whether it is possible that a case may be commenced in a forum where CFAs are permitted and then transferred to another forum where CFAs are not permitted. The answer to this is as follows.

Where proceedings are transferred between two fora in which CFAs are allowed – for instance, from arbitration to related Court or mediation proceedings – then, obviously, the CFAs will continue in the case of the solicitor and the client. So, CFAs will be allowed in those circumstances.

Generally, otherwise, CFAs are not permitted in cases which are transferred from or to a forum where CFAs are not permitted.

So, in the particular example that Mr Louis Ng highlighted about the High Court and the SICC, for the time being, CFAs will not be permitted for proceedings that are transferred from the High Court to the SICC and vice versa. We will study this further and consider whether we should change this, but as a starting point, under this framework, as long as one of the proceedings, either from which it is transferred or to which it is transferred, does not allow the CFA, then the CFA will not be allowed.

This approach towards CFAs and the transfer of forums will avoid any unintended consequences and risks to litigants arising from CFAs, and we will make clear the position in subsidiary legislation.

Mr Murali Pillai asked about the circumstances of enforcement by the Court, with reference to the proposed section 115D(4) and (7) of the Bill he mentioned. The sections referenced by Mr Murali Pillai are aligned with the current 113(3) and 113(7) of the current LPA, in terms of the Court’s powers to deal with contentious cost agreements.

The CFA is, in essence, a contract. And I made the point earlier that parties should have freedom of contract to negotiate the terms of the CFA – and it should be enforced by the Court like any contract if the requirements in the proposed 115B of this Bill, which sets out the regulatory framework and the requirements of the CFAs in this case, have been complied with; and also, of course, if the CFA is not found to be void or voidable for one of the grounds listed in 115D.

On taxation of solicitor-and-client costs under the CFA, Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim asked whether the taxation process in Court will still be applicable in respect of solicitor-and-client costs under a CFA. He also asked if disputes regarding the validity of CFAs would fall under the scrutiny of taxation proceedings, or if they should be subject to separate Court or arbitration proceedings.

Generally, Sir, solicitor-and-client costs under a CFA are not subject to a taxation. This is provided under section 115C(5) of the Bill and it is similar to the position for contentious business agreements under the current section 112(4) of the LPA. If there are questions, however, on the validity or the effect of a CFA, parties should bring an application to Court under section 115D(2) of the Bill.

Under section 115D(5) of the Bill, if the Court finds that the CFA either does not satisfy the statutory requirements or is found to be void or voidable, then the costs under the CFA can then be assessed in accordance with the rules applicable to taxation.

Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim also sought confirmation that lawyers agreeing to CFAs would not be held personally liable for adverse party-and-party costs under a CFA, unless there are circumstances of personal or professional conduct that attracts personal liability for costs. That is correct. Under a CFA, a client will continue to be liable for any cost orders that may be made against the client. This will also be clarified in subsidiary legislation.

On Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim’s query about the disclosure of CFAs vis-à-vis regulatory obligations, such as SGX announcements or audited financial statements, let me reiterate again a point I made at the start of the reply speech, that CFAs really are an additional fee structure. It is an agreement that allows lawyers and their clients to work out a fee structure. CFAs are not intended to change, nor do they change, any existing statutory or regulatory obligations relating to disclosure, from what is expected if normal fee agreements are entered into by companies. So, in assessing whether you need to make an announcement, the usual criteria will apply, whether it is material in the particular context of the circumstances of that particular announcement. Companies and lawyers will still have to make an assessment and assess the extent to which a CFA will need to be disclosed, in the context of existing guidelines and the regulations governing disclosures.

Mr Murali Pillai asked how concerns relating to CFAs that had been highlighted in the past – I think Mr Murali Pillai cited some past speeches and examples – had been addressed.

First, dealing with potential conflicts of interest, I had again mentioned how, in the context of a proper CFA, in this case at least, the sense is that the interest between a solicitor and his client in the CFA can be aligned. But to Mr Murali Pillai's point about a potential conflict arising because of a direct financial interest in the outcome of the litigation, Mr Murali Pillai also asked whether the lawyer may advise on a settlement instead of litigation in order to settle the matter earlier and receive payment. This is notwithstanding that the client will receive a lower amount than what he may reasonably expect if the matter proceeds to litigation.

Mr Raj Joshua Thomas also highlighted a similar scenario. He used the phrase "under-settling". If parties have an agreement and you choose to decide that there will be a payment based on a settlement, then, obviously, if you define the terms of the settlement not below a certain amount, or at least containing these terms, that will protect the client's interest, to ensure that there is no under-settling in this case; not just any settlement, but a settlement that comports with the client's interest in the outcome.

Under a CFA, the standard expected of a lawyer in advising how a case should be conducted or proceeded on remains the same as that of a normal fee agreement. So, what I said earlier in my opening speech about the relevance of the legal professional (PCR) rules, they continue to apply.

Among others, Rule 17 of the PCR requires lawyers to explain a proposal of settlement clearly and properly to the client; or any other offer or position taken by another party, which affects the client. At the same time, the lawyer must also evaluate, together with the client, whether any consequence of a matter justifies the expense or the risk to be undertaken. So, if you choose to proceed with the case, there must be an assessment by the lawyer that this would be in the best interest of the client, bearing in mind, obviously, that, in litigation, there are various vicissitudes that you cannot control – points which Mr Raj Joshua Thomas and several other Members highlighted.

If there is a reasonable prospect of the client recovering a higher sum of money in litigation, as compared to settling the matter, such that pursuing litigation would justify the expense of doing so, the lawyer would be obliged to advise his client of the same. These are principles which many of the lawyers who have spoken would be familiar with.

Second, the prospect of increased frivolous litigation and raised litigation costs from CFAs – several Members have touched upon this. We expect that the introduction of CFAs would, on its own, per se, be unlikely to lead to an increase in frivolous litigation. In CFAs, the remuneration of lawyers depends on the successful outcome of the cases. Generally, lawyers are also rational economic actors and they would likely have little commercial reason to support frivolous or weak litigation. The risk of little or no likelihood of monetary return for their efforts would not be commercially justifiable.

Further, as the lawyers may have to fund the litigation until its conclusion, or at least a portion of it, there is likely to be less tendency to pursue all possible avenues at any cost and a greater tendency to be more cost-conscious on the contrary and cost-effective.

At the same time, to assuage Members, the experiences of other jurisdictions also lend support to this. Members might recall that I said earlier that we took a cautious approach. We studied the approach in other jurisdictions and learned from their experiences. For instance, in England and Wales, data suggests that CFAs have not caused an increase in unmeritorious cases. A study on the impact of CFAs in clinical negligence cases over a period of 10 years showed that there has been an increase in cases. But, over a period of 10 years from 2006 to 2017, even in Singapore, we saw an increase in cases. So, it is not because of the CFAs. But what is important is that the proportion of successful claims in this period did not change. In fact, there were more successful claims funded by CFAs.

This underscores the role of the CFAs in enabling the pursuit of meritorious claims. Studies in Australia have also showed that there had not been a significant uptick in unmeritorious suits since the introduction in their jurisdiction of the CFAs. And we believe that Singapore’s experience is not likely to be different. As mentioned in my earlier speech, we will also be implementing rules and safeguards to minimise the abuse of CFAs.

On whether litigation costs will be raised, let me reiterate that existing professional obligations continue to apply, and this includes the rules against overcharging. Even if the CFA provides for the payment of an agreed fees, the PCR prohibits overcharging – a point I made earlier – even in a context of today's rules on agreed fee without the uplift.

If the lawyer cannot in good faith charge the fee, taking into account factors, such as the nature of the work done or legal work concerned and the time necessary to undertake the legal work – points which Mr Murali Pillai made – then, these are factors which will be taken into account by the Court when assessing the veracity of the agreed fee.

We believe that legal costs will continue to be moderated and also adjusted by the market itself. If a client finds that a lawyer’s fees are too high, they are free to engage another lawyer who may offer a different range of fees and different uplift formula. Lawyers are also free to adjust their fee arrangements to better place themselves in competition. And Mr Raj Joshua Thomas had himself alluded to this, in urging for lawyers to be allowed to negotiate terms appropriate to the complexion of the particular case concerned.

Mr Murali Pillai asked what would constitute a fair amount for lawyers to charge as an uplift, so that this will not be viewed as a case of overcharging. I think I covered this in my initial remarks. And I think what we want to do is to say that we do not proscribe how parties may choose to structure the fee arrangement, their CFAs, but at the same time, have oversight by reasons set out in the framework, with requirements that they must fulfil, including the "cooling off" period, including the fact that it must be in writing, and also ensuring that parties do not agree a fee that is based on a proportion of the returns from damages or otherwise, in the case itself, which would then has no co-relation to the effort by lawyers.

But save for that, I think as Mr Pillai says, look at the reasonableness in the context of each case. I would say that the mere fact that there is an uplift is not a reason for setting aside the agreement. That is the whole raison d'etre behind the CFA.

I would add a further point that when you have limits on uplift fees in other jurisdictions, they are typically legislated because the fee arrangement in those jurisdictions extend to access to justice type of litigants. They help access to justice indigent litigants to access the courts. And in those cases, you will more likely find a cap on the amount to which you can uplift.

In this case, at least at the start of our framework, we do not apply the framework to those types of cases and those types of litigants. And so, in our case here, we do not need to put a limit on the fee arrangements and the uplift amounts. But as I mentioned earlier, if we extend our framework into other types of cases, this will be a fresh consideration that we will review at the appropriate time.

Mr Zhulkarnain asked about other protection mechanisms for litigants and what safeguards are available for a litigant who had entered into a CFA with a lawyer and thereafter changes lawyers; or whose lawyer decides to withdraw from the case.

My first response really is to ensure that, as you prepare the CFA, structure the terms which will cater for these eventualities. Sometimes, parties change lawyers; sometimes, there might be changes in the way in which the case proceeds. It is best to ensure that, as far as possible, in terms of an agreement, you cater for these scenarios upfront. So, lawyers and their clients should discuss and provide for how and when the CFA may be terminated, and if it is terminated before the conclusion of the case, how would the remuneration structure and what triggering conditions will apply in those cases. And this, I would say, is no different from current traditional fee agreement that is based on either time cost or conclusion of some milestones and so on. So, parties should deal with this as a matter of agreement.

Where a client changes lawyers after a CFA is entered into with the first lawyer, section 115F of the Bill contemplates this scenario and provides for the consequences of such change.

Either party can apply to the Court and the Court will have the same power to enforce or set aside the agreement as if the change had not occurred, having regard to the relevant terms of the CFA.

With regard to fees payable to the first lawyer, the Court may order the amount due in respect of anything done by the lawyer under the CFA to be assessed. So, there could be a scenario where, before the conclusion of the case, a lawyer is discharged but a substantial amount of work is done. The Court can then make an assessment as to what amount will be appropriate under the assessment, to be paid under the CFA for this lawyer.

The principles are largely similar to existing principles relating to contentious business agreements, as set out in section 115 of the Legal Profession Act.

Where a lawyer withdraws from representing a client under a CFA, existing rules under the PCR will also continue to apply. This includes obligations on the lawyer to take reasonable care to avoid foreseeable harm to the client, such as giving reasonable notice and cooperating with the client's new lawyers. None of these will change with the CFA.

Mr Thomas asked about the importance of guidelines and possibly training for lawyers. I think I had covered that. We will do so and we will ensure that there is sufficient guidance for the market once this is in place.

We will take into account the topics highlighted by Mr Thomas. Some of them will be addressed in subsidiary legislation. Others we can put up guidance together with Law Society, to ensure that lawyers and their clients will be aware of this.

Finally, as I mentioned at the outset, the Bill envisages the possibility of an extension of the framework, a point that I had also covered. But specifically, Mr Louis Ng asked how the framework will be flexible in catering to different categories of disputes. I think Mr Pillai asked how and what are the considerations we have as we consider the extensions of this framework to other types of cases.

Sir, the overarching CFA framework has been designed with the flexibility to enable the framework to be expanded incrementally, step-by-step, after we study and we take into account views by stakeholders.

The main tenets of the CFA framework will be set out and had been set out in the Bill, supplemented by safeguards to be prescribed under subsidiary legislation. The categories of proceedings permitted by the CFA framework will also be set out in the subsidiary legislation. And we took this approach as we anticipated that the profile of litigants would be different for different categories of proceedings and different types of cases. And hence, differentiated and targeted safeguards will be required. There will be flexibility to appropriately adjust the safeguards, as we continue to monitor and refine the framework.

To Mr Murali Pillai's point about the principal considerations, and whether the same level of public consultation will be undertaken, the answer is yes, there will be. The difference in terms of where we are now today on the current framework and where we may expand it to, for lawyers, obviously, when you deal with and compete on the international fora with other foreign lawyers, we want to put our lawyers on the same footing. That may not apply in the context of domestic proceedings.

For domestic proceedings, the main consideration now would be whether we can allow this so that there will be an enhancement to access to justice. Those are the principal considerations. There may be more as we consult but these are the driving considerations. And we will consult with key stakeholders as we look at the landscape and determine whether it would be appropriate to extend this framework to also other types of cases, to promote access to justice. In doing so, we will study also the profile of the likely litigants who will avail themselves of any such expansion and determine in those cases whether some additional form of protection might be necessary for the framework. And if so, we will also prescribe them.

Finally, let me address Mr Thomas' observations on After-the-Event Insurance and its correlation to CFAs, particularly in other jurisdictions. Let me thank Mr Thomas for his views and interest on the subject.

My Ministry is aware of the developments outlined by Mr Thomas and we will review these developments as part of a holistic study of the litigation funding landscape. I would add that After-the-Event insurance is not peculiar and not relevant only to CFAs. They are relevant across the board and generally, supplement and support the litigation funding landscape. So, we will study the After-the-Event insurance in that context and look at whether or not any moves need to be made on that front.

Sir, I believe I have covered all the queries raised by Members, both general as well as specific. My Ministry, as I have said, will continue to review the reforms proposed in this Bill for future expansion and what other safeguards will be necessary. But we believe that the introduction of a CFA framework in this form has the potential to bring multi-faceted benefits. It provides a further avenue for litigants to pursue meritorious claims and levels the playing field for our lawyers, particularly on the international setting.

It will also signal Singapore's progressiveness and our responsiveness to the needs and realities of the industry and further enhance Singapore's status as a premier, first-class dispute resolution hub. We will, at the same time, continue to monitor the impact of the various reforms, keeping our finger on the pulse of developments and lessons learnt in other jurisdictions and apply them contextually to Singapore.

I assure Members that we will continue to stay responsive and engage in active dialogue amongst all stakeholders as we study the progress of our initial framework and look at the extent to which this might be extended to our proceedings. Sir, with that, I beg to move.

Any clarifications?

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

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

[(proc text) The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai]. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Bill considered in Committee. (proc text)]

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

[(proc text) Clause 1 inclusive ordered to stand part of the Bill. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Clause 2 – (proc text)]

Clause 2. Minister for Law.

Mr Speaker, I beg to move the amendment* standing in the name of the Minister for Law, as indicated in the Order Paper Supplement. I had earlier in my speech explained the reasons and the rational for making this amendment.

[(proc text) *The amendment reads as follows: (proc text)]

[(proc text) "In page 2, line 13: after "relevant appeal", to insert ", or any proceedings that are preliminary to any relevant proceedings or relevant appeal," (proc text)]

[(proc text) Amendment agreed to. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Clause 2, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Clauses 3 to 7 inclusive ordered to stand part of the Bill. (proc text)]

[(proc text) Bill reported with amendment; read a Third time and passed. (proc text)]

Mr Speaker, Sir, on behalf of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Sustainability and the Environment, I beg to move*, "That this House calls on the Government to enhance green financing, create more green jobs and strengthen corporate accountability, in partnership with the private sector, civil society and community, to advance Singapore's inclusive transition towards a low-carbon society."

[(proc text) *The Motion also stood in the name of Mr Gan Thiam Poh, Ms Nadia Ahmad Samdin, Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang, Ms Hany Soh and Mr Don Wee. (proc text)]

This Motion builds on an earlier one which the GPC moved a year ago, on measures to accelerate efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The House had a wide-ranging discussion on climate issues, viable policy changes and proposals and the trade-offs for our economy and jobs, among other concerns.

Since that debate, the Government had released the Singapore Green Plan 2030, launched new initiatives by the Green Finance Industry Taskforce (GFIT) and completed a study on establishing Singapore as a carbon services hub. Last month, in the inaugural Skills Demand for the Future Economy report, SkillsFuture Singapore identified job roles requiring green skills and curated the corresponding training courses.

Despite the enormous strain on our national resources to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, our Ministries and Government agencies have been pressing ahead to make the transition to a low-carbon society a reality. And I wish to take this opportunity to express our appreciation to the Ministries and agencies for their hard work during this very difficult period.

I am heartened by my fellow Members' support for mitigation measures and their commitment to sustainability. The green sector is developing rapidly in response to the climate emergency. Indeed, there are many new and exciting opportunities in the green economy, particularly in green financing and many new job roles in the sustainability sector.

On the other hand, the GPC is also concerned about the lack of standardisation in accounting standards and the problem of greenwashing. Hence, we are appealing for the firm hand of the Government to strengthen corporate accountability.

And central to our transition to a green economy, our priority is to ensure Singaporeans are not left behind as the world progresses towards a sustainable future and economy. We need to create fulfilling opportunities in a region with a growing sustainability sector and equip Singaporeans with the relevant skillsets and experience. We need to help our businesses get ahead of the curve in sustainability.

For today's debate, I would like to share some general observations on Singapore's green efforts and my views on green jobs. My fellow colleagues in the Sustainability and Environment Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) will also share their concerns and recommendations in the three areas of green financing, green jobs and corporate accountability. Ms Hany Soh will join me in speaking about jobs in the green economy. Mr Don Wee and Mr Gan Thiam Poh will share their views on green finance and carbon trading. Ms Nadia Samdin will address the issues of green finance and challenges in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) auditing. Finally, Mr Louis Ng, will share his views on the carbon tax and the carbon net zero goal.

In addition, several members of the GPC for Trade and Industry will also be joining this debate. They will share the green aspirations, as well as the concerns from the business community. They will discuss how Singaporeans can seize opportunities in this new pillar of growth, the trade-offs between environment sustainability and economic sustainability, as well as the importance of upgrading skills and transforming jobs for inclusive transition to the green economy. Environmental scientist, Nominated Member of Parliament Prof Koh Lian Pin will also be speaking about the importance of carbon offsets.