Debate on Annual Budget Statement

Order read for Resumption of Debate on Question [16 February 2024] [2nd Allotted Day]

"That Parliament approves the financial policy of the Government for the financial year 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025." – [Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance].

Question again proposed.

11.01 am

Mr Sharael Taha (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Mr Speaker, when I speak to many residents on what they are looking for in the year's Budget, many reply, "Will the Government give us more this year?" There seems to be a growing expectation, especially with the cost-of-living pressures, that every Budget should have a giveaway package, such as our Assurance Package.

And even after all the announcements are made on the full extent of the Budget, when asked for their views, there are some who continue to focus on the immediate needs, such as how much more Community Development Council (CDC) Vouchers they will be receiving. However, more and more residents come up to me and share that they are getting increasingly worried about our future, if Singapore can continue to grow and prosper and if this trajectory and Budget is sustainable.

The phrase used by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in his Budget speech was, "cautiously optimistic". Deputy Prime Minister Wong shared that there is considerable uncertainty in the outlook and the risks are tilted to the downside. What struck me was the challenges that he shared ahead. He mentioned how the international environment has darkened dramatically, something that was also picked up by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday.

The three decades of peace and stability in the post-Cold War era is now over, and he shared that we now lived in an era of conflict and confrontation. And the Deputy Prime Minister also mentioned that the world will be more violent, as we see a growing zone of impunity involving armed conflict and terrorism that cannot be easily resolved by the global community. When we look around us, the world seems to continue to be more fragmented as major powers are prioritising national security over economic interdependence. Deputy Prime Minister Wong also mentioned that it would be messier and more unpredictable.

If we take a step back and observe the world around us, we can see many examples of conflicts or of communities wedged apart by differences, or of fragmented post-election struggles to form government and of parliaments in deadlock that they cannot pass important bills to help the country.

Very often, the fractures and the wounds driven by wedging differences often lie so deep that it will take generations to resolve and mend. If we look at the world around us, Singapore sticks out like a sore thumb, for what we have is an anomaly. And this did not happen by chance and should not be taken for granted.

In the past few years, how Singapore came together – not without our own fair share of challenges – has enabled us to sail through this storm. With the uncertainties and challenges ahead, how we continue to stay together with our refreshed social compact and our focus on keeping our society strong and united will be integral to define how well we can navigate the uncertainties ahead, turn challenges into opportunities and progress for Singapore and ensure that even with all the challenges, we continue to look out for one another and care for one another, in a vibrant, resilient and inclusive community.

And it is through that lens that I will respond to Budget 2024.

Firstly, how do our schemes and policies work together to drive progress for Singapore? Secondly, how do we ensure that everyone enjoys the progress and we continue to provide more support to those that need help? And lastly, how do we ensure that the progress is sustainable for our future generations?

Mr Speaker, Sir, it is of no doubt that quality investments are the lifeblood of Singapore's progress. We must have a strong, vibrant and innovative economy which will then bring good jobs and hence, better lives for all Singaporeans. That is the formula for economic progress in Singapore.

However, the competition to attract quality investments is getting stiffer. We have heard of countries, such as Japan, Germany and the United Arab Emirates, rolling out vast amounts of subsidies to attract investments. I agree with Deputy Prime Minister Wong that we cannot afford to engage in this "bidding war" with the major economies, but what we can do is to strengthen the vibrant ecosystem that makes it conducive to attract investments in Singapore.

Mr Speaker, let me declare that in my previous and current roles in strategy and business development for a multinational enterprise (MNE), I have had the opportunity to understand the considerations an MNE has before it invests into foreign countries and what makes them decide to trigger that investment.

A conversation that I had with a Senior Executive of a large MNE at the Singapore Airshow best sums it up. Beyond the buzz of the dynamic display, he mentioned, while overlooking the hall, "There is no place in the world where we have such a clear view of the ecosystem of support for any investment, such as that shown in Singapore."

True enough, at the front of the hall, we have the Economic Development Board (EDB) hard at work attracting the investments. We then have JTC Corporation championing sustainable industrial development. MNEs looking to develop their business, including our local homegrown MNEs, like SIA Engineering Company and ST Engineering, pursuing business development. This then brings in jobs globally for our local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who, together with its workers, have a fair share of the pie through schemes, such as the Partnerships for Capability Transformation scheme.

We then come to the next question of how to develop the workforce capability? We had Workforce Singapore (WSG) in the exhibition hall promoting the sector, encouraging the Career Conversion Programme to bring more mid-career professionals into the industry and skills upgrade, through SkillsFuture, to better prepare the workforce for the growth of the industry.

At the side of the hall, we had AeroCampus, where schools were sharing courses on aerospace engineering to prepare our talent pipeline, and the students toured the AeroCampus, learning more about the industry from seasoned professionals.

There is no single ingredient of how we continue to attract quality investments into Singapore, but rather how our schemes, policies and agencies continue to collaboratively synergise. Working together to create a vibrant and innovative economy is our competitive advantage to the world.

We must continue to balance these levers and leverage on more to continue to make Singapore a vibrant and viable investment location. Hence, I am glad that in Budget 2024, it was announced that there are $3 billion investments in the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2025 grants, $2 billion top-ups to the National Productivity Fund (NPF) and Financial Sector Fund each and the enhancements to the Partnerships for Capability Transformation.

While I support the intent, given the size and scale of the NPF, how do we ensure that the funds are effectively used by businesses to drive real productivity, add value to the industry and transform the industries? Given that the proposed top-ups to NPF is half of the budget of the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY), how do we measure success so that we can quantify the returns on this investment?

As a member of the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC), I am also glad to see our commitment to invest in more than $1 billion over five years for our National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2.0. I will elaborate more on it in the Committee of Supply (COS) debates.

Something that I have also always talked about in this Chamber is the rising cost of doing business and the uncertain impact of the implementation of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) 2.0. This is something that I have raised in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) amendment Bill in November 2022, Budget 2023, National Productivity Fund Bill in August 2023 and in this Budget debate again.

In the GST amendment Bill, I have also challenged the perception from some of the Members that BEPS 2.0 alone will be sufficient to make up the "hole" left behind by not raising GST. I am glad that in yesterday's speech, I may have heard Mr Louis Chua agreeing with Deputy Prime Minister Wong's position, that there will be spending to offset impact of implementing BEPS 2.0 and there is still a lot of uncertainty on how businesses and countries will react.

The Member goes on to say that he hopes that the introduction of Refundable Investment Credit does not go up against the spirit of the global BEPS 2.0 implementation. He also mentioned that he hopes that it is not returned back to MNEs in other forms.

I find that as an extremely worrying position. Similar to my speech, the Leader of Opposition quoted Deputy Prime Minister Wong's speech that the "international environment has darkened dramatically" and we expressed caution towards Singapore's future in the uncertain global environment.

I can tell you for certain that it is getting increasingly difficult to attract foreign investments into Singapore and I am glad that the Refundable Investment Credit is an additional tool introduced to assist in attracting investments into Singapore. Mr Chua mentioned that we should not go against the spirit of BEPS 2.0. But I am worried if, philosophically, he is comfortable with limiting the capability of the tools that we have to attract investments?

To attract investments – our lifeblood for Singapore – here is where theory diverges from reality, where we are fighting tooth and nail for more investments into Singapore. Is this what Mr Louis Chua is advocating for? I can assure those in the Chamber that attracting investments into Singapore will continuously be more challenging and we want to equip ourselves with the full disposal of tools to attract good investments into Singapore to create good jobs for our people.

Secondly, how do we ensure that everyone enjoys the progress and we continue to provide more support to those that need help?

I am pleased to hear the continued commitment to upskill and reskill our workers through our SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme, provide enhancement support to our low-waged workers through the enhancements of the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS), SkillsFuture Mid-Career Training Allowance and the introduction of the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) Progression Award.

Enhancing the effectiveness of SkillsFuture to focus on capability building and real productivity improvement is something that I have often spoken about in Parliament too. I have raised this in my maiden speech, in the Budget Debate 2022, Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2023, National Productivity Fund (Amendment) Bill 2023 and SkillsFuture (Amendment) Bill 2023.

Hence, I welcome these enhancements, especially the $4,000 SkillsFuture Credit top-up, for selected industry-oriented training courses as it will enable our workforce to focus on capability development to drive innovation towards higher value outcomes.

Lastly, how do we ensure the Budget is sustainable for future generations?

Mr Speaker, Sir, the Budget tackles the immediate challenges brought about by the higher costs of living, pursues better growth and jobs by anchoring quality investments, equips our workers for the future economy, creates more paths towards equality and mobility, provides more assurance for families and seniors, invests in a safe and secure Singapore and safeguards energy security amidst the energy transition.

There are many challenges ahead of us and there will be pressures to spend more. The Budget addresses the key challenges and builds our capability as we look ahead and it does so with a balanced fiscal position, where we do not spend beyond our means. I am heartened to hear the reassurance from Deputy Prime Minister Wong on upholding the ethos of fiscal discipline and responsibility to ensure our fiscal position always remain balanced, sound and sustainable.

As we head towards the uncertain future our fiscal discipline, our refreshed social compact and our focus on keeping our society strong and united will be integral to define how well we can navigate the uncertainties ahead, turn challenges into opportunities and progress for Singapore and ensure that despite all the challenges ahead of us, we continue to look out for one another, care for one another, in a vibrant, resilient and inclusive community. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Mr Louis Chua.

11.14 am

Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis (Sengkang): Mr Speaker, just one quick clarification for the Member Mr Sharael Taha. So, if I am hearing him correctly, is he saying that we should then go against the spirit of BEPS 2.0?

Mr Sharael Taha: I would like to thank Member Mr Louis Chua for his question. Mr Speaker, Sir, I am not saying that we should go against the spirit of BEPS 2.0. I am just saying that when it comes to attracting investments, we should not limit our capability to attracting investments, which would mean requiring us to provide certain benefits or support in order to bring the investments into Singapore.

Mr Speaker: Ms Sylvia Lim.

Ms Sylvia Lim (Aljunied): Thank you, Speaker. Sir, in this Budget, I and others born in or before 1973 have been called "young seniors". These days, when younger commuters give their seats up to me on the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), I no longer feel insulted but accept with grace.

That said, with better life expectancy and health, 60 is the new 40. We still have much to contribute as citizens. Today, I wish to focus my speech on older workers and how we should be tapped on as a resource for the good of the nation.

What can older people contribute? A lot. Last week, veteran Hollywood director Martin Scorsese won the prestigious honorary Golden Bear at the 74th Berlinale for lifetime achievement. For close to 60 years, Scorsese was at the helm of countless groundbreaking films, the latest being "Killers of the Flower Moon" released last year, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. He announced that his next project would be a film on the life of Christ. All this, at age 81.

Singapore, too, has its own role models. The late Ms Teresa Hsu Chih, who died at the ripe old age of 113, was dubbed Singapore's Mother Teresa. The retired nurse founded charities caring for the aged, the sick and destitute, and was still actively involved in charity work after turning 110.

Sir, here, I hint at a cultural mindset that we need to change. Over the years, I have met many older residents whose job search suggests age discrimination. Let me take just one instance.

There was a male resident who had decades of experience in healthcare management. He was well-groomed, communicated well and seemed fit. Yet, he found it near impossible to land an interview, let alone secure a job – in the same industry, healthcare – in positions either equivalent or less demanding than he had previously held. He was in his 70s.

Younger seniors aged 40 and above are also not sparred. Just last month, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) released a radio documentary on ageism in the workplace and interviewed mid-career Singaporeans; they shared their difficulties on just getting employers to give them a chance to show what they were capable of. Indeed, according to the Ministry of Manpower's (MOM) Fair Employment Practices Reports, age was the most common form of discrimination encountered during job searches.

Yet, the fact is that there are jobs waiting to be filled. According to the MOM's Labour Market Report for the third quarter of 2023, there were still more job vacancies than job seekers. The ratio of job vacancies to job seekers was at 1.58, which was higher than pre-pandemic periods. The sectors that saw significant vacancies included Health and Social Services, Information and Communications, Professional Services, and Financial and Insurance Services.

While there may still be some physically demanding sectors that may not be suitable for older workers, this space has decreased over time. It is clear that jobs have evolved in the advent of technology and artificial intelligence (AI). On this issue, Dr Helen Ko, Senior Lecturer at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), wrote a commentary for CNA entitled: "Seniors do well at their jobs yet ageist myths and negative stereotypes persist." She opined that it was not the age of a worker that was the most important, but whether the demands of work exceeded the worker's capabilities. She noted that in this modern era, health and technology improvements meant that there were few jobs that the average 70-year-old could not do.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has put out many studies on ageism in recent years. The WHO literature refutes many misconceptions about ageing. It has been noted that there is no typical older person, and that some 80-year-olds have levels of physical and mental capacity that compare favourably with 20-year-olds. Thus, age should not be used as a proxy for capability.

Also, as life spans increase, many older people experience longer health spans. So, each cohort of the older population is effectively younger and should not be discriminated against because of age.

Having older citizens engaged in the workforce has immense benefits for society as a whole. If a significant proportion of older and middle-aged people are unemployed, especially those in the lowest income groups, they will become more dependent on informal family assistance, Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings and Government transfers or charity. This will increase social stratification and social division in our country.

Sir, at this point, I should acknowledge that the Government has various incentive schemes to encourage employers to hire older workers. These include various grants and the Senior Employment Credit (SEC), which offers wage offsets. As of September 2022, the SEC has been taken up by more than 100,000 employers and benefited more than 460,000 senior workers. While these incentives are appropriate and necessary, I believe we can attain even higher labour force participation of older workers if we change any ageist mindsets.

To this end, I am looking forward to the anti-discrimination legislation to be unveiled later this year. The various stakeholders involved have rightly identified age discrimination as something to be tackled. To make the legislation more effective, it should permeate the entire human resource process. In the UK, for instance, I understand that the Equality Act 2010 protects people of all ages regarding employment, recruitment, promotion, reward and recognition, redundancy and vocational training.

Thus, for example, the UK legislation has made it illegal for recruiters interviewing potential hires to ask their age or date of birth. If our upcoming legislation has this effect as well, it would potentially be a game changer.

Next, I would like to turn briefly to the related topic of how to ensure our older workers can retrain. To assist mid-career workers, this Budget introduces three measures under the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme, for Singaporeans aged 40 and above. I would like to make some observations about this initiative. While there is a minimum age of 40 to access these measures, there is no maximum age. I agree with this approach. Not having a maximum eligibility age impliedly recognises that a worker remains potentially employable, regardless of age. This is laudable.

I move to the first measure of providing a new $4,000 credit to enrol in courses that are targeted at employability outcomes. If the intention is to assure enrollees of better employability outcomes, will there be any condition attached to participants, such as to secure jobs in certain sectors?

As for the second measure of providing additional subsidies for a full-time diploma study in any area, it was not mentioned that increased employability was a goal of this measure. Would it then be possible to sign up for such subsidised courses simply for enrichment purposes?

Even if so, I would say that there is utility in this, as it keeps the minds of seniors agile and keeps them healthy longer. It could also allow them to become effective volunteers in our non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and charities, even if they are not earning a salary.

Finally, on the third measure of full-time courses that will attract a monthly training allowance of up to $3,000, it would be useful to know what the eligibility conditions are and whether there are any employment outcomes attached to these.

Sir, having managed and taught continuing education and training (CET) courses myself for more than a decade, I have personally seen the strong desire of adult learners to improve themselves. Many of them do not come from privileged backgrounds and they value the second chance, as it were. For adult learners to succeed, having course fee subsidies and employer support is critical. CET is a worthy cause, as it is an important aspect of social mobility.

Sir, let me conclude. I have focused on how older workers are a national resource that should be leveraged on, for the benefit of society. We still have work to do to tackle age discrimination if we are to maximise our country's potential and well-being. All of us should be lifelong learners, or risk becoming obsolete. As I said at the start of my speech, 60 is the new 40. Let us embrace this reality with renewed confidence.

Mr Speaker: Ms Lim, like you, I am also a "young senior". And like you, I, too, enjoyed the movie "Killers of the Flower Moon". Mr Don Wee.

11.24 am

Mr Don Wee (Chua Chu Kang): Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the measures in this Budget to retain Singapore's competitiveness and to position us for the next lap. My suggestions and clarifications stem from business owners, newspaper reports and forum letters, which I have encountered since 16 February 2024.

I would like to begin with the various tax schemes. Pillar Two of BEPS 2.0 introduces a minimum effective tax rate of 15% for large MNEs. I applaud the Government for being nimble and progressive in reassessing Singapore's existing suite of tax incentives, noting that other jurisdictions are also undergoing tax incentive reforms, ahead of the landmark move.

The introduction of the Refundable Investment Credit scheme will help existing companies and potential investors impacted by the BEPS Pillar 2. As a tax credit with a refundable cash feature, it is an attractive and flexible scheme supporting a range of high-value economic activities, including manufacturing, green transition activities as well as research and development (R&D).

The proposed Refundable Investment Credit seems to be based on qualifying expenditure. Can the Government make the scheme available to businesses which are not as expenditure-heavy, such as the ones that are tech solutions related, but also can bring economically beneficial activities to Singapore? Would the Government consider awarding tax credits on output and volume-based features as well?

Next, may I appeal for the scope of qualifying activities under the Approved Foreign Loan incentive to be expanded beyond capital-intensive productive equipment investment? Under the scheme, the withholding tax is exempted or is applied at the reduced rate on interest payments on loans taken.

I also recommend that the withholding tax concession be extended to support companies in undertaking other economically productive activities in Singapore, including commodity trading, intellectual property (IP) rights acquisitions, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activities as well as R&D. Can the Government consider expanding the scope of qualifying IP rights under the Intellectual Property Development Incentive to include other intangible assets, such as plant variety rights, designs and utility models?

Next, would the Government further liberalise GST treatment for input tax claims on carbon credit trading-related expenses? Enhanced tax deductions would be helpful for the businesses that purchase voluntary carbon credits to manage their emissions targets. Can all yields deriving from certain qualifying green investments made by Singaporean investors overseas be exempted from corporate tax here, similar to the foreign-sourced dividends?

To encourage the early adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), can the input tax be claimable on the GST incurred for expenses related to these EVs?

I welcome the increase of the SkillsFuture Credit from $500 to $4,000. To develop Singapore's workforce further, I also propose to increase the cap for tax relief on course fees for personal development. The Course Fees Relief has been capped at $5,500 since 2011, for individuals taking courses to upskill or gain academic, professional or vocational qualifications. As costs increase, it may be time to increase the cap, to further encourage individuals to invest in their future by upskilling.

To better support the families amidst rising costs, I propose that the Government reviews the quantum for the Qualifying Child Relief when computing personal income taxes.

Next, on SMEs. More targeted funding support can be provided to SMEs to invest in carbon-pricing and modelling solutions, as well as projects such as value-chain emissions management and decarbonisation. These measures can include a further deduction on the expenditure incurred or co-funding on such projects, subject to a cap. A limited time frame of two to three years of assessment can be used to ensure the effectiveness of the measure.

I also welcome the Government's plan to expand the Partnerships for Capability Transformation scheme, which aims to promote more and deeper collaboration between the multinational corporations (MNCs) and SMEs. Enhancing partnerships to include capability training, internationalisation and corporate venturing is highly beneficial for our SMEs in a world where advances in technology are progressing at an unprecedented rate in a turbulent global environment.

Sustainability is an area where the SMEs can work with the MNCs who are usually the "queen bee" buyers, on opportunities to become more competitive. Presently, environmental, social and governance reporting only applies to listed firms, but SMEs should take stock of their carbon emissions as legislation in some other countries require firms all along the supply chain to comply with sustainability standards. Mr Speaker, in Mandarin.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Recently, many SMEs are constrained in what they can bid for, such as projects like the JTC proposed Coastal Development Tender, which award points to bidders that have the experience of completing projects overseas. I am cognisant that this criterion is not compulsory. However, few Singaporean companies have the experience of securing projects overseas, thus Singaporean companies feel disadvantaged to earn these additional points.

In order to earn these additional points, local companies are encouraged to form a joint venture (JV) with larger Korean or Chinese companies, so that the JV has a higher chance to win large infrastructural projects in Singapore. I was informed that there is limited transfer of knowledge as these large JV partners are only interested in the manpower resource, which include the foreign workers quota that their Singaporean JV partners possess. Hence, the transfer of knowledge is very limited.

Many business owners had informed me that there is a shortage of heavy vehicle parking lots near their drivers’ residences and many business owners even pay for their workers' extra transport expenditure. Can the Government convert vacant premises like schools or JTC sites into carpark lots, regardless of how short term it may be? This would help to reduce some of the companies’ expenditure.

I hope that in the short term, the Government can also relax the diversity quota criterion in the Complementarity Assessment Framework for Employment Pass Hires, as firms find it hard to meet the requirement in a tight labour market. I hope that there can be flexibility in quota adjustment under the Manpower for Strategic Economic Priorities Scheme, which allows eligible firms to hire S Pass and Work Permit holders beyond their existing ceiling for about three years.

The Government could also review the current foreign worker quota to allow them to be pegged to job roles, instead of the current classification.

(In English): Would the Government consider providing more incentives to companies which practise inclusivity hiring of seniors, the disabled and those with special needs?

Presently, the Government provides an Enabling Employment Credit paid to employers of persons with disabilities (PwDs) aged 13 and above and earning below $4,000 a month and the Open Door Programme Job Redesign Grant by supporting up to 90% of the job redesign costs. I propose going further by giving tax rebates, higher quotas for hiring foreign workers and more points awarded when bidding for Government projects.

Companies have noted a shortage of local talent in some areas but, sometimes, part of the problem is that they have inherent biases and refuse to consider certain groups of potential employees, even if they have the matching skillsets. These include young seniors or the group defined as being between the ages of 50 and 60. A challenge for them is finding meaningful work that allows them to use the skills they have developed over the years.

Many young seniors are medium-skilled for the most part, with some high-skilled workers. They have higher expectations for the jobs that they are doing and are less likely to be willing to take lower-skilled jobs. Like many of the older Singaporeans, they face challenges like age discrimination at the workplaces, questions about whether they can continue in their current roles, seniority, salaries and so on, until they reach the retirement age.

Along with encouraging this group to work for as long as possible and as long as they want to, it is also important to incentivise businesses to configure jobs in a way that actually makes it more acceptable for them to work longer. As wages become more stagnant, would the Government consider extending progressive wages to more sectors and up the income ladder?

Next, on uplifting lower-wage workers, I welcome the increase in the WIS payout to $4,900 and the increase in the qualifying income cap of $3,000.

While social support schemes, such as ComCare and the recently enhanced ComLink+, have been introduced to boost lower-income households, these schemes tend to target the lowest income group in our population. However, many Singaporeans who fall below the 20th percentile of population by household income need more help, too.

WIS has been enhanced over the years to better support this larger group of lower-income workers. However, an individual worker is often responsible not just for themselves but for their dependants, too. As WIS is still disbursed at the individual level, it does not fully account for the heavier financial burdens that some of these workers may face when raising young children, supporting elderly or caring for family members with special needs, especially with the cost of living rising.

Would the Government consider indexing WIS and social support schemes to inflation or the consumer price index annually? The annual review of WIS can be administered similarly to the Public Transport Council's annual fare review exercise.

An increase in the proportion of WIS payouts allocated to cash can also help households to meet their immediate needs. With current inflation outpacing the CPF Ordinary Account interest rate of 2.5%, it would be more practical for WIS recipients to have more cash in their hands.

WIS should also be recalibrated to take into account household incomes and size. The current WIS is pegged to an individual, using the worker's age, employment status and income to determine the disbursement amount. But this supplement is provided even to a lower-wage worker in a wealthier household. Instead, a household-based WIS would provide a higher monthly payout to lower-income households with more dependants. This will be a more holistic approach to take into account the overall financial situation of a household.

Singapore has many social support schemes for lower-income families with different eligibility criteria. Essential workers need the help most but they have the least time and capacity to navigate their eligibilities and to apply for the various schemes. They also face challenges learning about and taking advantage of the latest upskilling measures, including those introduced in this Budget. They may lack the awareness and knowledge about where and how to apply for training programmes and what kind of courses suit them.

Furthermore, in view of the number of job and training scams in the market these days, we also need to help them navigate and avoid this pitfall. Would the Government consider a more systematic framework to reach out to and coach these workers on the safe path to training? Public education campaigns must be conducted to ensure that these workers know where and how to avail and take advantage of these training grants and courses through trustworthy channels. With this, I would like to conclude with my support for the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Dr Syed Harun.

11.38 am

Dr Syed Harun Alhabsyi (Nominated Member): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to, first, thank the hon Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, as well as the various Ministries in rolling out the proposals for Budget 2024.

With the advent of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), coupled with a proliferation of social media yet to be fully understood and its impact realised, the world is moving incredibly fast and at a blistering pace. The pace of change in the world today and, indeed, in Singapore, is no longer just a function of linear years, months, weeks or days, but the pace of change globally has profoundly accelerated since the turn of the century. Stasis today no longer means we will be left behind by a mere few steps but inevitably left behind exponentially further and further with the passage of time if gaps are left unaddressed.

A deep concern I have is the impact on those left behind as Singapore attempts to surge ahead and maintain its pace in the world today and, in tandem with this concern, is the profound issue of social mobility.

My contribution to this Budget debate seeks to raise greater awareness on the topic of social mobility, its importance and value to us as a people and as a country in the context of our Budget in 2024. When we talk about social mobility, a few things come to mind.

First, whether some of us care to admit it or not, each and every one of us here have benefited from some form of privilege. Whether we may have been born into some form of wealth and socioeconomic privilege, whether we had the privilege of good health, a decent upbringing, stability in the household and loving parents, or the privilege of teachers, confidantes, mentors or friends who looked out for us, gave a word of advice or nurtured us to who we have become and where we are today. My humble view is that no story of any success bore out of the efforts of a single individual alone, but it had to be that alongside that valiant individual's effort, the village around him or her made it possible for success to first take root.

Second, we know not everyone has this privilege. We hear of children born into dysfunctional families, suffering abuse and afflicted by trauma. We know of families where breadwinners or other members are suddenly saddled with debilitating illness and disability and how that can catastrophically change the outlook of a family within an instant. We hear tales of families so big relative to the size of their physical house that the only true privacy one has from the shared space is only when he or she is in the washroom. We also hear of neighbourhoods of rental flats where children grow up in less than savoury environments, confronted with an early introduction into a life of antisociality, drugs and crime, and where Police presence is not uncommon.

Third, that the true distance between the two, having such privilege or otherwise, can actually be quite the fine line. It is a fallacy to think that our station in life is set at birth and that things cannot upend themselves. Sides can change, illness can hit and jobs can be lost. In our fast-paced world, despite our best efforts, sometimes change can be unforgiving, dramatic and merciless. In this paradigm, an understanding of the importance and acceptance of social mobility is critical for our society.

At the level of the individual, as much as we do not wish it for anyone, we cannot ignore this vulnerability and pretend like it cannot happen to any of us. We must accept with some humility that the success that has befallen us is not necessarily the result of hard work alone but that of our favourable social milieu, the people around us and, some would argue, chance to a significant extent.

The reverse also holds true; that for many individuals and households assessed as low in their socioeconomic status through a measure of their income or financial ability, many find themselves stuck, not by virtue of a lack of hard work, effort or intellect. Some have not yet been blessed with the privilege of opportunity and mentorship, they may be encumbered by ill health and disability, or just born into circumstances that snared them early into a cycle of poverty, scarcity and hardship.

When we take a deep look at success through the lens of inequalities and social mobility, we then are able to view our own successes with some modesty and romanticise less about the gallantry of our own efforts, and we view the lack of success in others with much concern and interest into their well-being and life circumstances.

Many Members have, before me, spoken about social mobility in this House in the past. Truly, social mobility is, indeed, the cornerstone of a fair and just society. It allows for individuals to move up or down the social escalator of life, regardless of their initial background, ethnicity or economic status. Some would describe it as a social ladder, but I contend that things are moving at such a pace that makes an escalator a more apt descriptor. In our dynamic and fast-paced world, trying to achieve social mobility remains a constant moving target and it has not been easy to keep pace and ensure full equitability in opportunities for all. As a society though, we must continue to commit to giving our best to get this right for all Singaporeans.

For without social mobility, there is little hope, opportunity, growth and success for the underprivileged and most vulnerable amongst us. There will be entrenchment of privilege and, in fact, distrust and discrimination will only fester and proliferate, gnawing and tearing at the social cohesion we have taken so long to build and strengthen. Everyone, regardless of their life circumstances, deserves a fair and equitable chance at success.

Today, Mr Speaker, we are perhaps more coordinated than we were decades ago in wanting to gain traction for social mobility. We have the hon Minister in-charge of Social Services Integration as well as the Rehabilitation and Social Mobility Policy Department, as part of the Policy and Planning Directorates of the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF). We recognise that in wanting to empower and uplift the most vulnerable, it requires a whole-of-Government approach.

We cannot afford to take on the issue of social mobility and its layered challenges piecemeal. Problems relating to early access to education and health, employment opportunities and steps towards housing ownership must be addressed collectively. We know that ComLink+ attempts this today and the intent is to take a holistic and wrap-around approach to support families. I can see how some of the proposed changes in the Budget will help address social mobility to some extent.

For example, enhancing the Assurance Package lends confidence to each Singaporean household that there is something for everyone and no one is left behind, especially at a time when there continues to be inflationary pressures and rising costs of living. When coupled with the Enterprise Support Package, even as businesses seek to transform and strengthen their workforce, the true yield and benefit also go to the Singaporean workers, for it gives them opportunity to upskill, develop and grow alongside that of the business enterprises they work for.

That the Government continues to pay close attention to local enterprise, especially smaller firms, is heartening and we hope that this seeds confidence for our local businesses to grow further and for them to flourish even beyond our shores.

I echo the Deputy Prime Minister’s call that we need to deepen this culture of lifelong learning and skills mastery to develop every Singaporean to their fullest potential and for each and every one of us to have the opportunity for productive and meaningful careers.

The SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme actually makes me feel young again. What this programme does is that it gives a second wind of opportunity to learn a new skill, especially in a world where things have moved so quickly and technology has outstripped skillsets learnt from what feels like a lifetime ago. It gives support to our workers to take that step towards learning again. And both the $4,000 SkillsFuture Credit Top-up and the opportunity to have a renewed access to subsidised full-time diplomas are very much welcoming news to me.

I wonder if the Ministry could share what the thought process behind this was, in terms of how the $4,000 top-up amount was arrived at and why not more, the choice of 40 years old as the age to introduce this programme and why it is limited to a diploma programme only. I wonder if it were possible to consider introducing this at a younger age, say, 35, and whether degree programmes could be permitted as well. While some individuals may be keen to spread some breadth to their knowledge base by taking a diploma unrelated to their existing expertise, others may be keen to dig deeper into their field of interest and pursue a degree instead.

I am also heartened by the ITE Progression Award. It is a welcome nudge for ITE students who qualify to continue on to pursue a diploma and that upon completion of the said diploma, to get a further $10,000 CPF top-up in the Ordinary Account.

From time to time, I hear of young talented ITE graduates who do well in their courses but stop short of wanting to continue. Sometimes, the draw of the gig economy or full-time employment in the short term, coupled with the pressing need to contribute to the family’s household income looks like a reasonable option to enter the workforce, rather than be confronted with another three years of education at a pace of learning that is faster than before. When they enter the polytechnic after finishing ITE, it will also be apparent that they are older than their peers who may have come directly from secondary schools. The adult in the room will recognise that in the longer term, a diploma would be of natural benefit, but consider also a young person from a family of less privilege, pressed with imminent caregiving responsibilities of his siblings and wider family at an early age and no direct sight of the longer-term implications of such a decision.

My view is that through the ITE Progression Award, while relatively modest and encapsulated within the CPF construct, there are practical benefits that could nudge more to consider strongly to move on to diplomas if they qualify. I hope that the Ministry monitors this trend to see how it encourages more ITE graduates to pursue diplomas and, if proven beneficial and well-received, to consider a greater quantum for them in time.

I wonder if the Ministry could confirm whether this could be retrospectively introduced to former ITE students already currently in polytechnics or those who have recently graduated this year. This would go a long way in helping them move forward into the next phase of their lives and in giving their best to their current studies.

Mr Speaker, other than dollars and cents, really, the challenge of social mobility is about building self-confidence and self-esteem of the vulnerable and less privileged in themselves. This is harder to quantify and we can never emphasise this enough, for it is a delicate process and we need to get it just right.

For those of us who have ever tried a hand at making bread, it is the yeast that makes bread rise. We can knead the bread with all our might and effort, add the ingredients like flour, water, salt and sugar, and yet it still does not rise in the bread pan. Yeast is one of those delicate ingredients in bread that can be hard to quantify, and its introduction into the recipe is almost an art and takes careful judgement.

Social mobility is the same. It is not a mere insertion of quantifiable ingredients and an anticipation that things will rise automatically. The Budget is helpful, the funds are important and so is the structure to enable it. But we must remember that the exercise of social mobility is also just about maintaining dignity and autonomy. It is about knowing that society has your back and are rooting for everyone to succeed. Our social policies can only come to life when, at the last mile, we deliver them with a genuine and determined desire to uplift, with a care and concern deserving of a fellow brethren with a shared Singapore identity and a genuine belief that the vulnerable, having been played a card of less privileged circumstances in life, deserve to succeed, too.

In my volunteering capacity, I remember interviewing for a scholarship, a young lady from a single parent household, formerly from a neighbourhood secondary school, having done part-time work to support her family, but yet also scoring a near-perfect grade point average (GPA) for her polytechnic studies. What struck me and my fellow panellists most about our interview with her was how unaware she was, notwithstanding her sterling grades, about her potential options to study, flourish, to be exceptional and to take on the world. Her intellect, humility, real-world resilience and results notwithstanding, she had a lack of role models, was oblivious to the plethora of global options at her feet and how, with the right support, in good time, she could pave the way for her family to a better life, potentially lifting not only herself but also her mother and siblings out of their current life circumstances.

Because of her background, she genuinely had no access nor sight to see beyond what her lived reality could offer, and her aspirations and ambitions were much constrained and reduced from what she could have easily attained. The truth was neither she nor her family had the social capital to envision a future beyond the horizon of what they could reasonably see.

There are gems in the rough arising from many of these families. They are borne from a life of adversity, hardship and challenges, and what some of their children need is really a fair and equitable opportunity. These children often grow up faster than most, their negotiation skills drawn from the uncertain and harsh environment they have grown up in, and they possess an adaptability and resilience that can be hard to replicate and teach in the classroom. Especially when we see deep potential and exceptional qualities in an individual child, if we were to fully affirm our ethos of social mobility, we must be able to give him or her access to the full swathe of options and the full mile to realise their potential. And when we shed light on these options, it must be coupled with a genuine desire that they deserve to be successful, too.

Across all Ministries, whether it be in addressing inequalities of access to health, education, housing and social support, I believe, Mr Speaker, we have the structures and unitary components in place. In theory, the bread pan is ready and we have got all the ingredients for the bread in the mix. The yeast sometimes can be a little tricky and fickle to get going, and it takes patience for the bread to rise.

Similarly, in delivering a Budget towards realising social mobility, the constitute ingredients like funding, structure and processes matter, but they do not matter as much as how we approach the issue in a spirit that genuinely cares and is concerned for the most vulnerable in society.

Finally, Mr Speaker, social mobility has its lessons for us as a nation, too. We have done well in our 58 years since Independence. We must recognise that in as much as Singapore starts from a strong position today, that we are doing well through our fervent efforts to improve and strengthen Singapore society, and that we are on a reasonable cadence for continued success, we must also have the humility to accept that we arrived here in 2024 with a little luck against the odds stacked against us in history, recognise the privilege of standing on the shoulders and wisdom of leaders before us, and that the starting point for Singapore today in 2024 has arisen from inherited structures and efforts of generations of Singaporeans prior. We, too, are privileged.

There are others who may not be as fortunate to be where we are today and we remain a country many others seek to emulate. We must guard this privilege well and be custodians of Singapore’s continued prosperity, but at the same time, we cannot also turn a blind eye to other calamities in this world, such as places of war, conflict, crises and disasters. In light of that, the Overseas Humanitarian Assistance Tax Deduction Scheme (OHAS) is also a welcome reminder of our privilege as a Singaporean society, and the depth of means to which Singaporeans have, relative to others around the world, to provide and support people in crisis to rebuild their lives again.

This is an extension of our lived ethos and values as a Singaporean society that everyone deserves a chance at success, that not all lived realities are made equal and that privilege exists in many shapes and forms.

It is not wrong to live a life of privilege, to compete fiercely and strategically for our survival, and to want to do well for ourselves, our families and our next generation. However, with the blessings of privilege, we must recognise that our environment, the people around us and chance had a significant role to play.

Tempting as it may be to only give ourselves a pat on the back, we cannot discount the role that others have had to play in our success story, be it our accomplishments as individuals and as a nation. The humility keeps us grounded, informs us of a worldview of care and concern for others and further fortifies us as a society of ethical values, compassion and kindness.

With that, Mr Speaker, it is my hope that the delivery of this Budget in the coming year continues to further erode inequalities and lends opportunity for social mobility to continue taking root in our midst. I rise in support of the Budget Statement.

Mr Speaker: Mr Christopher de Souza.

11.57 pm

Mr Christopher de Souza (Holland-Bukit Timah): Thank you for allowing me to join this Budget debate. Today, we are at the cusp of a transformation that ranks among the most profound of them all, the AI transformation. Many have spoken on this, so I rise to speak on two specific aspects. First, how this transformation affects our social compact, and second, how Singapore has and should continue to approach the governance of AI.

To truly understand the societal implications of AI, we need to, first, understand what we are dealing with. While there are many kinds of AI systems out there, most contemporaneous AI systems are based on machine learning (ML). ML systems are trained on data to produce insights and predictions, and they have become more prevalent in the early to mid-2010s. In the late-2010s, deep learning, a subset of ML, grew in prominence. This utilises neuronetworks, which comprise layers of nodes similar to a human brain that process inputs and produce outputs. These systems are also able to adjust their weights, thus increasing the model's accuracy over time.

Most recently, the technology that has taken the world by storm is, of course, generative AI (genAI). GenAI utilises deep learning, but the difference is that through new techniques and mechanisms, they can be trained on large sets of unstructured data. The result is foundational models, that is, models capable of producing output for a wide range of tasks without having to be specifically trained for it.

Yet, notwithstanding the capabilities of AI today, we must remember that we are talking about artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), which is able to only do specific tasks well, rather than artificial general intelligence (AGI), which connotes AI that is able to perform a wide range of tasks that a human can normally do.

I have spent some time delving into the technicalities because I believe it is important to bear this in mind when we talk about AI affecting our social compact.

Mr Speaker, many hon Members have, in past Sittings, alluded to the multitude of benefits and dangers that AI brings. I do not wish to rehash what had already been said. Instead, I believe we must be careful on how we tread this line in encouraging AI innovation and adoption while continuing to support our people and their livelihoods.

One concern is how the AI age will affect jobs. Alarmist headlines emphasised the loss of jobs to AI, but actually, the key to making AI-enabled jobs rather than replace jobs is to allow people to find their passion with new responsibilities that require uniquely human abilities. With every industrial revolution, the economy changes and so do jobs where what is required of humans also change.

The current fourth Industrial Revolution is no different. It was estimated that in the United Kingdom (UK), over 20 years, seven million existing jobs could be affected by AI. But very critically, 7.2 million jobs could be created. So, that, in fact, is a net gain in jobs.

But what we must ensure as a Government is that no one slips through the cracks, to ensure that every Singaporean, as we become an AI-enabled society, will have that opportunity to learn and grow, and none of us need fear being replaced.

We must also consider that not everyone can make such transition at the same time and at the same pace. But, through the right assurances and infrastructure, we must help every Singaporean realise their core and unique human skills and show them how these skillsets remain relevant and even while their job scopes encompass more decision-making and creative responsibilities.

Mr Speaker, as mentioned, we are talking about ANI today. ANI systems have limits beyond which human intervention is required. In fact, the more unprecedented and complex the situation, the better humans are at managing it, because we have a sense of judgement, empathy and values that no AI system can foreseeably replace.

Mr Speaker, there is another dimension when talking about AI and jobs. With the help of AI, we can feed datasets into deep learning models to look upstream and understand the root causes of various societal issues. Not only should we aim to figure out how to support those who are vulnerable in our society, especially those vulnerable to the coming changes, we should also try to ensure that they do not reach that point of vulnerability in the first place.

Sir, Singapore has not been standing still on these developments. On the contrary, we have been moving very thoughtfully and proactively in the realm of AI governance. For instance, in 2019, the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) first realised the modelled AI governance framework. This was then refreshed in 2020. The model framework provided organisations with practical guidance on how to deploy AI in a trustworthy and responsible manner, and as the first of its kind globally, positioned Singapore well in the global discourse on AI governance.

In 2020, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), PDPC and the Lee Kuan Yew's Centre for Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) launched a guide to job redesign in the age of AI. The guide adopts an industry-agnostic and human-centric approach to show how existing job roles can be redesigned to harness the potential of AI so that AI augments, rather than replaces, jobs. The guide also provides real-life examples of how companies have empowered their employees through job redesign and training.

Since 2022, Singapore has also launched initiatives, such as AI Verify and AI Governance Testing framework and toolkit, one of the world's first, and in January 2024, a new modelled AI governance framework for GenAI systems. Further, just this month, Singapore led the release of the ASEAN guide on AI governance and ethics. These, which are just the tip of the iceberg, showcase the thought leadership that Singapore wields regionally and, I might say, globally in the space.

I would like to take a moment to recognise all the hard work that our public officers and political office holders have put in to bring Singapore to where we are today in such a dynamic and fast-changing environment.

Mr Speaker, Sir, we are certainly not the only country to have developed a national approach towards AI governance.

Over 60 nations around the world have some form of regulation. The United States (US) has a blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights for responsible design and use of AI. In the European Union (EU), the AI Act, which recently received political endorsement, adopts a risk-based approach to regulating AI applications and rules surrounding transparency. China has adopted outcomes-based regulations, including interim measures for the management of GenAI services and the Internet information service algorithmic recommendation management provisions.

Singapore's approach has never been to take another country's approach and apply it wholesale. Instead, we watch global developments closely and tailor them to our needs while introducing fit for Singapore measures.

But what we also need to watch out for is the risk of international fragmentation. This is where countries adopt their own unique regulations of AI, resulting in a patchwork, often quite irrational, of global regulations and heavy compliance burdens for companies looking to provide AI products and services across borders. This is why international corporation to build regulatory into operability is important. Singapore points double down on these efforts while developing our governance approach in a risk-based and pragmatic way.

We should also study how our international counterparts address the impact of AI on jobs, societies and the social compact, and act decisively so that we maximise the benefits of AI for Singapore.

Mr Speaker, it has been over a year since ChatGPT launched into the forefront of the world's consciousness. The GenAI technology behind ChatGPT showcased exactly the benefit and risk dichotomy AI technologies present to our societies and economies. With Singapore's pragmatic and forward-thinking approach, let us plant the seeds and shape the future of trustworthy AI today.

That was meant to have been the concluding remarks of my speech. But I would like to also make some comments on the hon Member Ms Sylvia Lim's speech, a couple of speeches before me. As I understand, Ms Sylvia Lim's position is that we should not disenfranchise our senior workers. I could not agree more.

If one were to study the Budget speech delivered by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, there are a number of key initiatives. In fact, a whole raft of measures that are targeted to assist our seniors to not only age actively, but also to reskill, upskill and re-enter the workforce.

So, I enjoin the hon Member Ms Sylvia Lim to have a care and look at what we are doing, the $3.5 billion for Age Well SG. And what is the purpose behind this? It is to empower active ageing. Or a MediSave bonus of up to $300 for all adult Singaporeans born in 1974 to 2003. Why? For the assurance for healthcare. We will increase quarterly payments from the Silver Support Scheme by 20% and raise qualifying household income thresholds to $2,300. Why? To support seniors in their retirement needs. And the list goes on.

But specifically, if I have not misunderstood hon Member's speech, is the aspect of re-employment and jobs. And here, I would also like to invite the Member to take a look at what the Government is doing to have mid-career reskilling. We are providing $4,000 in SkillsFuture credits for mid-career top-ups in May 2024, which can be used for selected industry-oriented training courses with better employability outcomes, and up to $3,000 monthly SkillsFuture mid-career training allowance for up to 24 months for selected full-time courses.

But I have learnt, over the years, in this Chamber, that statistics do not necessarily make the point as well as stories do. So, let me share with you that while we have all these measures in place and there is a lot of deliberation, a lot of the need to balance competing interests and pushing out new policies, funding them, ensuring the revenue is there for them. But at the end of the day, as MPs and Members of this House, at least, the elected ones, have a duty to ensure that these policies and measures meet their intended need on the ground.

Let me share with you a story which, I think, meets the concerns of what Ms Sylvia Lim raised. This is a story of a resident, Mr Subramaniam, whom I have known for a number of years. He is now 65 years old.

Some years ago, we met and he shared with me that he is looking to upskill himself and he wants to get a security guard licence. I said, "Mr Subramaniam, why would you like to get a security guard licence?" He said, "Because I will be able to upskill, earn more money for my family. I have a wife, and I have one son, Ramasamy. We live in our one-room one-hall flat in Ghim Moh", an area in the ward that I am responsible for. So, I said, "Yes, we will do our best to get you a security licence." He did.

We have seen Ramasamy grow up. He went from Henry Park Primary School to Fairfield Methodist Primary School. He did well enough to get into ITE. He got a 4.0 out of 4.0 GPA in ITE. He went on to Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and he did one semester in Glasgow, and he is doing very, very well. And along the way, when we meet, whether at market visits, home visits or when he comes in for Meet-the-People sessions and we have a chat, and the relationship is now a friendship.

I asked Mr Subramaniam, "What did you do with your upskilling and reskilling? He said, "Mr de Souza, I got a job in Changi Airport." So, I said, "Changi Airport? You live in Ghim Moh. How long does it take for you to get to Changi Airport?" He said, "An hour, an hour and 20 minutes." And I said, "And an hour and 20 minutes back." So, he said, "Yes." I said, "Why?" He said, "Because at Changi Airport, the pay is better, and I want the best for of my son."

So, when we talk about wanting to provide for our seniors, I agree that policies and statistics can be quite clinical and impersonal. But that is what we are called to do in this House; to make the policies and the statistics and change the lives of our residents. That is our vocation. That is our calling. And when Ramasamy came in with his certificate from SIT, the family said and shared with me, "Now, I think it is time for us to buy our flat." That was a very moving sharing with the family.

So, I could not agree more with Ms Sylvia Lim's point that we cannot forget our seniors. I agree wholeheartedly with that. But where I diverge humbly and respectfully is that we are doing that. We are pushing out policies, we are pushing out initiatives and we are pushing out a lot of fiscal provision. The bridge is us and it is for us to accomplish that vocation to the best of our ability. With that, Sir, I support the Budget. [Applause.]

Mr Speaker: Ms Lim.

12.15 pm

Ms Sylvia Lim: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I must say that I am really rather puzzled by Mr de Souza's response to my speech and perhaps, respectfully too, I may suggest that he has misheard me.

First of all, you know, he says to have a care as elected Members of Parliament (MPs) for what the Government is going and, in my speech, actually, I strongly endorsed the continuing education and training (CET) initiatives. Having been a person that has been involved for more than a decade in managing and teaching CET courses, I see the value and I did say so in my speech. I have also acknowledged the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme in detail. So, I think he has misunderstood or has not heard what I have said and kind of accused me of not acknowledging Government's efforts. I do not think that is true.

The main focus of my speech really is on older workers and how we need to tackle ageism in workplace and the Government's own statistics, MOM's own Fair Employment Practices reports, highlight that age discrimination is the main form of discrimination that needs to be tackled. While I am happy to hear that his resident has done so well, has he not come across any residents who are older who have faced age discrimination in the workplace?

Mr Christopher de Souza: I thank the hon Member for giving me this chance to reply. I did not hear the hon Member talk about all the different measures that we have in place to support the seniors which I went through.

The Member may have alluded to the upskilling which I alluded to. I think what is important is to not dichotomise, not say, "Look, this is water and oil and what we are going to do at the policy level doesn't actually trickle down to the low level." It does.

And the reason why I gave an example is to show that we are meant to be the bridges. If we see that there is ageism, as I have seen and as I have tried humbly, to the best of my ability, to bridge, then we should. That is my point. Not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

These are a slew of measures that work in concert with each other – the fiscal measures as well as what we do on the ground for residents to job match and to ensure that they get as close to a job as they want, not only for their own sake but for the sake of their residents.

So, I do not think I misread or misheard Ms Lim's speech. I think it was largely based on ageism and my humble response to that is, if you look at all the fiscal measures, and the grind and the work of the MPs on the ground, I think we do have a chance of a winning formula for our seniors.

Mr Speaker: Ms Lim.

Ms Sylvia Lim: Sir, I do not wish to prolong this matter. I think the Hansard will speak for itself of what I have said, and I do not agree with what he has accused me of saying.

Mr Speaker: Mr de Souza.

Mr Christopher de Souza: I think "accusation" is a very strong word. I am not accusing the hon Member. I am summarising what I think her point is and her point is really that there is this stark, prickly, difficult and possibly unassailable issue of ageism. I agree that it is a difficult issue. I agree that it is an issue on the ground.

I do not agree that it is unassailable. And the formula for that, the remedy or the solution for that is what the MPs do on the ground to bridge that gap, to translate fiscal policies and all that Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong had said in his Budget 2024 speech into real-life examples of how this has worked and impacted families.

So, I make no accusations. I seek to re-orientate the House into how the Government is vested with this issue and has put in place all the initiatives to try to overcome it. But the winning formula really is, as backbenchers, our calling and our vocation, to bridge that gap. And I genuinely believe that.

Mr Speaker: Ms Lim.

Ms Sylvia Lim: Thank you, Sir. I never said that ageism is unassailable and, in fact, in my speech, I expressed the hope that the upcoming anti-discrimination legislation would move the needle and be a game changer.

Mr Speaker: Mr de Souza.

Mr Christopher de Souza: I thank Ms Lim for agreeing that ageism is not unassailable.

Mr Speaker: I assure Members that everything that is said here will be captured in Hansard. Leader of the House.

Debate resumed.

Mr Speaker: Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat.

12.22 pm

The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Heng Swee Keat): Mr Speaker, Sir, first, let me thank the Leader and all Members of this House for giving your assent for me to give a very long speech. I hope that your patience will pay off in that you will enjoy your lunch when you are much hungrier.

I rise in support of the Budget, which lays out a confident path forward for Singapore, as our domestic and global environments change. I would like to focus on one aspect of the Budget Statement, growing the economy, which is one key part of Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's Forward Singapore Movement.

The global economy goes through cycles and we are currently facing a slow growth, high inflation environment.

This year’s Budget, including the Enterprise Support Package and enhanced Assurance Package, is comprehensive and includes good support for companies and households to tackle immediate challenges.

We also face sharp shocks to the economy from time to time, most recently with the COVID-19 pandemic. Colleagues would remember the five Budgets that we had to approve in 2020.

Responsive monetary and fiscal policies can provide stabilisation through the cycles and shocks to ensure that we do not fall into a deep hole. But in order to grow our economy for the long term and to grow sustainably, we need to embark on structural changes, structural policies which would transform our economy. Only then can we create good opportunities for Singaporeans and generate the resources for uplifting our people.

Such structural policies include what Ms Denise Phua said of the potentially game-changing investments to support and uplift workers, a theme which many of you have also spoken on. So, growth is important, but it is also getting harder to achieve because of both internal and external factors. As a small and open economy, Singapore depends on our connections to the region and the world to grow and thrive.

Today, the external environment is more difficult. While globalisation over the past three decades has brought great benefits and progress, the mood has since shifted from collaboration to competition. This is, in part, driven by technological innovations, including automation and AI, which are reshaping jobs and competitiveness across industries and countries.

Some major economies have turned more protectionist and insular and even adopted industrial policy to support strategic industries. "Friend shoring" and "de-risking" are quoted as strategies to strengthen resilience. These have reconfigured economic linkages and global supply chains. From globalisation anchored in economic competitive advantage, we are now seeing fragmentations based on political alignment. This, together with the recent upsurge in geopolitical unrest, has brought new uncertainties.

Internally, our domestic environment is also more challenging. Singapore's economic structure is now closer to that of a mature economy. The days of "catch up" growth are over and our resource constraints – labour, land and carbon – are becoming biting. Economic growth is the sum of labour force growth and productivity growth. But with our ageing demographics, the local labour force growth is shrinking quickly towards zero. So, we must therefore find ways to double down on productivity-driven growth.

But this too, is hard. Many advanced economies have only managed to achieve average real value-added per worker growth of less than 1% per annum over the past decade. And even as we invest in strengthening productivity, such as growing depth in certain industries, it is impossible to match the scale and size of larger economies.

Put together, these sound pessimistic, but I am, in fact, upbeat about Singapore's prospects. Overcoming challenges and finding new opportunities has been in our DNA since Independence. Each time when the odds were against us, we rallied together to find new ways forward.

Our economy managed to chalk up growth of 5% in the 2010s, even as labour force growth slowed to 2.1% per annum. Our sound monetary and fiscal policies have enabled us to stabilise our economy through various economic cycles. They also provided the confidence for long-term planning by companies and households, and ensured sustainable economic growth.

To continue growing the economy, we need structural policies to drive productivity-driven growth and take Singapore forward. We must continue to undertake and intensify our restructuring along three prongs.

First, our economic transformation movement has achieved steady momentum. To sustain this, there must be shared ownership and leadership in the coming years.

Second, we are shaping and strengthening our innovation ecosystem to enable high value, cutting-edge work to be done in Singapore.

Third, we must lean in to foster greater connection and collaboration and strengthen Singapore’s standing as a Global-Asia node for technology, innovation and enterprise.

First, on transformation. When the Future Economy Council was formed in 2017, a key piece of work it embarked on was the Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs). The ITMs were not merely about developing plans to be executed. The process of doing so was equally, if not more, important. The process involved 23 industries each identifying trends, challenges and opportunities they faced, then developing strategies to enhance productivity; restructure jobs and reskill workers; strengthen innovation; and internationalise.

The ITMs represent a more mission-focused and industry-driven approach to tripartism, where our Government agencies collaborated with businesses and trade associations and chambers (TACs), while our unions worked with companies to support workers' reskilling and enterprise upgrading. Through the ITM process, stakeholders across each industry built trust, identified synergies and shared resources and experiences. In so doing, they supported one another towards the shared goal of ensuring that their industry, enterprises and workers remained relevant and competitive.

In 2021, the ITMs were refreshed to take into account post-COVID-19 realities, including the importance of resilience and sustainability. This shared ownership of transformation is critical in today's world of accelerated changes and shifts, as it affords greater agility in our responses. Government plans and programmes will remain important, but when enterprises and workers embrace transformation, they can be at the forefront of seizing opportunities.

In some countries, transformation invokes anxiety and trepidation as it is associated with job loss or companies being forced out of business. In contrast, our 2023 National Business Survey showed that almost all businesses polled recognise the importance of business transformation, up from 61% in 2017. Our workers are not only aware of the need to upskill and reskill, but have also taken action. Our overall annual participation in SkillsFuture initiatives has increased from 380,000 people in 2016 to 560,000 people in 2022. While the efforts will take time to bear fruits, the indicators, so far, are positive.

Even amid structural shifts and sharp shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic, our economy has performed well and enabled us to grow the economic pie for all Singaporeans. Between 2016 and 2023, our economy achieved real value-added growth of 2.8% per annum. In the same period, our productivity growth, in terms of real value-add per worker, was 1.7% per annum. This is stronger than that of advanced economies like South Korea, the US, the UK, Germany and Switzerland. With these productivity gains, businesses were also better able to cope with the inevitable cost increases. Incomes rose as our economy and productivity grew. The median income of full-time residents grew at 1.5% per annum in real terms from 2016 to 2023. We will release a fuller report of the ITM efforts in a few months' time.

We have been able to sustain this transformation and achieve good outcomes because of our unique approach to tripartism. This productive collaborative relationship between employers, workers and the Government enables us to shape transformation and growth to be fair and inclusive. It is a very precious asset to keep Singapore dynamic and harmonious. In a world that is more fast-moving and complex, working in concert is even more important now so that we can harness one another's strengths to move forward faster and together.

Transformation must be a sustained movement. Like any successful movement, it draws strength from the trust and confidence of each stakeholder to collaborate. I thank our many leaders in the business sector, unions, TACs and academia for their contributions. One change which I observed, which we must build upon and expand, is how we have evolved our tripartism towards co-ownership and leadership. For instance, we convened the Emerging Stronger Taskforce at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to explore how Singapore could rebound stronger. A key idea of the task force is the Alliance for Action (AfA), which mobilised private and public sector leadership to tackle specific, high-impact issues.

We have launched several AfAs. For example, the Singapore Business Federation and leading business leaders proposed an AfA on business leadership development. This AfA put together a concrete set of initiatives to grow our local timber and groom global-ready talent. Another AfA, on supply chain digitalisation, led to the establishment of the Singapore Trade Data Exchange (SG TraDex), a common data infrastructure that enables the trusted sharing of data across the trade ecosystem. This has grown more pertinent with the supply chain disruptions that we are now experiencing from geopolitical unrest. So, I thank members of the Emerging Stronger Taskforce and Minister Desmond Lee and Mr Tan Chong Ming for co-leading the task force.

Our TACs also helped their members navigate challenges and seize new opportunities. During the COVID-19 period, our Chinese, Indian and Malay Chambers of Commerce and Industry encouraged and supported SMEs to digitalise, both to ride out the pandemic and to position themselves well once business resumed.

The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) has been a significant leader in transformation. In line with its commitment that “Every Worker Matters”, NTUC has gone beyond the traditional notion of unions by partnering companies to transform and provide better prospects for their workers. Over the past five years, NTUC has worked with nearly 2,000 companies through the company training committees (CTC). Through ops-tech roadmapping or operations technology roadmaps and skills gaps analysis, these committees helped to uplift companies’ organisational capabilities and improve work prospects for their staff.

Think about it. It is highly commendable that NTUC is not fearing technology, not fearing how technology will displace the workers, but is actually taking concrete action to uplift workers with technology, and this will become even more important as technology advances and more of our workers grow older. So, I hope that this House will embrace this same spirit when Members are debating the importance of technology.

One company which benefited from such a committee was Elitez Group, which provides human resource solutions. Partnering the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union, Elitez Group tapped on the CTC grant to implement two business transformation projects. These enhanced productivity and freed up capacity for its staff to be trained in higher-value tasks. As a result, 15 of their senior and professional workers were upskilled and received wage increments. A small step, but a big lesson for everyone.

It is also heartening to see larger companies serve as “SkillsFuture Queen Bees”, leaning forward to help other companies within their industries transform. For example, our logistics industry comprises many SMEs and is highly fragmented. ST Logistics, as the appointed SkillsFuture Queen Bee, shared its expertise and provided guidance on workforce transformation to smaller companies. In doing this, we upgrade not just individual companies, but tap on the broader ecosystem to achieve synergies and grow together.

Most importantly, we should be proud that our workers are taking ownership of their lifelong learning journeys and career development. Some 192,000 Singaporeans utilised their SkillsFuture credits in 2022 for self-initiated learning. This is encouraging.

Going forward, mid-career Singaporeans can use the new SkillsFuture Level-Up programme, with advisory and support from our agencies, unions and industry, to further their knowledge, skills and careers. This complements ongoing efforts to create pathways for continuous learning and upgrading through our Institutes of Higher Learning, often in the form of stackable micro-credentials, to build industry-relevant skills. In fact, I would encourage colleagues to look at the websites of all our universities to see the range of programmes that they have. And, as Mr Darryl David said yesterday, we must strengthen the linkages of our Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), businesses and unions further.

Taken together, Singapore’s approach to transformation is a proactive and collaborative one involving different stakeholders. This is unusual and enviable, as it enables us to build capacity and capabilities not just in certain pockets, but across the board. This is how we ensure that the opportunities and benefits arising from transformation can be shared by all, and Singapore grows in an inclusive manner.

I have spoken about how we are sustaining our transformation movement, through implementing the ITMs and strengthening collective ownership across different stakeholders. Let me now turn to another aspect of our next phase of our transformation.

I earlier mentioned how technology and innovation are reshaping competitiveness across industries and economies. This is something that the ITMs take into account so that industries and companies can remain competitive and ahead of the curve. Mr Christopher de Souza earlier had spoken at length on AI, in particular, generative AI, and so did Dr Tan Wu Meng earlier. For Singapore, technologies, such as AI and automation, augment our human resources and if we learn how to use this well, AI can be our augmented intelligence, as the Member mentioned earlier. So, we should think hard about how the future of jobs and skills will be transformed with automation and AI and, in turn, how we can restructure our work and reskill our workers proactively to take advantage of these changes.

Singapore’s next bound of growth must be powered by an economy that is technology-intensive, innovation-driven and sustainability-focused and provide good jobs for our workers. How do we achieve this?

First, to capture new opportunities, we must be at the forefront of understanding, discovering and translating science and technology to advance existing key economic sectors while building capabilities for new economic drivers of the future; researchers in our universities and research institutes to generate the body of basic scientific insights; companies and startups to translate these insights or discoveries into innovations and solutions that can be applied to industry needs or market demands; and finally, the right training and support for workers to take on new jobs created by these opportunities, which I had spoken about earlier.

This value chain is what we call the research, innovation and enterprise (RIE) ecosystem. The objective is to establish winning advantages in key economic sectors to strengthen Singapore’s position, uplift our local companies as well as create good jobs and opportunities for Singaporeans.

To achieve this, the Government must work closely with our RIE stakeholders – researchers, IHLs, startups, local companies and multinational enterprises – to co-fund and grow the ecosystem. This requires proactive shaping and patient investment. Given our inherent small size, we need to develop our local researchers and nurture our enterprises and startups while also attracting leading global companies and top research and entrepreneurial talent to form a strong ecosystem.

Many Members have earlier spoken about AI, and I would like to add that AI is one form of deep tech. There are many other forms of deep tech, and our biomedical sciences industry is a good illustration of this. Biomed is a deep tech area where scientific expertise is critical but the impact may not be immediately apparent.

Over the past two decades, we had steadily built up the ecosystem of researchers, companies and a skilled workforce. When COVID-19 hit, these capabilities enabled us to contribute to the global fight, including the development of diagnostic tests. This patient investment has also nurtured Singapore startups, like MiRXES and Lucence, whose groundbreaking solutions are making good progress in their next phase of development in large overseas markets like the US.

As such, the additional S$3 billion injection to our 2025 RIE plan, announced at Budget by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, is a timely one, as we seek to deepen capabilities in new growth areas like AI, sustainability and advanced manufacturing.

Our efforts are going well. Singapore is ranked fifth in the 2023 Global Innovation Index, and the top in Asia. Many MNEs have chosen to site their research and development (R&D) and innovation centres in Singapore. Total business expenditure on R&D has grown significantly over the past decade, on par with GDP growth. We also attract global startups, funders and founders to Singapore through a vibrant slate of events, from the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH) to the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition.

We have done well on innovation input. Our institutions and researchers have developed strong niches in areas like biomed, quantum and material sciences. We must now press on and continue to strengthen commercialisation and translational capabilities, to produce more “output” and capture value amid shortening innovation cycles and intensifying competition.

mRNA technology, the basis of COVID-19 vaccines, is a very good example. While the scientific research had begun in the 1970s, it was only in the 2010s that drug companies saw the potential in nucleic acid therapies and invested in translating the science into therapeutics. This was how they were able to develop effective vaccines within such a short time span.

With such a long gestation period, it is important that we proactively shape and grow the ecosystem with other RIE stakeholders, including global companies, startups and funders. Even as we continue to attract the right companies and stakeholders to grow our ecosystem, we can do more to deepen the innovation capacity of our students, researchers and enterprises.

We want to foster a generation of entrepreneurial youth and there are opportunities, such as the National University of Singapore (NUS) Overseas College and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Overseas Entrepreneurship Programme, to provide exposure to our students. Patsnap, one of our homegrown unicorns, is a product of such efforts. Co-founder Jeffrey Tiong first developed the idea of building a patent and technical intelligence search engine during his NUS Overseas College internship in Bio Valley in Philadelphia. Today, Patsnap has more than 12,000 customers in over 50 countries.

For our researchers, the opportunity to work with other global researchers is a valuable one. Through our Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE), we are convening groups of top researchers from partner universities and local institutions to address complex interdisciplinary challenges in fields like urban planning and climate change.

We have more than 20 corporate laboratories, such as Applied Materials' partnership with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and NUS, which is geared towards Advanced Packaging and Advanced Materials research for the semiconductor industry. It is especially heartening that Nanofilm, a nanotechnology unicorn spun off from NTU, recently set up a corporate lab there in NTU. We hope to encourage more of such examples, to inspire our students to strengthen our ecosystem.

We also have the Industrial Postgraduate Programme where students do full-time postgraduate studies while undertaking an industrial R&D project at participating companies to help them gain industry-relevant R&D skills. In the area of deep tech, where innovation output is potentially high impact, but the process is lengthy and high-risk, we are doing more to support venture building, complementing efforts by the private sector. The objective is to support deep tech startups in overcoming technical, financial and market challenges while accelerating their growth.

NUS' Graduate Research Innovation Programme and NTU's Innovation and Entrepreneurship initiatives are just two platforms to do this. Both universities recently partnered Xora Innovation to pilot the launch of deep tech startups that are globally competitive and can address large global market opportunities. Amperesand, the first deep tech startup supported under this partnership, has already raised over US$12 million in seed funding to scale up its solid-state transformer technology for the fast charging of electric vehicles. Amperesand plans to deliver their first systems worldwide by 2025.

We are also supporting our enterprises, especially SMEs, to engage and participate in R&D, innovation and capability development activities. Our SMEs need not worry about their lack of scale, as they can tap on the research expertise and resources of our polytechnics to support them in their innovation journeys. There are 12 Centres of Innovation, covering sectors like aquaculture, built environment and electronics.

The Enterprise Innovation Scheme provides tax deduction and allowances on qualifying expenditures like R&D, intellectual property (IP) registration, IP rights acquisition, training and innovation projects with our IHLs. The Technology for Enterprise Capability Upgrading (T-UP) Programme supports pioneering SMEs in developing innovative products and processes by seconding public research scientists and engineers. Lion TCR, which develops new cancer immunotherapy products to treat life-threatening viral-related cancers in Asia, is one example. With the support of two scientists from the A*STAR Singapore Immunology Network, Dr Wai Lu-En and Dr Sarene Koh, Lion TCR's R&D efforts enabled its product offerings to be more cost-effective than current options and also improved its production efficiency. This has fueled Lion TCR's business growth and contributed to the company's global expansion.

For innovative local enterprises, joining up with larger companies provides opportunities to capture a steady stream of business and upgrade their innovative capacities. The aerospace industry is one such example. We just had the Airshow and top global companies, like RTX and Rolls Royce, have chosen to anchor in Singapore to tap on our strong base of precision engineering companies. Avionics companies, like Thales, are also having a deep presence in Singapore. Under the enhanced Partnerships for Capability Transformation Scheme that was announced at Budget, SMEs can partner larger companies to scale up and go overseas. And this is how we overcome our constraints of a small, domestic market. This is also a win for larger companies which can tap on the innovative capacities of the smaller companies to stay ahead of the competition.

The RIE ecosystem is wide-ranging with numerous players. For it to work well and result in tangible outcomes for Singapore and Singaporeans, we must invest in the different domains while weaving them together intentionally to build strong and reinforcing connections.

Our IHLs and research institutes must continue to invest in basic research and building up world-class capabilities, while also linking up with the industry to translate peaks of excellence into viable commercial products. We must continue to encourage our local enterprises to innovate and tap on larger local companies and MNEs to scale up and grow. The goal is for them to be key regional or global players in their own right, providing solutions that the market seeks.

By developing a stronger innovation ecosystem, we create a conducive environment for leading local and global companies to deepen their presence here and attract global funders and startups to be a part of our ecosystem. And in so doing, we sustain a virtuous cycle of creating more opportunities for Singaporeans and for Singapore.

This brings me to my final point. Given today's contested and uncertain world, Singapore must deepen our standing as a Global-Asia node for technology, innovation and enterprise to create new value for ourselves, the region and the world. Singapore is an outward-looking nation by necessity. It plays out in the way we build transformative capacity across different sectors and stakeholders and shape a strong RIE ecosystem that brings together the strengths of domestic and external stakeholders. These two elements reinforce our reputation as a trusted connector and node and our value add in a more volatile and uncertain world.

Our robust regulatory and legal frameworks are longstanding strengths that provide the confidence that Singapore is a trusted and reliable partner. We have built up strong connections to the region and the world through our extensive set of agreements. We have 27 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in force, 42 International Investment Agreements and around 100 avoidance of double taxation agreements, and we have since innovated and evolved new forms of cooperation, such as the four Digital Economy Agreements.

We have also strengthened connections to innovation nodes around the world through our Global Innovation Alliance. Our 21 nodes across Asia Pacific, Europe and the US facilitate Singapore-based enterprises to explore new markets and reap synergies. Thus, even as the rhetoric grows and cooperation slow, businesses and countries know that Singapore continues to be a constructive and neutral location for business, innovation and talent.

This is how the Economic Development Board (EDB) has, over the past two years, managed to secure investment commitments, which are above its medium- to long-term goals. The 2023 commitments are expected to create over 20,000 jobs, with a projected contribution of $26.7 billion in value-added per annum. And this is why Singapore is home to some 37,000 international companies and 7,000 MNEs, many of which use Singapore as their regional headquarters. Singapore continues to be among the largest sources of foreign investments into China and India, reflecting our value as a gateway for companies to explore opportunities there as well as in ASEAN. We must, therefore, lean in to foster greater connection and collaboration at all levels.

Domestically, it is about fostering co-ownership and leadership through the ITMs and our ongoing transformation efforts so that our industries, companies and workers are empowered and confident as they ride through new waves of change. It is about deepening linkages across our innovation ecosystem and connecting with other ecosystems and stakeholders, so that we can harness science and technology to find solutions to global challenges and unlock economic value.

And beyond that, it is about leveraging our trusted reputation and extensive networks to encourage like-minded partners to grow in Singapore, through Singapore and with Singapore. Mr Speaker, Sir, let me now say a few words in Mandarin.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Since the founding of our nation, Singapore's economy has developed rapidly. Besides the relentless efforts of our people, maintaining economic openness, promoting trade and attracting foreign investment have also been key to our success.

Today, the global situation is unstable. Contestation between major nations, wars and disruption to the global supply chain and other factors have cast a shadow over the economic outlook. Many Singaporeans are concerned. Will our economy continue to thrive, and will Singapore continue to prosper? My answer is: I am very certain that Singapore can achieve this.

To continue promoting economic growth, we must continuously increase productivity, facilitate economic transformation, strengthen the innovation ecosystem and enhance international connections and cooperation, leading Singapore forward through a multi-pronged approach.

Firstly, we will continue to drive economic transformation to better respond to the changing economic landscape. In 2017, we established the Future Economic Council and formulated the ITMs, which has enabled our economy to maintain a steady momentum in the face of challenges in recent years. What heartens me is that our business leaders and employees are aware of the importance of transformation and skills upgrading, and act proactively.

Secondly, we must continue to strengthen our RIE ecosystem. This will allow us to consolidate our momentum in key economic sectors and enhance the competitiveness of local enterprises. In a conducive environment for innovation and business, leading companies can expand their operations here, enabling us to attract more investors and startups to develop in our country, creating better jobs and opportunities for our people.

Thirdly, we must strengthen international connection and cooperation to consolidate Singapore's position as a Global-Asia node for technology, innovation and enterprise. Therefore, in the current trend of global instability and a slowdown in international cooperation, we should uphold our consistent approach and continue to strengthen international cooperation, allowing international partners to recognise that Singapore is a reliable partner and giving businesses the confidence to invest here.

Mr Speaker, Sir, since our Independence, our forefathers have overcome various challenges and painstakingly built today's Singapore. Whenever we face difficulties, we will unite and seek new paths forward. Therefore, even in the face of current challenges, I believe that Singapore's future is still bright. Because I am confident that we can unite and move forward together to build a better Singapore for our people and our future generations.

(In English): Let me now conclude in English. Mr Speaker, Sir, the world may be more difficult and our domestic constraints may be more challenging. But I have laid out the strong basis for my optimism that a small and open economy like Singapore can continue to thrive and secure our next bound of growth. By serving as a trusted node and connector, we can create value by facilitating connections and building new linkages in today's fractured global landscape. We can offer a strong innovation ecosystem with leading capabilities, talent and companies, making Singapore an ideal base to grow and build new ventures.

And with tripartism fuelling our collective transformative capacity, Singapore and Singaporeans can remain well-placed to partner others and seize new opportunities with confidence. This is how we can continue to keep our economy innovative and vibrant, and build a better Singapore with opportunities for all. [Applause.]

Mr Speaker: Mr Gerald Giam.

1.01 pm

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): Sir, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for speech. I would like to ask some clarifications. The Deputy Prime Minister said that AI can be our augmented intelligence and that we should think hard about how jobs will be changed with automation and AI, and he said that we need to reskill our workers to prepare for AI.

However, given that seven in 10 people have not used their SkillsFuture credits since the scheme was started in 2015, does Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat think that it will be useful to expand the use of the SkillsFuture credits beyond core subsidies and give all students and workers more opportunities for hands-on practice with deep tech tools, like AI? This could give results by helping them to boost their productivity at work, for example, summarising long documents or drafting professional emails and reports.

Mr Heng Swee Keat: I thank the Member for the question. In the first place, there are already a range of courses and, as I have said, when we look at the industry transformation and the workers' needs, what is very important is to ensure that the training and the utilisation of the skills are done in tandem. It is very good that workers are taking ownership of this training to upgrade themselves, but the impact will be even greater if they work together with the companies. Which is why I mentioned in my example of how the NTUC is working with the company to do operations and technology (opstech) roadmapping, to do transformation and, in tandem, work on the redesign of jobs and the reskilling of workforce. And it is not just in AI. It is in every domain of the technology that we want to make use of, that we want the society which is a lot more digitalised.

If you remember, even for our digital payment system, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we rolled out the CDC Voucher scheme, for which the Mayors came out with the idea. Later on, we moved to digital vouchers. Huge efforts were put in by our agencies to train our hawkers to install these devices and to learn how to use it. Just last evening, I was talking to a group of my residents during the Meet-the-People session, about what they were doing and how they were learning to use this. And everyone expressed appreciation.

So, our approach, whether it is the use of AI, the use of mRNA technology the use of simple digitalisation tools, has been an inclusive one. That is, we look at what needs to be done and deploy the right tool for the right task, and not just AI.

Secondly, one other very important thing the Member must bear in mind is that AI is a very rapidly developing field and it is something which our researchers are working hard on, to look at the different techniques of AI – it is not just GenAI, but the whole range of different AI systems that are being used – and how that can be used in conjunction with our needs. So, understanding what the real needs are and what you can serve, what are the safeguards that we need to put in place to ensure its proper use and how to put this together in a way that advances not just R&D work, but also the reskilling of workers, has to be done in an integrated way, and not in bits and pieces.

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): Thank you, Speaker. I appreciate Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat's discussion of the importance of SkillsFuture. In principle, I do not disagree with the potential benefits of the scheme. Yet, as my hon friend has shared, statistics reveal that, in recent times, take-up remains low. And in fact, many have yet to exhaust their SkillsFuture credits, even as the Government has proposed that we increase them. But perhaps, what is even more damning is that older workers, exactly the group that we hope will take on this task of reskilling, display significantly lower take-up rates.

My question is, in light of the wrenching changes that AI will usher in, how would the Government ensure that SkillsFuture will actually be able to increase its take-up rate and fulfil the objective of reskilling that it was meant to accomplish or is it revealing that there is a continued scepticism among our workers of the benefits of the scheme?

Mr Heng Swee Keat: Mr Speaker, Sir, I hope that Assoc Prof Jamus Lim is not a pessimist, because the Member said that the take-up rate is low and so on. You can look at it as a glass half empty or glass half full.

Name me a country which has started such an extensive SkillsFuture framework. I was the Education Minister for five years. Our students have done so well and now, our older workers are working hard to learn new skills. Name me a country where the NTUC is not only accepting change, but is embracing change and being a partner for change, in working on the Company Training Committee, in working with companies to do, not just training, but surprisingly, opstech roadmapping. They were trained by researchers from A*STAR to look at how companies can adopt technology and, in the process of adopting technology, how jobs can be redesigned and reskilled, so that workers can take on better jobs, with this huge amount of SkillsFuture funding and the range of courses. I think the Education Minister and the Minister for Manpower will speak more on this later.

So, we will have to take a different approach for different groups of workers. For those who are able to take ownership and do the courses on their own, who want to change their jobs, there is a range of options available. There are many companies that are taking action to redesign their workflow. I have been working very closely with the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) and that is why I mentioned earlier that the SBF has also set up an AfA on business leadership development. I have met the team who are doing this and, in fact, they are making very good progress. So, we have got to upskill everybody at all levels, including the CEOs of companies, to embrace change.

It is very good, in my view, that we are able to achieve this progress over time. And, in fact, instead of saying, "Oh, I am skeptical, I am pessimistic", if the Member has good suggestions on how we can do this better, play a constructive role, because with his professorship, he would know this well – play a constructive role, be a part of the team. We have so many members of the academia who are working with us and giving us excellent ideas. So, if the Member has great suggestions, I am open to considering.

Mr Speaker: Mr Gerald Giam.

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for responding to my question but, perhaps, I was not clear enough in my question. I was not asking about more training. My point was that training has its limits and the adoption of the SkillsFuture credits is nowhere as much as what we would have hoped for. Only three in 10 have used their SkillsFuture credits. And so, the glass is not even half full, in that respect.

To acquire skills, workers need hands-on practice, which is why we are calling for an expansion of the use of SkillsFuture credits to use it for, perhaps, subsidies for the use of AI tools, so that they can increase their productivity and get some hands-on experience.

Mr Heng Swee Keat: Speaker, I remember Mr Gerald Giam's question is whether it can be expanded for other areas in a more appropriate way. This is certainly an area which the Ministry of Education (MOE) and MOM will be happy to consider if you have specific good suggestions about exactly how it can be used.

I have tried to sketch out what different people are doing – from the company training committees of NTUC to what the IHLs are doing. I suggested to all Members earlier to take a look at the websites of our universities and polytechnics, and they can see the range of courses that people can undertake and, with the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme, there are even more courses that they can undertake.

For workers who need help, support and encouragement, we should all do our best to encourage them. That is why WSG and SkillsFuture Singapore have been mounting lots of programmes to reach out to residents, not only in trying to get a job, but also, my residents are asking, what are the courses they can do? I myself have participated in many of those outreach programmes and I must say that the response of many of our workers, including senior ones, is very encouraging.

You are right that training is not everything. It is one aspect of it. You need a collective effort, including by the managers and owners of businesses, to say, "I am going to take training seriously, but more importantly, not just training for its own sake, but how training can be translated into better job performance. And therefore, we can have productivity growth and I can reward my workers better".

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim: Just a quick clarification on my part. I absolutely agree that the SkillsFuture is a good programme in principle. And the challenge that I would put to the Government is how to ensure that it fulfils its original objectives. As for our participation in various suggestions for how we can improve it, I have made suggestions within the context of this House, but if we receive invitations from the various Ministries for us, or any of my Workers' Party (WP) colleagues to participate in these kinds of discussions, we would be more than happy to do so.

Mr Heng Swee Keat: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim, you do not need an invitation. You are free to provide your suggestion. After all, are you not from WP?

And by the way, let me make it clear that I have heard MPs on both aisles speaking about workers, and we have a very strong presence of our union MPs here and they will be speaking even more on this.

So, we all care about Singaporeans, and we want to do the best for them. So, you are welcome to give me your ideas, if you have very specific ones. But let me say that I would have to consider it, together with all the other good ideas. But good ideas are always welcomed. And I am just waiting for them.

Mr Speaker: Ms Denise Phua, did you raise your hand earlier?

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng (Jalan Besar): Yes, Speaker. I would like to also support Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat's "glass half full" perspective. We might actually be a victim of our own success. The SkillsFuture Credit take-up or adoption rate must not be seen as the only indicator of learning. Because of the big push for lifelong learning, I think, during that time and even now, there are many free courses that are implemented.

For example, I know that many IHLs – NUS, for example – have given a lot of free CET courses that do not require the use of SkillsFuture credits, in a sense. When the CDCs implemented the CDC Vouchers scheme, we had the whole pool of IMDA Digital Ambassadors who went all out to teach our merchants and our seniors, for example, how to use the digital vouchers. And it came free! It did not require the use of SkillsFuture credits. At the same time, I think, because what NTUC does – the free trainings, the training plans and so on – those courses are sponsored and paid for by the companies.

While we know that we can use more of the SkillsFuture credits, that must not be the only indicator, because there are lots of free programmes that did not require the use of these credits.

But do not let this go away. We have needs for that. I think there is more to do. But I just want to say that, let us not get too hung up on the adoption of the SkillsFuture Credit, because there are indeed, many courses that are free for now.

Mr Speaker: Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat.

Mr Heng Swee Keat: Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to thank Member Ms Denise Phua for her comments because her comments reminded me of the tagline that I always said when I was in MOE – that you can learn from anyone, anytime, anywhere. In fact, peer learning is a very important aspect of that learning.

In short, it is really about an attitude towards learning, that we must inculcate this interest and passion to learn, and learn throughout your lives. It is not about the take-up rate and not about the courses, it is not about putting up more of these. Because a lot of the infrastructure and a lot of the courses are already there. It is not a question of why do you not do more of this or more of that. I think we can all focus on how we encourage everyone, young and old, to learn something and you can learn from anywhere. It does not mean you must take a formal course.

Mr Speaker: Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap.

1.16 pm

Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap (Aljunied): Mr Speaker, Sir, in my time as a MP representing Kaki Bukit division of Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC), I have had many interactions with Singaporeans, individuals and families from low-income households. These households have been most affected by the rising cost of living in Singapore and the issues they face are multi-faceted.

When Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong delivered the Budget Statement earlier this month, I was heartened that there was significant attention given to this segment of our country's population. Today, I will speak with that light in mind.

It was reported on 12 February 2024 that the lowest-earning households in Singapore saw their real incomes dropped by 1.7% in 2022, after accounting for inflation. The same report, the data from the Department of Statistics, showed the median household income for the same period rose by 2.8%. In response, the Government has ramped up support packages for the lowest earners in this year's Budget, adding onto the measures that had been announced and implemented in 2023.

Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has also provided some details on the ComLink+ progress packages, where families with children from low-income households can receive financial top-ups when they work with family coaches assigned by the Ministry of Social Development and Family (MSF) on an action plan to meet certain goals. These goals include having children enrolled in preschool education, gaining employment, improving their financial stability and saving for home ownership.

Sir, I gather from the information released to-date that one of the goals of the ComLink+ progress packages is to prevent intergenerational poverty from taking root any further and I support moves that prevent further stratification of society.

In my experience, most, if not all, parents want to send the children to preschool and share a common desire to see their children get a good education. What often prevents them from sending their children to school are other tangible factors, such as the lack of places in nearby centres, concerns over their ability to pay the fees even after subsidies and financial assistance, pick-up and drop-off timings because the parents are working shift, among others. Top-ups to the Child Development Account (CDA) are useful throughout a child's education journey. However, they have far less of an impact on the immediate challenges a household may face in trying to keep their little ones in preschool.

I welcome the lowering of fees at childcare centres under the Partner Operator and Anchor Operator Schemes as well as the expansion of subsidies. I believe this will go a longer way towards helping lower-income families send their children to preschool.

On the matter of employment, low-income earners are among the most vulnerable segments of our workforce. Aside from their lower wages, job security is another concern for many low-income earners, particularly those in professions with no specialised skills. Low-income earners worry about being replaced easily or retrenchment, which can have an upsized impact on their families' livelihoods. I look forward to receiving more details about the assistance that the Government is planning for the involuntary unemployed.

The WP has called for the introduction of redundancy insurance since 2006. By whatever name, a scheme that provides a net for Singaporean workers who find themselves suddenly out of job due to events out of their control is something that is needed in a time where job security is not assured.

Sir, I note that the Government will be ramping up support for the reskilling and retraining of our workforce. I believe that despite this move, there will remain a sizable portion of our population that is wary, not because of the support level but because they are unsure of whether undergoing reskilling will improve their earnings and job security. The other generations may also need more help in assessing their training funds under SkillsFuture as many of them are not IT-savvy.

Sir, I believe every Singaporean aspires to own a home for themselves. But for young Singaporeans from low-income households, the path to home ownership is more fraught with risks. The two primary concerns are affordability and availability.

I note that support under the employment and saving packages are kept at $30,000. If you assume a 50/50 split in the amounts the household received for each section, the maximum amount of household receives for purchasing their own home is $15,000.

After including the grants, the price of a 3-room flat in the February 2024 launch of Build-To-Order (BTO) projects ranges between $127,000 and $172,000. Assuming the household successfully applies for a housing loan, the downpayment involved could range between $25,400 and $34,400. Even after accounting for the household contribution, the total level of support would be insufficient for the downpayment. Families with children find it more difficult to save to buy their own house because there are more immediate needs to be met daily.

The wait for a BTO unit can range from around three years at the fastest, assuming there are no construction delays. Even for Singaporeans from middle-income families, the long wait throws a spanner in the works when they are planning for marriage and children.

For lower-income families with children, the wait can have a bigger impact. It is a sad and unfortunate reality that the living environments in rental flats are often not conducive for young children. There are stresses and pressures that arise that have an impact on their longer-term development.

A more proactive approach may be required, for example, giving such households, which are ready to purchase their own home priority in the in the Sales of Balance Flats exercises or providing them assistance with purchasing a resale flat at subsidised prices.

Sir, there is a segment of low-income households who face a particular problem with securing housing – Singaporeans with foreign spouses who have not obtained permanent residence. They are not eligible to apply for a flat under the Public Rental Scheme as that spouse is not a permanent resident (PR). They also do not have enough income and/or savings to purchase their own flat. The situation affects their relationship with their spouse. The Singaporeans whom I met in this situation have been unsuccessful in applying for their spouse to obtain PR status or even a Long-Term Visit Pass (LTVP). They are effectively deprived of having a matrimonial life with their spouses in Singapore. Some of them also rely on their spouse to be their caregivers. We need to consider streamlining a path towards naturalising foreign spouses in Singapore, which includes housing policies for such families.

Sir, my final point is one that I have raised on previous occasions. I would like to reiterate my call that Singapore adopts the social protection framework developed by the International Labour Organization (ILO), an introduction of an annual social protection report which tracks the effectiveness and efficacy of our policies to uplift society. With clear key performance indicators, such as improved per capita household income benchmarked against the median, we can better track how well policies are working and do the necessary fine-tuning.

Sir, the United Nations (UN) is one that takes care of all segments and leave no one behind. I believe this is the sentiment all of us can get behind. Sir, I support the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Mr Edward Chia.

1.25 pm

Mr Edward Chia Bing Hui (Holland-Bukit Timah): Mr Speaker, Sir, Budget 2024 empathises with the cost-of-living pressures experienced by all segments of Singaporeans and brings immediate relief. It includes enhanced Assurance Packages, rebates, SkillsFuture support and more CDC Vouchers. These measures show our commitment to Singaporeans that we have got their backs.

Budget 2024 also recognises that these are short-term measures. In the medium to long term, we need to boost real incomes in the face of rising inflation, especially for the middle-class. This is the only way to improve our standard of living.

To do this, we must equip our workforce with the skills for new jobs. We also need to support our employers to find new markets and grow. Workers should remain relevant and firms have to remain competitive. Workers' real wage growth can only be sustained when employers grow.

I have advocated in this House for measures that bolster businesses' competitiveness, enhance local enterprises' capabilities, such as carbon accounting to align with new procurement criteria, facilitate firms' growth through initiatives like Partnerships for Capability Transformation, and ensure retirement adequacy for seniors along with the creation of age-friendly facilities for them to lead active and purposeful lives. I am heartened by the additional support allocated in Budget 2024 for these crucial areas.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the initiatives announced in Budget 2024 are well-crafted and the challenge now is to ensure translation in the real economy that leads to real wage growth for Singaporeans.

Firstly, I will address measures to support lower-wage workers and attract MNEs. Secondly, I will share the challenges of hiring the right talent and the necessity of aligning workers' skills with company needs through programmes, like SkillsFuture Level-Up and the Job Skills Integrator programmes. Thirdly, I will explore alternatives to promote inclusivity and a sense of ownership among employees, enhancing their motivation and contribution to their companies. Lastly, I will propose a focus on Enterprise Singapore accreditation programmes to incentivise companies to prioritise inclusivity and social equity, fostering a more inclusive and sustainable economic environment.

Sir, first, support for lower-wage workers is crucial. Most of our workers are employed by our SMEs. Hence, support for our SMEs is critical to uplift local workers. A key area of concern for our SMEs is cash flow. The enhancement of the Progressive Wage Credit Scheme is a step in the right direction. However, annual reimbursements can strain cashflow. Hence, I would like to ask if the Government can consider shortening the period for reimbursements to aid enterprises' cashflows.

Secondly, we need to equip our workforce with the necessary skills and competencies to drive our nation's growth and innovation. Employers often tell me they struggle with hiring the needed talent to transform. This challenge has also grown due to rising manpower costs and a tight labour market.

The SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme offers an additional $4,000 credit. This is a commendable initiative to support individuals in pursuing skills development and career advancement. The eligible courses are selected courses that are oriented towards meeting industry and employment needs. I would like to ask how these programmes are selected or curated to keep up with job disruptions. What is the structure in place to ensure a swift feedback loop from employers on the relevance of curriculum and what are the procedures to ensure timely adaption? It is crucial to ensure that these programmes are aligned with the evolving needs of the job market and provide relevant skills for the future workforce.

The Job Skills Integrator Programme, introduced in Budget 2023, identify the nexus between new skills workers need and corporate objectives. I would like to ask how the Jobs Skills Integrator Programme dovetails with the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme.

Human resources (HR) play a vital role in guiding employees to maximise benefits for the company with clear objectives. We need to examine how can HR act as an in-house career advisor. With enhanced SkillsFuture funding, the challenge is to ensure that employees, while in their jobs, can identify and acquire new skillsets aligned with corporate objectives. To do this, HR roles, particularly in our SMEs, will need to broaden. HR's spectrum ranges from administrative payroll tasks to the HR business partner (HRBP) role, which interfaces with the business to support its needs.

However, most SMEs may not have an HRBP role, leading to a lack of corporate alignment. For SMEs without an HRBP, chief human resource officer (CHRO)-as-a-service can be a solution to mimic the HRBP role and maximise SkillsFuture credits. This service could provide significant value for the SME sector and help grow SMEs to be large local enterprises.

Another feature of the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme is the Financial Support for Full-Time, Long-Form Training. This is yet another major shift in our nation's support of life-long learning. Adult learners can take time off to pursue a long-form diploma with a provision of a monthly allowance of up to $3,000 for 24 months. This addresses the basic cost of living needs of an adult learner.

However, some employers have expressed concerns regarding the depletion of their workforce, as more employees take time off to pursue new diplomas. Could full-time diploma programmes be adapted to allow workers to continue working part-time in a firm? This arrangement benefits employers by mitigating manpower shortages while enabling workers to stay abreast of industry trends during their diploma pursuits. Also, how does SkillsFuture Singapore's existing career transition place and train programme align with and support this new initiative?

Mr Speaker, Sir, we need to align workforce training with corporate objectives and ensure that HR processes effectively guide employees towards skill development that benefits both the individual and the company. This alignment between employees and employers maximises the translation benefits of the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme.

Thirdly, as we strive for innovation and technological advancements, we must promote greater inclusivity at the firm level. Given the increasing disruption in job scopes, there is a pressing need for improved job re-design capabilities.

Alongside the support for acquiring new skills announced in Budget 2024, it is essential to develop measurement tools and benchmarks for employers and HR to equitably assess salary ranges for newly acquired skillsets. This ensures that as employees upskill and both the individual and firm productivity improves, the gains are equitably shared between employers and employees. I would like to seek clarity on how the Government intends to provide job re-design measurement tools and benchmarks to facilitate the fair valuation of new skills sets in relation to productivity growth.

Furthermore, there is a growing body of evidence indicating that returns on labour are increasingly overshadowed by returns on assets, exacerbating the wealth gap in our society. Concurrently, employers are contending with high staff turnover rates and seeking effective talent retention strategies. Often, there is frustration due to misalignment between employees and the firm. Therefore, I suggest implementing measures that enable employers to share in asset appreciation upsides while strengthening the alignment between employees and the organisation.

One promising avenue is the more widespread adoption of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). ESOPs grant employees the option to purchase shares at a set price upon meeting performance goals, aiming to retain key staff long term. Psychologically, ESOPs instill a sense of ownership, boosting motivation and performance. This benefits both employees and employers, enhancing motivation, ownership and long-term success.

In the Netherlands, the tax point for stock options has been shifted to a more favourable time for employees, that is, when the shares become tradable, rather than at the moment of exercise or alienation. This change, effective from January 2023, helps employees manage the financial burden of taxation on stock options. In Bulgaria, amendments to the Commerce Act have led to the creation of the Bulgarian variable capital company, tailored to start-up technology companies. This new company type offers greater flexibility, for example, by reducing administrative requirements related to shareholding structures. In Ireland, some schemes allow for share allocation or options to employees, which include tax benefits after a certain period of shareholding.

There are also alternatives to ESOPs. For example, in the US, companies offering Phantom Stock Plans or Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) may benefit from tax deductions when the awards vest, providing they meet certain conditions. This encourages companies to implement such plans as part of their overall compensation strategy.

Comparing these models to Singapore's current tax incentives; while Singapore has a framework to support share-based remuneration, there may be room to expand these incentives to encourage a broader range of alternatives to ESOPs. This could involve introducing specific tax deductions or grants for companies adopting Phantom Stock Plans, RSUs or other innovative compensation models, thereby promoting a more flexible, diverse approach to employee ownership and participation.

Lastly, as we strive to create a more inclusive environment within the firms, it is also essential to consider how we can leverage investment and purchasing decisions to promote social equity. This brings us to the concept of impact investments and the importance of environmental, social and governance accreditation programmes.

Shaping investment decisions can promote social equity. Encouraging investors to support employee-focused companies drives change. The rise of impact investments creates opportunities to direct investments toward inclusive firms.

Increasingly, investors seek impactful capital utilisation. This presents an opportunity to connect capital with accredited enterprises. The landscape of capital flows has evolved to bolster impact-driven enterprises. This evolution entails a blended approach that merges philanthropy with investments. Blended capital encompasses grants, recoverable grants and equity, reflecting a convergence between philanthropy and impact investments. To augment this trend, I suggest that agencies, such as Enterprise Singapore and National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC), collaborate to devise programmes aimed at expanding the deployment of blended capital.

With increased consumer awareness, especially among the younger demographics, individuals prefer supporting positive-impact enterprises for societal gains. Environmental, social and governance-based accreditation can catalyse a shift towards virtuous purchasing and investing, fostering greater societal impact through these enterprises' endeavours.

To incentivise companies to prioritise inclusivity, I have called for the promotion of accreditation programmes, such as Company of Good by NVPC and B Corporation (BCorp). These accreditation programmes are important for investors and consumers to evaluate businesses that promote greater inclusivity. Acknowledging companies' commitment through such programmes deepens their impact.

A prominent local illustration of NVPC's Company of Good accredited entities is ABR Holdings, renowned for operating the popular Swensen's chain of restaurants. ABR Holdings collaborates with organisations, like Association for Persons with Special Needs (APSN), Asian Women's Welfare Association (AWWA) and Yellow Ribbon Singapore, to offer training and employment opportunities to individuals with special needs and ex-offenders. ABR Holdings not only serves delectable cuisine but also dishes out kindness to our community, exemplifying its commitment to social responsibility.

By amplifying the prominence of ESG accreditation schemes, fostering blended capital investments and promoting purchasing support for inclusive firms, we initiate a cycle of investment and social impact, ultimately advancing toward a more inclusive society.

In conclusion, Sir, Budget 2024 is a testament to our commitment to Singaporeans' dignity and stability, providing immediate relief and laying the foundation for long-term prosperity. By addressing the needs of our lower-wage workers, enhancing workforce training, promoting inclusivity within firms and leveraging impact investing, we are charting a course towards an inclusive and sustainable future. These initiatives underscores our dedication to ensuring that all Singaporeans share in our nation's success. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support this Budget.

Mr Speaker: Senior Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua.

1.38 pm

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social and Family Development (Mr Eric Chua): Mr Speaker, last year in April, when this House debated on a Motion of thanks for the address made by the former President, I made a case for adopting a life course, case management approach to support persons with disabilities (PwDs) and their caregivers. A familiar face that a PwD and their caregivers can talk to, candidly on future-care planning, employment or, perhaps, even where they could pick up a recreational sport in the community.

To enable PwDs to flourish, our national roadmap for disability inclusion, the Enabling Masterplan 2030 (EMP2030), identified three strategic themes: one, to strengthen support for lifelong learning; two, to enable independent living; and three, to create inclusive physical and social environments for persons of all abilities. Along with that, 14 focal areas, such as "learning beyond schooling years", "inclusive employment" and "inclusive public spaces" were highlighted. Consistent with the recommendations of the masterplan, I maintain that more can be done for this community.

Since the launch of EMP2030, we have continued to push ahead with our agenda of disability-inclusion. The first Enabling Services Hub (ESH) in the Tampines West Community Club and the Enabling Business Hub (EBH) in Jurong launched last year, were a few examples. The ESH and EBH symbolise our ambition to do better as a society. One where PwDs can partake freely in the community, just as any other abled-bodied person can and would without fear of stigma. It also paints our vision for a more inclusive workplace, one where more PwDs can sustain gainful employment, thrive and flourish.

As we continue pushing in this direction, I hope that as a society, we can work together to empower our brothers and sisters of all abilities, enable them to realise their maximum potential and to lead meaningful lives. To do so, policies and programmes alone are not enough. We also need persistence and participation – your participation, everyone's participation – to make disability-inclusion a hallmark of Singapore society.

In many areas, such as inclusive employment and availing of independent living options, the Government can and will take the lead. Yet, in other domains, such as the shifting of mindsets, everyday accommodations, community organisations, social service agencies, individuals like you and I, we all have a role to play.

Today, I dedicate my speech to the sharing of some everyday challenges that PwDs and their caregivers face, particularly those that exist at the intersections of service provision.

I recently spent good time talking with Dr Lim Hong Huay, a developmental and behavioural paediatrician. Beyond her professional credentials, she is a mother and caregiver to two children with special needs and, to her, I owe a vote of thanks for the central ideas in my speech today. I will touch upon three key ideas, namely: one, the critical role of the caregiver; two, better information and awareness; and three, stronger professional collaboration.

First, on caregivers. All of us, disability or otherwise, visit a doctor occasionally. How differently then does a PwD experience the healthcare system? A point Dr Lim made left a deep impression in me. The difference, she said, "was in the medical professional's practice of "the art of medicine"". According to an article in the Canadian Medical Education Journal, the "art of medicine" is simply a clinician's way of being when interacting with patients and family members. How doctors, nurses and allied healthcare professionals diagnose, explore treatment options, communicate and promote healing, these are examples of "the art of medicine". This made a lot of sense to me. After all, we are first and foremost, human beings, not merely humans doing.

For patients with disabilities, particularly those who cannot effectively express their own thoughts and feelings, the practice of the "art of medicine" becomes even more cogent. How a patient with disabilities respond to prescribed medication, side effects they may experience and so on, is often told through the keen lens of the observer, and that is their caregivers. Therefore, how healthcare professionals interact with and co-opt caregivers in the process of promoting healing is instrumental.

Caregivers are also often best placed to advise healthcare professionals on potential triggers, for example, bright lights, colours or sudden loud sounds, that might spark adverse reactions in their charges. Triggers differs from patient to patient and, therefore, including and intimately involving caregivers when working with patients with disabilities would, in many instances, aid the work of healthcare professionals.

Second, information and awareness. To be sure, there are many well-meaning healthcare professionals who want to better serve patients with disabilities and their caregivers by planning out their service experience in advance. They can be supported to do so if they have more ready access to information, such as an individual’s disability status, and are more aware of their accommodation needs. Better capture of disability data and sharing across sectors, including social services, healthcare and transport, would enable professionals to plan and do better for PwDs that they serve, according to their unique circumstances.

For instance, in healthcare, a longer stretch of consultation may be scheduled for patients who may face difficulty expressing themselves. A fixed rhythm of consultation sessions may be planned for patients that are used to certain set routines, for instance, seeing a doctor only in the mornings or scheduling patients only at the start or the end of a shift to significantly reduce wait time. All of these are plausible, and these tweaks can be quite easily made, so the service experiences that PwDs and their caregivers have with the healthcare system can overall be more positive.

Finally, my third and last point on tighter cross-sectoral professional collaboration. In their life course, PwDs and their caregivers interact with professionals and organisations from different sectors – doctors and nurses in the hospital or clinic, teachers and allied educators in the special education (SPED) schools and occupational or speech therapists in the social service agencies (SSAs). Across different sectors, we need to grow a culture of tighter collaboration. Cross-disciplinary sharing of professional practices would be a great start.

Take, for instance, medication. For some PwDs, medication is sometimes prescribed to help them manage behavioural outbursts. For example, risperidone is an anti-psychotic medication quite commonly prescribed to manage psychosis-induced agitation. We sometimes hear anecdotes of PwDs being taken off such medication prematurely, sometimes due to caregivers’ concerns or purely streetside hearsay about the potential side effects of such medication. Having non-healthcare professionals who interface with the PwDs and their caregivers on a more frequent basis – for instance, their speech therapists – can help to allay unfounded concerns of family members and overall, this represents a net positive for the PwDs.

In other instances, tools such as visual scheduling used by social service professionals to communicate a sense of routine and rhythm, particularly for autistic individuals, might unfortunately not be well understood and, hence, much less deployed as a communication strategy by healthcare practitioners when working with these individuals. My wish, therefore, is to see more sharing of professional practices across domains, so that there is not only better appreciation of each other’s work, but the opportunity to enlist one another in mutually reinforcing each other’s work is not lost.

There are obvious benefits to be had if professionals in different sectors could understand and help reinforce key messages among PwDs and their caregivers. For instance, having healthcare professionals take a more 360° view of the patients and caregivers they serve, by reinforcing messages, such as the importance of future care planning where opportune or, even better, refer them to organisations like the Special Needs Trust Company (SNTC). In other instances, having social work professionals help clear up doubts that PwDs and their caregivers might have about policies, such as CareShield Life, would only benefit the very individuals and families that these professionals from the different sectors are all trying to serve.

One last point on cross-sectoral collaboration. When PwDs move across different service sectors in the course of their lives, there almost always exist, today, an inevitable resolution loss in terms of what each successive organisation knows about the PwDs. Information such as unique circumstances that might trigger a meltdown, habits or routines unique to each person, the loss of such information along the way, among others, that affords each organisation working with the PwDs and their caregivers a better chance of providing a more person-centric service has to be minimised. This goes back to the point I made last year about taking on a case management perspective for each PwDs and how we should support them and their caregivers more systematically throughout the course of their lives. Mr Speaker, in Mandarin.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mr Speaker, the Enabling Masterplan 2030 has outlined our country's vision and plan to build a more inclusive society over the coming years. We hope that every individual in our nation will have the opportunity to reach their full potential. In my speech today, I would like to propose three key points for consideration and discussion.

First, in supporting the journey of PwDs, caregivers play a pivotal role. Where feasible, we should allow caregivers to participate in professional processes, such as medical consultations. Secondly, if healthcare professionals can have more information about PwDs, such as their individual circumstances and medical condition, they can better plan services and provide better care for PwDs and their caregivers. Third, professionals from different industries, when serving PwDs and their caregivers, can also collaborate more closely to provide a seamless service, focusing on the PwDs.

(In English): Mr Speaker, our journey in disability-inclusion has been built upon the hard work, sweat and tears of many professionals in the social service, healthcare, education and many other sectors, as well as the many PwDs and their caregivers who have worked tirelessly to get us to where we are today. Standing on the shoulders of those who have come before us, it is now up to us to pick up the mantle, carry the torch and strive towards the day we work the word "inclusion" into obsolescence. Mr Speaker, I support the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim.

1.53 pm

Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim (Chua Chu Kang): Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to participate in this debate. I rise in support of the Budget Statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance.

Sir, Deputy Prime Minister Wong said that Budget 2024 is about acting on the belief that so long as we stay united, work together and continue to keep faith in each other, we will be able to weather the storms ahead and emerge stronger. I resonate with that and share this belief.

I welcome the approach to draw from fellow Singaporean’s collective experience, expertise and feedback during the Forward Singapore conversations. This Budget takes those conversations forward and make them into concrete actions for our future. I am particularly interested in the measures to help our households and providing more assurance for families and seniors. My speech will be focused on housing options and enhancing liveability in the housing environment for families and seniors.

Firstly, on housing options and accessibility. During last year’s Budget debates, I raised several proposals to further refine the balloting process for BTOs for families and young couples. I am glad that the Government has not only adapted such recommendations but also ramped up the supply of BTO flats to meet the demand for housing.

White waiting for their BTOs, I met many young couples in Keat Hong who are living with their parents. They are newly married and waiting for their flats in exciting new BTO developments in Bukit Batok and Tengah. Most importantly, while living with their parents, they get to save up and enjoy the support to take care of their children and access to many childcare centres and amenities in the neighbourhood.

Keat Hong, where they grew up, is a place of warmth and familiarity. But family circumstances change and with the welcoming of another baby or two, the living conditions in the flat will be too cramped.

Hence, I welcome Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s announcement in this year’s Budget of the new Parenthood Provisional Housing Scheme (PPHS) (Open Market) Voucher for one year, to support eligible families to rent an HDB flat in the open market. This helps young couples who are waiting for their BTO flats to have temporary housing. Previously, they need to join the waiting list for rental flats from HDB and the open market rental are out of reach for them financially.

All of these policy changes show that the Government listens intently to the various feedback via numerous consultations or through the Meet-the-People sessions appeals that we MPs sent on behalf of residents, for me, every Monday in Keat Hong and, after careful studying, implements them into action. The Government lends a listening ear and extends a helping hand. In Malay, Sir.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] This Budget provides more support for families in terms of financial assistance and housing. This comprehensive approach means that the Government not only helps specific groups but all levels of our society, from senior citizens to families to workers. One issue of concern is housing matters, especially for young couples with young children.

Last year, I suggested a way to further fine-tune the application process for HDB BTO flats. I observed that the suggestion provided was not only considered but it was also employed to help young couples who have just got married. To help them, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has also announced a new voucher scheme that helps young couples to rent a house from the open market during the period when they are still waiting for the completion of their BTO flats. This voucher will help many from our community to get interim housing.

One of my Keat Hong residents, Mdm Nur, together with her husband and child, are living with her sister’s family while waiting for their BTO flat to be ready in four years’ time. A total of eight persons are living in the 4-room flat. Her elderly mother who has mobility issues is also living with them.

Mdm Nur cannot afford to rent from the open market due to her household income. Hence, she applied for a rental flat from HDB. However, the PPHS application opens once every two months and each application will take about four to six weeks to process. In the meantime, she is expecting another child and so, she would like to have some certainty and stability in her housing arrangement. During my Meet-the-People session, I appealed to HDB on her behalf, not just to get a rental flat, but also proposed alternatives like subsidies in the open market. I am glad that the proposal is now being considered by the HDB with the availability of rental flats vouchers in the open market.

The PPHS (Open Market) Voucher will be useful for families like Mdm Nur to have interim housing. I welcome this change. However, since according to HDB, the average waiting time for BTOs is between three to four years, I hope that such vouchers for rental flats in the open market can be provided for a period of two years, so that such young couples with children can enter into a longer tenancy period. This will provide greater stability for themselves and their children.

I hope more support can be provided to help our young couples and families alleviate their concerns for housing. I look forward to the announcements from the Ministry of National Development in this regard.

The hon Mr Faisal Manap had earlier suggested that residents of public rental houses be given priority to buy houses. But for me, this refers to just one aspect. We should also address the other aspects. We should not view the housing issue in silo. This is because there are many aspects of family life that should be considered and addressed.

Hence, with the joint effort of partners such as M³@Towns and the Dian Project, which engages families living in rented homes, we can provide support in various aspects including health, children's education and family matters. Project Dian@M³ is rolled out in Bedok, Geylang Serai, Jalan Besar, Jurong, Chua Chu Kang and Tampines, and now supports more than 400 families in rental flats.

This is our collective effort. All these help families to move from rental homes to their own flats and not only for them own their homes, but also to ensure that they have stable jobs, educated children, a healthy family and a happy marriage. By having all of that, there will be stability in their lives, which is what we wish everyone to have. This is the way.

(In English): Mr Speaker, Sir, one other aspect of housing is having lift access. Chua Chu Kang Town is undergoing various exciting developments, like the Jurong Region Line and a new hawker centre to be constructed in the town central. There are many residents who have lived in Keat Hong for decades and so they wish to live out the rest of their lives here. As I had stated earlier, there are also many young couples drawn by the exciting upcoming developments and have moved into the estate.

However, there are several blocks that had been designed originally without direct lift access, though they come with added privacy and exclusivity for their home owners. Nevertheless, as residents live in their blocks over the decades and age in place, direct lift access has become more important to them.

I had raised this issue numerous times in this House. Even after HDB’s Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP), there are still about 150 blocks remaining in Singapore that do not have direct lift access. There are segmented HDB blocks which have segments that do not have direct lift access, meaning that affected residents would have to take the lift to a floor, walk along a corridor or passageway, navigate and thereafter take the stairs up or down to their unit. Out of these 150 segmented blocks, 20% of them in Singapore are found in Keat Hong, which means these families do not have same-floor lift access. For residents who have been living in such units for decades, they now face difficulties and inconvenience as they age in place. I have spoken up previously on the LUP, the Lift Access Housing Grant and other solutions to support these families. I wish for more support in this regard.

One resident, Mr Tan, is an elderly man with an adult son who had suffered from stroke. He had been taking care of his son for decades. They live in a segmented unit in Keat Hong with no direct lift access. Previously, going to medical appointments would be a hassle, with him carrying the son down the flight of stairs to the next floor and navigating the corridors to the lift lobby. Now, with the Town Council, we provide complimentary stair-climber services that Mr Tan can call on so that we can assist him and his son the flight of stairs using a stair-climber machine.

Food or package delivery personnel also find it difficult to deliver because of the block layouts and differing lift access navigation routes. Some furniture or bulk delivery services are not available as well to these segmented units without hefty charges. In times of fire or medical emergency, our first responders also may find it difficult and there is a time lag to reach these segmented units in time. To help with the situation, we have introduced the Keat Hong WayFinder Maps at lift lobbies in segmented blocks. But this is just an interim solution.

Mr Speaker, Sir, do you know that in the US reality television (TV) series Amazing Race 2002 Season, there was a Singapore leg where contestants had to navigate a challenging detour. This was held in our segmented block in Chua Chu Kang. And during this detour, contestants had to find the right lift lobby, go up the correct flight of stairs to get to a segmented unit, where a contractor with a distinctive look in yellow boots will be waiting for them. It was Phua Chu Kang in Chua Chu Kang! After many frustrating attempts, contestants finally managed to find the unit.

My point is this: if the segmented blocks are so hard to navigate that they are deemed a worthy challenge in an international reality TV series, imagine the daily struggle for our residents, especially the elderly and those with young children.

We have to acknowledge the changing dynamics of our communities. With an ageing population and an increasing number of families residing in our flats, the need for adequate lift access is more critical than ever. Lifts are not merely mechanical devices; they are the lifelines to connect us to our homes and communities. With age, stairs can transform from a simple climb to an insurmountable obstacle. Accessible lifts provide a sense of autonomy and dignity to our elderly community members.

The same scenario can be applied to our families with young children and strollers who will need to navigate up the multiple flights of stairs daily. Based on my survey during house visits, almost two in three segmented unit flats in Keat Hong have either an elderly person or a child living there. In this regard, may I propose the following?

Firstly, enhance the Lift Access Housing Grant (LHG) from the current $30,000 to $50,000, which will make it more attractive for take-up. In an answer to my Parliamentary Question, there were 28 approved applications as at December 2021 for LHG out of an estimated 2,000 affected HDB units that have no lift access. That is a mere 1.4%.

Secondly, consider implementing chair lifts or, where technically possible, ramps or spiral ramps to connect a segmented unit floor to a floor with direct lift access.

Thirdly, where technical solutions are not possible, perhaps HDB can consider compulsory acquisition of such units and convert them to public rental housing, so that the occupants of such units will not be inconvenienced by the permanent absence of direct lift access because they are transient and will only be living for a short period of time.

Lastly, revisit the funding criteria model for LUP. Instead of considering the directly affected units, HDB currently only takes into consideration the affected units which are directly affected by the lack of lift access. We should also consider the other benefiting units which will benefit from the additional lifts that can add as contingency or redundancy plans.

By including such an approach, the dwelling units for each block that will benefit from LUP, using the examples in Keat Hong, would improve from a mere 12% to 15%, to more than 50% of the entire block. This means that the costs can be shared among more households to come within the LUP cost cap.

We should not discount the generosity and empathy of fellow Singaporeans to shoulder the burden of such LUP costs together. During the Selective Renewal Lift Programmes in Keat Hong, many non-segmented unit households experienced for themselves firsthand how it was like to live in a segmented unit when their serving lifts were temporarily shut down for renewal. The residents told me that they now empathise and would support a different approach towards LUP costing. I hope we can study these proposals and help our family residents.

Mr Speaker, Sir, in conclusion, I raise these examples on housing options and lift access for the elderly as a microcosm of what we can achieve together for fellow Singaporeans in this Budget and those to come so that our fellow Singaporeans can choose to live where they love and continue to love where they live.

In making our common spaces more accessible, we create environments that promote social cohesion and well-being. In helping our young couples to attain their dream homes, we not only fulfil their aspirations, but we also provide hope for their children. In embracing the importance of the lived environment and housing, we foster a sense of unity and belonging among our fellow Singaporeans, making this country truly a home we love where we live.

Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong mentioned the need for Singapore to remain steadfast and united to weather the storms ahead. "Ships do not sink because of the water around them. Ships sink because of the water that gets in them." We must be united in spite of the foreign disruptions, divisions or influences. This Budget is a stark reminder to all of us to remain so in facing future challenges together. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Budget Statement.

Mr Speaker: Mr Zhulkarnain, I have a few of those blocks in my constituency. So, I can fully empathise with you. When I do visits to those blocks, you need more patience, you need to cater more time and you expend more energy. Ms He Ting Ru.

2.08 pm

Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang): Mr Speaker, the title of this year's Budget, "Building our Shared Future Together", is one which all of us should strive for. In the WP 2020 Manifesto "A Singapore For All", we outlined our vision for Singapore, which has a place for each and every one of us.

It is a positive development that we have agreement across aisle for ideas, such as supporting involuntarily redundant workers financially through a difficult period as they look to find their feet again. As a nation, we should be proud to see such good policies come to fruition because they work towards making sure that everyone benefits from our nation's progress.

To take the next step forward in Singapore's development, we should work on our expanded vision of progress and this vision can only truly and meaningfully be expanded if we have trust. In other words, we need to trust others with different views from us that they, too, are acting in good faith, even though they may differ in perspective. In particular, apart from asking people to trust our public institutions, we should ask ourselves if we trust our people. If not, why not? How do we work to ensure that trust is a two-way street? I will highlight some examples showing how trust is not yet a two-way street in Singapore, and try to explain why and how we should make it a two-way street.

The second half of my speech will speak of how we measured dividends we will reap if we achieve this mutual trust, and I will set out what this expanded vision of progress could look like.

First, what does the public know and what should the public know? The yearly revenue and expenditure estimates are a good place to start. This year, military expenditure is a single line $19 billion expenditure without further breakdown, despite making up 17% of the Budget. While official secrets are a concern whenever we talk about the military, is there really no middle ground in offering detail on the expenditure?

Likewise, in the case of the Police expenditures contained in the estimates, where projects named "Arapaima" and "Aegis" are allocated hundreds of millions of dollars each but the public are not provided even with a one-line description. How does one debate whether this spending is economic, efficient, effective or even enough?

Furthermore, with the Enterprise Support Package and a myriad of other schemes announced in the Budget, would there be publicly available targets published as to how many firms are reached and how the money is being put to use? How does the public know if schemes such as these, which is spent out of the public purse, are successful? Do we measure policy success by how much is spent or is success a measure of its outcomes?

The WP called for the creation of an Independent Parliamentary Budget Office three years ago, but what is more fundamental is the willingness to publish details. In 2012, then-Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said, "Trust and transparency are two different parts of a system of accountability".

While there are admittedly security concerns, which means full transparency is not always possible, the solutions that WP has brought up in the past, like the Independent Budget Office, disclosing more information to Standing Select Committee members with secrecy safeguards can help negotiate this often difficult balance.

The Government needs the err on the side of transparency, publishing as much as possible, and it needs to agree to publish what is asked for, balanced against security interests. Legal instruments, such as formal right-to-know legislation, will help define what can and cannot be published. But the right to know is not accountability for accountability's sake. It helps us to have debates in good faith. If the Government sees that it has already been held accountable, then it debates with different views in good faith, which is the second point I would like to make.

With the Gini coefficient, for example, the Government has said that there is less inequality than other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) before taxes and transfers, but does this feel like the case when we speak to our residents? And if not, why?

Perhaps, it is because Singapore's Gini coefficient cites income from work while OECD countries count income from all sources, and commentators have also pointed out that household expenditure survey data has shown that income from non-work sources has been increasing in Singapore or, perhaps, it is because Singapore's Gini coefficient covers only Citizens and Permanent Residents (PRs), unlike other countries, and does not reflect that much of our essential but lower-paid blue-collar work, which is performed by our total foreign workforce of 1.5 million individuals. With over one in four Singaporeans marrying non-residents, some of these workers are also integral parts of our families here in Singapore.

But perhaps, a more significant contributor to this feeling is that there is another way of looking at our wealth, namely, wealth inequality. The UBS' Global Wealth Report indicates that Singapore's wealth inequality in 2022 is 78.8, substantially higher than Taiwan's 69.8, Korea's 67.9 and Japan's 65.

The OECD also states that we need to use a different measure to measure wealth inequality, and I believe that this can apply here, too. However, data on the distribution of household wealth is not easy to come by.

The Government previously said in 2018 that its Gini coefficient calculation needs to reflect the full range of Government policy interventions that are unique to the Singapore context. This is broadly true. Singapore does have unique policy interventions, given its small size and open economy. But this rationale, this focus on insisting that there is a right context, should not be justification to block the publication of data that people would like to see.

Trust is a two-way street and the lack of trust from the Government in not providing data to debate certain topics will breed the distrust in it in some quarters. On tackling inequality, aside from what specialists with an economics background tell us, I can only express what my constituents say and feel. If the public sees a gap in the information, then public agencies should, within reason, fill the gap with the correct information rather than say that there is no need to fill the gap.

My third point is that the Government should probably trust citizens to co-create. Forward Singapore is a good start. But we can take reference from the concept of citizens' assemblies. A well-known example of this is in Ireland, where the Irish parliament directors established a citizens' assembly in 2016 to deliberate several socially contentious issues. Ninety-nine citizens, demographically suited to representing Ireland's electorate, were chosen to deliberate the issues, with experts also brought into the forum to provide testimony and discuss case studies. Its findings on issues, like abortion, helped inform a referendum on the issue, with some praising the process for being depoliticised, bringing logic to a divisive issue and providing a space for listening, understanding and empathy to differing opinions.

Further exercises, similar to Forward Singapore, can thus bring in more independent expert testimony to provide evidence to participants, and these experts can and should have conflicting views. Exercises could then be designed to accurately reflect Singapore's demographics. Just as importantly, the Government should take up the task of responding directly to the findings and explaining what recommendations it would sign into policy and which it would not. There should be periodic independent public reviews of the extent to which goes out and such exercises have been met.

It is only with building our trust in the public can we meaningfully move forward to build a shared future together, which means proper transparency and accountability. To bolster this, we need to properly measure our progress and to measure things that matter to us.

For many years, both within this House and without, we have heard proposals of how important it is to measure how our country is doing beyond gross domestic product (GDP). However, periodic reassurances during Budget, Election and national conversation times that we are looking at Singapore's other factors of development apart from GDP are not enough. Measuring progress beyond GDP has to be part of our DNA. We must regularly quantify, measure and publish details on how we are doing and to ask that our policies formally consider the impact that they are having on these indicators, and whether or not our various policies and initiatives are successful in improving our collective well-being.

I would therefore like to reiterate the call I made two years ago, for Singapore to have a dashboard with measurements of how we are doing beyond GDP measurements. This is already not a new idea, and we can take a leaf out of New Zealand's living standards framework dashboard.

The New Zealand treasury publishes details about the measurement to use and for ministries on priorities for informing well-being, and it is fully disclosed to the public for transparency. The indicators show trends over time, distribution across population subgroups and, importantly, give the Kiwis a direct chance to view how their government is doing in improving their country's well-being.

While the specific details of what should be included in Singapore's dashboard would be subject to input from public bodies and the wider community, I believe the key areas that should be covered include the measurement of unpaid work, natural resource use, specifically, our people, externality cost in a form of environmental sustainability footprint, leisure value and our collective and individual well-being.

Earlier this month, during the Motion to debate mental health, I had spoken about our collective and individual well-being and what we can do to develop our strengths to protect against ill mental health and to promote flourishing. I had also, in 2022, spoken about issues relating to our environmental footprint. Thus, I will focus today on the areas of unpaid work and investing in our people.

First, unpaid work, that is what which does not receive directly remuneration but which nevertheless has an impact on our economy. This is usually broadly divided into informal care and domestic work, unpaid reproductive labour and voluntary work. For informal care, in particular, the Forward Singapore reports states that the Government will give more assurance to Singaporeans that they will be taken care of. This is particularly important to probably understand the often unpaid and unsung work and needs of our carers who are already delivering on our nation's collective responsibility.

In 2020, I called for, among others, time-use surveys to be conducted to better understand the work being done by our informal carers. Since then, the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) has published a survey in 2022, which aimed to better understand issues surrounding quality of life for carers. This comes after the 2013 survey of informal caring in Singapore.

While it is good that we are paying attention to the topic by having periodic in-depth surveys on specific issues relating to the provision of informal care, what these surveys do not contain is a regular and easily quantifiable measure of the contribution that is being made to our society and also indirectly to the economy.

Various academic papers have pointed out that the lack of a measurement of the total value of informal care giving in Singapore makes it challenging to inform and guide public policy. Although, in 2021, the Duke-NUS team estimated an annual cost of caregiving time of between $2.5 to $3.5 billion in informal care being provided for seniors aged 75 and above who need human assistance of daily activities. This is clearly a non-trivial amount.

Additionally, the Forward Singapore report also lists a variety of ways and means which policy can better support informal carers, such as enhancing parental and infant care leave, allowing more flexible work arrangements, and also financial support in the form of the Home Caregiving Grant and defraying early intervention costs for families with special needs children.

What strikes me, though, is that many of these policies have an underlying assumption that informal carers want to and are able to stay in some form of paid work as much as possible. Likewise, there is also little public information to measure the amount of unpaid domestic labour and voluntary work being undertaken in Singapore to formally acknowledge and incorporate the contributions that are being made to the nation.

Measuring the value of involuntary work was a call made by a 21-year-old undergraduate in the forum pages recently, which I quote, "We should do so, in order to give a fuller picture of how our economy is performing."

Having an annual figure of measuring unpaid work should also allow us to directly see if there are any effects that external shocks and events have. For example, whether and how the amount of informal care is affected by an economic downturn, which segments of the population are more affected by it and to allow the public to measure on a regular basis – the impact that our policies are having to support unpaid work.

Moving to our people; our only natural resource. This is another way of measuring how we value and consequently invest in our citizens. The New Zealand Living Standards Framework measures this as an integral part of the wealth of the nation in the form of human capability, defined as knowledge, physical and mental health and cultural capability. It includes in educational indicators as well as measurements on not just life but healthy life expectancy.

In line with an increasingly VUCA world – that is, more volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity – there is now rightfully more emphasis on lifelong learning and enhancements to the SkillsFuture movements are undoubtedly welcome for those who are considering pursuing midlife or mid-career training. Increasingly, we are also hearing about how paper qualifications should and will become increasingly obsolete. However, I hope that policies to encourage ongoing training do not inadvertently perpetuate an emphasis on paper qualifications.

Additionally, I hope that the SkillsFuture framework continues to work towards being more attractive and inclusive for Singaporeans across a broad spectrum. It is clearly an area which needs more work, as can be seen by utilisation rates of around 50% in 2022.

In short, we have to address structural barriers that may be preventing Singaporeans from making use of the schemes. After all, many workers have cited issues, such as the lack of time and the opportunity costs associated with attending classes, and have expressed reservations about forfeiting annual leave entitlements or the need to forego hourly wages to do so. Calls, such as those made by NTUC, for paid learning leave can go some way to addressing these structural impediments to workers taking up useful training programmes. Additionally, there have been concerns raised about the inclusivity of SkillsFuture clauses raised by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as the Disabled People's Association, which ask that more can be done to get training providers to provide reasonable accommodations to enable PwDs to attend courses. There are also reservations about having courses exclusively catered to PwDs, such as those through the Enabling Academy, which many in the community feel may be well meaning but ultimately, exclusionary.

Finally, I hope that priority will be given to sectors and areas where our social needs are strongest, when it comes to deciding where the $4,000 top-up for SkillsFuture Credits can be spent rather than focus only on industries that seem to have strong economic growth potential.

This would include care skills and training programmes in the wake of the accelerating needs of our ageing population, and also training in the fields of mental health, such as psychology, psychotherapy and counselling, and towards building a sustainable and strong contingent of the newly announced family coaches, whom MSF will deploy to work with vulnerable households.

To conclude, I hope that more than half a century of nation building means that we have now arrived at a stage where a diversity of views has a place in our society and that respect for disagreement is a hallmark of trust that is a two-way street. Greater transparency and more meaningful in-depth discussion may mean that we may take a more deliberative approach to public policy, which, in turn, should be seen as a means to improve. It is this approach to transparency and accountability, together with measuring our progress beyond GDP, that will ultimately help better inform our public policy debates and co-creation.

Mr Speaker: Mr Chong Kee Hiong.

2.25 pm

Mr Chong Kee Hiong (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Mr Speaker, Sir, this is a forward-looking Budget with a balance of measures to help households and companies deal with rising costs and to make longer term preparations for the future.

One of the highlights of this Budget is the strong support for the upskilling and reskilling of our ITE graduates and middle-age and older Singaporeans. Reinforcing a continuous learning mindset and identifying improvement opportunities among Singaporeans will enable the population and Singapore to remain relevant in the evolving global economic landscape. The education top-ups, subsidies and monthly training allowances are unprecedented in scope and scale. This is a huge investment in our people.

I have two suggestions.

Firstly, the Government should consider tying up with the relevant industries to co-create curriculum and encourage pre-graduation job confirmations, so that upon completion of the courses, the graduates can have a higher rate of success of being hired by companies needing their newly acquired skills. One of the common feedback from some graduates of "train-and-place" programmes is that they have difficulties in finding jobs on their own.

Secondly, the Government should track the graduates of these courses and their subsequent employment and salaries to evaluate the effectiveness of this policy. As this is intended to be a long-term policy, at substantial recurring cost to our country, the Government should measure if the investment is yielding satisfactory results. If not, reviews, adjustments and changes will have to be made along the way.

Next, I would like to speak on support for SMEs. The underlying cost structure of our SMEs has changed significantly over the years. I appreciate the near-term relief measures in the Budget to help them cope with the rising costs. The $1.3 billion Enterprise Support Package will go a long way to help companies tide over current challenges and build long-term capabilities.

The increase in the maximum loan quantum under the EFS-SME Working Capital Loan to $500,000 will help them meet higher capital and cashflow requirements in an environment of rising costs. Some SMEs find it increasingly challenging to participate in Government projects as project scales increase, translating into higher capital and cashflow outlay and tender specifications. The Government can be more thoughtful in running the tender process to be more inclusive.

Regarding the additional $3 billion commitment to the $25 billion RIE2025 plan and over $1 billion investment in the next five years into AI compute, talent and industry development, may I suggest that a portion of both be ringfenced for SMEs or collaborations involving SMEs? We all know it is not easy for our SMEs to do R&D and incorporate AI development into their enterprises on their own, due to their smaller sizes and resource constraints. They need Government support for funding and collaboration with researchers and universities, as well as partner companies upstream and downstream. Otherwise, the digital divide between SMEs and MNCs will become wider.

Singapore is a small economy, and our economy is expected to grow at a slower pace going forward. It has become more urgent and important for our SMEs to source for more business and revenue overseas. To develop their businesses beyond our shores, SMEs need to understand and adapt to the dynamics of foreign jurisdictions, with all their different jurisdictions and ways of doing business.

Hence, there are opportunities to tap on the experience and skillsets of older professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) to assist SMEs in these aspects. For senior PMETs who seek changes in their careers or who are not employed, will the Government consider designing a systematic, structured framework to match them with SMEs which require their experience, knowledge and skills in the relevant markets and sectors? SMEs can leverage on their know-how, prior exposure to and familiarity with foreign markets to better navigate through the complexities and avoid potential pitfalls.

Next, I would like to speak on a topic which I have been following up on over the last few years, "Buy Singapore".

I would like to focus on our agrifood sector today. This is because it is a key pillar of our national food security, an issue which had been brought to the fore during the COVID-19 pandemic. We must be prepared for other crises in the future and the more local food production services we have, the less vulnerable we are to supply disruptions. We must continue to support and boost this sector, and ensuring its viability, alongside others, such as manufacturing and financial services.

To strengthen food security, besides sector-friendly Government policies and financial support, we need to develop a whole ecosystem to make the agrifood sector a significant economic sector.

Given a higher cost structure and lack of economy of scale, the strength of the Singapore dollar, our local produce is more expensive than imported produce. To differentiate our local produce and justify their premium, we need to increase consumer awareness about the advantages and benefits of our local vegetables, fruits, eggs and fish, among others. What public awareness and education programmes are in place to build up this knowledge and boost demand from our local consumers?

At Budget 2017, I appealed to the Government to do more to boost local demand by including a "Buy Singapore" requirement in their sourcing contracts. I would like to urge the Government to consider this again. A stronger official mandate will go a long way to boost demand. This will also send a signal to the market and consumers to support our own and encourage our local companies to keep improving.

In addition, are we on track in the development of local expertise for this sector? From agrifood practitioners to researchers, we need to nurture a new generation of talents in our technical institutions, polytechnics and universities to support the development of this relatively nascent sector, especially when we include the more cutting-edge developments, such as lab-grown protein and meat.

Would the Government provide an update on the progress of $60 million Agri-Food Cluster Transformation Fund? It was announced at Budget 2021 to help us move towards the "30 by 30" goal of producing 30% of Singapore's nutritional needs by 2030. Are we on track to meet this target? How much of the fund has been disbursed and what kind of projects does it support?

At the Budget debate in 2021, I had suggested that the Government includes agrifood developments in its green bond and loan issuances, and sizing them such that even small investors can participate in and do their part to support the growth of Singapore's agrifood sector. Would the Government share an update on what has been done to include our agrifood sector in our green finance market?

I would also like to reiterate my appeal for the Government to consider more risk co-sharing with investors and banks for green and sustainability-linked projects. Most of these will continue to be pioneering initiatives lacking track records. The Government's support will provide green start-ups higher chances of bringing their visions to fruition.

Lastly, I would like to ask about the progress and impact on Flexible Work Arrangements (FWAs) on our workplace and economy. The Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests (TG-FWAR) are expected to be released later this year. The guidelines could include examples of reasonable and unreasonable business grounds to justify why requested FWAs can or cannot be provided.

I understand that for most of the public sector, working up to two days a week from home is the norm. Has the Government conducted any measurement of the effectiveness and efficiency of this arrangement on public service delivery standards to date? What have been the benefits and challenges of FWAs which had arisen in the past couple of years? In particular, as multiple members of the family from different organisations may be working from home at the same time, how do we safeguard against the inadvertent exchange of confidential information and the potential misuse of such information? What are the lessons the public sector had learnt which can be shared with private enterprises and organisations?

A deeper understanding of the relationship between FWAs and efficiency, information security and productivity can help us to come up with FWA policies that support and reinforce our global competitiveness. With this, I would like to conclude with my support for the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Ms He Ting Ru.

Ms He Ting Ru: Thank you, Mr Speaker, just a quick clarification. Earlier on, in my speech on the SkillsFuture framework, I mentioned utilisation rates of around 50% in 2022. It was my mistake. What I meant was training rates of around 50% in 2022.

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

2.35 pm

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim: In his Budget Statement, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong spoke about AI as a general purpose technology, like electricity in internal combustion engine, the computer or the Internet as such technology, AI, indeed has the potential to touch every aspect of our lives. Like Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, I firmly believe in the transformative power of AI for the future of our shared economy.

In an earlier speech on amendments to the National Productivity Fund, I explained how AI carries both perils as well as promises. But if we truly embrace this vision, I believe that we must also transform how we approach our policies in this AI age. This must go beyond pursuing excellence in AI research, embedding AI in Government services, upgrading our broadband infrastructure or even assure that our firms rapidly adopt AI. Such goals outlined in the National AI Strategy 2.0 are indeed laudable but incomplete. Rather, the impending structural shifts that our economy will face will alter the way that our businesses, workers and students will operate. One can think of this as a complement to the Member Dr Tan Wu Meng as well as Mr Christopher de Souza's earlier speech, but not just about the policies of today but also of tomorrow.

Researchers suggest that AI adopting firms tend to be larger, younger and relatively more productive. But to fully reap the benefits of AI in our economy, firms that are likely to fall behind, the SMEs, which are especially the incumbent firms in non-tech and non-professional sectors, must be presented with strong and urgent incentives to adopt AI.

This is a non-trivial task. Small firms are almost, by definition, that way because they have been relatively slower in seizing business opportunities and rationalising costs. The owner of a "mama shop", a renovation contractor, a hawker stall or a car workshop may feel that AI has no direct implication for how they run their businesses and, hence, prefer to adopt a wait-and-see attitude toward adopting AI solutions for their company.

Singapore's participation in the OECD-led BEPS 2.0 framework affords us a tailor-made channel for creating incentives for AI adoption across a whole range of firm types. Pillar 2 allows for refunds of certain classes of investments to be treated as income rather than tax exemptions. Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's proposed Refundable Investment Credit appears aligned with such qualified refundable tax credits. This suits per additional investments in not just R&D and innovation, but also the adoption of AI-enabled digital and professional services.

Yet, some words of caution are in order.

First, such incentives will be greatest for the largest firms since these are the ones covered directly by BEPS. But we must not forget SMEs and ensure that our "mom and pop" shops also see the strong benefits to pursuing Refundable Investment Credits, ideally through expanding outreach and promotion of the proposed scheme.

Second, while there is room for defining the scope of such credits, it is important to be mindful that BEPS rules permit countries to independently apply a top-up tax, which they may do if they believe that the tax rates imposed on firms domiciled here circumvents the spirit of the 15% minimum or subverts the intent of the credit to encourage sustainability or knowledge generation, in particular, if the Refundable Investment Credit is perceived as an instrument designed as a loophole. And this applies, to my mind, especially for investments meant to simply increase production rather than those targeted specifically at the green transition or R&D. They may choose countervailing action and exercise the top-up over on their end, thereby undermining the attractiveness of the Refundable Investment Credit in the first place.

This is why the seeming consensus arrived at in the Budget-related wish lists put out by the big four accounting firms here, all of which stressed the importance of refundable tax credits, may be worrying if, indeed, the intent was to return to a pre-BEPS world where accounting firms identify sophisticated strategies to enable MNCs to whittle away at the effective tax rates, with the concurrence of our Government.

Third, we need to be aware that the traditional argument favouring tax in capital more favourably than labour, under the premise that doing so would stimulate productive investment, may have to be re-examined. This is because an AI-driven economy tends to be weightless, and encouraging investment in yet more physical capital is nowhere near as important as accumulating intangible knowledge capital.

Fourth, and most generally, it is imperative that we no longer regard tax competition as our primary strategy for attracting foreign capital, a point that I had made in this House before. Rather, we should get the order right. We should aim to create an environment where our businesses are AI-enabled and our workers are AI-savvy, which will naturally attract investment from abroad.

But we should not stop there. The Big Data machine-learning algorithms and large language models that are at the forefront of the AI revolution are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few powerful firms. This calls for pre-emptive action by governments, especially those with deep pockets and sovereign wealth funds, to take active exposures in AI companies, whether in publicly traded firms or via private equity. This not only allows the public sector to enjoy a returns upside, but also to ensure that they have a voice in AI developments that is ultimately in the public interest.

Of course, AI will not only alter the prospects for businesses but also our workers. Emerging evidence suggests that generative AI boosts productivity by about 14%. But among novice and low-skilled workers, the gain was far more, something to the order of 34%. This implies that AI augmentation will lead to a compression in the distribution of abilities and skills. As such, those who have hitherto been able to distinguish themselves, perhaps because of their talent or industry, may now find that edge blunted. The upshot then is that we need to question the sorts of skills that we are pushing our workforce to acquire.

Sir, skills may reside in unexpected places. It is certainly popular and sexy to suggest that the future economy will be in severe need of prompt engineers, cybersecurity specialists or digital marketers. But the current scarcity of such novel jobs will probably be relieved over the next few years, leaving it more likely that the skills involved will become enfolded into more traditional positions. Professionals of all stripes will need to learn the basics of delivering prompts through generative AI models, and marketers and salespeople will need to deliver their message across all media, including digital ones. And while we can never be certain, old-school artisan or craftsman roles could well make a revival as robotics have yet to deliver the sort of sufficient quality or range of uses on this front.

Moreover, certain skills that we may have until recently thought were future-proof, such as coding, writing well or statistical analysis, may quickly become devalued when AI tools can do the job just as well, if not, better, for a fraction of the cost and time involved. Instead, it is soft human skills, originality and critical thinking, empathy and teamwork, leadership and communication that will be ever more important, and these are not as easily replicable by AI. These are not skills well captured by certifications alone. Rather, they are nurtured through an emphasis on developing such ability in the classroom, even when they may not be formally evaluated. Or by self-reflection and feedback from managers and mentors, along with the concentrated efforts and experience over time in the workplace.

Economists have long recognised this. Even the most rudimentary models of human capital include not innate talent and years of schooling but also experience acquired from years of working. It is imperative, therefore, that we do not devalue alternative forms of knowledge acquisition beyond the classroom. That is why I believe that not only should the scale of SkillsFuture Credit be ramped up, as Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong indicated in the Level-Up Programme, but its scope should be expanded.

At this point, I declare that I work at an institution that has the potential to benefit from SkillsFuture, and this is some of the suggestions that I had suggested to the other Deputy Prime Minister earlier on.

This means that allowing credits to be used not only for academic credentials but also for alternative learning modes, such as apprenticeship programmes or on-the-job training. I previously raised this possibility of such an expanded scope during the debate on the SkillsFuture Singapore Agency (Amendment) Bill, held in this House last year, and via various Parliamentary Questions.

I wish to elaborate on the idea here but take it a step further. I hope that we can consider allowing companies that are able to submit credible proposals for apprenticeship programmes to take on trainees that apply with their SkillsFuture credits. The offset from SkillsFuture would effectively mean a subsidised worker, which will both increase the attractiveness of taking on such apprentices while compensating the firm for the cost of on-the-job training provision.

Some may argue that the intent of SkillsFuture was to equip Singaporeans with new skills, not subsidise labour costs for businesses. But this misses the reality of how many modern skills need it and even the most evergreen ones are often acquired while doing the job, not before it. A close friend of mine, who trained as an architect but eventually went on to a very successful career in finance, once shared that he was offered his first job at an investment bank despite his absent background, because they would have to teach him everything that he needed to know anyway. Furthermore, training apprentices could ultimately leave for a position elsewhere, which also represents a risk for the business.

If we are truly concerned that companies may abuse the system to hire a stream of temporary workers with little transferable skills, we can always include a clause in the contract that requires a minimum duration of employment, post-apprenticeship, conditional on mutual agreement and reasonable performance, of course.

Such a change in how we value skills and training in an AI-enabled economy will become more necessary in the future, not less. This is not least because we cannot yet anticipate what kinds of jobs may become displaced by AI and what would become more important?

If anything, the lifespan of economically remunerative skills is likely to diminish. But while I fully agree with the importance of infusing the mindset of lifelong learning into our workforce, we need to simultaneously stress that learning and applying must not be equated to grades and certificates.

Inevitably, some workers will be displaced by AI. This is why Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's indication that there will be temporary financial support for the involuntarily unemployed, in other words, support for those that have been made redundant is important. The WP supports this move, not least because we have been proposing some form of redundancy insurance since 2011.

In my response to the Budget last year, I further elaborated on the desirable features of such an unemployment insurance scheme. In a nutshell, this entails balancing the trade-off between providing a safety net for those who have lost a job, also encouraging those displaced workers to expeditiously return to the labour market, rather than relying on the payouts as a crutch. Optimal schemes tend to combine reasonably generous salary replacement, albeit for limited time.

If we accept that AI will alter how we work, it becomes self-evident that we also need to go upstream and rethink how the AI revolution will alter how we educate. By this, I mean education for the masses, not just building a core of AI scientists and researchers, just to make ourselves a hub for AI innovation.

For starters, it is high time we internalise how straightforward knowledge accumulation and rote learning with constant repetition regurgitated through closed-book exams is no longer tenable, if it ever was in the "information is free" age of the Internet to begin with.

AI will further erode the relevance of simply knowing more facts and figures, being the fastest at solving known problems or being able to memorise long lists of nomenclatures or taxonomies. Rather, we need to teach our kids how to filter information, to assess and evaluate, rather than to accept without questioning. This means that they will need to learn how to ask good questions and to identify the right from the wrong but, more often, to also recognise the new ones and know that there is not any clear right or wrong. This, in turn, requires fostering a deep, intellectual curiosity in our students, one that instils the habits and imparts the tools necessary for critical interpretation and evaluation of data, as well as information.

Students need to be taught not so much what to think but how to think. That is why my party colleagues, Mr Pritam Singh and Ms He Ting Ru, emphasise the importance of access to information, so that we can encourage such thinking, even in the policy realm. This will upend many of our traditional educational strategies.

First, we need to reconsider the importance of high stakes standardised tests as a performance benchmark, since AI already outperforms humans in most exams or they will in the next few years, in areas ranging from accounting, to law, to medicine, to languages. Indeed, it has even successfully drafted several Bills for legislators.

While standardised testing has long been a mainstay of Asian society, the Keju was first introduced in China in the sixth century, and Indian Emperor Kharavela relied on competitive testing to select his officials in as far back as the first century BC, its continued use will need to be reviewed in light of the realities of the modern educational landscape.

The tempting, but wrong, solution is to ban our students from using AI altogether. We do our students a disservice when we insist carte blanche that using ChatGPT output constitutes plagiarism, because this would disadvantage them when they enter into the real world and are forced to compete with those with greater familiarity of how to integrate generative AI into their work.

But this does not mean that we eliminate assessment wholesale. Rather, evaluations should be performed continuously and holistically. We still need to impart numeracy and literacy, but these can be evaluated through dynamic debates and polished presentations through group projects and collaborative problem solving, and through the ability to pose quality questions as much as offer quality answers. Continuous assessment, a term that we have used to describe our model of evaluation since I was in primary school, needs to be taken far more seriously.

And Deputy Prime Minister Wong's decision to top up the Edusave Endowment Fund has the potential to contribute to realigning our mindsets on competencies beyond grades. But I would encourage the MOE to take bolder steps, such as increasing the number of non-academic awards, making final exams just a small fraction of the overall course grade and allowing through-train education without the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).

I am aware of the subtle irony of this claim, coming from someone who has accumulated way too many academic credentials and taken way too many exams, and who still relies on teaching for a living. Be that as it may, I believe that we need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the preferred path to professional, and personal, success lies solely in climbing the ladder of acquiring yet more academic qualifications. We inadvertently sell the rich diversity of gifts and talents of our population short, when we insist on holding fast to a mindset that the potential of a student is determined by how they fared in an exam when they were 12 or 16 years old.

Second, even as we implement AI in our pedagogy via the EdTech Masterplan 2030, we should not forget that customised learning, fostering digital literacy and equipping students with 21st century skills, all come back round to our teachers. Even as we fully empower our teachers with AI tools, we must also confer to them additional latitude to deliver the curriculum as they see fit, and make them facilitators rather than lecturers, or else learners will never fully exploit the full potential of AI.

Doing so will unlock what Sal Khan, founder of the online learning platform Khan Academy, characterised as "infinitely patient tutor[s]", a development that our tuition-obsessed nation will surely appreciate.

Finally, we also need to ask if the usual Nitec/Diploma/Degree pathway is still relevant in a world where the correlation between doing well in tests and translating that to practical performance is being increasingly challenged.

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus, your last minute.

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim: Deputy Prime Minister Wong's announcement of the ITE Progression Award, an effort to provide additional financial support to ITE graduates seeking to enrol in diploma programmes, should thus be viewed in light of what AI means for credentialism. While upgrading skills is undeniably important, promoting the acquisition of yet another paper qualification may be an incomplete assessment of the upgrader's abilities or, even worse, proffer a misguided reassurance that doing so will necessarily translate into a job and hence, be disappointed.

I will conclude. Mr Speaker, while my speech has stressed on the importance of relying on AI to reshape our businesses, workers and students, we must not also forget that AI will transform the manner which we as policymakers approach our task. The last thing we want from a 21st century government and legislature is more canned answers and pro-forma solutions that look like they came out of ChatGPT.

More crucially, we need the courage and conviction to forge a new way forward that is unshackled from our old ways. This is something that AI, designed to riff off the existing corpus of knowledge, can never do.

Mr Speaker: Order. We have been in the Chamber for close to four and a half hours. I propose to take a break now. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair at 3.15 pm. Order.

Sitting accordingly suspended

at 2.56 pm until 3.15 pm.

Sitting resumed at 3.15 pm.

[Deputy Speaker (Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo) in the Chair]

DEBATE ON ANNUAL BUDGET STATEMENT

Debate resumed.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Neil Parekh.

3.15 pm

Mr Neil Parekh Nimil Rajnikant (Nominated Member): Mdm Deputy Speaker, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to discuss the Budget as presented by the Deputy Prime Minister earlier this month.

In my view, Budget 2024 cares for people, helps businesses focus their attention on improving, upgrading and expanding both locally and internationally while ensuring that business costs are better managed with Government assistance. Budget 2024 also boosts Singapore's premier position for attracting quality investments and helps create high-quality jobs for graduates coming out of our institutes of higher learning.

The big question before all of us is the need to remain committed to achieving these objectives as one people, one nation, one Singapore. With a cautiously optimistic outlook for 2024 and the economic stability that many of our trading partners are experiencing, Singapore businesses can breathe a sigh of relief.

However, Singapore needs to remain vigilant in view of the current geopolitical tensions. An escalation in any of the current conflicts could significantly impact a small, open, trade-reliant nation like ours, potentially affecting energy stability, inflation and global commodity prices. The business community welcomes many of the initiatives outlined in Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's Budget 2024 speech. Let me very briefly touch on some of them.

The measures in the Budget to support and stimulate growth by managing rising business costs are greatly appreciated. The $1.3 billion Enterprise Support Package, which includes a 50% corporate income tax rebate capped at $40,000 and a minimum cash benefit of $2,000, will be particularly advantageous for our SMEs. Given the four consecutive contractionary quarters faced by SMEs in 2023, as reported by OCBC's quarterly SME Index, this package is timely.

The Corporate Income Tax rebate provides temporary relief, enabling businesses to sustain operations and employment. This intervention is a strategic move to alleviate financial pressures, encouraging firms to invest in productivity enhancements. This could lead to a more resilient business environment and a win-win situation for the Government and business owners through greater economic activity and increased tax revenues.

The Enterprise Financing Scheme enhancements, including the SME Working Capital Loan increase and the enhanced maximum loan quantum for the trade loan, are also welcome developments. These adjustments will facilitate access to operational cashflow for SMEs and support businesses in internationalisation, ultimately reducing operating costs through leveraging comparative advantages in different sectors. These enhancements also facilitate businesses with greater access to financing and capital and to capture new growth areas.

Introducing the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme for Singaporeans aged 40 and above is a commendable step. Including the $4,000 SkillsFuture Credit top-up that fills the need for lifelong learning, even in times of inflation. This initiative, coupled with the Mid-Career Enhancement Subsidy and a monthly training allowance of up to $3,000 for up to 24 months will significantly motivate individuals to enhance their skills. I believe the SkillsFuture Credit top-up will not only nurture talent but also allow those unemployed to build skills in different sectors and improve their employability into new roles by pursuing full-time diplomas at polytechnics, ITEs or arts institutions.

This provides a win-win scenario for both individuals and businesses. Individuals are well-equipped with better skills, lowering unemployment rates and pursuing jobs in sectors that offer better financial opportunities for their families. Businesses benefit from an increased talent pool with qualified individuals ready to dive into their sectors. The extension of the credit to 30 June 2025 will also allow individuals more time to decide on the career paths more suited for them and consider additional expenses when deciding to attend the courses.

However, it is very essential to bring along employers on board and change their mindset on investing in employees' training without fearing that they will leave after training. It is also important that employee training support includes workplace training, to improve the employability outcomes of our nation's investment in the training of our workforce.

As Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has highlighted, the most sustainable way to counter inflation is by bolstering our productivity by investing in human capital. Not only will empowering individuals with new and improved skills enable us to elevate real income through productivity gains, this will also allow Singapore to be better prepared for the ever-changing economic climate as well as create an agile and relevant workforce to better solidify our position in the world as more than a financial hub. I also believe the minimum cash payout of $2,000 to all companies which employ at least one local employee is clearly a new feature that will benefit many Singaporeans.

Madam, now let me touch on some of the other big-ticket announcements in Budget 2024.

The investment in schemes aimed at improving R&D and productivity, alongside advancements in AI and the nationwide broadband network will drive local productivity growth and attract foreign direct investments into Singapore. The RIE2025 plan, with the NPF and the Financial Sector Development Fund (FSDF) are strategic initiatives designed to cement our status as a global hub for innovation, technology and financial services.

By fostering R&D, promoting the commercialisation of innovative technologies and enhancing productivity, these programmes ensure our competitive edge in a high-value, efficient economic landscape. More importantly, these initiatives are progressive, ensuring that businesses lacking expertise and the ability to integrate with pre-existing technologies remain competitive and included.

Notwithstanding the uncertainties surrounding it, the implementation of Pillar Two of BEPS 2.0 on 1 January 2025 is a good strategic move for Singapore. Beyond low corporate taxes, Singapore offers a conducive investment environment with a skilled talent pool, a stable and business-friendly political climate, low crime rates, a robust judicial system and top-tier educational opportunities. These factors make Singapore an attractive hub for MNCs, even with a potential increase in corporate tax rates.

I also want to highlight the measures in Budget 2024 to touch on a very important subject, which is enhancing the retirement adequacy of Singaporeans.

The announcement for the closure of the Special Account and the transfer of the monies to the Retirement Account (RA) in 2025 is, in my view, a move in the right direction. There will be short-term pain for a few, while there will be medium-term and long-term gains for many. I also consider the most significant retirement-related move in the Budget to be the increase in the Enhanced Retirement Sum (ERS), which will enable members to receive more income from CPF Life.

From 2025, the ERS – the maximum that can be put in the RA – will be raised to four times the Basic Retirement Sum (BRS). This is very significant in our society which is ageing fast and with many more Singaporeans living long, healthy and satisfying lives.

With the higher ERS, a member can receive $3,330 a month from age 65 for life, against currently $2,530 at the current ERS level. With a prudent lifestyle, Singaporeans can retire and live gracefully in their golden years. However, I recognise the fact that for many of our fellow citizens, the most immediate goal is to reach the level of Full Retirement Sum (FRS), which remains at two times the BRS.

In order to make the path to FRS and then eventually ERS less steep, my recommendation is for the FRS to be adjusted down to 1.6 times the level of BRS from the current 2.0 times. In dollar terms, from the current level of $213,000 to $170,400, a reduction of $40,600 in the threshold. The lowering of this threshold will allow many more of our fellow citizens to enjoy the higher payout that comes with meeting the FRS.

Having some familiarity with how annuity payments are calculated and paid for, may I suggest that CPF LIFE and other annuity providers plan for these higher payouts for more citizens by increasing the duration of their fixed income portfolios? With interest rates at or close to the highest levels in the last decade, this is perhaps as good a time as any to increase the duration of their fixed income portfolios and enjoy the high rates that go with the longer duration.

Also, I would encourage the Government to re-energise its financial literacy campaign. While some of our fellow citizens are sophisticated, intelligent investors, many still do not understand basic concepts, such as the long-term benefits of compound interest. I would also encourage the Government to formulate a detailed but simple delivery platform to explain these CPF changes to our senior citizens. We want every Singaporean to be well informed about the rationale for this move and how it will help them when the time comes for everyone in the near future.

In summary, this is a Budget that directly confronts the reality that cost-of-living pressures exist for individuals while rising costs for businesses are a major challenge. It balances these two issues while reducing the risk of overheating the economy and increasing inflation. I believe this Budget will give businesses the necessary confidence to expedite their capital investment plans, which, in turn, will lead to growth in GDP and the creation of high value jobs.

In my view, the most important aspect of this Budget is that it provides for significant increase in benefits for individuals and companies without any new tax increases and without any need for any short-term deficit financing.

Maintaining fiscal discipline and protecting our Reserves is of paramount importance in what is likely to be a decade or two of rapid changes in the global economic environment with significant impact on a small, open economy like ours. Mdm Speaker, I wholeheartedly support this well-balanced, prudent Budget.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Xie Yao Quan.

3.28 pm

Mr Xie Yao Quan (Jurong): Madam, it takes two hands to clap. That was my first and foremost reaction to this year's Budget Statement, aptly titled "Building Our Shared Future Together".

The annual Budget has always been about much more than how the Government spends in different areas. Fundamentally, the Budget has always been about the People's Action Party (PAP) Government's agenda for governance – its plans, its priorities, its statement of intent – and undergirding all these, a manifestation of the PAP Government's ethos and core values in governance. And for this year's Budget, the statement of intent is unmistakably about the 4G team's Forward Singapore agenda – to move Singapore and Singaporeans into an even brighter future.

In the Deputy Prime Minister’s words, Budget 2024 presents the first installation of plans in the Forward Singapore agenda. This must imply subsequent installations to come – "akan datang" – and I look forward to the unveiling of these future plans in good time. But as it is, the first installation of plans, as presented in Budget 2024 is, in my view, already breathtaking. The plans are bold, they are ambitious and they brim with gumption. They are a breathtaking set of plans.

But they are also plans I can describe in one phrase, that remind us that it takes two hands to clap, the Government, on the one hand, and citizens, whether individual or corporate and, oftentimes, the whole of society, on the other hand. The Government and citizens – two hands to clap.

The plans in the Forward Singapore agenda require the Government, citizens and the whole of society, to work ever more closely together, take action together, in order to make the plans happen. This, for me, is the crux of Forward Singapore. In other words, beyond having more information to facilitate further discourse, for me, the crux of Forward Singapore is really about action, taking action together, Government and citizens, individuals and corporates. Redoubling our commitment to work with each other and build a shared future together.

Because for a Singapore this advanced in its development and with scant playbooks to follow, for a Singapore that is navigating uncharted waters in an increasingly complex and troubled world, it can no longer be about the Government delivering the goods and citizens merely receiving. Going forward, it has to be about the Government and citizens figuring things out together, feeling the stones as we cross the river together. Building our shared future together. And it takes both hands to clap. That is what our social compact going forward must look like.

So, for the rest of my speech, I will talk about how we need to apply this basic orientation of action and collaboration between the Government and citizens in four areas under Forward Singapore and this Budget: housing, education, low-wage workers and healthcare.

First, housing. The PPHS (Open Market) Voucher supports couples with a child or children and waiting to collect keys to their BTO flats to rent HDB flats temporarily from the open market. This is an important move by the Government to complement the PPHS, which the Government is already ramping up. But for the Open Market Voucher to work, landlords – HDB flat owners – in the open market must play their part.

As it is, we know anecdotally that landlords are less willing to rent to couples with a young child because of potential disamenities. And so, it is not about rental price or rental market but it is about tenant profile. The Government cannot force or compel landlords to rent to couples with a young child. The Government can only provide the right scheme, the right market incentives, but the market must rise to the occasion and landlords have to do their part in order for the scheme to work. It takes two hands to clap.

Second, on education. The Government is taking huge steps forward in this Budget. One huge step is the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme to support more mature workers. Let me first offer some quick thoughts on the $4,000 top-up in SkillsFuture Credit and whether this is really too little or insufficient to cover course fees. Let us look at things in perspective.

For part-time and post-diploma programmes, the full fee is typically around $19,000. But the Government is already subsidising 90% of such fees for Singaporeans aged 40 and above, or around $17,000, such that the nett fees payable to the Singaporean is less than $2,000. And so, the SkillsFuture Credit top-up of $4,000 will more than cover the typical fees after subsidies for part-time and post-diploma programmes.

As for a second full-time diploma programme, the full tuition fee from a quick search online is typically around $12,000 per year, or $30,000, over 2.5 years. But for all Singaporeans, the Government is subsidising 75% of tuition fees, or almost $23,000 over 2.5 years. And so, when Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said in the Budget Statement that the Government is giving every Singaporean aged 40 and above a second "bite of the education subsidy", this bite is, in my mind, worth $23,000.

On top of such subsidies, the Government is extending to the individual $4,000 in SkillsFuture Credit to cover more than half of the balance of the tuition fees. And so, the out-of-pocket fees for a second full-time diploma comes up to about 10% of full tuition fees. I think this is a fair deal.

Indeed, on top of all these subsidies and credits, the Government is also introducing a training allowance tagged to one's average recent income to reduce the opportunity cost of pursuing full-time studies mid-life. This training allowance is capped at $3,000 per month for up to 24 months; so, up to $72,000 in total. This is a truly bold step and I think it will be a game-changer. But indeed, if I were to have any criticism on the Level-Up Programme, it would be about this training allowance. Because, generous as it is, I wish the training allowance had covered Singaporeans for up to 30 months, instead of 24 months, so that the entire duration of a full-time diploma programme can be more or less covered. That six months more of financial coverage for an adult learner with a family, with caregiving needs, will mean a world of difference. For the Government, this would mean an additional cost of up to $18,000 per citizen. But I think the difference it will make will be well-worth the cost.

But coming back to taking two hands to clap. The Government has made this bold move through the Level-Up Programme for more mature workers. I think it is really up to our citizens, both individual and corporate, to work with the Government to make things work.

For individuals, to take the plunge and seize the opportunities to get a comprehensive skills reboot and secure for yourself a second wave in your career and life. And for individuals, it is also about making and embracing an intergenerational classroom, where younger and more mature learners learn how to learn together. This does not come naturally and it will take effort.

For corporates – enterprises and employers – they need to recognise the tremendous value of Singaporean jobseekers who have taken this skills reboot and operated in an intergenerational learning environment. Recognise the tremendous value that this training provides, hire the jobseekers and offer them roles and packages that reflect their true value.

Another huge step taken in education in this Budget is the ITE Progression Award to help young ITE graduates get a diploma and move themselves onto a better career and wage trajectory. It is a huge step by the Government because it will uplift ITE graduates early on in their lives, reduce inequality and keep social mobility alive. It is another truly bold step, another game-changer in my mind, in the Forward Singapore agenda.

And so, I disagree with the Progressive Singapore Party (PSP), who has said that the $10,000 award upon graduation and to be paid into CPF Ordinary Account is not so helpful, because it creates differentiation among diploma graduates. Well, the reality is, half of every cohort passes through our polytechnics and so, within our polytechnics, there are vastly different profiles of students with vastly different needs. And so, a differentiated approach for different polytechnic student profiles is pragmatic.

And more importantly, it is fair. The starting pay for an ITE graduate is around $8,000 lower than that for a diploma graduate on a full-year basis. And so, the gap in CPF Ordinary Account contributions alone is around $1,500 per year. Therefore, the $10,000 CPF Award can be seen as helping diploma graduates coming through the ITE route to close the gap, just in terms of Ordinary Account contributions, that is equivalent to the first six years or so of their working lives. The Award helps them close this gap and helps them to catch up with their counterparts in terms of saving for a HDB flat. I think this is patently fair. It is the right thing to do and I am glad that the Government has taken the bold and decisive step to do it.

But again, it takes two hands to clap. So, while the Government has taken this bold step, I hope more ITE graduates will be encouraged to take up this scheme, and upskill and uplift themselves. And as importantly, I hope more ITE students, both current and future, will have a strong goal to work towards and be strongly motivated to do well in ITE to qualify for polytechnic.

And for our corporates – our enterprises and employers – I hope they will accord ever greater recognition of the skills that both our ITE and polytechnic graduates possess, and join hands with the Government to continue uplifting the wages of both our ITE and polytechnic graduates in the workforce.

Madam, thirdly, on low-wage workers, there is strong consensus in this House to uplift them. And last year, the Government has announced it will invest up to $9 billion over five years, in both Workfare and the Progressive Wage Model (PWM), to achieve this.

The PWM works hand-in-hand with Workfare to uplift low-wage workers. Progressive wages are really "minimum wage plus". They are good for low-wage workers. And so, there is really no fundamental ideological difference between minimum and progressive wages that warrants our rehashing and repeated debating in this House. Rather, I think what this House should really discuss is how to make progressive wages work for our workers, how to translate policy into real outcomes on the ground. And on this, it really takes two hands to clap. The whole of society has to do its part.

Take the security industry, for example. There have been instances of service buyers – corporate clients – reducing the workforce mix when calling for new tenders because of progressive wage. In other words, because the wages of not just security officers but also senior security officers and security supervisors have to go up under the PWM, but the service buyer's budget remains the same, the service buyer cuts its requirement for senior security officers and supervisors in a new tender. This runs against the spirit of progressive wages. It causes our senior security officers and supervisors to lose out. In order for the progressive wage policy to achieve real upliftment of low-wage workers, service buyers must be prepared to pay more. It takes two hands to clap.

Fourth, on healthcare. I cheer the increase in per capita household income thresholds for various subsidy tiers. It is timely and it will give more than a million Singaporeans higher healthcare subsidies and keep alive the promise of affordable healthcare for Singaporeans. Specifically, it will allow, amongst other things, more Singaporeans to requalify for the "blue" Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS) card.

I have met so many residents who got "bumped down" to the "orange" card or "green" card because their children are staying with them are earning a bit more than the "blue" card threshold. And so, with the revision in income thresholds more Singaporeans will get to keep their "blue" card or regain their "blue" card at renewal. The Government has heard and heeded the concerns of Singaporeans. And this is excellent news.

But it takes two hands to clap and so, I hope with this enhancement and with the larger Healthier SG movement, all Singaporeans will really take ownership of their health and make full use of the infrastructure, programming and financing support provided by the Government to stay healthy and lead long and happy lives.

Madam, let me conclude with a final thought. While the Forward Singapore agenda reminds all of us of the need to each play our part, it is also a real luxury that we are able to talk about these exciting plans and have sufficient funds to back up these plans. This has not happened by chance. Rather, it is the direct outcome of sound fiscal decisions taken year after year, over many years. Fiscal decisions, including the GST, starting in 1993, then 2002, 2007 and, most recently, 2022.

Our GST journey has spanned more than 30 years, more than half of our existence as an independent nation, taking the right decisions, time after time, steadily building up a sustainable revenue base for Singapore and designing a system of GST and transfers that is fair and progressive, does not hurt the poor and taxes primarily the higher-income Singaporeans and foreigners but benefitting all Singaporeans. This is what successive PAP governments have done.

Had we taken the easy way out on GST each time, starting from 1993, we would be $19 billion poorer today, literally. Nineteen billion dollars is our entire health budget. It is our entire Education and early childhood education budgets combined. It is also almost our entire Net Investment Returns Contribution (NIRC) today.

And so, had we taken the easy way out on GST each time —

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Xie Yao Quan, you have less than a minute.

Mr Xie Yao Quan: — starting from 1993, we would be talking today about using almost all of our Net Investment Returns and not just a bit more than half of it. Had we taken the easy way out on GST each time, starting from 1993, we would be wringing our hands today, instead of talking about taking two hands to clap, amidst all the exciting plans under Forward Singapore. Fortunately, we are where we are today. Madam, I support the Budget.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Minister of State Mr Desmond Tan.

3.48 pm

The Minister of State, Prime Minister's Office (Mr Desmond Tan): Mdm Deputy Speaker, the Labour Movement welcomes the Government's support for workers in this year's Budget – a bold and balanced Budget, a forward-looking, a Forward Singapore Budget that reflects our social compact and our workers' compact, and a budget that addresses and takes into account NTUC's recommendations following our #EveryWorkerMatters Conversations, the report that was tabled in September last year.

At the joint press conference on 6 February 2024, NTUC's Secretary-General and the President of the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), warned that we could expect a challenging year ahead. Great power contestation and regional conflicts have disrupted global supply chains and reshaped economic activities, leading to a rising inflation, affecting both businesses and individuals around the world, including Singapore.

NTUC also conducted our annual Economic Sentiments survey recently with 2,000 respondents. About two-thirds noted that their income has not kept up with living costs especially affecting our seniors.

Amid double retrenchment figures and slowing wage growth, the survey revealed worrying trends, with 40% of all workers expressing the likelihood of job loss in the next three months, up from 25% in 2023. This suggests prevailing insecurity, fear of job cuts and potential uptake in retrenchments in 2024.

So, what does all these mean for our workers and for NTUC as a Labour Movement? Does it mean we will have to brace for tougher times? Yes, but we also need to seize opportunities for change and for transformation. It is times like these that NTUC remains steadfast in our unwavering commitment to providing support for all our workers.

My fellow Labour MPs will cover a range of topics that addresses the needs, the aspirations, the concerns of different segments of our workforce.

My speech will focus on three key areas. First, amid uncertainties, how the Labour Movement and NTUC will continue to journey with our workers. I will make a call for workers and companies to join the union, for better protection as well as for business success. Second, I will give an update on NTUC's efforts to support workers' upskilling through various schemes and initiatives. And finally, I will continue to speak up for our middle-aged and middle-career workers who are facing significant challenges.

First, why join a union? Recent wave of lay-offs globally and locally has heightened apprehensions among workers about job losses. An example is the Lazada Singapore retrenchment which has brought into focus the role and the value that unions can offer to all workers as well as to businesses. Allow me to elaborate.

After the abrupt lay-off, Lazada Singapore Private Limited and the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union (FDAWU) eventually reached an amicable settlement. And now, they are focused on building a strong partnership for the mutual benefit of the company and for all the workers that are affected. The resolution includes an enhanced support package and training fund for affected members under the union's scope of representation, many of whom, in fact, are PME workers. Lazada's commitment to maintaining open communication with FDAWU is encouraging, underscoring the vital role the unions play in securing favourable terms for our workers, particularly during retrenchments.

I mentioned that many of the Lazada employees are PMEs. With 51% of NTUC members now being PMEs, NTUC will continue to represent all workers, regardless of collars, age or nationality or, what we often say, "All can".

Let me cite another example of how NTUC can support and the union has helped another PME. A senior account manager worked for 10 months and resigned in June 2023. During that period, she managed to close sales target for two separate teams, but she was told that if she was to leave earlier, she will not be eligible for the commission for her first team if she resigned. So, she sought the assistance of the Singapore Industrial and Services Employees' Union, after failing to convince the company herself. The union represented her case and met with the management and eventually, the management investigated and agreed to pay the commission by the end of last year. In the end, the member was grateful and maintained a positive relationship even as she left the company.

PMEs or not, union members can benefit from NTUC membership on workplace issues.

But it is not just a matter of supporting only our workers. NTUC believes in achieving win-win outcomes by supporting businesses to grow the pie so that workers can benefit by sharing the gains. NTUC leans forward to support our unionised companies in hiring, in job placements, upskilling and training and, more recently, in business transformation.

Allow me to say an example of how NTUC supported our unionised company, Dyna-Mac Engineering Services Private Limited. During the oil price crunch and COVID-19 pandemic, the company was experiencing business downturn. A newly appointed Executive Chairman and CEO, Mr AC Lim, shared that he was at his wit's end trying to turn around the company, when the Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Employees' Union introduced him to the company training committee initiative (CTC).

Dyna-Mac took the leap of faith, formed the CTC and embarked on the OpsTech roadmap. Through the process, the company reaffirmed their business direction and goals, and received support from the CTC Grant. Today, Dyna-Mac is in the black and workers are sharing in the gains. So, when I joined Mr Lim at the last panel discussion on CTCs, he expressed strong appreciation for how NTUC has helped his businesses and his workers.

When I tell this story, unions and even businesses around the world may not appreciate how a union can actually support businesses or even employers. But with NTUC and Singapore, because of our unique tripartism, we were able to secure better outcomes for workers by not just supporting workers directly but also going upstream to support businesses. It is in tough times that the value of NTUC will come to the fore, in protecting our workers and helping companies grow their businesses. So, I urge all companies and workers to consider joining the NTUC family because, as brothers and sisters, we will grow the business together and we will ensure we secure better wages, better welfare and better work prospects for all workers.

Next, I will speak about how NTUC plans to continue our support for workers' upskilling. This is not new. NTUC has always maintained that for our economy to grow, our competitive advantage must be a skilled and quality workforce that is future ready.

But why is there an urgency now to step up our efforts in upskilling and training?

According to the World Economic Forum 2023's Future of Jobs report, over 75% of companies are planning to integrate Big Data, cloud computing and AI technologies in the next five years. While all these advances are expected to enhance productivity and drive growth, there is an anticipated short-term impact on workers and their livelihoods. Based on NTUC's annual Economic Sentiments survey, 3% already experienced negative impacts on their jobs as a result of AI and 15% are worried that they will lose their jobs. And of these, two-thirds are PMETs.

Last year, in the US, one of the longest labour disputes involving over 10,000 Hollywood Television and Movie Writers represented by The Writers Guild of America, along with 160,000 actors affiliated with other guilds, brought the entertainment industry to a standstill. The writers' main concern was the extensive use of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, to create scripts, raising fears that studios may therefore exploit AI to replace screenwriters and to reduce fees. After negotiations, Hollywood writers secured control over AI to prevent its use as a tool to replace them.

Additionally, white-collar layoffs seen in companies like Google, Duolingo and UPS are increasingly tied to productivity-boosting technologies like machine learning. This trend highlights AI's roles in automating routine tasks, affecting both blue- and white-collar jobs. The rise of AI and automation may lead to job displacements across sectors, including those in the high percentage of PMEs who form 60% of Singapore's workforce today. This underscores the need for a "just transition", ensuring that as AI changes work, society and the economy, the transition is implemented fairly, equitably and with considerations for all workers and communities. To navigate this transition, it is imperative for workers to engage in continuous learning, consistently updating our skills.

Our Founding Father, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, once referred a letter from the former chairman of the Japan Productivity Centre, Mr Kohei Goshi, who played a significant role in fostering a culture of productivity in Japan. Mr Goshi drew on the wisdom of a Chinese philosopher, Guanzi, and I quote, "一年之计，莫如树谷；十年之计，莫如树木；终身之计，莫如树人。" Translated, it means one may grow grains or trees for short-term gains but for longer rewards, one has to invest in growing men or in developing talents.

As we chart our way forward, NTUC pledges to continue championing our workers' interests to take action for them and with them. I am heartened to share that despite the uncertainties of technological disruptions, 52% of workers foresee the need to upskill to adapt to the rise of AI, based on NTUC's annual Economic Sentiments survey.

NTUC Learning Hub, for example, has recently launched the "X for Everyone" series of courses, addressing emerging technologies crucial for modern workplaces, such as generative AI, cybersecurity and cloud computing, as part of the Tech Talent Academy. I encourage all workers to update their skills to remain proficient in the face of the rapid developments in these vital technologies. Another initiative NTUC is working relentlessly in promoting upskilling is to drive the CTC, an institution to complement to SkillsFuture, and an initiative between employers and the unions to support businesses' transformation that can result in company-initiated training and skills upgrading for workers.

Since its inception in 2019, we have made tremendous progress. I am happy to update that we have formed over 1,900 CTCs to date, approved 168 companies CTC-grant projects, helped over 2,600 workers to receive an average of 5% wage increase and/or benefit from a career development plan and also equipped over 125,000 of our workers with skills to secure better wages and better work prospects.

I would like to share an example of a successful CTC collaboration with a progressive employer, Hydroflux Marketing, a homegrown company specialising in water filtration solutions. Through OTR, Hydroflux formulated a business strategy plan identifying areas for digitalisation, talent development and growth opportunities. With support from the Singapore Manual and Mercantile Workers' Union, the company successfully secured a 70% grant approval for its CTC project, benefitting 38 workers, 12 receiving an average wage increment of 8% and 26 impacted by the implementation of a career development plan.

Prior to the CTC initiative, sales staff faced limited career advancement opportunities. But with a new plan in place, Hydroflux is committed to providing career development structures exemplified by success stories, like Ms Alyssa Lim, who transitioned from an air stewardess to now a sales role. Ms Lim's dedication led to her promotion to a Senior Lifestyle Specialist role, showcasing the positive impact of CTCs and the implemented strategies.

So, we hope more companies will work with NTUC in forming CTCs and developing strategic plans for both business and workforce development. NTUC urges companies to tap on the CTC Grant that helps to navigate trends, such as AI, support workers' upskilling and enhance business productivity.

Besides partnerships with the employers, NTUC also works with our SkillsFuture Singapore. In June 2023, WSG piloted a Workplace Skills Recognition programme (WPSR) with NTUC and the National Centre of Excellence for Workplace Learning (NACE) in two sectors, the retail and the food services sectors. NTUC has been working closely with SSG and NACE to introduce CTC companies within these two sectors to pilot and to embark on a Workplace Learning:READY Mark certification. With good ground feedback and success from companies, such as King's Cart Coffee Pte Ltd, NTUC will continue to work with SSG and NACE to onboard more CTC companies to this initiative. In this regard, we hope that WPSR can be expanded to more sectors and availed to more companies for their benefit.

NTUC remains committed to offering comprehensive support for workers navigating through career transitions. Today, I am pleased to announce that starting from 1 April 2024, NTUC's Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) will assume an expanded role in the personalised placement landscape through the transfer of designated career centres and Jobs and Skills Centres from Workforce Singapore. With more strategically located career and job services touch points across Singapore, NTUC's e2i will bring personalised career coaching, job matching and skills upgrading services closer to the individuals in the heartlands and help all Singaporeans across diverse work types islandwide to find better employment and employability. More details about this development will be announced shortly.

Finally, I will speak about the support for a segment of our workers that is very close to my heart and have faced significant challenges – the middle-aged mid-career working people.

In my campaign speech in 2020 on national television, I spoke about this segment and that I will do my utmost to support them in their livelihood, to give them greater purpose and dignity. I did so in Pasir Ris, bringing job opportunities, organising job fairs and career networking sessions and working with many Government agencies.

But despite these efforts, many still struggled, and I met them across the constituency. I met this gentleman who was in his 50s when he decided to return from overseas to Singapore because of his son's National Service (NS). He was confident he would secure a job easily, given his extensive experience in sales and also management. He applied for numerous jobs during COVID-19, got a few replies and a couple of interviews, but zero offers for two years. Although it was not explicit, he sensed that companies find that his age could be a barrier. Some even said he was overqualified for the post that he applied for.

This gentleman was not looking for a high-paying job. He was prepared to take a pay cut, learn new things, go into a new area and start all over. But he was just not given the opportunity to do so. His wife has a health problem, his two children are not yet working, and he still has to put food on the table. So, he turned to driving Grab. At least that helped him to feel useful and helps to contribute to his family. After a year, he was finally offered a job at a fraction of his last drawn pay – even below what he could earn by driving Grab. He could not accept the offer and, as time passed, his confidence in himself, and also in the job market, dipped.

I recall receiving a message from him at 4.00 am one morning. And it says: "Mr Tan, I am still struggling to get back to normal employment to deal with life. Ageism is very real. Having worked so many years and so much effort to upgrade myself to stay relevant. Why are people like me still struggling?"

Well, thankfully he finally landed a good job after three to four years. His persistence has paid off. And, in between, he upgraded himself, took some courses and continued to persevere. But his struggle is real and I think he is probably not the only one who faces the same problem. We have to do more for people like him, especially given our ageing workforce and manpower shortage.

That was why, during Budget last year, I called for the Government to provide more support for mid-career workers by expanding the SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme to more sectors, so that more workers can benefit from the scheme and also to consider introducing training allowance that was introduced during the COVID-19 for trainees under this scheme. I also called for the Government to review training funds and allowances to support our workers in alleviating their concern for the lack of time and finances and opportunity costs when attending training.

So, I was particularly excited when Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced in this year's Budget a very significant training boost for mid-career workers in his Budget speech, and I thank the Government for the decisive move in Budget 2024 to recognise that our mid-career workers who are above 40 years old need more help.

In my interactions over the last two weeks with many workers, including the gentleman I spoke about, these announcements are very welcomed and timely. Many commented the schemes announced are well thought out and decisive, and for a group of workers that really face difficulties. We look forward to more details to be announced at the Committee of Supply by the Ministries.

Now that the Government has made a very significant move and NTUC has continued to step up our upskilling and job supporting efforts, I hope that the employers will join hands with us, do your part to better support our mid-career workers, to more hire more of these workers, to pay them fairly based on their skillsets and experience and to provide protected time-off for their training and consider ways to recognise their skillsets. Mdm Deputy Speaker, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Esteemed colleagues in Parliament, since the announcement of the 2024 Budget, we have received a lot of positive feedback from workers. The Government has proposed many measures and schemes to support mid-career workers, uplift low-wage workers, assist young workers and families, help middle-aged workers obtain retirement adequacy and aid Singaporeans in coping with the cost of living. These measures and schemes were proposed after listening to the feedback and voices of workers and have taken into account the recommendations from the NTUC's #EveryWorkerMatters Conversations report. Our workers will benefit from the various plans and measures introduced by the Government.

Additionally, we sincerely hope that more workers can achieve these three points: firstly, join the union to bring more security to their careers and lives; secondly, make good use of the SkillsFuture training subsidies to enhance skills and keep pace with economic transformation; and thirdly, we urge middle-aged and mid-career workers to make good use of the subsidies provided by the new SkillsFuture Level-Up programme to pursue professional courses and strengthen their employability. All Singaporeans aged 40 and above can receive an additional $4,000 subsidy.

NTUC will continue to support workers in enhancing their skills, obtaining better wages, welfare and work prospects. We also encourage workers to make good use of these schemes and measures introduced by the Government and NTUC.

As the saying goes, learning is like rowing upstream, not to advance is to retreat. The same goes for building a career; not advancing is akin to retreating. For society to progress and economy to grow, workers must upgrade and the tripartite partners must work together. United, we can help workers improve and create a better future.

(In English): The year 2024 is expected to bring challenges for both workers and businesses. However, echoing Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's sentiment, and I quote, "Singapore can take heart that the country has navigated similar external disruptions and shocks in the past and each time had emerged stronger than before."

Our resilience is evident in successfully weathering recent challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, with tripartism at the very core of our efforts. NTUC remains committed to our partnership with the Government and the industry stakeholders with an unwavering focus on workforce development because every worker matters. We encourage workers to join NTUC, we call on more companies to collaborate with us on CTC and extend our gratitude to Government for the substantial support for mid-career workers in this Budget. Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Budget.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Patrick Tay.

4.11 pm

Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan (Pioneer): Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I rise in support of Budget 2024. It is a well-considered budget that aims to strengthen our nation's resilience to withstand the challenges of an uncertain global economy.

We are entering an era of work that is marked by precarity, where job security is no longer a guarantee. In 2023, retrenchments in Singapore more than doubled to 14,000 and the myriad of challenges, uncertainties and volatility persists. The climate crisis and new technologies like generative AI will bring about disruption and transformation to our economy, including the labour market in both speed and scale.

Jobs and skills obsolescence will persist and therefore workers of all collars and ages are now more vulnerable and understandably anxious about the way ahead. Earlier this month, NTUC's annual Survey on Economic Sentiments echoed this same worry and anxiety on the ground, where more workers are concerned about losing their jobs compared to the preceding year. At the same time, there are ongoing challenges of inflation and rising costs of living. From groceries to electricity and water bills, Singaporeans who find themselves out of a job are facing increased financial strain in meeting their basic needs.

During this exceptional and critical time, it is therefore imperative for the Government to re-evaluate our approach to unemployment and job loss. We must assure workers who find themselves involuntarily displaced or transitioning into more resilient careers that they will not be left behind without support. We must also equip our workers with the resources and skills necessary to strengthen their employability. Only by investing in our collective resilience and prosperity can Singapore prevent the adverse repercussions of economic restructuring and emerge stronger together.

To this end, I will focus on what I will call as the "2S" areas, of Support and Strengthening, for our workers: Support for the Unemployed, and Strengthening SkillsFuture and CET.

The first "S" of Support for the unemployed is a call I first made more than 10 years ago, here in this House in 2014. I have checked Hansard and found that the late Dr Goh Keng Swee, in March 1970, also in this House, spoke about and analysed the unemployment insurance, and also consulted the ILO before the Government made its stance and stated its approach. I am heartened that after a decade of lobbying, more MPs have joined me in this call including our Opposition MPs, that it has been adopted by the Government through Forward Singapore last October and announced by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in his Budget Speech this year.

Temporary financial support for the unemployed has increasingly emerged as a key recommendation from the Labour Movement's engagements with workers and union leaders in the past few years. It started as a key recommendation from the NTUC-SNEF PME Taskforce, which I co-chaired with SNEF in 2021 amid COVID-19, where we consulted over 10,000 members of the public, union leaders and business leaders. It was reiterated again in our NTUC's renewed Workers' Compact last year, following a year-long engagement with over 42,000 workers, through our #EveryWorkerMatters Conversations.

PMEs represent a segment of our workforce that are particularly precarious when they become unemployed, because they typically have more dependents to take care of but take a longer time to find a new job due to their age and expected income. Upon re-entry to employment, there is also an increasing propensity for them to suffer from wage loss.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Yet, unemployed PMEs are generally less likely to receive support from the Government in view of their earlier higher income. As a result, they may feel compelled to rush into the first job offer they find rather than taking the time to upskill or search for a job that better fits their skills, experience and aspirations. These workers may then find themselves entrenched in ill-fitting jobs in the long term.

According to a recent joint research study by NTUC and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), this gap may have already materialised in our labour market. The study found that one in four workers experience under-employment arising from skills-jobs mismatch or, in other words, are over-skilled or overqualified for their current jobs. I think the greatest concern is with involuntary underemployment. I will share the findings from the report in due course on a separate platform, including on my socials.

After a decade of tireless lobbying, I am therefore elated to see our efforts recognised in the Budget 2024 with the announcement of a new temporary financial support scheme by the Government for involuntarily displaced jobseekers while they undergo training or look for better-fitting jobs. As the parameters of this scheme are being deliberated, I urge the Government to extend coverage to as many workers as possible, including the broad middle of affected workers and not just those in the lower-income bracket. Allow me to elaborate.

Two major disruption cycles to our local workforce are already in place – the phasing out of fossil fuels to transition towards renewable energy and the rise of GenAI. This means that previously secure jobs in fossil fuel energy production could face redundancy, as a necessary and inevitable focus on renewable energy demands different skills. AI is also expected to disproportionately impact PMETs, who make up slightly more than 60% of the workforce today, due to the computer-based content-generation work inherent to PMETs. Already, industry giants, such as Shell and Grab, have announced hundreds of job cuts from their Singapore offices, citing these two disruption cycles as reasons for restructuring.

As we continue to expect continued restructuring, reorganisation, and re-prioritisation in 2024, we must all stand prepared for any curve balls by ensuring that workers affected have the support and resources they need to adapt to and thrive in a new economic landscape. Although these industry changes may render some jobs and skills obsolete, they also have the potential to create more sustainable and meaningful jobs with better wages and generate new in-demand skills. If we are to ride this wave of change, we will need to reskill our workers and help them navigate career transitions.

Temporary financial support will therefore serve as a lifeline for displaced workers by providing them with ample space and time to upgrade their skillsets and secure better jobs. To ensure the successful implementation of this scheme, I would like to propose five areas of consideration on designing this scheme, which I call the "5A"s.

First, applicability. Temporary financial support for the unemployed should cover the broad middle of affected workers rather than only those whose incomes fall below the national median wage or lower-wage workers, to ensure that all who need support will receive it. I also implore the Government to consider extending support to those retrenched as well as those involuntarily unemployed for genuine reasons. By the same token, sector-specific support for workers in industries that may experience cyclical downturn will be a great augmentation, so that companies can cut costs to save jobs and not cut jobs to save costs. This will also nudge and encourage at-risk workers to proactively fortify their careers by upskilling or reskilling to transit to more sustainable careers.

Second, amount. Financial support should entail a sufficient amount that can tide affected workers over, based on a reasonable societal standard of a worker and his families' basic needs.

Third, ample time. The duration of financial support should suffice such as to allow for effective reskilling and job-matching while ensuring that the unemployed can get back to work as soon as possible and not become under-employed involuntarily.

Fourth, active labour market policy. Financial support, if any, should be reciprocated by workers doing their part to actively search for jobs and diligently attending training to ensure the affordability and sustainability of the scheme.

Fifth, and finally, accessibility. Access to financial support should be simple, seamless and prompt. More importantly, the scheme must not just be about providing financial help but must encompass active career guidance, coaching and employment facilitation to help those involuntarily unemployed workers identify suitable career pathways and access funded training under the SkillsFuture ecosystem.

This leads me to the second "S", strengthening SkillsFuture and CET.

As Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong mentioned in his Budget statement, the Government and NTUC has consistently championed SkillsFuture and CET as pathways to good jobs and better wages. I would like to call for the Government and employers to continue working closely with NTUC and the Labour Movement to strengthen the SkillsFuture and CET ecosystem and better support workers' upskilling, employment, employability and career progression.

I recognise that the Government has invested heavily in providing training opportunities and generous subsidies, particularly through the newly-announced targeted $4,000 SkillsFuture Credit top-up which will be a great boon for our mature workers, and enhanced subsidies for selected programmes and training allowance for mid-careerists aged 40 and above from May this year. I look forward to hearing the fuller details at the Ministry of Education Committee of Supply. However, I wish to submit three points in this respect.

First, I applaud the SkillsFuture Credit top-ups and acknowledge that those below 40 years will eventually get a bite of this cherry when they reach 40 years old. However, I submit that we should extend the access of this $4,000 to other vulnerable groups of Singaporeans besides mid-careerists, such as the retrenched, unemployed and freelancers in need of individual initiated training and who may fall outside the scope of this top-up. I also look forward to more details on the types and category of courses which this $4,000 can be used for and for the Government to not just consider those programmes that lead to certifiable courses, but those that lead to employment and employability outcomes, whether directly or indirectly. This will include coaching and mentoring training to maximise one's potential and enhance career progression and employability.

Second, career conversion programmes (CCPs) should be widened to cover even more sectors and industries, as the current offerings may not be extensive enough to fully realise the potential and capabilities of those keen to embark on a career change voluntarily or involuntarily.

Third, in my work with the unions and the Labour Movement, I have gathered feedback that the current CCP model may not be viable for many PMEs, due to the relatively lower monthly training allowance during their period of training for some of the CCP courses. I think a good and useful proxy would be the IBF's Technology in Finance Immersion Programme, which offers a monthly training allowance of up to $5,500. With the latest announcement of a training allowance of up to $3,000 for those undertaking selected certification and qualifications on their own, I opine that the training allowance of our CCPs should be increased to keep pace with rising median wages, household expenditures, inflation and rising costs of living.

To conclude, while the challenges ahead appear daunting, let us remember that to pave the way for progress, we must first face adversity head-on. And the only way we can emerge stronger is together. Successfully transitioning our workforce through the rapid structural changes in our economy and seeking out new opportunities will require tripartite collaboration to help workers bounce back from setbacks and bridge the skills divide and gap. This can be achieved through the dual effort of Supporting the unemployed and Strengthening SkillsFuture and CET.

NTUC believes that "Every Worker Matters". We care and we will continue to take action to support all workers, so that no one is left behind as we strive towards better wages, welfare and work prospects. Mr Speaker, I support the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Mr Melvin Yong.

4.25 pm

Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye (Radin Mas): Mr Speaker, I support the Budget, which seeks to tackle immediate cost-of-living pressures, create more paths for social mobility and forge a stronger shared future.

Today, I wish to highlight the anxieties that many Singaporeans face in our current employment climate. MOM's preliminary data has shown that retrenchments have more than doubled in the past year and this is expected to rise even further. I will also talk about how we can better support our low-wage workers, by expanding the PWM to other sectors and exploring the Career Progression Model for skilled professions.

Sir, Budget 2024 continues the trend where social spending makes up the largest part of the Government's spending plans. It is no secret that Singaporeans are anxious about the steady and unabating rise in our cost of living. All of us would have felt the impact of inflation when we buy our meals at hawker centres and when we pay our monthly utility bills.

In NTUC's most recent annual survey on economic sentiments, 63% of respondents felt that their income did not increase sufficiently to match the rise in the cost of living. Our survey also found that older workers felt this more acutely, likely due to the short runway they have till retirement. Many young seniors in Radin Mas have also shared with me their growing worries about retirement adequacy, wondering if their retirement nest eggs can survive being eroded by inflation.

I am therefore heartened that Budget 2024 will enhance the Assurance Package by $1.9 billion. The additional CDC Vouchers, the Cost-Of-Living Special Payment, U-Save and service and conservancy charges (S&CC) rebates will go some way in helping Singaporeans defray the rise in prices.

In addition to alleviating immediate cost-of-living pressures, Budget 2024 continues the Government's trend of increasing our social spend to cater to a rapidly ageing population and to ensure social mobility. Between 2010 and 2019, we nearly doubled our social spending to $37 billion. During this term of Government, the budget allocated to MSF will increase by about 18%, from $3.9 billion in FY2020 to an estimated $4.6 billion in FY2024.

I fully support this, and I will speak more about the good work done by MSF during the COS debate. As we build our shared future together, we must retain our core identity as an inclusive society, a society where no one will be left behind.

The private sector and civil society can also do their part in the fight against inflation. I am happy to read about exemplary companies, such as NTUC FairPrice, Sheng Siong and DBS, just to name a few, that have rolled out meaningful initiatives to help consumers stretch their dollar.

NTUC has rolled out various measures to help Singaporeans mitigate the rise in cost of living. Initiatives, such as the $8 FairPrice Return Voucher for every $80 nett spend using CDC vouchers and the GST offset on 500 essential items, have helped many Singaporeans defray inflation. At Kopitiam, union members can enjoy a breakfast set starting from $2.20. Transport workers continue to pay 60 cents for a cup of "kopi O" or "teh O" at over 50 canteens operated by the National Transport Workers' Union. I was also heartened to read that DBS has extended its Five Million Hawker Meals initiative, which allows patrons of various hawker stalls who use the DBS PayLah! app to get up to $3 off their meals every Friday. Hawkers in my Radin Mas constituency tell me that this has helped to boost business and my residents tell me that the $3 offset is indeed substantive.

I encourage more companies to join NTUC and DBS in helping to alleviate the cost-of-living pressures for everyone.

Sir, various community initiatives have also sprung up to help tackle the increasing prices of our everyday essentials. In Radin Mas, we launched the "It’s On Me" programme in 2021, where patrons to Redhill Food Centre and Telok Blangah Crescent Food Centre can pay a little extra when buying their own meals to treat someone else, someone who may be in need. Since its launch in 2021, the programme has given away more than 100,000 free meals. Beneficiaries have told me that they deeply appreciate how, as a community initiative, "It's On Me" does not require any means testing.

To further assist vulnerable residents, Radin Mas launched the EZ-Meals programme just last month. Beneficiaries can approach more than 80 participating hawker stalls within the constituency to offset $3 from the price of their meals. This helps to keep the cost of food low for some 200 beneficiaries while providing a wide variety of food options.

To help consumers find the best deals and stretch their dollar, the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) launched the Price Kaki app in 2019 to allow for an easy comparison of prices of daily essentials. The app has since been downloaded by more than 150,000 users who use it to check the prices of over 10,000 daily essentials and about 75,000 cooked food items islandwide.

I am also glad that HDB and Government Technology Agency (GovTech) had recently launched the Great Budget Meal Hunt, creating a portal to crowdsource budget meal recommendations located at HDB coffee shops. Together with Price Kaki, this will provide consumers with greater awareness and more choices to help them stretch their dollar.

Following the success of the Price Kaki app, CASE realised that, over time, we have built up a substantial number of "super users". They use the app daily and share deals with their family and friends, often by sending a screenshot of what they see on the app across their WhatsApp groups.

The Price Kaki team has spoken to some of these super users, who tell us that they hope to be able to share these "lobangs" and promotions within their own neighbourhoods with other users using the app, so that we can build micro-communities of like-minded individuals. I call these users our "Price Kaki Champions" and we value their feedback. CASE will, therefore, enhance the app by launching a community feature in Price Kaki. This new function will be available in a few days' time and will allow users to share reviews, in-store promotions and tips to better stretch their dollar.

We will also grow our community of Price Kaki Champions offline, so that we can bring the benefits of Price Kaki to as many consumers as possible. I am happy to announce that CASE will work with the People’s Association (PA) to recruit 2,000 grassroots volunteers across all constituencies as Price Kaki Champions. These volunteers will help to suss out deals within their own neighbourhoods and teach others to use the Price Kaki app to find the best deals. As we grow our network of Price Kaki Champions, I am confident that we will further improve price transparency, promote cost-consciousness and empower consumers to make better value-for-money purchase decisions.

Mr Speaker, the long-term solution against inflation must be an increase in real wages to ensure that workers keep their jobs and wages keep pace with the rise in prices. At NTUC, we believe that jobs are the best welfare and full employment is the best protection for our workers. This is especially true for our lower-wage brothers and sisters, who have seen their wages decrease in real terms in 2023. I was, therefore, heartened to read how all three of our local banks, DBS, UOB and OCBC, are giving their junior staff a one-off payment to help them cope with cost-of-living pressures.

But beyond company-specific initiatives, NTUC has been relentlessly championing for a way to increase wages through upskilling skills and improving productivity. We first conceptualised the PWM for the cleaning sector and expanded it to other sectors where outsourcing practices were common, such as security, landscape and lift and escalator maintenance. Workers have benefited through faster wage growth. From 2022 to 2028, workers covered by PWM can expect cumulative wage increases of up to 80%.

Members would have read news that countries with minimum wage policies are now starting to look towards the Singapore PWM, recognising that minimum wage had become a wage ceiling rather than a floor, resulting in stagnant wages in these countries.

Mr Speaker, PWM operates within a framework that carefully balances multiple factors, including industry dynamics, economic sustainability and prevailing labour market conditions. It is a pivotal component of Singapore's strategy in pursuing sustainable income growth and plays a crucial role in uplifting the earning potential of workers across a spectrum of sectors and occupations.

Despite initial concerns, empirical evidence has demonstrated that the implementation of PWM does not lead to job losses. This achievement is attributed to our tripartite process to establish consensus and buy-in, ensuring that any wage increases are acceptable and feasible for employers, thereby safeguarding against any adverse impacts on employment levels.

While the overarching goal of PWM is to improve the livelihoods of workers, achieving parity between their wages and those of university graduates, as suggested yesterday by the hon Member Mr Raj Joshua Thomas, poses challenges. These challenges stem from the need to navigate various constraints, including ensuring that wage adjustments remain manageable for employers, contribute to the sustainable operation of businesses and do not jeopardise overall employment levels.

In sum, PWM adopts a pragmatic approach focused on raising wages sustainably. By adhering to this approach, PWM continues to serve as an effective tool for sustaining income progression while simultaneously addressing the diverse needs and complexities of both workers and employers within the broader economic landscape of Singapore.

Sir, while we have come a long way for PWM, we must always look ahead. The Labour Movement has proposed for elements of PWM to be expanded to more roles, such as strata management and pest management.

Beyond our lower-wage workers, we must also uplift our skilled trade workers to develop their skills, attain mastery and build long-term careers.

One of the announcements that stood out to me in this Budget was the ITE Progression Award to empower our ITE graduates to upskill to a diploma earlier in their career. They will get a total of $15,000 in top-ups when they complete their diploma. Having a skills-based, job-relevant diploma will certainly give a helpful boost to our ITE graduates. NTUC will work with agencies to develop Career Progression Models with specific career and accreditation pathways for skilled trade workers and essential workers.

Most recently, MOM launched a Progressive Wage Portal for our lower-wage workers. The portal will allow PWM workers to view their PWM wages and job levels that their employers have placed them on. The Labour Movement commends MOM’s efforts in raising public awareness of PWM requirements. NTUC will continue working with our Tripartite Partners to ensure compliance with PWM wages and requirements. NTUC cares because every worker matters, and we will not hesitate to take strong action against any company which attempts to circumvent these PWM requirements.

Mr Speaker, Budget 2024 continues a streak of caring Budgets by PAP. Inflation dynamics are still in flux and concerns about the cost of living will not go away. But I am glad that the 4G team, led by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, have set their sights on addressing acute challenges that Singapore faces, such as tempering inequality and sustaining social mobility.

In building our shared future together, we must continue our tripartite efforts to expand PWM so that workers will continue to have good jobs and a growing income to combat inflation. Mr Speaker, I support the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Mr Desmond Choo.

4.41 pm

Mr Desmond Choo (Tampines): Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to join the debate.

When Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong delivered the Budget two weeks ago, my immediate reaction as the Chairperson of the GPC for Manpower was that it was a Budget that had workers' interest at the very core. Headlined by the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme with a second subsidised diploma and generous training allowance, workers would find significant help in the workplace.

The natural question was whether the Budget had missed out on certain aspects of supporting workers and to ask for them during the debate. Yet, we do know a single year’s of Budget does not make for robust and thoughtful national capabilities. Each successive year’s Budget should build on each other. It is worth examining how this term of Government has built up critical employment infrastructure.

The Budgets from 2020 to 2022 were focused on preserving lives and livelihoods. For example, the Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI) was highly successful in supporting local hires during COVID-19. From FY2020 to 2021, $6.2 billion was spent on JGI to boost local hires. It supported close to 709,000 local hires by 83,000 firms between September 2020 and February 2022. It also led to an increase of about 90,200 local hires. This roughly translates to a significant spending of $8,700 per local worker who has benefited from the JGI.

Similarly, the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package provided jobs, traineeship opportunities and skills enhancement programmes. Over FY2020 to FY2021, $2.2 billion was set aside for SGUnited. From April 2020 to April 2022, more than 200,000 local jobseekers benefited. Around eight of our 10 trainees secured employment.

There was further progress in creating a more equitable society. Income inequality is now the lowest in over two decades. This is owed, in no small part, to the schemes to uplift lower-wage workers through expanding PWM and reforming the Local Qualifying Salary (LQS), as Member Melvin Yong had pointed out.

The Progressive Wage Credit Scheme (PWCS) was launched in 2022 to support employers to adjust to the expanded PWM. In Budget 2024, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a further $1 billion top-up to PWCS. This is complemented by raising the minimum qualifying salary under the WIS Scheme. WIS was enhanced in 2020, 2023 and will be again in 2025. Collectively, this will benefit around half a million Singaporeans.

Enabling Employment Credit was also created in 2023 to help workers with special needs or disabilities. There were also decisive moves on Workplace Fairness and Platform Workers over this term of Government. The net effect is a tapestry and trampoline of support schemes that help workers of all ages, abilities and skills. This was built across successive Budgets, working with the unions and employers. Indeed, we must always find ways to improve on the Budgets to help Singaporeans further. This is our duty as Parliamentarians. But we can do so today from a place of strength and comfort.

It is from this foundation of strength that I would like to examine how we could support our younger workers. Global uncertainties, such as shifting supply chains and geopolitical tensions, have resulted in fewer jobs being created.

This year, the Joint Autonomous Universities Graduate Employment Survey showed that the proportion of university graduates who found employment within six months of taking their final exams dropped to 89.6% in 2023 from 93.8% the year before. Our younger people are naturally anxious about transiting to the workforce. Our year-long Every Worker Matters Conversations run by NTUC in 2023 also reflected similar sentiments.

This year’s Budget builds capabilities to help our young Singaporeans to succeed. Investment in innovation and training systems can bring in new enterprises to create better jobs for them. So, the future is a bright one.

However, young Singaporeans still face two rather formidable challenges: one, transition to an economy shaped by AI and climate change; and two, navigating the workplace that ironically has more options and thus, harder to land on a desired career. I will take them in turn.

We are at the doorsteps of a seismic shift in the economy with the rise of AI. Just not too long ago, coding was deemed as the skill of the new economy. Even I was tempted to take up coding, but I could not really do it. It was almost a must-have for young people to seize new opportunities and thrive. Yet today, AI can already perform entry-level coding easily and some even for free. ChatGPT could do it. That, I could do. We can only imagine that, in time, it would be capable of, if not already so, sophisticated coding.

What does that leave for the many students and young people who have been learning coding in school? And this is just coding that might be adversely impacted. Most young people would need to work with AI regardless of their occupations or industries in the future. How do they work with AI, co-pilot it to become more creative and better in exercising human judgement?

AI would lead to job creation and job losses. AI advances and adoption by companies would be non-linear and, therefore, highly disruptive. The core job requirements and skills for many jobs would have changed. There would be a greater emphasis on analysis, working with clients and strategic thinking. For our young Singaporeans and workers, they would either be riding this tremendous wave or be sunk by it. Their era would be defined by AI. How can we ensure that our youths are AI-ready? Should IHLs include AI as part of all courses? And do all our workers and educators now need to have AI booster courses?

The next challenge is that of green transition and the impact on jobs and training. Take, for example, our nation's vision to achieve 100% cleaner energy vehicles by 2040. ITE currently offers automotive technology and engineering courses, which primes its students with appropriate skillsets for electric vehicles (EVs). However, what would happen to our workers who only have skills to repair internal combustion engines (ICE) vehicles? Those students with mechanical engineering skills would need to acquire new skills quickly. Should they not be able to transition fast enough, they would be out of work.

We must embrace the green transition whether we like it or not. Man cannot reverse climate change.

Today, 52% of Singaporeans or young Singaporeans foresee the need to upskill to adapt to the rise of AI and this is especially so among our younger people. They will need to retrain shortly after graduation if they find themselves on the wrong side of the economic transition.

At the heart of this endeavour lies the concept of a "just transition". This is more than just adapting to economic shifts. It embodies a worker-centric approach to ensuring that the transitions our workers undergo are fair, equitable and sustainable. This was also the point raised by Minister of State Desmond Tan. To this, I wish to speak on key areas ensuring a “just transition" to the new economy for our young workers.

Over the past three Budgets, I have called on the Government to provide subsidies for Singaporeans to pursue a second degree or diploma to remain future-ready. I am heartened with the Government's move in Budget 2024 to enable Singaporeans middle-aged and above to receive full Government subsidies to pursue a second diploma. There is also the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme, with a SkillsFuture credit of $4,000 and monthly training allowance of up to $3,000. Our workers and unionists appreciate that these are substantive support to transit into new careers.

As part of a "just transition" for younger workers in trades that would be adversely impacted by large structural shifts of AI and green transition, I hope that the Government can provide similar support to our younger workers. For example, one of the young persons we met was Darren, a 24-year-old ITE student studying business administration. He aspires to open an automotive workshop in the future but he would need automotive skills, especially those pertaining to EVs. He would need support to pick up these skills to make the career transition.

Younger Singaporeans ITE and polytechnic diploma holders might take as long as five years before being able to tap on their SkillsFuture credits. Furthermore, for those affected or displaced by AI or the green transition, they would arguably need the same support as those in their middle-age. I hope that the Government can consider lowering the SkillsFuture Credit eligibility age down from the current 25 years old to empower more younger people to upskill and reskill, and to provide subsidised diplomas for those affected by AI and green transition. Beyond this, there would be instances, such as in legal services, where a degree is needed for career transition. Would the Government consider also providing subsidies for second degrees?

Next, companies must also be fair and transparent with their employees in the use of AI and how it would impact them. It is not desirable to stand in the way of progress, but it is equally undesirable to have sudden dislocation and displacement of workers. The failure to manage the transition well might cause disturbances as large as what the US automakers faced with strikes by workers concerned by the job losses due to the transition to EVs. It was also what happened with the Writers Guild of America strike.

"Just transition" also requires providing younger Singaporeans with more opportunities for transition. Career trials for younger Singaporeans can help in navigating a complex workplace. WSG Career Trial encourages jobseekers above the age of 16 to go through a short-term trial before considering formal employment. The supply and diversity of these trials are needed to cater to the broad interests of our students. Could the Government consider enhancing subsidies to host companies to increase the supply of such career trials?

NTUC has engaged more than 10,000 young people in a landmark Youth Task Force report last year to develop ways to help our younger Singaporeans. It launched the NTUC Career Starter Lab to enable our younger people to transition smoothly to the workforce via career trials and mentorship. The Labour Movement will always do its part alongside the Government to help our young workers.

Lastly, on overseas work exposure. It can equip our youth with invaluable skills and opportunities to pivot when necessary. We need to increase both the number and diversity of opportunities. For example, the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) inked the memorandum of understanding for the Singapore-Shanghai Lawyers Exchange Programme. Lawyers can learn new skills from their counterparts and also enter new markets. I hope that there can be more of such partnerships by other Ministries and businesses, especially that of our MNCs.

The Global Ready Talent Internship Programme encourages Singapore enterprises to train young local talent through local and overseas internships. Could the Ministry look into expanding the reach of the programme to more host companies, whether based in Singapore or otherwise? Perhaps there is scope to remove the 30% local shareholding condition to expand the reach of such programmes to our MNCs.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the future is tumultuous, but we can master it as we always had. In this new chapter, we need to help our young workers to put on the full armour of adaptability and resilience in a world whereby they may be assailed on all fronts.

We need to help our young workers understand the new economy's impact on their livelihoods and strengthen their career paths. In doing so, we can forge a path towards a more just, equitable and sustainable future. NTUC will remain alongside each and every worker through the uncertain times because #EveryWorkerMatters. Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Motion. [Applause.]

Mr Speaker: Ms Yeo Wan Ling.

4.55 pm

Ms Yeo Wan Ling (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Mr Speaker, our Labour MPs and I bring to Parliament with us today the challenges, dreams and hopes of our hardworking, dedicated Singaporean workers, many who have charted rewarding careers by dedicating themselves to their crafts and trades, many who have shouldered resolutely, the weight of their work responsibilities with the gravity of their familial caregiving duties, and even so, the rising class of gig and platform workers who are bravely charting new work norms and pushing boundaries on fair treatment and safety nets for retirement and workplace injuries.

As our workforce ages and the aspirations of our workers changes, our Workers' Compact – our social and economic contract with our workers – must be renewed such that working towards better wages, welfare and work prospects continue to be a collective goal for workers, employers and the Government. In this respect, the NTUC concluded a year-long conversation with our workers, 42,000 workers to be precise, to understand the dreams and challenges of our workers in modern day Singapore.

In our conversations, balancing caregiving duties with work responsibilities has become top of mind for our workers. In a Singapore that is ageing rapidly with a smaller family nucleus, more workers are now caring for their senior loved ones, young children and infirm family members. The going can get quite tough for our workers, many who are new generation two-shift workers. After a hard day’s work, they go home to immediately start on their second caregiving shifts at home, and it is Groundhog Day for as long as their loved ones need care.

Our Labour Movement knows the importance of building up a strong ecosystem to empower and equip our working caregivers to stay in their jobs. In 1977, the NTUC set up its first childcare centre, which would eventually become MyFirstSkool, an island wide network of kindergartens and childcare centres that facilitates mothers returning to work with a peace of mind.

Since 2012, our Labour Movement had advocated better workplace conditions for nursing mothers under our Project Liquid Gold. We have called for family care and eldercare leave to be made mandatory since 2013, with one of the first calls being made by none other than Mdm Halimah Yacob herself. Recently, I also made a call to employers to extend family care leave to include caring for aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces.

And yet, even with all of these, we recognise that FWAs would be a critical pillar in this ecosystem of support for our caregivers. In a recent NTUC Women and Family-PAP Women’s Wing survey of some 3,000 working caregivers, close to 90% said that FWAs would be a very important factor for them to choose to stay or return to the workplace. Indeed, the Unions have been advocating for FWAs since 1995, when we introduced FWAs in our collective agreement negotiations. With over 12,000 companies being signatories to the 2017 Tripartite Standards for Flexible Work Arrangements, and the tailwinds afforded by COVID-19, the time is now to make FWAs a workplace norm.

At the heart of successful FWAs, a culture of trust must be created in the workplace. Workers must be responsible in the use and request of FWAs and be accountable for work outcomes as agreed with employers. Employers must create a culture sustainable for FWAs, redesigning their jobs for flexi-load, flexi-time and flexi-place, and re-engineering their organisations and management to embrace FWAs. I believe employers see FWAs as a tenable, sustainable way to retain and attract talent, but some of our SMEs may find it challenging to implement this on the ground in a productive manner.

For employers, FWAs must lead to productivity gains. The NTUC, together with its partners, like the Institute for Human Resources Professionals, have started on this process of equipping and enabling our more progressive companies. Unionised companies keen to use FWAs for talent management and productivity have strategised and reorganised themselves through CTCs and facilitated roadmapping exercises with the NTUC.

One such company is Chye Thiam Maintenance (CTM), which is unionised under our Building Construction and Timber Industries Employees' Union. CTM piloted, with the NTUC's Women and Family Unit, the "C U Back at Work" programme and this is aimed at attracting women caregivers to return to the workplace.

Using a mix of a paid pre-employment training programme, with flexi-time and flexi-place work arrangements, the programme has since attracted some 800 women returners into its prospective pipeline. This success did not come easy, as the company had to re-engineer its HR processes and is now embarking on a digital scheduling programme.

In order to make FWAs a workplace norm, we must equip our companies with the necessary resources and expertise to execute this to achieve win-win employer-worker outcomes. This means availing organisational excellence tools and consulting expertise to our SMEs. This means providing our SMEs with plug-and-play technology software for managing flexi-time and flexi-place schedules. This means facilitating SMEs with training programmes to upskill their workers and their potential pipeline of workers. I call on the Government to consider FWAs as a critical workplace priority and to invest more resources to guide and equip our companies on its roll-out.

Mr Speaker, I would now like to touch on another important refresh in our new Workers' Compact, that of protecting and caring for our vulnerable workers. Many of our workers have chosen gig work and the shared economy as it affords them the gift of flexibility, and there is a certain romanticism in being able to have full control of your work life. But is this really true?

Unlike the self-employed workers or "towkays" from yesteryears, most who run sole-proprietorships and are in control of their charge rates and their opening and closing hours, the majority of our platform workers today, such as private hire drivers, our delivery riders, by virtue of the fact that they depend on a shared platform with set rules and business guidelines for their livelihoods, are often subject to management controls by these platforms. While we argue that our drivers and riders can choose to move on to another platform if one fails them, the fact of the matter is that all platforms have their own set of rules and business priorities which our platform workers need to adhere to.

Over the weekend, I had a "lo hei" and kopi chat with some of our riders in Punggol. Our riders shared with me that due to the way that some platforms structure their incentives, which directly affects their livelihoods, many riders end up having to work seven days in a week. This is to achieve their incentive levels and not to "lose" the levels they have already achieved. Some expressed their angst on what they call "glitches" on the platform apps, where they do not get as many jobs as they get nearer to their incentives goals or are assigned jobs that are far away when actually, there are delivery riders nearby.

I also learnt that our riders are penalised if they are late to report to their shifts. Yes, by the way, most platforms organise their riders by shift timings and our riders have to vie for the shift timings that they want. And they tell me that they can be fined, even if they are late by mere seconds. One rider shared that he was fined for being two minutes late.

Mr Speaker, in the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives, even I find myself, at times, sliding into meetings one or two minutes late. I cannot fathom how stressful this is for our riders, battling traffic and road conditions and areas with poor signals.

I recall meeting Mr K, and this is not his real name, a food delivery rider several times over the past three years. Mr K has late-stage cancer, but together with his family, have decided that he would continue work for as long as he can as a delivery rider. Over the years, he has shown me how worried he is about his healthcare and retirement expenditures, and his family has reached out to me to find out more about CPF top-ups and the CPF Matched Retirement Savings Scheme.

Lately, Mr K ran into an issue with his platform partner. He had missed a message from the platform, relaying that they had moved earlier the last date of collection for the vouchers that he had rightfully earned as part of his incentives. It was $250 in vouchers and, even with several appeals and appeals from the Delivery Association and explanations of his poor medical condition, the platform refused to budge on their decision to not give him the vouchers. In the end, we assisted Mr K financially, locally from the community.

As more Singaporeans choose to be in the shared economy and as more platform companies take root in Singapore and evolve their business models, our platform workers, their rights as workers and their grievances and aspirations must be represented in better, more impactful ways.

The Advisory Committee on Platform Workers has recommended the need to set workplace injury and retirement safety nets for our workers, many who are vulnerable, like Mr K. I call for additional protections and representation for our workers in the areas of earnings, benefits and welfare. More transparency must be given by the platforms. For platform workers wishing to transit out of platform work, we must also prep for their long-term career resilience with upskilling. I call for more accessibility to upskilling courses for our platform workers and livelihood support, while they are undergoing training.

Mr Speaker, I will now touch on a very resilient group of workers who have kept our nation going, despite, sometimes, being taken for granted by the public eye. I am referring to our skilled tradesmen in professions, like plumbing, electrical work, air-conditioning servicing and mechanical repairs. Our skilled tradesmen and women have forged fulfilling careers over the years, but as Singapore transformed itself economically over the years, these taken-for-granted but essential trades are at risk of a diminishing Singaporean worker base. We must continue to make these trades viable and exciting, with visible and attainable career pathways to attract new talent.

My work at the NTUC has allowed me to engage with our trade guilds and societies, and these engagements have yielded pragmatic insights into the matter. Given that master tradesmen are forged from a blend of strong foundations in theory and practical unique ground experiences, it makes sense that we strengthen and put into the foreground our apprenticeship programmes once again. Guilds and unions are good grounds for finding master tradesmen and coupled with training programmes and institutions, apprenticeship programmes will allow for clear career pathways to be articulated and good livelihoods to be built – a career progression model!

Besides youth workers, this also has good potential to be a second spring for our mid-careerists looking for a change in profession. The Singapore Plumbing Society recognised this and, with NTUC's facilitation, completed a roadmapping exercise earlier to structure training and career pathways for new members into the trade. We have seen some good, early successes of attracting younger plumbers into the trade, many who have gone on to become their own bosses in the plumbing world.

I call on the Government to support our skilled trades and crafts by partnering with our guilds and unions in making skilled trades an exciting career choice once again, for our youths and mid-careerists. More training funding support through the SkillsFuture mechanism can be availed to individuals embarking on such apprenticeship programmes.

Mr Speaker, NTUC cares for our workers and we will continue to work with our tripartite partners to support our workers and the Budget with impactful and innovative programmes. Every worker matters. And with that, I support the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Ms Jean See.

5.08 pm

Ms See Jinli Jean (Nominated Member): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to join the debate. News platform, TODAY, reported that 13% of 1,000 plus Singapore workers surveyed by job portal Indeed.com were actively moonlighting in 2023. They had done so because they feared being stranded should they be retrenched. In the same TODAY report, one such individual, Mr Wong, aptly summed up this sentiment, "Nothing is certain. Businesses fail and people get retrenched", he said, "If one job doesn't work out, the other hopefully will."

Unlike employees who have a stable job and moonlight as a "back-up", freelancers have no back-up plans. Their work embodies a continual series of gigs, without assurance of job and income security.

Budget 2024 made significant policy shifts to better position our people and workers for the future. How might we, as a society, pave the way forward for our freelancers who may not fit into traditional employment and progression pathways? After all, own account workers make up close to 10% of the local workforce, with nearly 200,000 doing this as their main job.

Mr Speaker, we need to do more to strengthen the lattices that empower and support our freelance workers. This matters most where freelancing is the dominant mode of work, such as the creative, media, coaching and platform work sectors. Allow me to outline to the House three precarities facing freelancers from these sectors and suggest five approaches in response.

First, given the prevalence of sub-contracting, it is important to reinforce fair norms to address the precarity of the freelancer. In the post-pandemic economy, firms are increasingly turning to micro-firms and freelancers for operational needs. To achieve more with less, established firms in creative and media sectors would often parcel out work to micro-firms. Micro-firms would, in turn, rope in freelancers. This lean sourcing approach is prevalent in the coaching sector, be it sports, art, enrichment or wellness coaching.

This trend is concerning. Some established firms that are main contractors have been passing on significant financial risks to micro-firms and freelancers through the sub-contracting model. Allow me to share an actual case. From late-2023, NTUC's Visual, Audio, Creative Content Professionals Association (VICPA) that I serve, has been helping a group of freelance creative and media professionals to recover a six-figure sum in total from a production micro-firm, Company A.

These freelancers were owed fees for their work on the past two years' projects, which Company A was a sub-contractor. What was concerning were two terms imposed by a main contractor on Company A: one, Company A was to finance the project from the outset at a tune of $30,000 to $50,000 per project; and two, Company A could only collect all payment after project completion, and this could be three to six months later. Payment was also subject to the main contractor and client's full satisfaction with the project delivery.

Although such onerous terms had surfaced on occasions before the pandemic, Company A and fellow creative and media micro-firms shared that these terms became the norm post-pandemic, as part of the de-risking strategy of established firms.

So how did this impact Company A and the freelancers it contracted? Like other micro-firms, Company A was lean in staff and in cash. It tapped on freelancers for multiple concurrent projects and borrowed from banks and fintech firms to finance the projects. Company A started delaying payments to its freelancers to muster enough cash to cover pressing loan instalments and the exorbitant lending rates of fintech firms.

What alarmed me was that, just some months earlier, NTUC's National Instructors and Coaches Association (NICA), which I also serve, had handled a similar case, but in the wellness coaching sector. In the case handled by NICA, those owed payments were freelance exercise instructors.

In both cases, the main contractors in question were adopters of the Tripartite Standards relevant to contracting and/or procuring services from freelancers. This meant that both firms, which were established and reputable for their works, had pledged to be progressive employers and service buyers.

Although the relevant Tripartite Standards guide adopters to make part-payment to sub-contractors at project milestones, both main contractors did not do so. Fellow Parliamentarian, Mr Ang Wei Neng, raised the same bugbear yesterday. Ultimately, the main contractors' inaction impacted the most vulnerable party in the link, the freelance worker.

As firms continue their march to de-risk, could the Government consider levelling up and validating the Tripartite Standards that guide businesses to be fair and ethical, when contracting with freelancers and micro-firms?

This would introduce baseline protection for the thousands of freelance workers in the creative, media and coaching sectors, many of whom undertake work on fees and terms communicated through skimpy text messages. This is commonplace because buyers are reluctant to write down agreements and freelancers are hesitant to insist. The Tripartite Standards that guide contracting with freelancers state that contracting parties should ink proper written agreements. Proceeding without a proper written agreement means that freelancers would have a hard time pursuing payments, should buyers default.

To uphold the relevant Tripartite Standards, the Government could take a step in the direction of the Progressive Wage Mark (PW Mark). MOM's PW Mark ensures that accredited firms and their sub-contractors compensate low-wage workers fairly. In the same vein, the Government, as a buyer, could request its main contractors for creative, media or coaching work to adopt and uphold the Tripartite Standards' terms on contracting with freelancers, regardless of whether the freelancers were contracted directly or through sub-contractors.

As in the case of the PW Mark, established firms that are the main contractors must, in turn, ensure the micro-firms that are their sub-contractors adopt and institute the relevant Tripartite Standards. By taking deliberate steps to reinforce fair norms, the Government can take the lead to curb freelancer precariousness arising from prevalent post-pandemic sub-contracting.

Second, many freelancers are subject to power imbalance with service buyers and face stagnated rates. Even with the rising costs of business, freelancers in creative, media and coaching sectors share that it is an uphill battle to ensure their rates keep pace with costs. Indeed, many reported that their rates had stagnated or declined slightly. Why so?

Seasoned freelancers have observed that, in recent years, project budgets have shrunk in tandem with intensified company restructuring and price competition. Those affected by layoffs are also competing for freelance assignments. Other freelancers noted that clients now expect them to do more work for the same rates. Despite the feelings of inequity, the power imbalance between buyer and freelancer means that freelancers have little choice but to oblige with buyer-dictated rates and terms.

These trends have led to eroding hourly rates for many freelancers in the creative, media and coaching sectors, including those contracted directly or through sub-contractors for Government-commissioned work. With fewer opportunities and unstable earnings, freelancers' decision-making for their finances can be hampered, for instance, choosing between setting aside monies for emergency funds for unexpected life events and investing in their business.

Some may even deprioritise purchasing insurance against workplace injuries and work liabilities, although such expenditure is necessary for peace of mind. If take-home earnings are unpredictable, freelancers would rather work than make time and effort to upskill or to market themselves. This, in turn, compromises freelancers' ability to build a sustainable business model.

Freelancers have asked if the Government could consider their predicament, akin to the consideration by the Government to platform workers, including allowing platform workers to seek collective representation.

In the context of the creative, media and coaching sectors, the Government, in its capacity as service buyer, could engage representative freelancer-centred associations, such as NICA and VICPA, on changes to the cost of business for coaches and creatives and to set guidelines and principles on fair remuneration. This allows the less visible yet vulnerable group of workers to collectively address the market gap. It would also provide the relevant Government bodies useful insights to update budgets for fair and equitable procurement of services from these freelancers and micro-firms.

Therefore, to build sustainable and viable freelancing livelihoods and careers, I propose that MOM update the 2018 Tripartite Workgroup's recommendations on support for self-employed persons. Much has changed since 2018. Freelancers today must navigate perennial issues, such as inadequate insurance coverage, alongside new vulnerabilities, such as onerous obligations and unfair terms of buyers or suppliers.

I hope that an updated set of recommendations would provide freelancers and freelancer-centred associations for coaches, creatives and platform workers with pathways for expedient and affordable recourse against unfair terms, such as unreasonable leasing claims and the lack of work insurance provision or clear articulation on work safety protection.

Third, without a stable income stream and entitlements that employees have, freelancers are doubtful about their readiness and financial ability to weather life events. Freelancers can gain from a boost in terms of support for upskilling and caregiving.

Budget 2024 is about uplifting workers and supporting workers with upskilling. These concepts apply to freelancers, too. Freelancers coping with ageing parents seek enhanced support while those who seek to remain relevant in tandem with economic forces seek funding support for agile upskilling. Allow me to elaborate.

First, enhancing support. Many freelancers want to do right by their ageing parents. Many hope to fulfil their ageing parents' wish to age-in-place. To freelancers, supporting their parents to age-in-place means spending more time on caregiving and less time on income-earning. Over time, these freelancers might have to contend with depleted CPF and savings, reduced client base and poorer financial resilience. Caregivers who put in the hard work of caring for their loved ones at home should be recognised and supported, and not left alone to worry about their own future.

Today, caregiving grants help families with caregiving expenses. We need to do more to take care of those who care for others. We need to assure them that their own retirement adequacy is assured even as they make hard trade-offs to forgo work opportunities. How might we help to alleviate the financial stress that arises when freelancers trade work for time and mind-space for caregiving?

Next, how might we introduce funding for agile upskilling by freelancers? The World Economic Forum estimated that 1.1 billion jobs could be radically transformed by technology in this decade. This would include jobs done by freelancers. Many expect AI to transform work in the creative, media and coaching fields. To employees, job scopes guide their work, whereas, to stay valuable, freelancers must quickly assimilate trends and technology to their methods.

Freelancers, too, are concerned about the pace of change and whether their business models can keep up. An agile approach to training is one that allows freelancers to right-skill just in time. This requires the Government to allow and invite practitioners to take the lead in proposing what to train and how to train, especially if the know-how must be contextualised for the sector or profession.

Thus, I hope that the Government, in particular, the Ministries and agencies overseeing the creative, media and coaching sectors, could consider working closely with NICA and VICPA, NTUC's affiliated associations for coaches and creatives, to develop freelancer-centred training support. Parties could proactively curate right-skill just-in-time training and tie in subsidies and credits. This ensures that cash-tight freelancers can afford the out-of-pocket training costs. The SkillsFuture Level-Up programme is a step in the right direction and would be valuable to freelancers if it could be expanded to cater to their career fields. NTUC cares because every freelancer matters. I, therefore, urge the Tripartite Partners to step forward and take action together.

Mr Speaker, I will now conclude. To recap, freelancers, particularly those in the creative, media and coaching sectors, are stressed by three precarities. First, the post-pandemic sub-contracting model threatens freelancers' income security. Second, stagnated rates demoralise freelancers and erode their ability to sustain their livelihood. Third, freelancers with less resources struggle to adapt to life stage needs and macroeconomic changes.

To address these three precarities, I hope the Government could consider five approaches.

First, levelling up and validating the Tripartite Standards that guide businesses to be fair and ethical when contracting with freelancers and micro-firms. In the same vein, could the Government, as a buyer, request its main contractors and their sub-contractors for creative, media or coaching work to adopt and uphold the Tripartite Standards' terms on contracting with freelancers?

Second, in the Government’s capacity as a service buyer, engage the representative freelancer-centred associations, such as NICA and VICPA, on changes to the cost of business for coaches and creatives. This allows a less visible yet vulnerable group of workers to collectively address the market gap.

Third, relook at and refresh the 2018 Tripartite Workgroup’s Recommendations on support for self-employed persons. The updated set of recommendations could provide freelancers and freelancer-centred associations for coaches, creatives and platform workers with pathways for expedient and affordable recourse against unfair terms, including unreasonable vehicle leasing claims.

Fourth, have caregiving grants go beyond defraying caregiving expenses. Grants should recognise caregivers' labour and provide assurance for their retirement adequacy.

Fifth, work with NICA and VICPA to help freelancers keep pace with industry changes and seize opportunities. For example, develop targeted training support for freelancers alongside subsidies to cover both training and opportunity costs.

Freelancers make up close to one in 10 of Singapore's resident workers. Budget 2024 charts a new chapter for workers. In step with tripartism and an inclusive vision of success, these five approaches would boost freelancers' long-term capabilities and their confidence for the future. Mr Speaker, notwithstanding the points raised, I support the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Mr Fahmi Aliman.

5.24 pm

Mr Mohd Fahmi Aliman (Marine Parade): Speaker, Sir, this has traditionally been a time when we, as a nation, delineate our goals and aspirations for the year ahead. It is thus imperative that we renew our commitment and resolve to uplift society, as Singaporeans contend with job insecurity amid the rising cost of living.

I am uplifted by the central theme of this year's Budget: "Building our shared future together". As we continue to find ways to deal with the ever-evolving nature of world affairs, we must also set our eyes on how we can insulate and protect vulnerable Singaporeans from external shocks.

My esteemed colleagues and I in the Labour Movement strongly support and welcome the plethora of measures introduced to alleviate the hardships that Singaporeans have experienced as a result of the external shocks, primarily from the ongoing conflicts around the world as well as improve all facets of society, amid increasing job insecurity and rising cost of living.

Nonetheless, I reckon that there are sufficient opportunities and scope to assist vulnerable workers better amid evolving global developments, especially our lower-wage workers. The best way to help workers cope with cost of living is through better wages and better jobs.

Speaker, Sir, in this speech, I will elaborate on how to further support our low-wage workers and also update on the M³ focus areas for efforts in assisting Malay/Muslims in the areas of employment and employability.

Low-wage workers are the backbone of our society as they keep Singapore going. Engaged in the vital sectors, such as retail, hospitality and cleaning, they contribute significantly to the daily operations. Their efforts uphold essential services, ensuring the functionality of the economy. Therefore, recognising their importance and challenges is crucial in fostering economic resilience and societal well-being.

Last year, I reiterated that the formation of the Tripartite Workgroup on lower-wage workers is a testament to our commitment to ensure that the interests of our lower-wage workers are protected. For the past years, the collective support from various stakeholder groups to uplift the incomes of our lower-wage workers has been encouraging. For example, the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) enhancements, effective since January last year, were lobbied by NTUC to address rising costs of living. Last week, the Government also announced that lower-wage workers who earn $3,000 or less will be eligible for WIS in January 2025.

The changes in WIS reflect the NTUC's strong commitment to support lower-wage workers. NTUC, alongside our Tripartite Partners and various other stakeholder groups, will continue to remain committed to helping workers improve their income security and quality of life and give them confidence in navigating their careers, equipping them to participate in the new growth opportunities.

But how can we work towards this goal and what are some areas we can continue to look into?

Firstly, the current practice of resetting benefits during contractual changes may provide flexibility for employers to adapt to evolving business needs, assuring alignment with job roles. However, this practice creates a sense of job insecurity and financial instability, especially for lower-wage and re-employed individuals. It undermines the principle of recognising an employee's length of service, neglecting the dedication and experience they bring to the workplace. Hence, it can lead to demotivation, reduced job satisfaction and higher turnover rate.

Advocating force for change is essential to ensure a fair and supportive work environment fostering stability and acknowledging the contributions of all workers. Therefore, I call on the Government to consider ringfencing lower-wage workers to protect them from associated problems stemming from the practice of resetting benefits during contractual changes.

Recognising the length of service at the workplace is crucial, ensuring that employees, including re-employed staff, performing the same job receive fair and consistent treatment in terms of wages and benefits. This approach promotes job stability, motivates employees and enhance overall job satisfaction. It contributes to the more equitable and supportive work environment, aligning with the principles of fairness and recognition for long-serving individuals. Enforcing these measures will foster a positive work culture and reinforce the Government's commitment to the welfare of its workforce.

Secondly, in the spirit of continuing to help lower-wage workers through PWM, I echo the call from Member Melvin Yong. NTUC has identified two sectors for the implementation of PWM, namely, strata and facilities management as well as pest management. These sectors, such as cleaning and security, are outsourced sectors facing common challenges, such as cheap sourcing, which drives down wages.

NTUC has conducted several engagements with stakeholders in the respective sectors and the response has been very encouraging thus far. The Labour Movement will continue to explore the inclusion of these sectors within PWM and would like to call upon all our Tripartite Partners to work with us to do so.

The Labour Movement appreciates the Government's enhancements to the Progressive Wage Credit Scheme (PWCS), including raising the wage ceiling for co-funding from $2,500 to $3,000 in qualifying years 2025 and 2026, and enhancing co-funding levels for wage increases given in 2024. We believe that this enhanced funding support from the Government is timely and will be pivotal transitional wage support for employers to adjust to upcoming mandatory wage increases for low-wage workers covered by Progressive Wage and Local Qualifying Salary (LQS) requirements.

Lastly, and on a related note, it is imperative that we look at parallel efforts to raise the LQS. The Labour Movement welcomes the Government's move to raise the LQS to $1,600 in July this year, up from $1,400 previously. This adjustment not only protects the financial interests of the workforce but also reinforces the principle that gainful employment should provide a standard of living that reflects the economic realities of the society in which it operates. In doing so, the LQS contributes to maintaining fair labour practices and fostering a more equitable and sustainable labour market.

Therefore, I call on the LQS to be perennially reviewed, especially amid global uncertainty. By aligning the LQS with the rising cost of living, authorities aim to ensure that employees receive salaries that are commensurate with the economic demands of the time. Mr Speaker, Sir, in Malay please.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] In the M³ Focus Area 4 framework, we will continue to engage Malay/Muslims, with the aim to bridge workers to employment and employability opportunities, enhancing their capability through skills upgrading and lifelong learning, and reach out to different segments of jobseekers. On a micro level, we are targeting specific groups, namely the platform workers, women, mature workers and the youth vis-à-vis career fairs, workshops and consultations. These platforms aim to exhort career and training opportunities, broaden their understanding of jobs in demand and skills required, and access job opportunities in the growing sectors.

As workers' aspirations evolve, our workers' compact, our socioeconomic contract with our workers must be renewed to achieve better wages, welfare and work prospects, which remains as a collective goal for workers, employers and the Government. NTUC, with WSG and MENDAKI, through career fairs and the recent Jobs and Skills Carnival, more than 5,000 Malay/Muslim workers were engaged and close to 20% them had received further coaching and guidance through Focus Area 4’s initiatives. This includes support in, namely, career guidance, job matching and upskilling opportunities.

MENDAKI has referred over 140 participants from Women At Work (W@W) to NTUC’s e2i for job assistance from January to December 2023. In conjunction with reintegration efforts by MENDAKI and other employment partners, close to 60 participants have successfully secured a job largely in sectors, such as education, healthcare, engineering, IT and finance.

Apart from employment opportunities, NTUC also provides upskilling avenues that make every worker a better worker and every job a better job. Lifelong learning is a process of acquiring new skills and knowledge throughout one’s life, for personal or professional development. NTUC LearningHub (LHub)offers quality training solutions to help workers thrive and remain resilient in today’s digitally transformed economy and beyond.

An individual who I would like to highlight is Ms Siti Nur Indra Jalal, 29 years old, formerly a financial advisor for five years with a desire to return to the corporate world through pivoting into a new sector. However, acquiring a new job was both challenging and daunting, especially during the pandemic period. To enhance her employability, Ms Indra enrolled into a six-month Community and Partnership Specialist programme at NTUC LHUB and is currently working as a Project Manager in Cybersecurity for an organisation. She intends to continue upgrading and equipping herself with essential skills through the courses provided by NTUC LHUB. This shows that where there is a will, there will always be a way.

From the reference above, it is a good example of a mid-career switch, and it is highly plausible, especially with the newly introduced Level-up programme by Skillsfuture for Singaporeans aged 40 and above. A top up of $4,000 in May 2024 and the Mid-Career Enhanced Subsidy is a boost for individual to continue upskill and seek better employability outcomes. In addition, the monthly allowance of up to $3,000, up to 24 months, for selected full-time courses under the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Training Allowance will be welcomed by many. Therefore, I urge Singaporeans to take full advantage on the readily available programmes to level up oneself and gain better employability.

NTUC, alongside our tripartite partners and various other stakeholder groups, will remain committed to helping workers improve their income security and quality of life. These include ensuring financial protection for workers in case of work injury, improving housing and retirement adequacy, and enhancing representation for a brighter future.

(In English): Speaker, Sir, in closing, this year's Budget theme, "Building a Shared Future Together", has ignited a collective commitment to navigate global complexities and safeguard vulnerable Singaporeans. While applauding the Government's efforts to alleviate hardships, we must recognise opportunities for targeted support, particularly for lower-wage workers and communities.

Looking ahead, our focus would remain on addressing the challenges faced by the vulnerable workers, emphasising better wage and improved job opportunities as a solution to rising cost of living. With unwavering dedication, NTUC stands ready to champion the interests of Singaporean workers. NTUC cares for the well-being of our workers coping with the rising living expenses and is committed to enhancing wages, conditions and better support to improve quality of life. Rest assured, NTUC cares and will take action for you, with you, because Every Worker Matters.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Senior Minister of State Heng Chee How.

5.38 pm

The Senior Minister of State for Defence (Mr Heng Chee How): Mr Speaker, thank you for allowing me to join this debate. My fellow labour MPs have spoken for various segments of workers. I will focus on advancing the interests of older workers.

Workers aged 55 and above make up more than a quarter of our resident workforce today. The Government and the tripartite partners have done a lot for our older workers over the years. From lengthening employment to strengthening employability and augmenting retirement needs, there had been significant progress over the years. This was even so during the COVID-19 years, in sharp contrast to what happened in many other economies where many of their older workers lost their jobs and have the problem of coming back.

For the immediate term, older workers face the cost-of-living pressures like everyone else. And I thank the Government for the Assurance Package and other cost-defraying measures in this and past Budgets to help Singaporeans cope with this pressure. The help was timely and very well-received.

Beyond the immediate pressures, older workers genuinely worry about other developments and for today, I will highlight three.

First, they worry. There is the worry about the efficacy of ensuring longer work spans by just legislating higher retirement and re-employment ages. Why? Because such legislation, important as they are, may likely come under pressure if it is not effectively combined with skills-building.

Two, the risk of skills obsolescence is increasing with accelerating changes in technology and business models. For example, some industries are facing structural shifts, such as those brought about by the green transition and others. The pervasive impact of AI on how work will be carried out is also not a trivial matter for workers. And this will increase the risk of premature displacement, despite legislated retirement and re-employment ages.

Third, there continues to be ground feedback about the relative lack of equitable opportunity and access to training and skills upgrading for older workers compared to their younger counterparts. In NTUC's Every Worker Matters focus groups, six in 10 older workers who participated felt so. They felt a relative lack of opportunity for training and skills-building compared to their younger counterparts.

These challenges must be properly addressed so that our joint aim of enabling older workers to continue working and saving for retirement is not undermined by the evolving demographics in our country and by big environmental changes worldwide. I thank the Finance Minister for announcing the next calibrated increase in CPF contribution rates for older workers aged 55 to 65 in this Budget and this will certainly help grow their CPF funds faster.

We, the NTUC, are also grateful for the enhancements to the Silver Support Scheme, the Matched Retirement Savings Scheme and specific initiatives under the Majulah Package, such as the Earn and Save Bonus, the Retirement Saving Bonus and the MediSave Bonus. All these efforts will increase the CPF savings of older workers and make for greater security in retirement.

However, it remains true that the most material way to help older workers financially in retirement is by adding to the effective working years and, here, I stress the world "effective" as opposed to legislated.

During NTUC's Every Worker Matters Conversations organised last year, we asked older workers who participated what they hoped to do when they reach the current retirement age of 63. Out of the 10 who were there, eight and a half of them would say that they wanted to continue working and, out of these eight and a half, or 85% of the older workers who participated in our conversations, six out of the eight and a half, hoped to continue working in their current jobs or in the current industry where they have accumulated experience and value.

Many also asked when the Government will announce the next increase in statutory retirement and re-employment ages, since there is still a gap between the current ages and the goal of reaching the retirement age of 70 and the re-employment age of 65 by the year 2030. And just to remind fellow Members here, these 2030 goals of statutory retirement age of 65 and statutory re-employment age ceiling of 70 was the work of the Tripartite Workgroup (Older Workers), whose report came out in 2019, and the roadmap was endorsed.

It is now 2024. I, therefore, call on the Government to announce the next step increase in the retirement and re-employment ages soonest and to give reasonable notice to both business and workers, so that both sides can get ready in good time. We should act promptly because we are already practically halfway there in terms of timeframe so that we can implement the next increase by, say, in two years' time, that is, by 2026. I believe this is the pace that we need in order to reach those agreed goals by the year 2030, given the uncertainties that are inherent in the economic environment worldwide.

Next, I will speak on the subject of equity in opportunity and access to training so as to minimise the risk of premature displacement of our older workers. Sir, when older workers expressed their hope to be able to continue working, they also shared their anxieties about this forced obsolescence, this being rendered "out of date" and then really rust away. NTUC found that more than nine in 10 older workers, besides wanting to continue working, they want to be continually trained. These workers knew that training was critical to their remaining relevant in their jobs and they particularly worry about access to training opportunities.

I thank the Finance Minister for announcing the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme for all Singaporeans aged 40 and above, aimed particularly at programmes and courses that would enhance employability. This shows that the Government is alive to the important nexus between the older workers' training and their employment and their employability. Relevance is as salient as legislation in terms of bringing about an increase in effective working years.

The question is, how to make that happen? Of course, funding is important. That is why the Budget is important. Yet, together with funding and for real outcomes, effective implementation is also key. Therefore, we must scale-up mechanisms that can ensure actual implementation according to the intent in the workplace. This is why I fully support fellow labour MP Desmond Tan's call for employers to quickly work with the NTUC and our unions to form CTCs. Through active CTCs, businesses can transform faster and workers of all ages can be helped to be trained in relevant skills and to be able to grow with the companies.

And, here, I again thank the Government for the $100 million funding to NTUC to scale-up CTCs in order to achieve real outcomes for all stakeholders. I also want to thank Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat for recognising the value of the CTCs in his speech earlier today. From NTUC, we pledge to work ever more closely with the Government in order to roll this out, not only in numbers but in effectiveness in order that we might be able to help as many workers as soon as possible.

I ask all employers to form CTCs soonest and to work with NTUC and our unions to ensure that workers of all ages are given fair opportunity to be well-trained. These workers will then help energise your company's growth.

The third area that needs tackling is that of age bias. Older workers worry about age bias in several areas, namely, access to training as I mentioned, the availability of flexible work arrangements, so that they continue working while seeing to care needs and fair consideration as job seekers after being displaced. Empirical research suggests that these fears about age bias have basis, and it requires tackling. For this reason, I look forward to the Workplace Fairness legislation and the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangements Requests that the Government will be introducing.

The Workplace Fairness legislation will build on existing tripartite mechanisms, such as the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP), the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) and relevant joint guidelines to give even greater confidence or fair play to workers. This will be a strong national signal against various forms of workplace discrimination, including age bias. NTUC and our unions will work closely with employers to advance the interest of workers and companies.

Beyond workplaces, there is also a growing need to expand and scale-up viable, accessible care services to cater to a rapidly ageing population. In the context of my focus today, I argue that this is important not only for the health and well-being of our seniors but also for the employability of their middle-aged working family caregivers. More of these family caregivers may then not need to quit work in order to undertake their care duties or, at least, to delay such an eventuality. Every year of continued working will significantly help with the retirement adequacy of the caregiver. I urge the Government to work closely and intensively with trusted partners to further develop this ecosystem, so that Singapore and Singaporeans can truly enjoy the full benefits of better health, better care, better earnings and stronger retirement adequacy.

Mr Speaker, there is a saying that no one cares how much you know, till they know how much you care. NTUC stands with our older workers as they confront job insecurity and the risk of skills obsolescence. We care, not just by asking for more or just by asking someone else to solve the problem or waiting for an invitation. We put our ideas forward, we push for social change, make a real difference to their outcomes. Why?

Because our workers are waiting for us to do that, and we will get it going and get it done.

NTUC's approach is forward-looking, inclusive, action-oriented and practical, just like the PAP Government's. I believe that this is the right and best way to secure sustainable good outcomes for workers and for Singaporeans. Working closely with the Government and tripartite partners, we will together build a better, more caring Singapore for workers of all ages. Mr Speaker, I support the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Ms Mariam Jaafar.

5.51 pm

Ms Mariam Jaafar (Sembawang): Mr Speaker, I rise in support of the Budget.

In my speech today, I will first reflect on the asks I had made in Budget 2023; secondly, reiterate the critical role we, in this House, play in ensuring that we achieve sustained economic growth and put out a challenge to grow the economy at the top-end of the Government's target over the next decade; and thirdly, discuss the potential of AI to be a key engine of value creation and economic growth, and make four suggestions to this effect.

During last year's Budget debate, I spoke for three groups who I saw, among my Woodlands residents, were being pushed to the limit of any reasonable measure of resilience that we would hope to see in our people. I argued for a stronger trampoline for: one, ex-offenders, calling for more support to get them back into employment; two, people suffering from debt burdens – calling for social support measures to consider debt repayment needs; and three, people who had lost their jobs due to retrenchments, calling for higher quantums and longer durations of financial support and assistance with reskilling and finding new jobs.

I am heartened that, a year later, each of these groups is getting more support. In Budget 2023 itself, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced the Uplifting Employment Credit for employers to hire ex-offenders. Late last year, the Government announced the enhanced Comlink+ packages, which involved matching repayment to creditors.

And in Budget 2024, while we yet await the details, the Deputy Prime Minister reaffirmed the intention first announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to move forward with re-employment support to those in involuntary unemployment, alongside significant increases to reskilling support and training allowances.

So, in basketball lingo, I am three for three, and these shifts have been long time coming, and I think it has taken some time for the external environment to get us to this tipping point. But they are really good news for my Woodlands residents and for many other Singaporeans who need that stronger trampoline.

There is indeed much to welcome in this year's Budget, as colleagues before me have said. It is clear that Budget 2024 was developed with the vision of Forward SG, with the vision of a society that is vibrant and inclusive, fair and thriving, resilient and united and a growing economy.

It is this last point that I wish to stress today – a growing economy.

Mr Speaker, throughout my career, whether in business or in politics, I have been and remain, unapologetically, a proponent of growth. Growth allows us to provide our people and our enterprises with opportunities and better standards of living. Growth allows us to fund the increasing demand for spending on childcare, education, housing, infrastructure, healthcare and support for an ageing population. Growth allows us to tackle the greatest challenges of our time: climate change, energy transition, fighting inequality and the polarisation of society. Growth allows us to uplift each generation one after the next, securing cohesion and trust in society.

So, while it is well and good to talk about scrutiny and transparency and accountability and more support for every possible segment of our population, a critical role we must play in this House is to consider the impact of our interventions, our recommendations and our decisions on our ability to sustain the long-term growth of our economy.

Budget 2024 places significant emphasis on sustaining economic growth by keeping Singapore attractive as an investment destination, riding economic and technology trends to capture new opportunities and enhancing human capital. The Government aims to achieve an average of 2% to 3% GDP growth per annum over the next decade, with a focus on productivity and innovation, while recognising the constraints of labour, land and carbon.

Some might say that at our stage of our development and given the constraints we face, coupled with a less favourable external environment and global uncertainties, make it inevitable that we are entering into a slow growth era where eking out a 1% to 2% GDP growth is already an accomplishment. My humble challenge to the 4G leadership team is this: how might we achieve the top-end of that target and grow at 3%? What constraints should we challenge? Where might we take bolder action?

Mr Speaker, sustaining growth requires investment. I have noted earlier the significant and important investment in SkillsFuture Level-Up. I also welcome the commitments to invest in strengthening our competitive advantage through top-ups to RIE2025, the National Productivity Fund and the Financial Sector Development Fund.

The introduction of the Refundable Investment Credit addresses the need for more visibility and certainty for MNEs of how Singapore will retain its attractiveness as an investment destination in a BEPS 2.0 world, albeit perhaps a little belatedly, amid moves already announced by other jurisdictions, such as Japan, Thailand and the US.

For local enterprises, I am pleased to see that the Government is enhancing the Enterprise Financing Scheme, extending Skills Future Enterprise Credit and enhancing the Partnership for Capability Transformation Scheme, while also supporting enterprises to be sustainability-ready. These initiatives accord priority to enterprises that embrace the need to restructure and transform, enterprises that are willing to invest in restructuring and transformation.

In a world where technology is advancing rapidly, I welcome the investment in upgrading our national broadband network and in harnessing the power of AI across key sectors. I had hoped, however, to hear that we could unlock further development of data centre capacity.

But back to AI. Mr Speaker, I have spoken several times on AI and will devote the remainder of my speech today also to AI, because our ability to harness the full power of AI has the potential to boost productivity and propel us to the top-end of that GDP growth target over the long term. At this point, I declare my interest as the Managing Director and Senior Partner of a management consulting firm that does work in AI.

To support the National AI Strategy and to further catalyse AI activities, Budget 2024 sets out an investment of more than $1 billion over the next five years into AI compute, including, notably, in advanced chips, talent and industry development.

It seems that everyone has an opinion on AI today; whether we should develop our own large language model (LLM), whether we should pause on AI development, whether deepfakes should be regulated, and so on. My belief is that we should be very focused on how AI development can enable new business models and productivity gains and thus, create value in Singapore and beyond. We need to stay away from the hype and the noise, and anchor on value creation and on proven initiatives that will move the needle and not a bunch of what-ifs. To this end, I would like to offer four suggestions to shape our AI policy.

One, scaling AI with the 10-20-70 rule. Talk to any large company and they have probably run a few AI proofs of concept by now. Some have already invested on platforms and models. But companies today struggle to scale AI beyond pilots, and many of those platforms and models have nothing running on them. The news headlines are all about the models and the tech.

But if I may offer a practitioner's perspective, scaling AI requires a holistic effort. We call it the 10-20-70 rule: 10% of the effort is in the algorithms, the generative AI, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) models; 20% in the tech and IT foundations, the model infrastructure and machine learning operations (MLOps), data quality and availability, importantly, architecture design, app integration, cloud migration and other tools; but 70% is about people and processes, ways of working, business process reinvention, adoption at scale, organisation and talent strategy and change management. In order for enterprises to unlock value from AI, the Government can provide support for them to go beyond proofs of concepts and pilots to deploying AI at scale.

Two, navigating an evolving infra landscape. The technology is rapidly evolving and there will be new options and substitutes. Even in the area of chips, where one chip has emerged as the workhorse of the AI industry, other chipmakers and big cloud companies are developing and deploying their own chips specially designed for AI workloads, and one would expect the AI chip landscape and the cost of these chips to evolve significantly over the next 12 to 18 months. Moving from chips to platforms and models, in our work with companies to deploy enterprise scale-AI, we have often found that no one environment is the best for everything, whether it is in consideration of security, cost or feature set, and so on. So, let us be smart and strategic about what we invest in and when we invest.

Third, deploying high impact use cases. While the technology is important, the value only comes from deploying use cases at scale based on a thorough assessment of value and ease of deployment, both horizontal use cases like customer service, that can be adopted across industries, as well as vertical use cases in specific industries, like drug discovery in healthcare. There is significant potential to tackle a few, high impact use cases that reimagine how things are done, not only in an individual company but an entire sector, particularly in sectors where we are already advantaged, say, financial services or transport and logistics, to optimise at a system level and create new sources of differentiation and competitive advantage for Singapore in these sectors. Think, for example, of anti-money laundering using advanced AI/ML approaches that look at transaction data across banks, rather than a single bank, with greater accuracy and efficiency. The Government can be not only a catalyst, but an end-to-end orchestrator, pulling in multiple stakeholders to create new products and services that can create new value and revenue streams in Singapore and also in other markets.

Fourth, strengthening the role of the centre. While Ministries and agencies have the domain expertise and should drive the AI work in their respective sectors, there is a case to be made for having a strong centre that adds value by prioritising investments with the greatest public return, providing transparency and accountability, setting a coherent long-term strategy, challenging the Ministries and agencies on their AI priorities, removing barriers and resolving conflicts with other areas of the Government and drawing on best practices from across the Government and the private sector. So, I suggest that the AI and the National AI Strategy be made a priority of the Prime Minister, supported by a central team, with some parallels to the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO). This team can also provide functional leadership on the deployment of AI in internal functions across the Government and drive the end-to-end delivery of certain high impact use cases that can massively reduce cost and increase effectiveness in the Government itself.

There is, of course, another reason for a stronger role of the centre when it comes to AI. AI will not only have significant implications for the economy, businesses or even for public services, like healthcare and education. AI will also have far-reaching implications for workers and society in ways that could have long-term consequences we never imagined. The bleakest scenarios putting us on the path to a divided dystopia when machines replace man, the benefits accrue only to the rich minority, the middle class evaporates and a deep trust deficit leads to regular social and political instability.

How does the Government then confront these threats? Will there need to be, at some time in the future, a complete change in the way we look at social welfare, in the way we look at tax policy and in the way we think about trust? The complexities and cross-cutting issues involved will put a big strain on a model of Government based on a lead Ministry or lead agency, while a joint ownership model could be too fragmented. A strong centre is, therefore, needed to ensure fast and coordinated analysis, assessment and response that the public expects.

Mr Speaker, Budget 2024 reflects a refreshing boldness in growing our economy, something I must say has been a little muted in recent years. AI has to be a part of a bold but credible growth plan. Mr Speaker, I support the Budget.

Mr Speaker: Mr Derrick Goh.

6.04 pm

Mr Derrick Goh (Nee Soon): Mr Speaker, Sir, Budget 2024 is significant. It is the first Budget dedicated towards the goals of Forward Singapore, where Singaporeans collectively shape the next chapters on the way forward for our country. Although the world we live in is more complex and uncertain, I am confident that we can forge ahead with resilience and optimism. To this end, there are four key themes on this year's Budget and plans that I wish to highlight. One, sustaining fiscal and economic strength amid challenges and improving three key trends relating to: (a) accelerating local businesses' growth in the new economy; (b) thriving in a digital age; and (c) enhancing social resilience and empathy.

Singapore entered 2024 into a global landscape that is bleaker and more complex than prior years. Geopolitical tensions also remain heightened. The Russian-Ukraine war persists, along with a new crisis in the Middle East. China's economy remains soft, while Japan and the UK just entered into a technical recession with two quarters of declining growth. While some bright spots include the surprising strength of the US economy, the flipside is that the interest rate decline has not yet happened and is expected to be higher for slightly longer.

Such realities underscore the need for Singapore to remain united, supported by discipline and foresight in our Government's fiscal policies. I am, therefore, pleased that Budget 2024 is generous and, importantly, holistic. To me, the projected balanced fiscal position signals continued prudence while providing relief for immediate cost-of-living challenges and supporting longer-term capabilities, such as the upskilling of Singaporeans and business transformation.

Recognising the longer-term need to fund our future, I supported the GST increase in prior debates but requested more help for residents to cushion against higher inflation. Hence, I am heartened that our Government has continued to follow through on its commitment to support our people with the further enhancement of the Assurance Package. Many residents I engaged over the Lunar New Year celebrations, including those at private condominiums, have expressed appreciation for the support.

Sir, we must not take for granted our fiscal and economic strength, which has allowed us the capacity to navigate uncertainties better than other countries. Budget 2024 plans for a long-run GDP target growth of 2% to 3%, given Singapore's mature economy. As last year's growth was low at 1.1%, along with an outlook that remains challenging, can the Deputy Prime Minister share his thoughts on the sources and drivers of the factors supporting this more optimistic long-term growth forecast and how we can better achieve this target?

To sustain economic strength, our businesses must be able to seize opportunities as they come. Yet, they repeatedly highlight labour and talent shortages, and this is also echoed by the SBF, that contrasts against the reality of continued low birth rates that are below replacement levels and jobs that are unattractive to our citizens. How may the Forward Singapore ethos apply so that the pursuit of economic growth, which may require more talents and foreign labour, that is not at all costs?

While Government revenue in FY2023 was overall better than expected, I note that GST collections were $1 billion lower than estimated due to weaker imports. Should this continue, can the Deputy Prime Minister assure Singaporeans that other sources of revenue remain robust to support future expenditures and that there will be no further GST hikes in the foreseeable future?

The expected top-up of funds is $20.4 billion in FY2024. This follows from $24.3 billion in FY2023. The Deputy Prime Minister had explained last year that a considerable number of these funds were drawdown funds, where spending is certain to fulfil commitments today and on an ongoing basis. Can the Deputy Prime Minister clarify the time horizons for the utilisation of these funds to benefit Singaporeans? As the FY2022 figure was much lower at $6.3 billion, can the Deputy Prime Minister also share if he expects such higher levels of funding and if the run-rate going forward will be at these higher levels?

I now turn to focus on accelerating the growth of our local businesses and SMEs, as they are the backbone of Singapore's economy. Some business owners say that they face "cost of survival" pressures, in tandem with the high cost-of-living pressures faced by individuals. I, therefore, welcome the Budget's support measures that bolster near-term resilience, such as the 50% corporate income tax rebate as well as the newly introduced and generous $2,000 cash payout for non-profitable firms with at least one employee under the Enterprise Support Package. Enhancements to the Enterprise Financing Scheme are also noteworthy.

Notably, the Budget has avoided more populist moves by going beyond handouts to encourage SMEs to transform for the longer term. Businesses are, by nature, economic entities which transform the use of limited resource to produce goods and services that the market demands. Those who can do so are better off and thrive in this new digital and green economy. As such, I am glad to learn of the enhanced initiatives, such as allowing SMEs from more sectors to benefit from green loans and the Energy Efficiency Grant. This is consistent with my suggestion at last year's COS debate for Government support to be more inclusive on transformational initiatives.

Another key thrust of Budget 2024 is the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme. This is a decisive push for mid-career workers to upskill and reskill, so that they can contribute in higher-value jobs and more exciting roles, in line with the broader transformational agenda. Crucially, for SkillsFuture to be attractive, a mindset shift is also required by SMEs to see beyond the potential short-term constraints, like time-off given for staff development and, more importantly, to complement the programme by investing in training and job redesign for the longer term. This will be a win-win situation for SMEs and their employees.

Yet, while much is touted for SMEs to venture beyond their comfort zones, the fact is that transformation is challenging, especially in a high-cost environment, because the payback is uncertain and, often, not immediate. As such, more funding from the Budget, by itself, is insufficient. As most SMEs lack a dedicated strategy or training department, targeted facilitation is needed to guide them on how to effectively leverage Government support for meaningful transformation, so that they can learn by doing to build up expertise over time.

As the key nexus between the Government and SMEs in driving engagement and advisory, there is scope to improve the execution and effectiveness of SME centres and even TACs to support this agenda. I will elaborate on this at the Ministry of Trade and Industry's COS debate.

Sir, I will now turn to thriving in a digital age. Singapore has made significant strides in our progress towards becoming a Smart Nation. But as the technology space is ever-evolving rapidly, so must our efforts. So, I am heartened that Budget 2024 supports our National AI Strategy 2.0, in advocating for Singaporeans to see AI as a friend to increase productivity and enrich lives, instead of a foe that threatens livelihoods. As is always said, AI will not replace humans, but the person using AI will.

On the international stage, we are well-positioned to have an outsized influence on the responsible development of AI, amid bigger global powers competing for AI leadership. These are opportunities that Singapore must capture to stay relevant. Yet, while we pursue opportunities in AI and other frontier technologies on one end, we must have the right foundations in place, manage risks well and leave no one behind on the other.

As it is said, the art of progress is to preserve order amid changes and to preserve change amid order. While a myriad of services, such as healthcare, postal and transportation, continue to be refreshed by new technologies, with a "digital-first, but not digital-only approach", it is crucial for the pace of change to be well-ordered, thoughtful and empathetic, especially for our senior residents and vulnerable communities.

A digital society must also be reliable and secure for our residents and businesses to truly thrive within. As we mature as a digitalised nation, organisations must step up their service resiliency and recoverability, with more robust contingency and crisis management plans. As more systems become interconnected and interdependent, especially those in Government agencies that we rely on daily, greater IT-related and cybersecurity risks could have systemic impacts across our society and economy.

We will need to continue doubling down on multistakeholder efforts to bridge the digital divide as well as to manage the risks in this journey. The Public Accounts Committee, which I am a member of, has also highlighted these key points in its recent report. I hope more will be done in this area to frame future actions and public expectations.

With digitalisation, scams have increased and surged. From the Anti-Scam Command to the ScamShield app and the Online Criminal Harms Act, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has been relentless in its fight against the scourge of scams. This has helped to keep losses flat at $650 million last year. Nonetheless, the amount is still significant, and cases have soared by 46% to an unprecedented 46,000 cases!

I had previously emphasised the importance of an "all-hands-on-deck" approach by stakeholders in the ecosystem and would like to recognise the combined efforts of MHA, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), banks and telcos in reducing phishing scams and swiftly introducing measures to counter malware scams.

But that said, scams are most prevalent and increasing in areas, such as jobs, e-commerce and fake friend scams, where they exploit victims' emotions and psychology for them to willingly part with their money. Our agencies must be even more agile and responsive to combat scams with private sector and international partners. As this has been a key issue impacting public safety and trust and which my residents are concerned about, I hope to hear more targeted measures in this area.

Sir, lastly, I will touch on enhancing our social resilience and empathy.

Youths form a crucial part of our society and are the Singapore's future. The trend of drug abuse by youths is therefore worrying, as the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) reported more than half of new abusers arrested last year were below the age of 30. More concerning is that this trend extends from previous years, amid a backdrop of more permissive attitudes towards cannabis globally, as well as the continued emergence of new psychoactive substances and increasingly rampant use of vaporisers.

The formation of an Inter-Ministry Committee on Drug Prevention for Youths in 2023 was a good move. I look forward to its plans to curb this alarming trend.

Key to our social fabric, too, is community cohesion. Regrettably, the issue of noise has continued to cause friction in our neighbourhoods, with monthly complaints in the last year averaging over 2,000 cases, more than five times higher than pre-pandemic levels.

I spoke on this issue at prior debates and understand work is still ongoing to establish a new unit dedicated to tackle protracted noise disputes and to enhance the current regime where mediation is voluntary. While I look forward to an update on its progress and measures, I urge for all Singaporeans, aided by our agencies, to exercise restraint and empathy so that we can continue building cohesive and resilient communities.

Sir, I will now conclude. Singapore, like other countries, faces similar pressures like cost of living, on top of more unique challenges as a small island-state dependent on an open economy amid a trying global environment.

Yet, we have always been able to navigate obstacles better than others to emerge stronger. Thanks to good governance and financial strength accumulated from our Reserves and its prudent use along with the diligence of those who came before us. I am glad that Budget 2024 did not succumb to populist and unsustainable initiatives. Budget 2024 is underpinned by fundamentals that is principled, disciplined and pragmatic.

While there are challenges ahead, I have no doubt we can surmount them in the uniquely Singapore way, as one united people. Budget 2024 has been a fitting first instalment to realise the Forward SG goals. I support the Budget and I am confident it will enable Singapore and Singaporeans to forge ahead with resilience and optimism, towards a shared future together.

Mr Speaker: Mr Vikram Nair.

6.20 pm

Mr Vikram Nair (Sembawang): Mr Speaker, I support this Budget. Some of the bigger challenges Singaporeans face in the coming year include the rising cost of living and economic uncertainty, with retrenchments on the rise. While the causes of these issues are global trends, the Budget introduced by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong provides important measures to address these challenges for us in Singapore.

In relation to the rising cost of living, significant financial assistance is being given out each month through a range of vouchers and, for the lowest income earners, the amounts being given out would be more than enough to cover the rising costs. I am not aware of any other governments who are giving out such generous amounts to such a wide part of the population, but this does seem to be a direct way to address the issue.

The matter of retrenchments is one I wish to address in more detail. I am advisor to several unions, including the Advanced Manufacturing Employees Union. This is a union that started with being a union for the metal industry workers but has since repurposed itself to reflect the development of industries and the workforce it represents. The evolution of this union is a reflection of the numerous waves of disruption it has helped the employees weathered over the years. In this capacity, I am aware of the frontline challenges and efforts of our unions in dealing with retrenchments.

The labour MPs who spoke just before provided important examples of the work of our unions in dealing with retrenchment. And I encourage all employers and workers who are not already working with NTUC, to do so.

According to the advanced labour estimates released by MOM on 31 January 2024, the number of retrenchments in 2023 spiked to 14,320, more than double the record low of 6,440 in 2022. Notwithstanding this, the unemployment rate remained at a relatively low rate of 2.7% in 2023. The MOM report also indicated that this was partly due to "global economic headwinds on outward-oriented sectors such as wholesale trade, IT services and electronics."

However, statistics also showed that most retrenched workers re-enter the workforce within six months. Overall, employment continued to grow in 2023, albeit at a slower pace than 2022, which suggests the post-pandemic spike in employment was moderating. Most of the employment growth was in domestic-facing sectors.

The upshot of these figures is that, against the backdrop of rising retrenchments, Singapore's economy is doing alright and there are opportunities for our workers to take up. The continued growth of our job market has been possible, thanks to the creative approach to developing our economy, as outlined by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat earlier in his speech.

Singapore has had some unique features in its employment market that have helped keep our unemployment rates low.

First, there is less legislation and regulation as compared to many other markets. So, while this means less legislated employment rights for workers, it also means that employers are less concerned about making employment offers and employ people here.

Second, the efforts of the Government to bring in new business and industries have kept investment in Singapore robust, creating new jobs and many of these companies provide higher wages and drive up the general wages across the country.

Third, as there is currently little in way of direct unemployment benefits, people who lose jobs are highly motivated to find new jobs and do so. In this way, we create an environment that is conducive for job creation, hiring and incentivising people to work.

If one looks at the macroeconomic employment figures, the data looks alright for Singapore. The labour market remains tight with low unemployment, which means people who wish to work will have opportunities to do so. Yet, notwithstanding the macro picture looking alright, there will be individuals who will still face disruption in their lives.

For those retrenched or facing unemployment, quite often, the cause has nothing to do with their own work performance but rather due to structural reasons, including their jobs or businesses getting disrupted.

In several earlier speeches in this House, I had spoken on how business cycles and lifespans of companies had gotten shorter, and industries and companies can go from boom to bust in a matter of years. This has already made the idea of lifetime employment with a single employer to the exception, rather than the rule, for many people in the private sector.

Today, there is another development. Even if the industry and company remain, that does not mean the job will be there, and jobs are getting disrupted in a wide range of industries.

In the technology sector, for example, some of the jobs getting disrupted by AI are, ironically, the jobs of computer programmers and engineers. Even in the movie industry, there was a dispute between the production houses and actors with arguments about whether and to what extent the industry was permitted to use the digital likeness of actors. This was part of the reason large numbers of actors and workers in the media industry went on strike in the US.

Against this backdrop of even more challenges coming into the job market, I support the proposal for greater support for the unemployed. It appears that what is being envisioned is payouts to those who may be unemployed. This is not an easy area to navigate and even private providers of unemployment insurance in places like the US have stopped providing this. This suggests that they have not been able to find a financially sustainable way to provide this service.

Much of the feedback I have received from this also includes suggestions that the Government should have limits on the amounts that may be claimed and the duration, so that people are properly incentivised to return to work as soon as possible. The scheme should perhaps start as a safety net of last resort, to cover people who may have more limited resources and should take into account factors, such as whether the employee received retrenchment benefits from their previous employer.

Related to this, I strongly support the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme. This, to me, seems to be an alternative but which could work quite well together with the unemployment support scheme. This provides a $4,000 top-up to the SkillsFuture Credit a person has and provides an allowance of up to $3,000 a month while a person is attending full-time courses. This is a helpful programme for anyone whose industry or job has been disrupted and needs to pick up new skills. The training allowance helps to take away some of the pain, particularly for lower-income workers, of getting a new job. Also, as there is no age limit on this, older workers can also take advantage of this, even after they have retired.

Along the theme of investing in our people, the ITE Progression Award also gives encouragement to our ITE graduates to pursue diploma qualification. This is an aspiration for many ITE graduates and the support of $15,000 will be helpful, particularly to those from lower-income families.

Another structural issue we face in our job market is that wages at the lower-income levels had been stagnating relative to those at higher-income levels. A number of measures have helped to address this issue, including rolling out the Progressive Wage Model and the WIS scheme, whereby the Government topped up salaries of lower-income workers. Both these schemes will continue with more generous funding available. WIS will now cover workers with incomes of up to $3,000 while the Progressive Wage Credit Scheme will also cover employees with an income of up to $3,000.

While most Members in this House support the WIS, I note the PSP does not seem to support it wholeheartedly and suggests this would create a "handout mentality". Instead, they advocated a minimum wage of $2,200 a month, which they call a "living wage". I respectfully disagree with PSP on this.

One of the reasons the Government is slow to impose a "blanket" minimum wage is that it is mindful that many of the lowest wages are in the lower-skilled sectors, affecting older workers and SMEs. If wages are pushed where a business cannot afford it, this may make these workers and the businesses they work in no longer financially viable.

What the Government has instead done is a two-pronged approach. For those industries with profits to sustain higher wages, the PWM is being rolled out and this is better than a minimum wage because it guarantees not only a minimum wage, but wage increments for lower-wage workers. For workers whose wages remain low or those industries or jobs that are not part of the PWM yet, the WIS will kick in to provide an income supplement. WIS does not impose a burden on employers but meets the employee's need for a higher wage. I believe this two-pronged model is a better one than the model proposed by PSP. Mr Speaker, in Tamil, please.

(In Tamil): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] This year's Budget provides a wide range of support for those facing difficulties. In my speech, I focused on those who may face difficulties with job losses or job disruption. Based on the employment data last year, it was clear that the unemployment rate in Singapore remained low and jobs continued to be created. However, retrenchments also more than doubled last year from the year before, with most retrenched people getting a job within six months. This means that for those who lose jobs, there are opportunities out there and it is important to keep trying for new jobs.

In this Budget, the Deputy Prime Minister has introduced the SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme, which provides a $4,000 grant as well as a training allowance of up to $3,000 a month. For those who have lost jobs or who simply wish to retrain for better jobs, this provides support to do so, as it will cover course fees and also help subsidise some of the lost income with the training allowance. If you have just lost your job, this would be particularly helpful as you can continue to earn while you train.

The Deputy Prime Minister also announced that he is looking into unemployment support going forward. While schemes like that have had fallen short in other countries, I trust this will be important support for those who genuinely need it, especially if they are of limited means and did not receive much in way of retrenchment benefits or redundancy pay. Therefore, I think the training grant and allowance will be two important pillars of support for those who are between jobs.

(In English): Mr Speaker, this Budget is an important one because it shows the Government "has our backs", and I have focused on the policies that help our workers. I support this Budget.

Mr Speaker: Miss Rachel Ong.

6.33 pm

Miss Rachel Ong (West Coast): Mr Speaker, I would like to begin by extending my thanks to Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and his dedicated team for unveiling the comprehensive Budget 2024, aimed at alleviating cost-of-living concerns and promoting a more equitable and inclusive Singapore.

In my address today, I will concentrate on two primary areas: one, establishing a comprehensive SkillsFuture ecosystem that is inclusive; and two, ensuring equitable insurance protection for persons with disabilities and individuals on the autism spectrum. Before I continue, may I declare that I lead a consultancy that provides selected short-form courses funded by SkillsFuture.

The newly introduced SkillsFuture Level-Up Programme offers substantial assistance to mid-career individuals looking to transit into new industries while managing family commitments. Initiatives like the $4,000 top-up in SkillsFuture Credit, the extension of the Mid-Career Enhanced Subsidy and the introduction of the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Training Allowance highlight the Government's dedication to aiding all Singaporeans in upskilling, including PwDs.

This aligns with the objectives of the 2030 Enabling Masterplan to raise the employment rate of working age PwDs from 30% to 40%. It is imperative that PwDs have equal access to CET programmes to acquire the essential skills needed to excel in today's job market. I applaud the Government for its substantial support towards our PwDs in their CET endeavors. Job-seeking PWDs registered with SG Enable receive additional course fee funding support of up to 95%. Moreover, the rapid expansion of the Enabling Academy to offer over 700 accessible courses within just two years of its inception is commendable.

I am heartened by the collaborative efforts of the SkillsFuture team with disability advocacy organisations, like the Disabled People’s Association (DPA). However, despite the Government's robust backing for PwDs, obstacles still remain.

Discussions and consultations with PwDs conducted by DPA have revealed that many PwDs encounter difficulties with CET providers who are unable to accommodate their specific needs, despite the PwDs being willing to provide guidance on how to do so. This often results in PwDs being turned away or not receiving the necessary support to fully engage in CET programmes. Those who have enrolled in SkillsFuture initiatives have also shared instances where instructors may not address their queries adequately, possibly due to a lack of knowledge and resources. For instance, visually impaired individuals have requested screen-reader friendly document formats or image descriptions for diagrams, while autistic individuals have expressed a need for more specific and direct instructions.

We need to acknowledge the challenges that PwDs face in their CET journey. This should not be the experience of any individual in Singapore who seeks to enhance their skills and advance. To address these challenges, may I propose four key interventions?

First, require reasonable accommodation for PwDs. In CET, reasonable accommodations refer to measures that enable PwDs to participate equally without imposing an undue burden on training providers. In Australia, where Singapore's Skills Qualification Framework is modeled after, their approved training organisations (ATOs) are legally required to provide reasonable accommodations for PwDs in teaching, learning and assessment. However, this is not a requirement in Singapore, despite having ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2013.

SSG, in collaboration with the Enabling Academy, can work with training providers and industry partners to determine what constitutes reasonable accommodation. This can include discussions on which industry courses to prioritise as well as provide the technical assistance for adaptations. In addition, clear communication and accessible recourse should be made available for PwDs when they encounter difficulties with training providers. I propose that we start with ATOs and CET centres offering long-form or industry-recognised courses. This ensures that PwDs have access to courses that directly support employment or advancement at work.

Second, market technical assistance with the Capability Development Grant. We must raise awareness as well as the utilisation of SG Enable's Capability Development Grant among training providers. This grant provides funding for customisation courses for PwDs.

Based on the SG Enable’s Annual Reports from 2017 to 2020, only an average of 24 out of close to 1,000 training providers do so each year. This data is not available in the Annual Reports of 2021 and 2022. Many training providers outside the disability sector may not be aware of or are familiar with the grant utilisation. Without this knowledge, the grant's effectiveness is limited. To address this, both the grant and SG Enable’s consultancy services should be promoted together to boost utilisation.

Third, capability-building for inclusive CET design. We must better equip our adult educators with skills to create accessible course materials. Adult educators play a pivotal role in making learning accessible. As content developers, they share the responsibility for ensuring its accessibility.

The Institute of Adult Learning (IAL) offers programmes for adult educators to meet the qualification requirements to run SSG-funded certifiable courses. While Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles are mentioned in IAL’s diploma programmes, the current depth does not ensure proficiency in creating accessible course materials. By integrating UDL practices into course development and setting minimum accommodation requirements, educators can reduce the need for accommodations after.

Fourth, accessible information on course and accommodations pre-enrolment. Training providers should provide course information and accommodations in accessible format before enrolling to help learners make informed choices and prepare for course demands. Implementing these interventions will take time. But the launch of the Level-Up Programme presents an immediate opportunity to integrate inclusivity into our CET sector.

I propose for MOE’s consideration to require the relevant training providers, particularly those running courses that qualify for the Mid-Career Training Allowance, to work with the Enabling Academy on assessing reasonable accommodations for PwDs and where found reasonable, to make provisions. Doing so will underscore our commitment to PwDs in supporting their upskilling journey, on par with our support for those without disabilities.

Once more, I must applaud the Enabling Academy for your outstanding accomplishment in achieving and offering more than 700 disability-friendly courses within a brief time period. However, we aim to ensure that PwDs who possess the capability to do so are able to access the 29,000 courses available on the main SkillsFuture portal, provided that necessary accommodations are put in place.

It is crucial that in our endeavours to empower PwDs through the Enabling Academy, we must strive to avoid unintentional segregation in their CET pursuits. While the Enabling Academy is a valuable complement to SkillsFuture programmes, particularly for disability types requiring significant course adjustments, an inclusive SkillsFuture ecosystem should promote an environment where both PwDs and individuals without disabilities can learn together. With the technical and financial support from SG Enable and other Government agencies, we can establish a comprehensive and inclusive SkillsFuture ecosystem.

Mr Speaker, I would now like to address the crucial issue of ensuring fair consideration in insurance coverage for PwDs and individuals with autism.

Earlier this month, several Members and I myself brought attention to the necessity of enhancing insurance coverage for individuals with mental health conditions. We underscored the difficulties that individuals encounter when attempting to secure insurance for physical health issues that are separate from their mental health history. PwDs and individuals with autism encounter similar obstacles when navigating the insurance landscape beyond their existing conditions.

As MAS prepares to introduce guidelines for financial institutions to embrace fair and responsible practices towards customers in mid-2024, it is imperative that clear directives are established on how rejection, loading and exclusion criteria should be set for individuals with disabilities, autism and mental health disorders. These guidelines should elucidate the available avenues for recourse for individuals facing discrimination.

Presently, individuals have limited options for recourse, with the only available avenue being to appeal directly to MAS. However, the explanations provided by insurance companies in response to such appeals may be biased by their internal practices. To ensure a more impartial process, it is vital to institute an objective panel of third-party evaluators comprising of Government officials, industry representatives, medical professionals and disability experts to resolve disputes and foster a more equitable insurance environment. As we strive to raise the standards of equitable insurance coverage, I look forward to Singapore withdrawing its reservations on Article 25(e) of the UNCRPD in the near future.

Inclusivity is more than a mere goal. It is a collective journey that we must undertake as a united Singapore. This journey serves as a poignant reminder of our shared vulnerability. Anyone can face disabilities, whether temporarily or permanently, due to genetic factors or traumatic experiences. We are all prone to illness and health challenges that may one day impede certain functions. These proposed initiatives are not solely focused on ensuring equal opportunities. They are aimed at nurturing a society where every individual, regardless of their abilities or background, can flourish and make meaningful contributions.

Let us work together to establish an inclusive SkillsFuture ecosystem and guarantee equitable insurance coverage for all. With this in mind, Mr Speaker, I lend my full support to Budget 2024.

Mr Speaker: Ms Usha Chandradas.

6.45 pm

Ms Usha Chandradas (Nominated Member): Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of 2024's Budget Statement. In particular, I applaud the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Lawrence Wong, for his very clear statement in this year's Budget on the importance of the arts. As he has said, they help to express our unique Singaporean culture, strengthen our shared bonds and make Singapore a distinctive home. I thank him for his commitment to investing $100 million over the next four years to roll out the latest SG Arts Plan.

The Deputy Prime Minister has said that more diverse pathways will be offered so that every individual can strive to be the best possible version of themselves, and this statement was particularly resonant with me. He said that we must accord greater value to those who are skilled in technical hands-on abilities as well as those with the social and empathetic traits to excel in service jobs.

While the Deputy Prime Minister referred to the specific example of an ITE graduate who excelled brilliantly in his chosen path, let us also not forget the vast majority of people who work in non-white collar jobs who might not be superstars in their fields but whose labour and service is key to the functioning of our society.

Just as MOE encourages us to remember that every school is a good school, it must also be the case that every job is a good job, as long as it earns you an honest wage. And this is a point that many Members have made in the House over the last two days. While this Budget highlights ITE students, members of the arts community also face struggles related to their wages and the misconceptions attached to the value of their role in society and their work.

Just this past weekend after the Budget Statement, I saw an artist friend lamenting on her Instagram stories that a potential customer had enquired about the prices for her embroidery art. When she explained that her work was priced in a certain way because she had to personally commit 40 hours of painstaking work by hand, the customer replied with a flippant, "Alrighty, maybe I'll get it on Taobao."

To make things worse, the artist then found online stolen pictures of her work on Taobao, and these were being advertised by unscrupulous sellers who were purporting to recreate her designs for a fraction of her selling price. This kind of careless disrespect for artistic work is something that many working artists in Singapore continue to face.

Better exposure to and awareness of the arts will help our communities to understand and, hopefully, better appreciate the important role that our arts workers play in our society. To this end, the Government's plans to make the arts more accessible to all Singaporeans are indeed very welcome. I look forward to the Committee of Supply debates that will allow us to further explore the opportunities presented for the arts community in this Budget Statement.

I will now move on to address two tax changes which were announced in the Budget, and I would be grateful for the Minister's clarifications on these. In this year's Budget, it was stated that in order to ensure parity in the treatment of royalty income, the current tax concession of taxing only 10% of gross royalties earned by authors, composers and choreographers or any company wholly owned by them will be withdrawn in phases, with effect from Year of Assessment (YA) 2027.

For YA2027 and YA2028, eligible taxpayers may continue to claim the tax concession based on higher specified rates but with effect from YA2029, the concession will no longer be available. Taxpayers will be required to report the net amount of royalties earned and will be taxed on them accordingly.

Looking at the legislative history behind this concession, I note that the incentive was introduced in the Budget Statement delivered in 1983. The then-Minister for Trade and Industry, Dr Tony Tan Keng Yam, stated that this would be, "An encouragement to creative talents, such as authors and composers." He continued that, "the concession will enable local publishers to offer better terms to authors and composers living in Singapore and abroad." He continued that, "foreign talents will find it worthwhile to get their works published here."

In the year 2000, the concession was liberalised further to include royalty payments received by a composer, an author or a choreographer from music recording or film, dance or drama production businesses in Singapore. When moving the Income Tax amendment Bill in that year, the then-Second Minister for Finance, Mr Lim Hng Kiang, once again described these changes as being put in place to "encourage the development of the arts and innovation in Singapore."

Sir, I have some clarifications on the changes to the concession that have been announced in this year's Budget.

First, what is the rationale behind these changes? From 2024 Budget materials, it is stated that the change will "ensure parity in the treatment of royalty income", which is fair enough in principle. But if the original intent behind the concession was to provide an incentive to encourage creative work, then I hope that the Minister is able to clarify the policy intentions now behind the revocation of the incentive.

My second clarification is on whether the incentive has served its purpose in encouraging the work of authors, composers and choreographers? Would the Minister be able to share the impact that the incentive has had over the years? Finally, what is the expected effect of this change? Does the Ministry have a sense of what the projected increase in revenue collection will be as a result of the rollback of this incentive?

The next change I would like to address concerns the enhancements to the tax deduction for Renovation or Refurbishment expenditure, under section 14N of the Income Tax Act. The scope of qualifying deductible expenditure under this provision will now include designer fees or professional fees. This, to my mind, is important acknowledgment of the work of designers in renovation and refurbishment works, and offers a good incentive for businesses that pay their designers a fair and equitable wage.

That being said, deductions are still expressly disallowed on the purchases of antiques and any type of fine art, including painting, drawing, print, calligraphy, mosaic, sculpture, pottery or art installations. While general capital allowance deductions may be available for the purchase of artworks that qualify as "plant", the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) has only clarified so far that qualifying conditions may be met in hospitality-related businesses, for example in clubs, restaurants and hotels. Artwork purchases in other types of settings, such as in offices, may not qualify.

I fully understand that the valuation of artwork purchases is a complicated area but there are ways to alleviate the risks associated with the subjectivity of valuation. One way is to rely on valuations from trusted and accredited valuers, and we do have a number of them in Singapore. Another way could be to expand the pool of skilled valuation professionals in the space. The Art Galleries Associations of Taiwan and Korea, for example, have formal art appraisal and valuation arms.

We have, in Singapore, our own Art Gallery Association of Singapore (AGAS) and, presently, it is entirely member-run. While I understand that the Government has committed some resources to supporting AGAS' work on an ad-hoc project-basis or on a reimbursement basis, more can be done to assist the association in expanding its work so that its operational capabilities are on par with what similar associations in the region are able to offer.

It would be a good start, for example, if the Government were able to empower or sponsor AGAS to commission a study on how the local art gallery ecosystem can better support our economy. This could be in the sphere of valuation or even in the area of general research into tax and economic policies which are relevant to the arts.

To conclude on this point, while I welcome the enhancements to the tax deductions available under section 14N, I hope the Government will continue to re-evaluate the conditions of the scheme in future and consider whether these conditions can be adjusted to encourage purchases of art in Singapore. Tax benefits such as these will certainly contribute to the development and growth of our visual arts sector.

Sir, notwithstanding these clarifications, I support this year's Budget and I thank the Deputy Prime Minister, once again, for championing the arts community in his Budget Statement.