Support Measures for Phase Two (Heightened Alert) and Phase Three (Heightened Alert), and Support Measures for Phase Two (Heightened Alert)

Order read for Resumption of Debate on Question [5 July 2021],

"That the Ministerial Statement made by the Minister for Finance on Support Measures for Phase Two (Heightened Alert) and Phase Three (Heightened Alert) be considered by Parliament." − [Minister for Finance].

Question again proposed.

Mr Deputy Speaker: As the House has decided to jointly take this Motion and the next Motion on Support Measures for Phase Two (Heightened Alert), I will put the question on the next Motion to the House.

Question, "That the Ministerial Statement made by the Minister for Finance on Support Measures for Phase Two (Heightened Alert) be considered by Parliament", again proposed.

Mr Deputy Speaker: In accordance with the decision of this House to have a simultaneous debate on both Motions, I will now call on Members to make their speeches. Members are allowed to consider both Motions in a single speech. Mr Liang Eng Hwa.

2.57 pm

Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Bukit Panjang): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, this latest reversion to Phase Two (Heightened Alert) has caught many businesses by surprise. Like what Minister Lawrence Wong said yesterday, many in the food and beverage (F&B) and wholesale trade sectors felt a lot more struggling this time round; more shaken as well.

Businesses and the public at large have expected restrictions to be further relaxed as we approach the major milestone where at least two-thirds of our population will be fully vaccinated in August. It was not to be, following the outbreaks at KTV lounges and the Jurong Fishery Port.

Those in the F&B and retail sectors find this series of roller coaster measures disruptive and added stresses to their already dire finances and also their operations. Those supporting the F&B sectors are also feeling the knock-on effects as they saw a sudden drop in their orders.

These latest heightened measures happened despite the country reaching a higher vaccination rate among our population of now greater than 50%, better testing capacity, enhanced contact tracing capabilities and our healthcare system not under significant stress. Which is why the F&B operators who had hoped for more calibrated measures such as limiting dining-in to those who are fully vaccinated and backed by the rapid ring-fencing capabilities that we now have. But I am heartened that the Finance Minister and the MTI Minister have heard the concerns raised by the F&B businesses and taking in their feedback.

The two doses of support measures to enhance the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) – extending rental reliefs and providing targeted support for the local delivery services, taxi drivers, hawkers and market stall holders – go some way to help those impacted by the new restrictions. Of course, businesses would prefer to have their top line back again, that is, have their businesses and sales back again to earn their keeps.

Sir, I want to speak up for another less visible group of businesses that are impacted by the heightened measures. These are the companies that support the F&B and retail sector, such as the wholesale trades, logistics, distributors and suppliers to the F&B sector. They felt neglected in the latest round of support measures like the JSS and the rental reduction assistance.

They suffered from both supply-side and demand-side pressures. For example, on the supply side, the cost of storage spaces has not come down while air and sea freight costs have risen. On the demand side, the temporary stoppage of dining-in has significantly reduced orders.

These businesses also hire a high number of Singaporean workers and many are already on a four-day work week. These supporting sectors function in tandem with the F&B businesses and whenever the F&B sector enter a lockdown, they are also directly impacted. This time round, some are contemplating to release workers with these restrictions. I hope that the Minister for Finance can consider extending the JSS to those businesses that directly support the F&B sector as well.

Sir, another group of businesses that are also deeply impacted by the latest measures are those in the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) sector and the event organising companies.

With tightened safe management measures, many events and activities are either cancelled, postponed or downsized. Corporate MICE events, community events, schools' regular events, graduations, weddings, anniversary celebrations have all either swung into virtual format or are simply cancelled. In my constituency, I have had to cancel some events due to the heightened measures as well.

Sir, many event organisers have held out hope that the gradual reopening in the months ahead could allow activities to trickle in and that can help bring in some cash flow that minimally pay for the lights, rentals and salaries.

Many of the event companies are quality local talents capable of hosting world-class events. What they need are both a minimum base load of activities as well as some support measures from the Government to keep going and to preserve their capabilities.

Sir, I am glad that in the latest support package announced on 23 July, the Government has added MICE organisers under the tourism category to receive 40% of the JSS. Can I clarify with the Minister if this 40% JSS support would also include domestic event organisers, such as those that organise events in schools, the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), for the grassroots, for corporate events and so on?

Sir, I welcome the reopening roadmap sketched out by the Ministers in the Multi-Ministry Task Force (MTF) yesterday. It gave the businesses a good level of confidence and some predictability as to how to plan ahead and how to live with endemic COVID-19.

As was alluded to in yesterday's Ministerial Statement by Minister Lawrence Wong, even with a high vaccination rate among our population, we can still expect occasional sharp rises in cases due to new variants. For example, when we resume business and leisure travels, we may, from time to time, experience imported infiltrations that can potentially lead to a big cluster.

Heightened measures may still be necessary from time to time even when we achieve herd immunity. That has to be featured in the contingency planning for businesses going forward. If the situation is severe, such as where businesses and livelihoods are seriously affected, the Government may again need to step in with a fresh dosage of direct support measures. This is something that businesses feel comforted about because the Government will always be there to help when we are faced with serious situations.

Sir, the current approach, when the Government intervenes to help, is by way of tabling additional Supplementary Supply Bills in Parliament each time the Government injects new spending and re-allocates expenditures.

Here, I would like to ask the Minister for Finance if he could instead consider setting aside funding to establish a pandemic economic response fund or programme so that the Government will have the ready funding to provide timely and direct reliefs to small businesses, self-employed persons or workers impacted by the sudden COVID-19-related tightened measures rather than having to come back to Parliament again for additional Supplementary Bills.

Sir, as the pandemic drags on, even during the endemic phase, our expenditures on healthcare and non-healthcare items like social and economic support are likely to continue rising. On the other hand, operating revenue remains uncertain as it really hinges on the state of the economy, which, in turn, depends on how the pandemic situation develops and how countries around the world respond to the crisis and whether they have stabilised their own domestic situations.

For this $2 billion of additional support measures, we are counting on pockets of fiscal spaces, such as delays in construction projects, the one-off capitalisation of the two Significant Infrastructure Government Loan Act (SINGA) infrastructure items and the postponement of school activities, to foot the bill. Even the $200 million of buffer is now being used up for this latest package.

I can imagine that the availability of such unutilised expenditures for reallocation would increasingly be fewer and it would increasingly be more challenging to squeeze out the next drop of additional funding from the reallocations.

Can I ask the Minister for Finance if there are plans to review the entire development expenditures of the Government and whether we need to reprioritise the timeline, given the COVID-19 environment so as to free up more contingency funding?

Sir, in the latest revised estimates as at 5 July 2021, I note in Annex E-1 that the Net Investment Returns Contribution (NIRC) has increased to $19.6 billion, compared to FY 2020 where it was $18.4 billion. In FY 2019, the NIRC was $17.04 billion.

I am sure this additional NIRC will be welcomed and helpful to the Minister for Finance as he juggles and balances a very delicate and challenging fiscal situation. I believe this is the largest NIRC ever – thanks to the steady good performance of our investment agencies and also to our prudent approach of accumulating and compounding the financial reserves over the decades. Over the last one week or so, I was also happy to read reports of improved performances by Temasek Holdings and GIC amidst a more volatile global market environment.

Notwithstanding, we have to expect markets and asset valuations to constantly be fluctuating and, hence, this sound and prudent way of computing the NIRC by smoothing out the expected investment returns over a long period is necessary to ensure steady and predictable net investment returns contribution for the purpose of Budgets and cash flow planning.

In the 5 July 2021 revised estimates, I also note a new line item in the summary of the fiscal position, which is the "Debt Servicing Costs" item. With more infrastructure assets being funded by SINGA in the years ahead, we can expect the Debt Servicing Costs to also rise over time, adding new variables to the equation in how we balance the annual Budgets.

Sir, our strong finances continue to be the powerful ammunition to fight the pandemic and to cushion its impact on our people and businesses.

We will spend more, for sure, whether for COVID-19 or to take care of the well-being of our people, whether it is for our security, economy, environment or necessarily to also invest in our future. I cannot envisage a situation where we would spend less in the future.

Cutting costs to balance our Budget will increasingly not be a palatable option. I am sure Members in this House will agree. We have to keep finding ways to grow our revenues and not lose sight of our core fundamentals that underpin economic growth, like always staying ahead of the curve, staying competitive and staying open. That is the only way we can build a Singapore that can last. Sir, with that, I support the Supplementary Supply Bill.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Gerald Giam.

3.09 pm

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): Mr Deputy Speaker, on 24 June, the Co-Chairs of the COVID-19 Multi-Ministry Task Force (MTF) wrote an op-ed in The Straits Times to explain how the Government was drawing up a roadmap to transit to a new normal. The Minister said that, in the near future, COVID-19 cases could be dealt with very differently from now. For example, an infected person who is vaccinated could be allowed to recover from home.

Subsequently, on 7 July, Minister Lawrence Wong revealed that gatherings in groups of eight might be allowed by the end of July when at least half the population would be fully vaccinated. Unfortunately, less than a week later, the KTV cluster emerged with eight locally transmitted cases, which swelled rapidly to 248 cases just five days later.

The KTV cluster and the Jurong Fishery Port (JFP) outbreaks were the first major setback in our roadmap for reopening since its announcement. When the KTV cluster first swelled to 120 cases on 16 July, Minister Gan Kim Yong said that instead of rolling back COVID-19 measures like before, MOH will continue to take a targeted approach to protect the unvaccinated. The vaccinated will be allowed to continue gathering in groups of five in mask-off settings while the unvaccinated could only gather in groups of two.

Yet, just a few days later, the MTF decided to step back into Phase Two (Heightened Alert) from 22 July to 18 August following spikes in locally transmitted cases, including among the elderly. The targeted approach was abandoned, and F&B and gym operators had to face the same restrictions they had just only exited.

Essentially, just a year after we completed our circuit breaker in 2020, Singapore has snapped back twice into states of quasi-lockdown on almost all social and non-essential activities.

Minister Ong explained in yesterday's Ministerial Statement that the KTV cluster alone would not have necessitated the roll-back to Phase Two (Heightened Alert). But when the JFP cluster started to grow, the MTF felt that it was necessary to take firmer measures to protect the elderly and the unvaccinated.

I understand the MTF's desire to err on the side of caution in this case. However, beyond this round of Phase Two (Heightened Alert), Singaporeans and businesses need more clarity on how the roadmap for reopening is going to be implemented. After 18 August, if more large clusters break out, will we need to brace ourselves for more rolling lockdowns?

Many businesses, especially in the F&B, arts and sports sectors, are suffering not only because of the safe management measures (SMMs) but also because of the frequent changes in policies, which can actually hurt them even more. The lack of certainty makes it difficult for business owners to decide if they should stay the course or pivot to a more pandemic-resilient line of business.

Individual workers, too, need to decide whether or not to continue hoping for more COVID-19 support grants or pivot their careers to a more stable line of work, if such options are available.

Not only are the policies sometimes changing overnight, but some of them are painfully complicated.

When the restrictions on the now-defunct Phase Three (Heightened Alert) from 19 July to 8 August were announced, some remarked that one needed a PhD to understand the dining-in rules. Not only was there differentiation between the vaccinated and unvaccinated, children and adults, same family or different household, but there was also differentiation between the types of vaccines received, whether Sinovac or mRNA, and the number of doses that counts as fully vaccinated.

Restaurant staff would find it challenging to enforce these rules with their patrons, some of whom may not have the TraceTogether app installed. Some fast food outlets initially decided to simply adopt the strictest interpretation of all the rules for all patrons. This benefits neither the industry nor its customers.

No one would disagree with a calibrated approach to SMMs. However, the practicality of such measures was not evident in the recent attempt. I hope the MTF will take on board lessons learned from the experience when formulating the rules as we look forward to some re-opening on 19 August and beyond.

Next, I would like to speak on how information on our battle with COVID-19 is presented.

The daily infection numbers have become a key focus for many people. MOH highlights these numbers in their daily updates and the media splashes it on the headlines. Singaporeans too mention these numbers in our conversations with one another.

Because of this, many wondered why our new infection count of 56 locally transmitted cases on 14 July did not require a lockdown when previously a much lower count of 24 infections on 14 May triggered a state of heightened alert for one month.

Experts will tell us that new case counts alone are not an accurate gauge of whether things are going well in our fight against COVID-19. There are many other factors that need to be taken into account when deciding the level of risk we are facing. Yet, most laymen are not capable of synthesising so much information at one go.

Earlier this month, I asked if MOH could publish a risk index in its daily virus update that can give the public a more holistic view of the risk we face. This index could weigh various factors including the vaccination rate, hospitalisation rate, positivity rate of testing, contact tracing efficiency, new infections per 100,000 people and the infection risk of other countries, among others. This will require some calculations and intelligent assumptions by experts to produce a single daily number that the public can more easily digest. It should be a leading indicator, not a lagging one.

I am not suggesting that the MTF should be bound by this risk index when deciding on policies. However, the index can serve as a guide to both policymakers and the public to understand the current risk levels and adapt accordingly. An objective, science-based COVID-19 Risk Index will help assure the public that SMMs imposed by the Government are appropriate for the given risk levels. This would secure more buy-in from the public and result in greater voluntary compliance with SMMs. Voluntary compliance is key in our battle against the virus, as demonstrated by the KTV cluster outbreak, which was most likely caused by a wilful disregard for social distancing regulations. No amount of rules and fines will stop people from engaging in risky activities behind closed doors if they are not convinced of the risks.

There are not many countries around the world that have come up with a COVID-19 Risk Index which is both accurate and widely understood by the public. Singapore has an opportunity to lead the way in this respect. I hope the Government can give consideration to this proposal.

I shall now move on to a related factor in our roadmap for reopening, which is vaccinations. During my estate visits and house visits, I make it a point to ask residents, especially the elderly, if they have gotten their vaccinations and encourage those who have not to do so soon for their own protection. Thankfully, most residents assure me that they have gotten their jabs. However, I find vaccine hesitancy among a small minority of the population rather worrying. Based on the reasons they articulate, it appears that a lot of their misunderstanding about vaccinations is fuelled by confusing information they receive from friends through private messaging platforms. I myself receive a daily stream of such messages from friends and residents.

The situation is more complicated than just scientific arguments for or against vaccinations. I have heard accusations of vaccine manufacturers colluding with governments to promote their vaccines; that the vaccines have not been fully approved and, therefore, are merely experimental; or that Singapore is biased against or towards vaccines from some countries. These have been circulating since the end of last year and have steadily increased in virulence and virality in the last few months.

Instead of politicians fronting the public education campaign for vaccinations, more can be done to amplify the voice of independent medical experts to explain the facts and allay the public's fears. Other experts in business, international relations and culture also have a role to play in addressing misinformation about vaccines. This must be done soon, before the window of opportunity to change minds closes. Once news about large COVID-19 clusters fades from the headlines, the impetus to get vaccinated will decrease.

I have some questions about the latest COVID-19 support measures which I hope the Finance Minister can address. First, I am glad the Minister has introduced a new Market and Hawker Centre Relief Fund, which provides a one-off cash assistance of $500 per stallholder. However, I note this is provided only to stallholders in Government hawker centres and markets. Can similar relief be extended to stallholders in neighbourhood food centres which are run by private food service management companies like Koufu and Kopitiam?

Second, I also note that the Minister has extended the COVID-19 Recovery Grant (Temporary) scheme's income-loss coverage period to end-August. However, I would like to point out some implementation anomalies from the previous rounds of the grant. Is the Minister aware of instances where companies place their Singaporean workers on no-pay leave during Heightened Alert periods while continuing to employ foreign workers at full pay?

I have a resident who works as a dishwasher and was asked to go on no-pay leave while his foreign worker colleagues were not. Apparently, his employer assumed that Singaporeans could benefit from the COVID-19 Recovery Grant, while the foreigners could not. Unfortunately, this Singaporean applied for but was denied the COVID-19 Recovery Grant and, so, he ended up worse off than his foreign colleagues. I will be making an appeal on his behalf directly to MSF but I hope MOF can consider ways to prevent companies from employing this form of arbitrage to reap the best of both worlds and, in the process, disadvantage Singaporean workers.

In summary, Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope to see greater detail in the Government's roadmap for reopening. The public needs a more easily understood COVID-19 Risk Index and we should make a strong push to overcome vaccine hesitancy in order to reduce the risks of serious COVID-19 infections.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Ms Foo Mee Har.

3.21 pm

Ms Foo Mee Har (West Coast): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to join the debate. Sir, recovering nations the world over are now beginning to embrace "Living with COVID-19" as a strategic reality. Each nation has formulated its own strategy to lift restrictions and find ways to return to a more normal way of living, with UK leading the charge by declaring "Freedom Day". Developing COVID-19 resilience is crucial to securing and adapting Singapore's economic competitiveness.

Yesterday, in Parliament, the MTF shared Singapore's roadmap towards treating the virus as endemic. However, some quarters remain sceptical how well this will be executed and carried through. Just as we thought we had seen light at the end of the tunnel, the sudden roll-back to Phase Two (Heightened Alert) arising from the Jurong Fishery Port and KTV clusters dealt a fresh blow to businesses and the community at large. Whilst most understand the need to tighten restrictions until we achieve a higher vaccination rate, many Singaporeans wonder if the approach could have been better calibrated, such as allowing two fully-vaccinated diners to a table, instead of banning dining-in outright.

This consideration seems reasonable in light of the Government's earlier signal that Singapore should learn to live with an "endemic" COVID-19 in our midst; so that, with robust public health defences in place, we shift our focus from "Zero COVID-19" to "Living with COVID-19". We have developed enhanced testing and tracing capabilities, good control over infection rates, kept hospitalisation rates low and appeared to be able to ringfence the spread of infection. Compared to mid-May, when only 24% of our population was fully vaccinated and Phase Two (Heightened Alert) had to be first imposed, our vaccination rate has since more than doubled to about half of our population this round.

We should expect "Living with COVID-19" to include intermittent outbreaks and even the emergence of new variants, every now and then. Having worked so hard to build our defences, should we not be adopting a more confident posture?

As part of "Living with COVID-19", we should establish a suite of leading indicators that better predict the imposition of restrictions, so that businesses and the public are not constantly caught by surprise. These indicators could be based on a combination of key health metrics, including infection rates, vaccination rates, hospitalisation rates, ICU admissions and fatalities – a so-called COVID-19 Index which businesses and individuals can monitor, for a shared sense of vigilance and ownership. I guess, something similar to what Member Gerald Giam mentioned earlier. We could guide Singaporeans to read and interpret this COVID-19 Index away from the focus on infection rates alone, which may shape their behaviour.

Affected businesses may also rely on a set of new norms to sustain their operations, from qualification for rental relief and contract variations to wage support and credit support, so that the burden is shared more fairly, every time restrictions are imposed. They should not have to rely on the goodwill of landlords nor individual negotiation with financial institutions to keep the line of credit flowing each time restrictions are enforced. There should also be a basic package of state-sponsored COVID-19 support that individuals and businesses can expect to kick in every time restrictions are announced, rather than uncertain drip-feed of measures that many believe are subject to negotiation and lobbying.

Sir, as vaccination is the key to achieving COVID-19 resilience, I agree our focus should be to achieve an 80% vaccination rate in the near term, especially amongst vulnerable seniors. The Minister for Trade and Industry yesterday urged businesses to get medically eligible staff to get vaccinated and to deploy unvaccinated employees to lower risk settings. I would like to ask if Singapore would consider the French government's approach to impose vaccination as a requirement for certain professions at higher risks.

Sir, as the Finance Minister has pointed out, a critical part of our recovery process is the reopening of our borders. This is not just about GDP growth. It is in fact an existential issue for Singapore as an international business hub. We survive and thrive on our ability to connect our businesses and people to the region and the world.

As other countries move more aggressively to reopen their borders, I am glad to hear that the prospect of travelling with few restrictions is in sight, if it comes through in early September. I have heard senior regional executives beginning to question the value of being based in Singapore, as they are no longer able to travel freely in and out of the country for business. Some are considering leaving for good, as it is no longer tenable for them to be separated from family and loved ones for such extended periods of time. This is bolstered by increasing adoption of "Work Anywhere" policies as well as new growth opportunities in their home countries.

Sir, the Government should be lauded for its well-executed labour policy during the pandemic. Singapore has managed to cushion itself from the unemployment hardship suffered by other countries because of COVID-19. The Government spared no expense in supporting businesses to hire locals, with significant levels of Government funding directed towards the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) and the Job Growth Incentive (JGI) scheme, including this round.

Under JGI scheme, 270,000 Singaporeans and Permanent Residents were hired by 42,000 businesses as of February 2021 as reported, with generous wage support of up to 50% of the first $6,000 of their gross monthly income for up to 18 months and that is generous. One-third of those hired had been out of work for more than six months and about 60% previously employed in a different sector.

While I applaud the success of the scheme, it is still unclear how businesses can make the transition without continued Government support. As the JGI scheme has primarily supported SMEs in their manpower needs and the scheme has helped previously unemployed as well as mid-career switches with job opportunities, I urge the Government to extend the scheme and to carefully calibrate how it is phased out, so that the benefits remain deeply rooted.

Sir, there is room for the Government to act with equal resolve to uplift the plight of low-wage workers, provide more safety nets for those who have lost their jobs and re-double our efforts to build a strong Singaporean Core along with global talent. The pandemic has evoked heightened awareness of such vulnerabilities and gaps. Rather than keeping status quo, we should seize the moment to build consensus on how we may address these issues collectively.

Mr Deputy Speaker, we have seen COVID-19 unleash a wave of innovation. The speed at which COVID-19 vaccines were developed served to remind us that, with the right conditions, major scientific breakthroughs, such as success of the “messenger RNA” technique behind the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, are possible. We are also reminded that moving fast and removing barriers are the best things the Government can do. Despite the increasingly tight fiscal position, I support the Government’s continued commitment to the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2025 Plan, setting aside $25 billion to support innovation and new discoveries. Good that this was not reprioritised. So, it is good that we kept this.

However, this effort must be accompanied by the Government's intervention to ensure innovations are translated into real world solutions beyond the labs and scientific publications and are diffused through the economy. Businesses must be able to harness such technologies to raise productivity and, ultimately, contribute to higher living standards. Research funding should be prioritised accordingly and be scrutinised to deliver economic value to the wider society.

Nurturing ground-up innovation can be equally important. The number of registered Home Offices saw an increase of 25% in 2020, with the pandemic revealing new entrepreneurial opportunities. These enterprises are the very examples of micro resilience that we need to cultivate as they are the seedlings of future enterprises, if properly nurtured. To understand how we can support the acceleration process, we need to review if existing policies are conducive to current trends and to build support measures that lower barriers to entry, broaden the scope of economic activities and implement oversight frameworks for the industry to flourish.

For instance, in the home-based food business, which runs the gamut of home bakeries to private kitchens, the regulations under HDB, URA and SFA should be reviewed to support artisanal home-based activities and a relevant set of regulations to meet with the appropriate levels of commercial standards for safety and hygiene. But they should not be so onerous as to stifle these budding enterprises.

Sir, Singapore is no stranger to overcoming adversity and building resilience, with and for our people. Let us transform our recovery to build back better, broader and stronger. We did it before and we will do it again. With that, I support the Supplementary Supply Bill.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Ms He Ting Ru.

3.34 pm

Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang): Mr Deputy Speaker, we now find ourselves back in Phase Two (Heightened Alert) again. Community spread has increased and the large number of unlinked cases is cause for much concern, particularly when we have not yet reached our vaccination target of 70%. While challenging, these restrictions are important to bring down our community infection levels and to ensure that our healthcare system and workers are not overwhelmed.

I also note that we continue to make progress with our vaccination rollout and all the staff and personnel involved in this national effort to safeguard us against the virus have my utmost respect and gratitude.

I would like to focus today on our roadmap for managing COVID-19 and what more can be done to further support our businesses and workers who are already on the ropes as we lurched from phase to phase in this seemingly never-ending battle against the Coronavirus. The last two months, in particular, have been difficult ones for Singapore. Both residents and businesses alike have had to navigate and respond to restrictions that have changed on an almost biweekly basis.

After months of progressively opening up in the original Phase Three, Singapore's recovery received a huge setback when community cases jumped after the virus breached our defences at Changi Airport. This resulted in an announcement on 14 May that a new phase, christened Phase Two (Heightened Alert), would come into effect two days later, meaning that all food and beverage businesses would once more be required to shut down to dine-in customers, along with restrictions being tightened for a host of other industries and that these would take effect for four weeks. Other restrictions were also brought in to restrict social gatherings and, amongst others, the retail and fitness industries took a large hit. Primary and Secondary schools also shifted to home-based learning.

On 10 June, it was decided by the MTF that we would move to Phase Three (Heightened Alert) in two steps from 14 June, with food outlets opening up with two diners allowed to dine in; social gathering and visitor sizes moving to five; and, on 7 July, the number of diners were allowed to increase to five per table, all these to take effect from 12 July.

Even as diners, F&B businesses and other industries were celebrating a cautious return on 12 July, the now infamous KTV cluster was announced on that very day. By the middle of the week, the cluster had grown to 88 infections and, on 16 July, just four days after dining sizes were increased to five, a slew of dining rules and regulations that one would need an advanced degree to navigate were mandated to be implemented by restaurants on 19 July.

And, finally, on 20 July, after barely a day of having to comply with the most complicated dining rules ever to have been devised, restaurants were suddenly told they had to throw all of that and much of their inventory out of the window and that dine-ins would no longer be allowed for the next four weeks. One can only imagine the amount of losses that this has resulted in.

While I appreciate that our responses are, in some ways, shaped by the fast-changing nature of the pandemic, we should pause and reassess whether this approach of drip-feeding restrictions and business support measures is doing more harm than good. Many business owners, in particular SME owners, have written to me to express their anguish over cashflow difficulties. Retail, fitness, F&B and related businesses along the entire supply chain are on their knees from having endured more than 18 months of hardship arising from a reduction in footfall and various permutations of closures or restrictions. Many of them have said that they are clinging on and depend on a timely disbursement of a patchwork of business support schemes to stay afloat, even while they scramble each time to make sense of the ever-changing restrictions. Some SME owners have told us that while they can deal with tight restrictions and difficult regulations, what has been particularly difficult is the ever-changing landscape in which they are constantly spending a lot of time and energy adapting their businesses to comply with.

While we should encourage businesses to be nimble and adapt quickly to a rapidly changing environment, I fear that the last 18 months would be a step too far for all but a lucky few. We cannot take the position that uncompetitive and inflexible businesses that are unable to pivot to deal with such times should be allowed to go under. There is also too much at stake, as many livelihoods depend on the survival of these businesses. I believe the MTF is painfully aware of this.

However, events over the last two weeks, in particular, have proven to be very confusing and disruptive. The sudden changes just days apart have resulted in much stress and confusion and these also do not engender confidence, as many of us often wonder how many days or weeks will pass before a sudden change in position is on the cards again.

And even as we, as individuals, alongside our businesses, struggle to make sense of the shifting landscape, the vast majority of us here in Singapore do want to follow the rules and play our part in the fight against the disease. This is something to be applauded and should not be taken for granted. It is also up to the Government and us, as lawmakers, to ensure that there is a level of assurance, stability and, where possible, certainty in the measures we take and the support we give Singaporeans and our businesses.

While it may appear that calibrating business support schemes in accordance with the situation of the day allows for targeted support to be given, over prescribing or managing the situation may end up being self-defeating. It could result in a situation where our policies become too reactive and the confusion and uncertainty that result may end up in help not reaching those who need it the most. Attention also has to be paid to keep rules simple as much as possible, an approach in policy-making that we used to pride ourselves in.

For example, business owners struggle to make sense of the various schemes available to them. To top it off, they are also facing problems due to the delayed or uncertain nature relating to timing and amount of disbursements that they are eligible for. If the intention is to support these businesses, we must make sure that our support is effective and is as efficient as possible. These schemes must be designed to deal with the immediate threat faced by businesses which are already on the ropes.

COVID-19 will remain with us for a while yet and emerging variants may mean that our drive to handle this as endemic would suffer from setbacks. The question is, therefore, how can we continue to provide our businesses with support in a sustainable manner? We can keep on extending schemes at the very last minute and going through a budgeting process each time new restrictions are announced. But what we need now, more than ever, is a roadmap with support measures pegged to respective restriction levels moving forward.

It would be extremely helpful to individuals and businesses to know what this roadmap is, with stages and criteria that are determined in advance and clearly communicated to all of us to enable us to plan forward as much as possible.

Next, I also note that, apart from businesses, individuals, too, are having to adapt to our changing times. Our economy has been kept afloat by new working arrangements becoming the norm, with working from home now being the default arrangement for many. This has brought some unexpected conveniences for some, like allowing us more family time without the need to commute to the workplace. However, there are also some of us for whom working from home has not yielded good results.

A recent survey by Microsoft found that workers in Singapore were more burnt out and exhausted, compared with their peers globally, with one in two workers saying they felt exhausted and 58% saying that they felt overworked. This has been attributed to digital workloads rising due to the pandemic. We need to bear their welfare in mind when we adjust our workplaces and jobs to reflect the new normal. I also hope that the trends we see, with an increase in those pursuing non-traditional career paths, will continue and receive more attention.

Another group of workers which you must also consider is our essential workers, particularly those involved in the provision of the different types of care responsibilities and who work to keep our care infrastructure and essential infrastructure going. The inability to work from home, shortage of manpower, coupled with the lack of travel opportunities for a break even if it is just a quick day trip across the border, means that our essential workers have been particularly hard hit.

Women, too, across all societies have borne the brunt of the pandemic and we are no exception in Singapore. Attention has to be paid to these groups to ensure that they are not pushed to the point of breaking, driven by the various workloads and household responsibilities with no chance for respite.

The pandemic has also highlighted the unsustainable nature of some of our industries and our economic model, which rely on cheap, abundant foreign labour. In particular, construction firms and the cleaning industry are facing high costs of having to quarantine migrant workers and are also struggling with a shortage of workers. Many construction projects have been delayed as a result. Perhaps, this is the push we need to fully transform this sector and raise productivity levels to solve the labour crunch. As I mentioned here in this House earlier in May, it is timely that our businesses take the first steps in transforming to move away from our addiction to cheap, abundant labour.

Finally, my earlier question about publishing information relating to how the MTF weighs up the various factors for understanding how restrictions and support schemes are determined and to signpost how we will move from tier to tier seems particularly pertinent, given the events of the last months. In his response earlier this month, the Health Minister said that it would not be realistic to provide a definitive roadmap. Yet, I note that the Finance Minister indicated that the Government was, in fact, preparing a roadmap for Singapore's transition to life with COVID-19.

And in a Facebook post on 20 July 2021, the Prime Minister said that Singapore has to "feel our way forward". Yesterday, the Health Minister updated this House that a roadmap was currently being implemented. I would, therefore, like to seek clarification from the MTF about what is the definitive plan for how we move forward. If so, will the Government, in the spirit of accountability and providing much needed stability and confidence, make these metrics and roadmaps public? If there are obstacles to doing so, what are they and what can this House do legislatively to ease the process?

I would like to conclude, too, with a more general observation about the importance of clear, consistent messages to the public in the midst of a public health crisis. This would lead to less confusion and it behoves us to ensure that we have coherent policies that are communicated early and clearly, especially as we are a country that prides itself on doing well in rankings for the ease of doing business due to the clarity and transparency in our processes.

Most of us accept that there are, indeed, times when restrictions need to be tightened at short notice as the situation develops rapidly. However, we need as much warning as possible to allow businesses and households a fighting chance to rework plans and try our best to stave off any impending cashflow crises. It is, therefore, important that we have clarity, such as the risk index proposed by my colleague Mr Gerald Giam, that is announced to the public. Telling our people what the matrices which inform our decision-making are can only add to public confidence that the crisis is in good hands and let us know that our policymakers are dealing with it in a competent and coherent manner.

This approach is also important in addressing ground feedback relating to matters as wide-ranging as vaccine hesitancy to understanding the different restrictions.

We owe much to our civil servants and various agencies who have been hard at work coming up with and implementing the various policies and schemes, but I also note that the details about communication matter, too, and they can make or break an individual’s reaction to our containment measures and fight against COVID-19.

For example, the changes and updates in vaccine safety and advice stemmed from an approach with an abundance of caution. This is not a bad thing. Yet, I have heard many accounts of individuals being told that they were ineligible for the vaccine due to medical reasons, such as drug allergies, in one week, only to be encouraged to sign up to get themselves vaccinated the week after, with no official statements being made that they could find about the reversal in policy at the time.

More personally, I registered to take the vaccine after the rules relating to breastfeeding mothers and anaphylaxis were updated, but found out when I got home after my first shot that the safety booklet given to me contained the outdated advice that breastfeeding mothers should stop breastfeeding for five days and those with a history of anaphylaxis were ineligible for the vaccine!

Likewise, each time a major announcement is made about tightening up or loosening of restrictions, my inbox gets a series of emails from various business or even school mailing lists urging patience while they wait for guidelines from the relevant authorities about how the rules will affect their operations and also to allow them time to digest the rules and adapt their processes yet again to ensure compliance.

There is also often a lag of a few days before business and individual support measures are announced, leaving much anxiety in the meantime. This often leads to the sense that the MTF is having to scramble to play catch-up each time major changes are announced.

While all these seem like small things, they do not help in engendering confidence, whether to encourage more people to get themselves vaccinated or to convince people that these are the right steps to keep Singapore safe and our economy going.

I end by saying that having clear, coherent communications throughout the various stages of the pandemic and honest, open conversations about the reasons and matrices for the different restrictions and support measures is just as important as the substantive steps being taken.

Mr Deputy Speaker, while we at the Workers’ Party stand united with Singaporeans in the fight against COVID-19, we believe that there is room for improvement as outlined above and hope that these will be taken into account.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Ms Jessica Tan.

3.49 pm

Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo (East Coast): Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for allowing me to join the debate.

There are three areas that I wish to touch on in my speech today: one, helping businesses cope with the disruptions of COVID-19; two, the COVID-19 Recovery Grant – Temporary scheme, to help lower- and middle-income individuals whose income has been impacted; and, three, mental wellness support for individuals and businesses.

With more than a year and a half of living with COVID-19, while businesses are now more ready to adapt to the disruptions, demand and business volumes have taken a beating when operations have had to stop or scale back due to the various phases and, most recently, the Phase Two (Heightened Alert).

For consumer-facing businesses, for example, food businesses, gyms, personal services, many have not been able to do dine-in or to continue offering their services during the Phase Two (Heightened Alert) and Phase Three A or have had to scale back significantly.

However, overheads and ongoing business costs still need to be paid. Manpower and rental are major business expenses. The Jobs Support Scheme (JSS), rental relief and access to credit have been critical in supporting businesses tide over. The support is important for businesses to stay afloat, adapt and pivot for the new normal as well as to enable workers to stay employed.

The support measures announced for Phase Two (Heightened Alert), Phase Three (Heightened Alert) and this current Phase Two (Heightened Alert) are timely and much needed.

Managing costs, however, can only go so far. This prolonged disruption and the uncertainties have and will continue to impact cash flow for even the most prepared and sound businesses if demand and capacity to operate are significantly lower over a prolonged period of time. To survive and to get back on track, businesses must be able to continue to do business.

The ways of disruptions have shown us that COVID-19 will be with us for some time and the new normal will include living with COVID-19.

I am thankful that the Ministers in their Ministerial Statements yesterday gave us a view of the roadmap of opening up. This gives some idea of the steps and a line of sight of how businesses can expect in terms of going forward, albeit the caveat is still that we may continue to still face bumps or some bumps along the way.

The cost of doing business. We have to recognise that the cost of doing business has increased with the additional actions needed for the safe management measures. Just to name a few, this includes additional manpower to ensure customer compliance with SMMs and regular testing of staff.

For the safety of everyone, SMMs are needed. So, while giving relief to businesses to deal with the impact of COVID-19 has helped in the intermediate and the interim, we do need to find ways to better handle the cost of operating in the new normal as SMMs will still be required on an ongoing basis.

Can the Minister share if there are any measures to reduce and effectively manage the costs of SMMs required of businesses in the new normal? How can the cost of routine antigen rapid tests (ARTs) or the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and the ART self-test kits be made more affordable for businesses as they will be ongoing costs?

As businesses pivot and adapt with the new business models, there may be a need to also rethink the use of physical spaces.

For many businesses, rental cost is usually a major part of the operating costs. So, as businesses transform, they may need less space or may need to relocate due to the changes in the type of space required.

Rental release and cost-sharing among stakeholders are welcomed in the short term but what help can there be to allow businesses the flexibility for amicable restructuring of tenancy contracts without significant penalties while cushioning some of the impact for landlords?

Let me now touch on the COVID-19 Recovery Grant – Temporary or the CRG-T scheme.

The expansion and the coverage of the scheme is intended to provide short-term support to lower- and middle-income employees and self-employed persons who suffer from sudden and significant income loss during this period. Given that the pandemic has been ongoing for a year and a half and still is with us, the impact of COVID-19 on individuals has been prolonged and not just during this period of heightened alert. Just like businesses, employees and self-employed persons have been dealing with the many waves over the last one and a half years since the outbreak.

Can consideration for eligibility be given to individuals who meet the eligibility criteria for the CRG-T scheme and need the support but live in properties with an annual value above $21,000 but do not own the property or own only one property?

Let me now touch on my last point on mental wellness. As Minister Lawrence Wong had highlighted in the Ministerial Statement, "This has been a long and difficult journey." People have had to deal with the stress of adjusting and living with the restrictions and disruptions brought about by this pandemic. This has affected everyone in the way we live, work and play.

The COVID-19 Mental Wellness Taskforce was formed late last year to review the impact of COVID-19, to take stock of the various initiatives introduced by the Government to support the mental needs of Singaporeans and to identify the gaps.

Can the Minister share if more support will be given to help individuals cope with the stress and pressures brought about by the long-drawn pandemic? What help can be given to employers to put in place the appropriate employee support programmes to promote mental health and wellness? What more can be done to provide appropriate support for individuals?

Mr Deputy Speaker, this is not an easy time for everyone. To overcome the challenges that this pandemic brings requires all of us to do our part to keep Singapore and everyone safe. Despite the current outbreak, we have made progress and I am confident that, together, we will emerge stronger. I support the Supplementary Supply Bill.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Louis Chua.

3.57 pm

Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis (Sengkang): Mr Deputy Speaker, it is unfortunate that while Finance Minister Lawrence Wong spoke about making plans for living with endemic COVID-19 and seeing light at the end of the tunnel, we are still grappling with lockdown measures and triple digit daily cases, with the explosion of cases first at the KTV cluster and then the Jurong Fishery Port cluster.

F&B is at the heart of Singaporeans’ lives and the number one feedback I have been receiving is that relating to the F&B sector. I am concerned that frequent venue closures for faults not of their own doing and changes in rules pertaining to dining-in have led to disproportionate hardship for small operators who may already be facing substantial financial pressures.

From the multiple permutations of what dine-in arrangements are allowed, which has spawned numerous memes and suggested PSLE questions, to a total ban on dining-in, F&B operators and consumers alike are frustrated by the capricious climate we have today. Even as the Multi-Ministry Task Force shared an optimistic roadmap to reopening, we are still told that we must be prepared that the new variants can lead to more severe outbreaks and may well force us to introduce restrictions again from time to time.

Furthermore, all businesses need a level of visibility in order to plan ahead, including adequate lead time to purchase fresh supplies and secure any additional staffing. My colleague and Sengkang Member of Parliament Ms He Ting Ru has shared more about the importance of consistency in our restrictions. Because, to many businesses small or large, local or foreign, F&B or not, the Singapore which was known for business certainty and a stable, predictable regulatory framework is now seen to be supplanted by a capricious regulatory environment when it comes to the management of COVID-19.

Outside of the FAQs around the F&B and business sector and more generally, to many Singaporeans who have been tirelessly trying their best to cope with the pandemic over the last one and a half years, that light at the end of the tunnel now seems like the headlights of an incoming train. Troubling as that metaphor may be, it is all the more important for us to think hard about how to better support our fellow Singaporeans at the present moment, while making fundamental changes to better prepare ourselves for the future.

My speech today will cover three main areas: supporting our workers, supporting our SMEs and supporting our future economy.

Firstly, on supporting our workers. I have earlier asked in a Parliamentary Question (PQ) on whether the Government can consider a limited trial of a four-day work week in Singapore.

COVID-19 has pushed companies to rapidly adopt new behaviours that would stick and change the trajectory of what it means to "work". For instance, companies which are known to be averse to Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA) are now open to the idea of their employees working remotely. A report by McKinsey has shown that 20% to 25% of the workforce in advanced economies could work from home between three and five days a week. This represents four to five times more remote work than before the pandemic. While this study was conducted on a global level, it is evident that there has been a seismic shift in the workplace culture.

This brings me to my point of what it means to "work". Over the past year, the idea of a shorter work week has resurfaced. This is not a new concept. Prime Minister Lee had previously shared during the 2004 National Day Rally on the need for a better work-life balance. Why is this so important? I quote, "I am not sure why, but hours have become longer, the pace is more intense. Maybe it's the Internet, maybe it's email, maybe it's globalisation, but whatever it is, you wake up at six o'clock in the morning, you check your email. Eleven o'clock at night, before you go to sleep, you check it again and next morning, you come back, somebody replied at 2.00 am. How to have children?"

While not the only reason for our low birth rates, the five-day work week has gone beyond its intended definition and consumed our daily lives.

Echoing the Prime Minister's speech, the four-day work week is a pragmatic policy consideration that has been tried and tested by some companies and countries worldwide. Most of us would have heard the case of Microsoft Japan, which had experienced a 40% increase in productivity and an overall 94% employee satisfaction rate. Iceland's four-day work week trials were also deemed "an overwhelming success", with trials in Spain also underway.

That being said, I am conscious of the fact that not every employee has the privilege to complete their tasks in a four-day work week. Those who deal with external parties, especially, are subject to the whims and fancies of their clients' schedule at times.

To institute a shorter work week, firstly, it is essential for us, as a society, to recognise the benefits in the form of not only the elusive productivity gain we have been searching for but, more importantly, focus on allowing people to become "fuller" people outside of their jobs. As what Microsoft had done, they have encouraged their employees to use the free time for "self-development and learning... for personal life and family care, social participation and community contribution".

If we adopt a shorter work week with the right mindset, the benefits of better mental health, productivity and agency felt on the individual level will translate into society-wide benefits as well.

Secondly, on supporting our SMEs. The close to 280,000 SMEs represent 99% of enterprises in Singapore and, critically, employ more than 70% of our workers and contributed to 43% of our GDP in 2020 and are critical to the health of our economy.

I have asked a series of questions on Singapore's corporate income tax rates and the impact from global tax reforms endorsed by the G7, G20 and more than 130 countries globally, including Singapore. First of all, I am comforted to hear from Minister Lawrence Wong that Singapore will preserve our sovereign tax rights and our rights to taxation.

However, while Minister Lawrence Wong shared in this response that our effective corporate tax rate is low, not just for MNCs, but for all companies, especially for SMEs in Singapore, I note from the data provided for the latest year of assessment (YA) 2019, that our effective corporate income tax rates are at a mere 3%, compared to statutory tax rates of 17%. For non-SMEs, their total profits before tax were S$459 billion for YA2019, with the total corporate income tax paid of S$11.5 billion. For SMEs, however, and this includes companies with a turnover of up to S$100 million, their total profits before tax were S$44 billion for YA2019, with the total corporate income tax paid of S$4.8 billion.

In other words, while SMEs accounted for a mere 9% of total profits before tax in YA2019, they contributed to 29% of corporate income tax paid. Put in another way, for every $100 of profit, SMEs paid $11 to the Government in taxes versus non-SMEs who only paid $2.50 in corporate taxes.

Could we not shift the incidence of taxation away from our local SMEs, which need all the support we can give, towards larger MNCs, which are better positioned financially and are currently paying a disproportionately lower share of corporate income taxes?

Rather than view global tax reforms as a threat, I see a clear opportunity for Singapore, given our global competitiveness and solid non-tax factors that make Singapore attractive to global MNCs. The key here is that global MNCs are not worse off if Singapore exercises our rights to taxation vis-a-vis the global minimum tax rates, but instead, given where effective tax rates in Singapore are today, Singaporeans will be able to benefit tremendously from the sizeable additional revenue headroom that could be generated from corporate income tax revenues should these reforms be enacted globally come 2023. Perhaps by then, it would be timely for us to revisit the issue of raising GST from 7% to 9%!

Another point on the support for SMEs relate to the Job Support Scheme, or JSS. I recognise that the extension of JSS support that MOF has provided will go some way in providing affected sectors some cost relief. After all, every dollar counts in this tight business environment. I also recognise that some sectors have been more affected by COVID-19, hence, the differentiated JSS support.

However, as I have said in my speech in the debate on the Ministerial Statement in October last year, it would be more effective to direct a higher proportion of JSS payouts from the scheme towards SMEs, which make up a bigger proportion of jobs saved in comparison to large MNCs, which tend to have more resources on hand to tide them through the crisis. A global fast food chain with more than $20 billion of revenues, for example, could certainly weather the crisis much better than our neighbourhood coffeeshop uncle selling wanton mee.

Further, based on data from SingStat, we observed that employment of SMEs declined from $2.52 million in 2019, to $2.36 million in 2020, or a decline of about 160,000 in the number of workers. This is a staggering eight times more than the 20,000 year-on-year decline in employment numbers for non-SMEs. If the role of JSS is to allow companies to better retain their local employees, then the results do leave much to be desired on this front.

This brings me to my third point about supporting our future economy.

While the current relief measures are no doubt useful and could be funded via a reallocation of resources, ultimately, we may need to think of implementing automatic stabilisers instead of discretionary ad hoc schemes, as I have mentioned in my maiden speech.

In a policy brief published in January 2021 by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Peter Orszag, Robert Rubin and Joseph Stiglitz called for the idea of a semi-autonomous discretionary fiscal architecture based on automatic stabilisers. They proposed a new approach in which "fiscal discretion is retained but exercised after making the budget adjust more automatically and rapidly in areas where there is broad consensus that doing so is consistent with achieving broader societal goals."

Using an example in the local context, direct assistance to companies, such as JSS, could arguably provide indirect support to employment. Yet, many have still lost their jobs, even as the companies they work for receive JSS subsidies. Rather than providing blanket wage subsidies across companies, it is perhaps the workers themselves who are most in need of direct support and financial buffers in the event of unemployment. The Workers’ Party has been calling for an unemployment insurance scheme for years and I am glad that others in this House, such as the hon Mr Patrick Tay, who also recognised earlier this year that it is timely for us to consider introducing some form of unemployment insurance. I look forward to hearing more about progress in that area.

To conclude, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am heartened by Finance Minister Lawrence Wong’s assurance that the Government will not hesitate to use the full measure of our fiscal firepower to protect the lives and livelihoods of Singaporeans. I hope the Government will follow through on its assurance and give due consideration to the pointers I have brought up today, to support our workers, our companies and our future.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Sharael Taha.

4.09 pm

Mr Sharael Taha (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir. I am in support of the additional support measures for Phase Two and Phase Three (Heightened Alert). However, I would like to raise two clarifications: one, on the additional assistance for some affected individuals and, two, clarification on the transition roadmap.

JSS support has been well-received across some of the affected industries. However, the reality is that the pandemic has affected different groups of people to different extents. One of the groups that has been very badly affected are our freelance team sports coaches. While there are other freelancers, such as gym instructors and tuition teachers that have pivoted effectively and gone online, the incomes of team sports coaches, such as for hockey, floorball, netball and football, have seen a drastic decline as they face an uphill struggle to move their trade online.

One of our Pasir Ris residents, Mdm Sa’adiah Khamis, the lead coach and owner of Singapore Netball Academy, which has 12 netball coaches, has shared that during the Heightened Alert period, the income of coaches may drop by 80%! This concern was echoed by Mr Vijayan, Head Coach of Maruti Hockey Academy. Under normal circumstances, these coaches will be physically coaching for 30 to 34 hours per week but during the Heightened Alert period, they are only able to provide at most 10 hours of Zoom training sessions per week.

Similarly, the owner of Youth Floorball Academy, Mr Norani Zaini, and another Pasir Ris resident, Mr Rizal Rais who was previously the football coach at White Sands Primary, shared that their incomes had been generally reduced by more than 20% and, in the months of the Heightened Alert, it can be reduced by more than 50% to 60%.

Freelance team sports coaches are often paid an hourly rate. The nature of team sports makes it difficult for effective coaching through Zoom. Yet, despite these challenges, they have held on, persevered and, even in such adversity, continued to coach, hoping that the situation will get better soon. At times, they even do it for free! Why? Because of their passion to coach our young athletes and their desire to see the sports, such as netball, hockey, football and floorball, continue to grow despite this pandemic. This is especially pertinent with the Tokyo Olympics going on even as we speak. We should continue to support the growth and development of our coaches and sportsmen, especially at the grassroots level, where they already face considerable challenges even under normal circumstances. Can the Government consider extending more support for these affected individuals?

Another vulnerable group is our market and hawker stallholders. Our market stallholders at Pasir Ris have shared that their income loss during the Heightened Alert period stands at between 40% and 60%. Hence, I am glad to hear about the support packages for them, including rental relief, the Market and Hawker Centre Relief Fund and Food Delivery Booster Package. I would also like to inquire on the progress of the SG Together Alliance for Action (AfA) - Online Ordering for Hawkers. How can we quickly get more of them on board?

Beyond these groups of workers, many others have had their income affected, too. The situation is more strained this time as it is not just about entering into another round of Heightened Alert; it is the broader challenge of having to endure more than one and a half years of restrictions and continued disruptions to their livelihoods. Many have shared that they have exhausted their savings during this period.

Given these circumstances, under the CRG-Temporary Support Scheme, 50% loss of income may be too stringent a criterion before some support is extended to them. Can we instead consider a tiered support at different levels of income loss, for example, starting at 30%, 40% and so on?

I am heartened to note that the Minister and fellow MTF Co-Chairs have been preparing a roadmap for Singapore to transit to a scenario where we learn to live normally with COVID-19. Can the Minister share when we can expect the roadmap to be completed and shared in greater detail? I look forward to hearing the details about the roadmap.

I would like to highlight two issues here.

Firstly, on increasing our vaccination rates. Given that our target is 80% by September and we still have many seniors who are unvaccinated, do we have sufficient teams to do the mobile vaccination? How are we increasing the capability and capacity of our healthcare system to better manage the possibility of more infections that may arise from the gradual reopening of our economy, even if they are possibly less severe? What else can we do differently to reach out and encourage more people to be vaccinated to achieve our 80% target? Have we deliberated on the risks of vaccinating children under 12 or should we extend the unvaccinated children under 12 to do home-based learning while we overcome this transition?

Secondly, the Minister had said the economy is recovering and our employment situation is improving. However, we must take into consideration that there are people currently employed in temporary COVID-19-related roles, such as swabbers, safe entry screeners, Safe Distancing Ambassadors and vaccination staff. These temporary roles may no longer be required as more and more people are vaccinated. What can we do now to avoid a situation of structural unemployment for these workers in temporary COVID-19-related roles as we prepare for the transition to normalcy? Mr Deputy Speaker, in Malay, please.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] While the JSS has been able to provide support for industries and individuals affected by the pandemic, the reality is that the pandemic has affected different groups of people to different extents. One of the groups of people who have been very badly affected by the pandemic are our freelance team sports coaches, such as those providing coaching services for hockey, netball, floorball and soccer. It has not been easy for them to conduct the training online and, as such, they have seen a drastic drop in their income during Phase Two. Despite these challenges, these coaches remain positive and strong. As the Malay proverb goes, one must see through any task, regardless of how difficult it may be. They diligently conduct training through Zoom. In fact, there are those who provide free training!

Coaches like Mr Rizal Rais, a football coach, Mdm Sa'adiah Khamis, a netball head coach, and Mr Norani Zaini, owner of the Youth Floorball Academy, did it out of their interest to teach young athletes and their hopes of seeing the sport grow even during this pandemic. Can the Government consider more assistance for these individuals?

I also support the help given to food stall owners and stalls in the markets. Many stall owners have indicated that their loss of income in the Heightened Alert period is between 40% and 60%. Therefore, I am glad to hear about the support package for hawker centre and market stallholders, including rental assistance, the Market and Hawker Centre Relief Fund and the Food Delivery Booster Package.

In addition to these workers, many have also experienced declining incomes. The situation is getting tougher this time around as this is not just about losing income during Phase Two, but it is a broader challenge as they have experienced restrictions for over one and a half years and their livelihoods were disrupted during this pandemic. Some have also stated that they have exhausted their savings during this period.

The Minister has outlined in the Transition Roadmap where we can return to some degree of normalcy. To achieve this, more people have to be vaccinated. Currently, we have been successful in getting two-thirds of our seniors vaccinated and continue to encourage more to receive their vaccination. However, we must find more ways to reach out not only to our seniors, but to every segment of our community to encourage them to get vaccinated.

In Pasir Ris-Punggol, the M³ volunteers visited elderly residents who have not taken the vaccine to encourage them to be vaccinated. How can our community encourage those who have not been vaccinated to take the vaccine to protect themselves and their families?

With more people vaccinated, we would be more confident in reopening the economy and allowing greater freedom to gather with family and friends, to travel for business and pleasure, as well as to participate in religious activities together.

Lastly, as our economy and employment rates improve further, let us keep in mind that some jobs arising from this pandemic are temporary roles. Jobs, such as swabbers and Safe Distancing Ambassadors, will not be so critical as we transit into a more normal situation. We must provide support for such workers to face this transition so that they will not be caught in a situation where they find themselves unemployed or unable to contribute meaningfully to the economy.

(In English): Let me conclude in English, Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir. Notwithstanding the above, I stand in support of the additional support measures for the Phase Two and Phase Three (Heightened Alert).

Mr Deputy Speaker: Order. I propose to take a break now. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair at 4.35 pm.

Sitting accordingly suspended

at 4.20 pm until 4.35 pm.

Sitting resumed at 4.35 pm.

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

SUPPORT MEASURES FOR PHASE TWO (HEIGHTENED ALERT) AND PHASE THREE (HEIGHTENED ALERT), AND SUPPORT MEASURES FOR PHASE TWO (HEIGHTENED ALERT)

(Debate on Ministerial Statements made on 5 July 2021 and on 26 July 2021)

Debate resumed.

4.35 pm

Ms Raeesah Khan (Sengkang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, COVID-19 is an unprecedented crisis. As of today, we have been battling COVID-19 for slightly over one and a half years. Apart from the significant socio-economic challenges faced, COVID-19 has taken an unprecedented toll on our mental health and will continue to do so during our transition to a new normal. In my speech today, I want to focus on the mental health of our students and supporting our arts, entertainment and recreation sectors.

The term "COVID-19 fatigue" has become part of our everyday speech. Almost everyone I speak to has experienced mental fatigue and tiredness in coping with the impact of COVID-19. As adults, we feel this acutely, be it in trying to keep businesses afloat, looking after the safety of our families, adjusting to frequent changes in restrictions or the barrage of negative news.

But we need to pay closer attention to our younger generation. This pandemic is happening, for them, in their formative years and will shape their perspective on life as they go on to become adults. Students are a group who may be especially vulnerable to the long-lasting mental health toll.

I note that the Government also acknowledges the scarring effect that school closures have on learning and that some sense of normalcy is needed for our students. As our schools remain open, I am also glad to know that there are stringent safe management measures being adopted in our schools to prevent school-based COVID-19 transmission.

But following these measures can take its toll on students too. Co-curricular activities have sometimes been halted, celebration and orientation activities have been scaled back. Such safe distancing has led to reduced interactions with peers that are so important for the development of social skills. I am glad to know that CCAs will resume soon.

While necessary, given the current situation, the schooling experience of our students today is vastly different from what it was pre-COVID-19. Coupled with a more uncertain future, these circumstances may lead to unhealthy pessimism and mental health issues taking root among our students, including recent graduates.

Looking back at my educational journey – and, for me, it was not too long ago – I am reminded of the extremely stressful points. We were lucky then in being able to release some of the pressures through social activities, such as going to the movies with friends and meeting extended family members. With the uncertainty of the pandemic, our children have not been able to do the same. I worry about the effects that may result, given that they are already in a stressful educational environment.

In recent years, there has been increased awareness surrounding youth mental health, with mental health education being incorporated into the Character and Citizenship Education curriculum from this year and groups formed to raise mental health awareness and stress among youths. These are definitely important steps in the right direction. I hope we can have more conversations on mental health among students, a topic that the President recently raised following the tragic event at River Valley High School.

Perhaps, we need to re-evaluate how we approach mental health in our educational institutions, incorporating some activities to deal with the impacts of COVID-19.

The Minister for Education has just shared with Members and the public the resources and capacities we have available to support our students and staff and the near-term policies MOE is implementing to address mental health issues. I hope that, in addition to those policies listed by the Minister, there can be further policy options explored to improve our mental health infrastructure.

I specifically call on the relevant Government agencies to look at the feasibility in two areas: firstly, establishing another tertiary psychiatric hospital; and, secondly, the implementation of a Professional Conversion Programme (PCP) for Counsellors, akin to the PCP for Social Workers and Allied Health Professionals.

Let me also touch on our arts and recreation sectors, which share an intricate relationship with our mental health as a society. During the tough months of the circuit breaker last year and in the past one and a half years, people from all over the world have turned to various forms of entertainment to keep themselves healthy.

The arts and recreation sectors are crucial to our mental health wellness and it is integral we keep them alive and survive the pandemic.

Since the pandemic started, this sector has been affected heavily and is still facing prolonged slumps. Just as these sectors were beginning to pick up this year, recent clusters have resulted in further rounds of restrictions. Those affected include performance groups, art theatres and even gyms, all of which provide Singaporeans with ways to unwind and de-stress and work on their physical health.

I appreciate the various grants the Government has introduced in Budgets 2020 and 2021 to support the arts and sports sectors. I would like to seek an update on how much of these grants have been disbursed thus far.

Safe management measures have a sizeable impact on the bottom lines in these sectors, as not all of these activities can be easily moved online. The prolonged slump in the arts and recreation sectors, coupled with restrictions that continue to affect businesses and individuals, brings the long-term viability and revival of these sectors into question.

These challenging times may lead people to pivot out of these sectors, as they look for ways to survive economically. For example, in February this year, a Mr Chiya Amos penned his experience in TodayOnline. Mr Amos worked as a conductor in opera houses prior to the pandemic, but now works with Foodpanda making deliveries. His story is admirable, as it shows his strength and resilience, but it also compels me to think if there is more that we can do to support individuals like him.

There are probably many more such stories untold. It speaks to a nationwide phenomenon where many leave these industries, including recent graduates and young adults who have spent the last few years investing their education in these areas. Our arts and recreation sectors include many independent contractors and Singaporean-owned businesses.

Uncertainty caused by the pandemic, especially that surrounding their livelihoods, will inevitably add to the toll on such business owners and potentially create long-term scarring of these sectors.

How does the Government plan to work with these sectors to ensure their medium- and long-term viability? Can the Government provide an update on how it is looking to partner and understand the concerns of the businesses serving the arts and recreation sectors and help them work through the issues they face?

I recently spoke to a resident of Compassvale who started her own business partnership before the pandemic. Her father is the owner of a gym. Both of them shared with me that before the pandemic, both businesses were doing well and that they were able to pay their workers fairly and make a profit. After the pandemic, however, they have been struggling. They have had to let staff go and are even considering closing their businesses.

I believe we can do more to support these enterprises. For example, as my colleague Mr Leon Perera has suggested, we can include more businesses from these sectors in the SingapoRediscovers Voucher scheme so that they can be assisted while enabling the public to benefit from the services they provide.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, the effects of COVID-19 are multi-faceted. Among these are socio-economic consequences as well as psychological ones. This is a time where we need to support one another. Part of this is to make sure that assistance is going where it is needed most.

Among those who need our collective backing right now are those in the arts and recreation sectors who are among the many SMEs that account for a significant proportion of Singapore’s employment.

More broadly, mental health issues can fester if ignored. If we are not careful, we may risk a generation of students who have to grapple with mental health issues over the longer term.

In October last year, I spoke in this House calling for greater awareness on the importance of mental health. Awareness on the issue has since improved, with more open discussions, but more can and should be done. The mental health impact of COVID-19, which is a worldwide phenomenon, can have real implications for well-being in our society. I ask policymakers and fellow Singaporeans to continue to treat this issue with the urgency and openness it deserves.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms Janet Ang.

4.47 pm

Ms Janet Ang (Nominated Member): Hon Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate. I would like to declare that I am a council member of the Singapore Business Federation (SBF), chairman of SISTIC and board member of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH).

There has been a lot of angst felt by everyone across the board since the COVID-19 virus reared its ugly head some 18 months ago and continues to reach through communities across the globe causing healthcare crises, economic upheavals and putting individuals' mental well-being at risk.

Like many Singaporeans and businesses in Singapore, I am grateful that we are riding this storm with our Multi-Ministry Task Force (MTF) as captains. A big shout-out to the MTF and their crew for all they are doing to keep the rest of us safe and to ready our ship to sail the high waters, as we prepare to transition from pandemic to endemic and reopen our borders and our economy to the new normal.

Yesterday, in Parliament, our MTF Ministers had given us reason to be cautiously confident of what is to come. But it will take all of us, with a collective will, to see us through this crisis safely, to be there for each other and to be responsible for our actions, not simply for our own good, but for the common good of our society and the world.

Since the start of COVID-19, Government agencies have been working very closely with SBF, the trade associations and chambers (TACs) to understand the disruptions faced by the different industries and to help businesses navigate the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Government's support measures throughout the pandemic have been critical in supporting lives and livelihoods and these efforts are very much appreciated.

The recent return to Heightened Alert was a major blow to all of us. It was unexpected and disappointing even if we do understand the necessity of the tough action taken by the MTF. Minister Lawrence Wong's announcement of the $1.1-billion package, the subject of which we are debating, has brought a sigh of relief to the most affected businesses, like food and beverage (F&B), gyms, hawkers and market stallholders.

I have spoken to several of the TACs and they have all expressed appreciation for the quick action by MOF in reallocating funding to provide enhanced support to the sectors and the workers most affected by the Phase Two (Heightened Alert) measures. The Enhanced Job Support Scheme, rental reliefs, credit and other measures in the package will go a long way to help the affected businesses keep their staff and stay afloat.

That said, many of the businesses are frustrated and worried about the future. Recovery has been uneven. TACs have shared with me that unlike last year, most businesses by now would have drawn down their reserves and savings considerably, and if their business does not pick up soon, some of them may not be able to sustain further losses.

The Restaurants Association of Singapore said that the F&B sector has been battered with reduced seating capacities of some 50% for over 16 months. Rental costs caused a pivoting to food delivery and their manpower woes are amongst what keep their members up at night.

Singapore Retail Association members are in no better shape as they battle COVID-19 woes and disruption by e-commerce. Those who have invested in digitalisation early stand a better chance, while some 10% to 15% of the businesses may never recover. Robinsons' closing down is the red flag for this sector.

For the nightlife sector which has been dealt a hard blow since the start of COVID-19, it is now bearing the brunt of the wrongdoings of a handful of errant operators who ran unlawful KTVs, the subject of which was much discussed yesterday in this Chamber. The Singapore Nightlife Business Association (SNBA) had to put in a three-ring approach to recover from the KTV cluster and this includes the whistle-blowing system, industry pledge for transparency and compliance and call for severe penalty for the errant operators. Everyone is tired, anxious and mentally strained. We need a sign of hope to move forward.

The business community is fully behind Prime Minister Lee's call to test, to trace, to vaccinate – I shall not sing for you – so that we can transition from pandemic to endemic as a community and a nation more safely and be ready to emerge stronger together.

It is encouraging to hear Minister Ong Ye Kung's update in Parliament yesterday that Singapore's vaccination programme is progressing well, though there are still concerns with the vaccination rate and pace amongst the high-risk seniors.

We have to believe that, with all of the efforts of Team Singapore, we will get to the 80% coverage by the time we have the NDP Rally at the end of August. There is hope.

The Emerging Stronger Taskforce (EST) report that was rolled out in May-June 2021 has demonstrated that public-private partnerships with an action-oriented mindset can make things happen. The EST and the various Alliances for Action, AfAs in short, have laid out a good roadmap for Singapore to get into gear to grow again post-pandemic. Minister Desmond Lee and Mr Tan Chong Meng, the co-chairs of the EST, had a webinar with SBF and TACs to share the process and the roadmap and to encourage businesses to engage with the various AfAs, as the companies plan their pivots and transformation. It was well-received and the feedback of the process had been positive. The call to action is for our Singapore businesses, big and small, to join in the action. No time to waste.

As Singapore prepares to transition from pandemic to endemic, the business community believes that Government support and tripartite collaboration continue to be key. And I would like to voice the following three pleas for support, which need to be addressed in parallel with "Let's Test, Let's Trace, Let's Vaccinate".

The first one is access to foreign employees to overcome the labour shortage in all of our service sectors. Businesses hope that, as Singapore reopens, the following suggestions can be considered.

In-country testing and Stay-Home Notice arrangements in source countries before bringing new foreign workers to Singapore on chartered green-lane buses from Malaysia or chartered green-lane flights.

The Government to review policies to ease inter-company and intra-company transfer of foreign manpower. This morning, I think the Minister of State did talk about this during the Parliamentary Question session, but more details can be provided.

The Government to review policies to ease inter-company ongoing efforts, such as the Place and Train Programme, that allow employees in affected sectors to temporarily move to another company or sector are positive interventions and it is hoped that it will be continued. Of course, I agree with some hon Members who have mentioned that we must keep an eye on or be on the lookout for, when this is over, how do we ensure that they are transitioned, trained to move into permanent jobs.

Since I am speaking about foreign labour, I guess I do have to say a few words of what the businesses think in this space.

While there has been a plethora of initiatives by both the Government and businesses to support digitalisation, increase productivity and redesign of jobs, it will not be possible to eliminate the need for foreign workers completely. Businesses have been encouraged, both by the industry themselves as well as by the Government, to use technology, train and upskill supposedly unattractive job roles, enhancing the value-add of the job roles and, in so doing, improving the salary compensation to make these jobs more attractive for Singaporeans.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Managing Director, Mr Ravi Menon, in his recent Institute of Policy (IPS) IPS-Nathan Lecture Series lecture on "The Four Horsemen", spoke about professionalising every job in Singapore, where every worker who undergoes continuous learning and certification throughout his or her career, is recognised for his or her craftsmanship, is valued by the consumers for their services, goes about his or her work with dignity and earns the higher pay that goes with the job. In this scenario, hopefully, more Singaporeans will want to do these jobs. But until then, we simply do not have enough Singaporeans to do the work that is needed at the worksites, in the data centres, in the kitchens and so forth.

There are also jobs in certain sectors where there are skills mismatch, or supply-demand mismatch, such as in advanced AI, deep tech, software engineering, in the IT sector and technology-related jobs across industries.

Recognising the angst of Singaporeans on the issue of workplace discrimination, SBF, with 29 TACs, put out a joint statement on fair hiring and employment practices earlier this year, on 19 January 2021. Minister for Manpower Dr Tan See Leng, in his response to the Adjournment Motion on Singaporean Core yesterday, shared that MOM has set up tripartite committees across the board to work on this issue.

I hope that there will be a good outcome for all: the Singaporean workers, the companies and our Singapore, the little red dot. Still, I will appeal to the good sense of my fellow Singaporeans to recognise that foreign talents complement our local Singaporean workforce and we need each other. This is the truth.

Second point – bring back the business. Several other Members of the House have also talked about this and I must say that there have been many Government COVID-19 relief measures rolled out to help our businesses and our workforce. But the best help, of course, is to bring back the business for the companies.

Most Singapore SMEs have very low digital maturity score. In the new normal, however, digitalisation and connectivity are critical for survival and growth. IMDA has been making credible efforts to bring our SMEs along with SMEs Go Digital, Hawkers Go Digital and the multitude of initiatives and campaigns.

The Federation of Merchants' Associations of Singapore (FMAS) that looks after merchants as well as hawkers, tell me that, over the past 16 months, some 60% of hawkers have gone online with e-payment systems and that is a great start. A key reason for their acceleration to e-payment is the strong support by the IMDA's Digital Office. The IMDA's Digital Office staff practically hold their hands to get across the line.

The same support will be needed if we are to help the hawkers and merchants adopt online ordering and delivery platforms. And I submit to you, similar support is likely to be needed for SMEs across other industries.

For members of the Real Estate Developers Association of Singapore (REDAS), while it is appreciated that the Government has already given an extension for delays in project completion, they hope that the Government will give an extension of a further six months for the sale of units in the projects. With the Phase Two (Heightened Alert), sales activities are muted. Though some projects sell well, there are many which are very slow moving and likely to hit Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty (ABSD) penalty if no extension is granted.

For the hotel, entertainment and tourism industries, establishments have been badly affected by the pandemic due to the small domestic market and lack of tourists. Businesses all hope that Singapore, with our increased vaccination coverage, will further expand green lanes and trial "Passports for Vaccinated Visitors", to attract the return of tourists and business travellers to Singapore. As Minister Gan Kim Yong mentioned yesterday, we might want to trial with countries which have similarly high vaccination rates and also have a "health passport" system similar to Singapore's.

My third point is reopening plan with ASEAN and our key trade partners, critical for Singapore's status as a regional HQ. Businesses are very appreciative of Singapore's approach to managing COVID-19 and ensuring our preparedness to enable Singapore to reopen its corridors in a controlled and safe manner. They would like to see the Government place importance on prioritising the opening of borders for business travel and home travel for both business and compassionate reasons.

Some suggestions include: the Business Traveller Pass (BTP) with restricted travel itinerary has been piloted in the past months and feedback has been good. It is hoped that MTI can consider expanding the coverage to more business travellers as this would greatly enhance the reopening of business travel.

There are many senior business leaders who are Employment Pass (EP) holders in Singapore by virtue of our hub status. Since the start of COVID-19, many of them have not seen their families back home for more than a year. Our companies need to have the certainty that their staff who are EP holders returning home to see family, can return to Singapore to resume their work as per their employment agreement.

As our population becomes increasingly vaccinated, it is also hoped that Singapore will be able to negotiate with key trading partners a "vaccination passport" that will enable Singaporeans, Permanent Residents and EP holders to travel with reduced requirements for Stay-Home Notice.

Our companies are open to extensive testing and contact tracing and, where necessary, consider differentiated protocols to handle fully vaccinated individuals and those who are not vaccinated. The industry hopes that Enterprise Singapore (ESG) will continue to support and actively assist companies to localise in international markets through initiatives like the Global Connect@SBF. The Singapore Manufacturing Federation sees that it is an imperative for Singapore to collectively work towards the vision of ASEAN as the manufacturing hub if Singapore is to continue to stay relevant. And public-private partnerships could be strengthened for internationalisation and regionalisation of local companies.

Especially in ASEAN, no one is safe until we are all safe. Seeing Minister Vivian Balakrishnan's post on representing Singapore in delivering oxygen to Indonesia during their plight was absolutely the right thing to do. Our participation in donating vaccines to COVAX for poor countries is absolutely the right thing for Singapore. This is a marathon, not a sprint. It will take time and we all need to be patient, but act now, we must.

Finally, unity is strength. I hope that companies in Singapore rethink their corporate purpose and act together to lift and support the companies in their ecosystem by building greater capabilities, for example, digitalisation as strategic enabler and regionalisation. This is an imperative for Singapore and we need to enhance the hardware, software as well as the "heartware" of our businesses. There is an urgent need to find ways to keep Singapore connected to the world and for businesses to find new business models that will enable Singapore to emerge stronger, post-pandemic.

It has been a long and painful journey in dealing with the pandemic. There is light, I believe, at the end of the tunnel but it will take our collective will and a strong sense of responsibility toward each other if we are to move smoothly towards the reopening of Singapore's economy and borders. Let me close with hope and with conviction in the words of our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in the video, "In the new normal, COVID-19 will not dominate our lives". Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Bill.

5.06 pm

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, this latest Ministerial Statement, which details additional COVID-19-related financial measures, does much to shore up the most affected sectors of our economy. There is certainly more that can be done to offer short-term transitional support that the most vulnerable segments, especially displaced workers and those operating in the F&B and hospitality sectors, along with our local SMEs, as my Sengkang colleagues Mr Louis Chua and Ms He Ting Ru have pointed out.

I wish to focus instead on the longer-term elements of the Statement, especially surrounding SINGA. I will pose three questions about spending reallocation, a timeline for bond issuance and the scheme for income-contingent student loans.

My first question has to do with better understanding why the Government has decided to reallocate development expenditure from an underutilised Budget, instead of accelerating spending so that projects may be completed according to the original timeline. Specifically, why not fund the delayed $0.6 billion directly from more SINGA borrowing instead?

After all, we should recognise that the delayed $0.6 billion in development expenditure has an opportunity cost in terms of foregone benefits from these capital projects. If we truly believe that the benefits of our development expenditures have not been irrevocably altered by pandemic-related delays – and I believe they should always be the case for long-term capital projects – then we should be working hard to get these delayed projects back on track by boosting immediate spending rather than passively accepting the delay. This will also allow the revenue streams associated with projects to accrue sooner.

Moreover, doing so would not only ease the restraints on the supply side, it will also serve to strengthen the demand side in the hard-hit construction sector, still among our hardest hit, having shrunk 11% in the second quarter, which will, undoubtedly, benefit from a short-term expenditure boost.

And, of course, this is not an abstract cost existing only on paper. I have many residents whose living situations have been significantly compromised by the delay in the expected handover dates of their BTO flats. Could we not accelerate our spending, temporarily increase our inputs, so that the construction of these flats does not face an inordinate delay? To be entirely fair in our conversations with our contacts in the construction sector, they have shared that the ability to ramp up activity has been constrained not just by demand limitations, but also those of supply. Construction raw material prices, like those of all commodities, have increased sharply worldwide. This spike has been further exacerbated by US infrastructure building, Chinese restrictions on material exports and difficulties in procuring Malaysian-manufactured materials due to its shutdown.

But activity has also been curtailed by some of our own policy decisions, which have served to dampen demand in the sector. While we have attempted to relax some of the immigration controls, they remain comparatively restrictive and our friends in the industry share that this remains their most binding constraint. Thus, while we recognise the importance of exercising caution to limit imported cases, as well as the longer-run need to transition away from low-cost labour in the construction sector, as my Aljunied colleague Mr Gerald Giam had shared, there is, in the meantime, an immediate need to relieve labour needs on this front. Moreover, we know that well-executed quarantine procedures have proven their worth in containing spread along this channel.

Will the Government be willing to offer an update on their plans in restarting our inflow of foreign workers in this sector and the accompanying measures for managing imported cases? Furthermore, mandatory quarantine routine testing and safe distancing measures all have added to costs, which, inevitably, renders some projects no longer economically viable. Could some of these overheads be partially offset by the Government to help the sector as it tries to get back on its feet? And, ultimately, the surfeit of projects could potentially have lasting consequences. Our sources also report that skilled workers are leaving, hollowing out a sector already struggling with low productivity.

Another important question, Mdm Deputy Speaker, is to enquire about whether the Government has a detailed plan for upcoming SINGA bond issuance, or if it plans to dip into markets on a more ad hoc basis. More pointedly, are the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System and North-South Corridor the only projects that can be brought forward to be capitalised now?

I will contend that we require not just a clear, if amendable, issuance timetable, but also one that is front-loaded as much as possible. After all, it is useful to keep in mind that low interest rates will not remain with us indefinitely.

Between the start of this year till the end of the first quarter, the US long-term interest rate almost doubled, from 0.9% to 1.7%. This rate remained elevated through most of the second quarter, before easing significantly to around 1.3% in more recent times. Surveys of market forecasters suggest that the rise in rates through mid-2022 may only be slightly higher than 2%.

On its face, then, it may seem like we have ample time to return to markets for our future infrastructure borrowing needs but markets are unlikely to remain quiescent forever. Indeed, a more careful consideration of the underlying components of long-term yields reveals that since mid-May this year, the real long-term interest rate – that is, the true underlying cost of capital – began to rise. What this means, in practical terms, is that as markets normalise, surplus capital is beginning to be dissipated. Once this process takes hold, we should expect a more decisive climb in the observed long-term interest rate.

As I had previously documented in my two prior Parliamentary interventions on the issue, one of the main advantages underlying SINGA is the ability to lock in current low financing costs for long-term projects that we fully expect to realise and that will disappear or, at the least, face a much higher hurdle rate to justify the debt incurred if we do not seize the day.

Put another way, once interest rates begin an inexorable climb, many projects will no longer be economically justifiable. If so, we may inadvertently end up significantly undershooting the approved SINGA loan limit of $90 billion and all the benefits associated thus.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, I had also previously flagged a number of potential projects on the human capital side that could be considered under SINGA. If I may indulge in this opportunity to elaborate on one more suggestion: could we consider dedicating a part of SINGA financing to fund an initial pool of income-contingent repayment student loans? I should also add, before I proceed further, that I am an educator at an Institute of Higher Learning.

To reiterate, the idea is to use SINGA to seed a fund for income-contingent loans. The Government commits to fund all the costs of tertiary or continuing education programmes upfront, perhaps subject to a very, very modest co-payment as collateral. As the graduate secures a job and contingent on them earning enough, the recipient would then pay off the acquired debt. To maximise repayment probabilities, we could limit, at the outset, the scheme only to courses with a clear economic need, such as information and computer science, biopharmaceutical sciences and digital and social media marketing, among others.

Just as important, such loans stand apart from SkillsFuture, because it will cover the full cost of an extended training programme. It will also not be constrained by the need to identify employer matches as the Work-Study Degree programme is. And it is meant to be accessible to young, college-age students rather than mainly targeted at reskilling displaced workers. Such schemes already exist elsewhere in the world. In the United Kingdom, the government runs student loans, companies operate several plans where incomes must cross a fixed weekly or monthly threshold before loan repayment deductions are made.

In the United States, various permutations of the programme have been proposed and implemented since 1971, enjoying bipartisan support and has been championed most recently by the Institute for College Access and Success.

Australia, Hungary, New Zealand, the Netherlands and South Korea have all introduced various variations of the scheme. Importantly, such a programme in the local context will also free parents of tertiary students from the perceived need to finance their children's University education, especially when their parents' CPF funds are already stretched in terms of meeting retirement needs and, all the more, by the income shocks endured during the pandemic. The risk of repayment would be transferred to the main beneficiaries of this human capital investment, the undergraduates themselves, while being underwritten by the Government. Since human capital investments, as a whole, pay off in the long run, such an investment is eminently suitable for funding via the long-term bond issuance under the auspices of SINGA. And, most importantly, surely, nobody can credibly argue that education should not be considered infrastructure in our 21st century economy. Notwithstanding these three questions, Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Statements.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Prof Hoon Hian Teck.

5.18 pm

Prof Hoon Hian Teck (Nominated Member): Mdm Deputy Speaker, as the country implements yet again another round of restrictions under Phase Two (Heightened Alert) with measures to support businesses and workers, we can look at historical parallels since our Independence to see if we can draw some lessons.

The COVID-19 economic shock has the characteristics of a supply-induced contraction of gross national product. The withdrawal of British forces from Singapore not long after our Independence similarly resulted in the supply-side contraction of our national output.

In the Budget Day speech given in Parliament on 3 December 1968, the then Minister for Finance, Dr Goh Keng Swee, addressed two fiscal implications of the accelerated withdrawal of British military forces. One, there was the need to tackle the consequent decline in our gross national product and the loss of employment of large numbers of locally employed civilians, as well as enlisted personnel, due to layoffs, retrenchments. Two, the nation would have to address the need to increase taxes to finance a forecasted defence expenditure reaching some 10% of gross national product as the country assumes full responsibility to build up its own defence force.

Then, as now, I believe that there are three main thrusts in a comprehensive fiscal response that pays attention both to the short-term as well as to the long-term needs of our economy.

First, there is the need to provide immediate fiscal resources to keep businesses afloat and to save jobs. In the 1968 Budget, it was announced that a number of measures had been undertaken to help redundant base workers. This included providing redundant workers liquidity during the period of their job search through the Central Provident Fund scheme, into which all gratuities were deposited and from which regular amounts could be drawn. In addition, the Government introduced a training scheme to equip them with skills for new occupations in industries. Today, we are very fortunate that the Government has the fiscal resources through JSS to directly help businesses to retain resident workers.

Second, there is the need to identify new sources of growth even in the midst of this COVID-19 shock to steepen the trend growth path of the economy. In his speech, Dr Goh Keng Swee noted that the best guarantee that the adjustment to the economic shock brought about by the British withdrawal would be relatively prompt and painless was to ensure a sufficiently fast growth of the economy. Rapid economic growth, he argued, would lead to a rising demand for all categories of workers and, with this, there would be more job opportunities for retrenched workers.

The support measures for Phase Two (Heightened Alert) being debated here under the Supplementary Bill should be seen in the context of Budget 2021 that was presented in Parliament in February this year. That Budget includes measures to structurally transform the economy to enable innovation to drive productivity growth. Notably, the Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI), by subsidising the new hires of resident workers, acts to complement the JSS.

So, even though there are immediate needs and we have to cater to the short-term challenges many Members have talked about for businesses, especially the ones that are domestically oriented, there is still a need in thinking about our policy that we keep our eye on how the trend growth would be like when the economy recovers.

Third, even as we confront directly the challenges posed by COVID-19, there is still the need to recognise other fundamental spending needs of the country and to find the tax revenues to pay for the expected increased spending. Dr Goh Keng Swee was upfront about the need to increase tax rates and introduce new taxes to meet the significant increase in defence expenditures, having said at the beginning of his speech that it was neither possible nor desirable to conceal increases of such magnitude. Today, we will need to confront the reality, even under the challenges of COVID-19, that an ageing population resulting from increased life expectancy as well as reduced fertility rate and, therefore, consequently, the higher spending on health, that this will require additional fiscal resources.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, even as we face head-on the challenge posed by COVID-19, it is helpful to recall how we have tackled the challenge posed by the British withdrawal as a newly independent nation. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see how we overcame that earlier challenge of British withdrawal as well as later challenges that arrived in each decade. In the 1970s, the economy faced the challenge of stagflation, that is, stagnation combined with high inflation brought about by the oil crises; in the 1980s, around about 1984 and 1985, Singapore faced its sharpest recession; in the 1990s, Singapore faced the challenge of the Asian financial crisis; and in the "noughties", the economy faced the Global Financial Crisis.

Yet, over this span of a few decades, despite the negative economic shocks, we were able to create new jobs. It is true that when it sharply hit, the unemployment went up. But because we focused our policy on the trend growth, therefore creating new job vacancies, the unemployment rate then came down again. When we face a supply shock to our GDP, such as the decline of the GDP last year, when the economy rebounded, it rebounded with that experience we had in the past and we shaped the trend path of the economy, that would allow us to move and continue on a higher trend growth path.

There is, therefore, reason to believe it is important that fiscal policy not only responds to short-term needs but it also sets the parameters to raise the economy’s trend growth path. And we have those few decades to look back to, to have encouragement from.

We also exercised fiscal prudence through the decades so that we were able to save and build resources to meet emergency needs. We were able to draw down on these reserves when the storm was most severe, notably during the Global Financial Crisis and last year, when it was necessary to implement the circuit breaker, a lockdown of business activity, when the storm was at its most severe strength.

Looking back, it is inspiring to read how Dr Goh Keng Swee ended his 1968 Budget speech. He had no idea at that time how the future decades would look like. Allow me, Mdm Deputy Speaker, to end with this quote, which ends Dr Goh Keng Swee's Budget speech. I quote: “When the British military withdrawal is completed in 1971, a new era will dawn on us. This event is likely to be no less significant than our departure in 1965 from the Federation of Malaysia. Since 1965, we have proved that as a separate economic entity, Singapore has a far greater survival potential than many people, here and elsewhere, had believed possible. After 1971, we have to go through another test, perhaps a more exacting and rigorous test, and that is our survival potential as a separate political entity in a difficult and turbulent part of the world. If in the intervening years we have put to good account our resources in money, manpower, skills and organisation, I believe we shall pass the test of political survival as adequately as we now are passing the test of economic survival.”

Let us all take heart from how we, as a nation, tackled that earlier challenge! Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support these Support Measures under Heightened Alert. [Applause.]

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Dennis Tan.

5.28 pm

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong (Hougang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, on 14 May, the Government announced the commencement of Phase Two (Heightened Alert) after the outbreak of the Changi Airport cluster which had about 43 cases around 14 May. Phase Three (Heightened Alert) was in place by 14 June 2021, with two-person in-room dining. Five-person in-room dining was later resumed on 12 July, only to be short-lived by a change back to two persons within one week from 19 July.

On 19 July itself, I was at a coffee shop in Hougang for my dinner after house visits. Many residents present asked me whether it was true that there would be a lockdown of sorts in a few days' time. This was the day when there were reportedly 163 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, then, I believe, a single-day record. True enough, the next day, the Government announced that Phase Two (Heightened Alert) would be resumed from 22 July till 18 August with no in-room dining.

It has been over a year since the circuit breaker was ended for the General Elections to take place, yet it has been an unsettling period of ups and downs for businesses as the country copes with successive, growing COVID-19 clusters. Today, I would like to touch on three aspects: one, work from home; two, more systematic and consistent supervision of safe management measures in businesses and less abrupt, reactive changes for businesses; three, impact of dining restrictions on F&B outlets.

Work from home. The Government has continued to insist on work-from-home (WFH) as the default for many of our businesses and offices, with exceptions for small numbers to go back to office when necessary. This may compel many to WFH as the default and going to office on only certain limited days of the week. The argument goes that this will keep more people from taking public transport and congregate in larger numbers in their workplaces.

On the employees' end, many have, in fact, gotten used to WFH. For those who are fortunately able to work effectively from their laptops or other devices away from the office, many even relish the flexibility of incorporating childcare and other domestic responsibilities, which is not a bad thing.

I have residents who are parents of toddlers, both fathers and mothers, who shared with me their concerns of less flexibility with childcare once they cease WFH and have to go back to the office full-time.

On the other hand, the flexibility of working from home has its downsides. For example, as emails come in at all times of the day, many find it difficult to draw the line between work and time off from work. This takes a toll on rest, family time and even mental health. There have also been more neighbours' disputes reported in the past year since the circuit breaker as more people stay at home.

On the employers' end, some businesses have adjusted to WFH and may not even go back to having an office with full daily staff attendance. Again, for many others, WFH is not ideal for their business operations, whether for getting more businesses, for internal management, for employee supervision or for managing staff morale.

Many businesses struggle with this uncertainty of how long this will last. Beyond a short renewal to see if things get clearer in the following year, how do businesses plan their rental renewal, keeping their space pending a return to the pre-COVID-19 modus operandi or adopting, permanently, some degree of WFH like Mastercard or Prudential and perhaps downsize office spaces?

What is the roadmap that the Government has so far as far as WFH is concerned? When do we stop working from home? What exact targets do we have to hit?

Minister Gan Kim Yong, in answering the hon Member Sylvia Lim's question in Parliament not long ago, has shared some factors for the Government's consideration. But as vaccination rates increase significantly next few months, can the Government consider setting clearer criteria or milestones so that businesses can also plan accordingly?

Next, a more systematic and consistent supervision of SMMs in businesses and less abrupt reactive changes for businesses.

In the early days of the circuit breaker, I remember that the criteria for law firms was not clear and some received indication that they could operate while others did not. Fortunately, things got clearer subsequently.

Indeed, businesses strive on certainty, and systematic and consistent supervision of safe management measures should be encouraged. Sudden changes should be avoided. Let me raise a recent example of this.

The recent KTV cluster highlighted what was not known to many Singaporeans previously, that some businesses in the nightlife industry had pivoted to F&B. As the KTV cluster unfolded, the Multi-Ministry Taskforce announced a two-week suspension of operations from 16 July 2021 through 30 July 2021 for all nightlife establishments that had pivoted into F&B establishments, which affected over 400 such establishments. It was announced that all the staff will be tested and their SMM protocols will be inspected to ensure these are properly implemented and before they are allowed to resume F&B operations.

Given the timing of the suspension, it looks like a direct reaction to the KTV cluster. However, I am concerned whether the abrupt two-week suspension is fair to all affected nightlife businesses which pivoted to F&B outlets, bearing in mind that many of the 400 over establishments may not have the same kind of business or operating conditions as KTV bars with social hostesses and, hence, should not be regarded as having the same risk level as the intimate KTV bars.

In the first place, nightlife establishments were allowed to pivot to F&B outlets as a way for their businesses to survive and we heard this, too, in the House yesterday. In fact, MTI reported that only 18 out of 400 outlets received funding for kitchen, installation and conversion. The rest had to dig into their pockets to do the conversion in the face of indefinite closure of their businesses in the earlier days.

When they were allowed to operate as such, one would have expected that their premises were subjected to initial and subsequent regular inspections for compliance to safe management measures, for example, wearing of masks when not eating, safe distancing, kitchen and service hygiene and many others.

If such inspections were carried out on a regular basis, would not the SFA or other Government agencies have been reasonably assured of the SMM compliance of these outlets or, at the very least, those establishments which do not have the intimate KTV operations or have similar characteristics? The abrupt closure of all premises would have been avoided.

Businesses need certainty and abrupt orders to cease business like this will cause sudden damaging losses. Moving ahead, I urge the Government to have a more proactive and consistent supervision of SMMs in businesses and avoid abrupt reactive changes.

Next, impact of dining restrictions and other measures on the F&B industry. What I have said above about businesses requiring certainties and avoiding abrupt, disruptive orders also apply to F&B outlets. This is, indeed, one sector that has constantly been affected by the changing COVID-19 phases: from the circuit breaker across the various Phase Two and Three sub-categories, from hawker centres, coffeeshops, food courts to cafes, restaurants and caterers.

Hawker centres and coffeeshops are not spared. Popular stores do well during lockdowns. Drinks sales go down and soup-based food suffer more. Economical rice stalls do better. Mookata stores turn to online sales to mitigate their losses. Zi char stalls suffer as there are no group sit-downs to multi-dish dinners.

WFH also meant that F&B businesses near workplaces and away from residential areas, for example, food centres like Amoy Street Food Centre or Lau Pau Sat suffer a drop in business.

So, when Phase Two (Heightened Alert) was reinstated recently, I remembered the many hawkers I spoke to in my constituency over the past year and made a mental note of how I think each would be faring the next few weeks. I cannot help feeling a sense of dread for many of them.

Coffeeshop assistants or even local drinks promoters have been asked to do less work or even no work. Store tenants have complained that they have to spend more on takeaway packaging and yet crockery clearing fees have not been waived. I hope rental reliefs will be available to support stalls in privately run food centres and coffeeshops.

Many caterers have suffered badly because of the lack of events over the past year and more so during the circuit breaker and Phase Two (Heightened Alert) periods. I shudder to think of the outlook for them until more and larger-scale events with catering can take place.

Many may not realise that stalls in canteens in schools and Institutes of Higher Learning are also affected.

In June, I met a resident during my house visit who runs a food stall in a Primary school canteen. Her income went down during the Phase Two (Heightened Alert) in May, with more home-based learning (HBL). Another resident shared with me how the family business of running a few food stalls in tertiary institutions was also quite seriously affected by the COVID-19-related closures and online classes.

Have all such institutions waived or reduced rentals when students switched to HBL or online classes even before the Phase Two (Heightened Alert) in May?

Since the circuit breaker, life has not been easy for many in our F&B industry. Changing dining restrictions and work from home add to their woes. I hope the COVID-19 Recovery Grant, another support scheme, will go some way to reduce some of the losses but F&B operators, hawkers and staff will certainly look forward to the end of dining-in restrictions once and for all when our vaccination rates rise in the coming weeks.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, before I close, I would like to seek clarification from the Government on a different issue.

Due to the increase in cases detected at markets and hawker centres, the COVID-19 Multi-Ministry Taskforce has recently directed that all Town Councils are to implement access control with interim fencing and mandatory SafeEntry check-in at all markets and hawker centres by Monday, 26 July, yesterday.

As additional personnel are required to assist with the access control work, including personnel to man the access control, I would like to ask whether the Government will be reimbursing Town Councils for additional manpower expenses incurred in implementing access control and SafeEntry check-in at markets and hawker centres.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, notwithstanding the concerns I have raised here, I support the Ministerial Statements.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Edward Chia.

5.39 pm

Mr Edward Chia Bing Hui (Holland-Bukit Timah): Mdm Deputy Speaker, this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedented and unpredictable. The year 2021 is proving to be another tough year for our businesses. Companies have been coping with suboptimal business conditions for close to one and a half years now.

I am heartened that the Government is mandating commercial landlords to match the two-week rental support provided by the Government to tenants during the latest Phase Two (Heightened Alert) measures. It is also notable that smaller landlords who rely on rent as their main income will also be given fair consideration since they may not have the financial ability to sustain themselves.

Some businesses have shared that since the last Phase Two (Heightened Alert) in May, they are still locked in discussions with their landlords on adequate rental support. Hence, I fully support the move by the Government to mandate the rental reliefs and believe that this will avoid inefficiencies derived from such protracted negotiations between landlords and tenants. This will also minimise disputes, misalignment of expectations and erosion of trust between landlords and tenants.

To confront COVID-19, the Government had introduced various support measures to help businesses cope with its impact. To ensure that these measures are more timely and targeted in helping businesses cope with challenges brought on by COVID-19, I would like to put forward three recommendations: one, to add an additional criteria for rental relief; two, to consider extending moratoriums for Temporary Bridging Loans; and three, to further improve the disbursement and criteria of the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS).

This Supply Bill has differentiated rent relief for companies solely based on revenue, which may not be sufficient to assess a company's ability to withstand long-drawn challenges like the one we are going through now. My suggestion is that we consider adding the criteria of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for companies in industries that operate with low margins.

I am aware that this would add additional administrative requirements but this would differentiate critical companies who need help from those who enjoy better margins because of the nature of their industries.

My second recommendation is for the Government to consider extending moratoriums for the Temporary Bridging Loans.

Since 2020, businesses need help for moratoriums of loans, especially for sectors that are unable to restart core business activities. Through my engagements with some businesses, they shared with me that these Temporary Bridging Loans require them to make principal payments after a year while this pandemic has lasted way more than a year.

MAS made an announcement in June this year that businesses will enjoy a further suspension of 80% of their principal loan till September 2021. However, with this current round of the Heightened Alert phase, businesses do require a much longer runway and even an additional principal payment moratorium. This is against the backdrop of suboptimal business activity for more than one and a half years. I believe it is necessary for such an extension of principal moratoriums to provide businesses with this additional runway to restore cashflow, which dovetails with the overall COVID-19 resilience safe reopening plans.

In addition to this recommendation, this is a good time to review the criteria to obtain a Temporary Bridging Loan, specifically, the need for preceding bank statements in applying for a Temporary Bridging Loan. Unlike last year in 2020, when such a criterion could have shown how well the company was in 2019, its relevance now is clearly a problem because the preceding year was the ultra-difficult 2020. A review of such criteria could well be needed to help our companies get through 2021.

My third suggestion is to further finetune the disbursement and criteria of JSS.

After close to one and a half years of battling COVID-19, many businesses are facing low cash reserves. Through my conversations with several businesses, they hope for an earlier and quicker disbursement of JSS to aid their cashflow issues. To quote one business owner, "We need water to arrive earlier to fight this fire."

Some businesses have also shared with me how the Singapore Standard Industrial Classification (SSIC) categorisation of their businesses has a clear impact on the support measures they receive. Some businesses shared that due to their SSIC codes, they have fallen through the cracks.

At this juncture, allow me to highlight some of the concerns from businesses within the events industry, concerns that are consistent with what the hon Member Liang Eng Hwa shared earlier.

Those whose businesses include audio-visual, staging and backdrop, event landscaping, event design, event logistics, booth carpentry, artiste management and so on are currently categorised as Tier 3 in the SSIC code structure. This means they qualify for lower support measures, compared to those in the F&B, hotels and MICE industries when their work is highly integrated with them. In addition, being classified as Tier 3 also meant that they will not receive loan moratorium extensions.

The core events industry is intertwined with inbound corporate and leisure travel. Each phase of dining-in restriction affects the confidence of event clients and leading to eventual cancellations. The continued cap on weddings guest size and suspension of social and community events have also meant lower revenue for event-related companies. While there are “pilots” for events to take place, the capacity cap makes them commercially not viable. Those who have pivoted to digital formats have found that the revenue is unable to support existing costs and borrowings incurred prior to COVID-19. With high overheads and borrowing costs, event business owners had to bear continued losses and exhaust their own savings to preserve their business to retain capabilities built over many years. Therefore, I would like to ask that we review the support mechanism for the wider events industry ecosystem to preserve capabilities that are much needed to maintain Singapore as a business hub.

I would like to request the relevant Ministries and Statutory Boards to undertake deeper engagements with companies to reassess if current SSIC classifications are still relevant and need to be updated. This allows us to be more targeted in supporting our companies now and in the future.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, as Singapore continues to progress while battling this pandemic, support grants and financing measures are essential and beneficial to Singaporeans. We must continue to hear the voices of Singaporeans from different industries and ensure that no one, no one, is left behind. Targeted and equitable support that is commensurate with the impact specific businesses face is necessary. We need to preserve critical capabilities so that we can emerge stronger.

Hence, I hope the Government can consider my three recommendations: one, to add an additional criteria for rental relief to support more businesses in need; two, to extend moratoriums for Temporary Bridging Loan and review loan eligibility criteria; and, three, to accelerate the disbursement of JSS and tweak the tiered criteria tied to SSIC so that these measures are more timely and targeted in helping our businesses cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Notwithstanding my recommendations, I support the Bill.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Leon Perera.

5.48 pm

Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied): Mdm Deputy Speaker, we entered a new phase of fairly severe restrictions about a week ago. These and earlier events have taken their toll financially as well as mentally on our communities.

At this point, I would like to express my deepest sympathies for the family and all those affected by the tragic incident at River Valley High School. We cannot imagine the grief that they are facing and I would like for us to keep them in our thoughts. We need to take care of one another at this challenging time.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, for the rest of my speech, I would like to address the Supplementary Budget and the current phase of this COVID-19 pandemic, mainly in the context of SMEs. By SMEs, here I mean micro-businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. Many who run or work in SMEs have been severely hurt economically after the last few rounds of restrictions, especially after coming out of a very challenging 2020.

Madam, our SMEs employ roughly two-thirds of our workforce. Many of those who run micro-businesses, in particular, work extremely hard. Running a company or business can be very challenging, especially in the initial stages when most start-ups fail, but also when world-shaking events like COVID-19 happen. Even in the best of times, entrepreneurs have to deal with curveballs on a regular, sometimes daily basis, as they grapple with issues related to winning and keeping difficult customers, retaining employees and ensuring cash flow. As the founder of a company, I know this first hand. The dot-com bubble burst around the time my company was founded, affecting many of our clients. And about a year later, 9/11 happened, again, dealing a big blow to the economy.

It is often noted that this long COVID-19 pandemic has had a very uneven impact on individuals and on countries. Individuals who are better able to work from home have fared better, for example, as have countries with better access to vaccines. What is less often noted is that COVID-19 has also worsened the inequality among companies. Those who are better able to adapt to the digital economy and to e-commerce have fared better. Those in certain industries like biomedical, infocomm technology, food production and fast-moving consumer goods have fared, on the whole, very well during the pandemic, some seeing record profits. Others in sectors dependent on tourism and travel, as well as retail and food services, have struggled with whole swathes of these industries being setback or wiped out.

Yet, interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has also seen a burst of new start-up formations in many countries around the world, including Singapore: 63,418 new enterprises were set up in 2020 amidst the worst recession in our country's history versus 61,573 in 2019, the highest such figures since 2016.

We should ensure that we create the right eco-system to enable these new start-ups and SMEs in general to flourish and both safeguard jobs in a competitive environment as well as contribute to job and GDP growth alongside MNCs and state-linked enterprises. In the rest of my speech, I shall outline some suggestions for nurturing our SMEs and, as I do so, I would also like to make a general observation first, as have many of my Parliamentary colleagues.

It is crucial for our Government agencies to take the realities of running a business, especially an SME business, into account when formulating policies. Most SMEs do not have the manpower and capacity to digest and enforce complicated regulations. Many SMEs operate on thin margins and a cash loss can have an outsized effect on their sustainability.

There have clearly been gaps here. For example, when the Jurong Fishery Port cluster erupted, many fishmongers were tested and not told that they are to cease operations. So, they went ahead and bought their seafood at the wholesale market and, a few hours later, they were told to stop selling, meaning that the seafood they had bought could not be sold. Another example is from the initially complex rules issued for dining-in earlier in July. How eateries were going to enforce those rules was something they grappled with. Some food service chains simply said it would limit dining-in to two persons to avoid the risks and costs of enforcement. Let us strive towards fewer of such examples going forward.

Before I begin, I declare my interest as the CEO of a company, a research consultancy.

Firstly, a few narrowly scoped points on the COVID-19 support packages. Madam, one group of businesses that seems left out are wholesalers, distributors and importers who support restaurants and F&B outlets. It does not appear that such distributors qualify for JSS and I hope we can support them in some way.

Some such firms I am aware of have already dutifully paid their suppliers for goods they have ordered in the expectation that dining-in would be allowed and are now paying an even higher cost to keep kegs and food produce in cold storage.

Next, one of my constituents also shared that his business did not qualify for JSS. The line of business, listed as a secondary business activity, would by right, entitle him to JSS. However, he was told that because it was not his primary business activity, no JSS would be paid. I would argue that some degree of JSS support should be paid, pro-rated perhaps, in cases where the company has a line of business that warrants JSS but it is not the primary line of business, provided the company can prove that they are still doing some amount of that secondary business. We should also bear in mind that the revenue split between primary and secondary business can be fairly dynamic. I hope we can take a balanced approach in administering this and other schemes.

Next, we should also review the rental support given to SME tenants who rent a mixed-use property, that is, a shophouse for both retail and residential use. Due to COVID-19, there are SME tenants who have to resort to renting a mixed-use property to keep their business afloat.

However, doing so would seem to prevent them from obtaining the cash disbursements automatically. Some SME owners who are renting mixed-use properties find the process complicated to manage, sometimes due to language differences or unfamiliarity with Government applications. They have also raised their concerns about how costly it would be for them to get hired help just to assist them to submit their claims with supporting documents. I hope we could look into providing an automatic service for the SME tenants renting mixed-use properties, especially during this crisis, to reduce their financial burden.

Next, I would like to speak on the need to keep track of our SME schemes and this really speaks to more of our medium- and longer-term considerations about our SME ecosystem. Madam, a significant amount of public money goes into SME schemes. Workers' Party Members of Parliament have filed many Parliamentary Questions over the years, keeping track of the outcomes of these schemes.

Madam, when our economic agencies disclose data on schemes, these are usually effort indicators, such as how many companies were helped, the median quantum of support and so on. But what would be more meaningful is to analyse the outcomes of these schemes, what marginal impact the schemes made to business success. I know that this is not easy to measure; there is a problem of differentiating between correlation and causation, for example. But solutions to measurement problems can be found. Publishing such outcome measures should be done from time to time. The case in point is the Productivity and Innovation Credit scheme which was discontinued earlier. Did it really help to increase productivity?

Next, we should improve the user experience for our grant applications for SMEs. In a previous speech in this House, I called for a one-stop portal for all citizens and companies to transact with the Government on assistance schemes. One such portal for SMEs now exists, businessgrants.gov.sg. However, it appears that not all the SME schemes across the whole all Government can be accessed on this portal. I recall a number of letters, also to The Straits Times Forum page, explaining issues which users faced on this portal. One such letter, dated 30 June this year, referred to an endless cycle of questions and answers because replies by email or phone call were not entertained.

Before leaving the subject, I should note that many SMEs still feel that the process for applying for grants and support is too administratively time-consuming and difficult. According to the UOB SME Outlook 2021 survey, small SMEs wanted more assistance to apply for existing grants in schemes and placed this wish as one of their top three wishes for Budget 2021.

Next, Madam, I would like to speak on the need to nurture entrepreneurship and small businesses for the long run and this starts with the very lifeblood of SMEs – people. Partly because of stubborn mindsets and partly because of competition from MNCs and the public sector, SMEs are often not sufficiently attracting, retaining, developing and investing in their talent. This is a vicious cycle that reduces their ability to offer quality goods and services as well as survive into the future. SMEs without talent do not do well and not doing well means they are discouraged from investing in their talent.

There are Government scholarships that allow scholars to take on roles in SMEs rather than in GLCs or other major companies. For example, some IMDA scholarships allow for this. Is this something the Government is putting effort into developing and expanding? Co-marketing these scholarships with boutique SMEs that are leaders in their own right could be a way to push students to explore the breadth and depth of our SME ecosystem.

It could well be that SME scholarships are not as attractive to many young Singaporeans as other types of scholarships, such as PSC or GLC scholarships. To widen the potential talent pool for such SME scholarships, can we give the option to PSC scholars to transfer the latter part of their bond to an SME? This may attract some PSC Scholars who realise they would rather develop their career in the private sector. Also, as times have changed, more young people are realising that SMEs and start-ups can offer exciting employment opportunities and this is something that can be built on. There have been hit drama series produced in Korea, America and elsewhere about the fast-paced world of start-ups. There may be fresh opportunities these days to market SME scholarships to youth, if we are bold and ingenious in designing this kind of marketing.

Next, on the talent deficit that many SMEs face. Again, I would like to talk about the role of shared service providers. Many SMEs struggle to hire people to fill vacancies, especially in fields like finance, human resources, administration and accounting, as the pool of locals qualified for such work is limited and there is competition from MNCs, GLCs and big professional service firms for such talent. SMEs can outsource this work, but outsourced service providers often charge high fees. Some SMEs form relationships with individual freelancers to do such work on a part-time or flexible basis, but not all SMEs have access to such freelancers.

I would like to suggest that the Government look into nurturing players that provide shared services, such as finance, human resources, accounting and administration, at low cost to SMEs. Such a shared service industry would potentially be a strategic industry for our SME development and having such firms providing such services at low prices on an ongoing basis would perhaps be more helpful to SMEs than many of our existing schemes which prioritise the partial funding of one-off consulting work.

If we have a good pool of such shared service players, SMEs can outsource much of this back-office work to these companies at reasonable costs, thus enabling entrepreneurs to focus more on their core business and core competences. Our economic agencies should treat the development of the low-cost shared service industry as an industry development priority. Technology can be leveraged to provide low-cost services.

Next, Madam, I will speak on what more can be done for business succession planning, including exits via entrepreneurs selling their business. I asked a Parliamentary Question about what the Government was doing on this front in 2017.

Madam, many small and micro-business owners may toil away for years to build a business with a significant product, customer base, employee base and brand. Yet, many struggle with business succession planning. Nowadays, it is common to hear that the children of family business owners do not want to take over the business.

And it is hard for family business owners to be able to find acquirers. Many such business owners may not have the skills to identify acquirers and pitch their business to those acquirers. At the same time, many would be unable to avail themselves of the services of M&A advisory firms or investment banks, as these usually handle deals above a certain size threshold and the SME’s valuation may fall below that threshold.

All of this means that many SME owners may be unable to ensure the continuity of their business nor be able to monetise the value that they have created. Instead, they may end up simply winding up the business – and we have seen quite a few examples of this happening during this long COVID-19 pandemic. The other group of people who would lose out from this would be the long-time employees of such firms which close down.

Would the Government look into providing low-cost services to SMEs that cannot engage M&A advisory firms to help match them to potential acquirers? A basic form of matchmaking could be set up via an online portal which allows potential buyers and sellers of small firms to express their interest, for example.

I would also note in passing that, in some countries with a vibrant SME landscape, institutions other than the state play the role of providing general strategic advice to SME owners on matters that include business succession planning. Such institutions include regional banks in Germany, Switzerland and Japan and the giant chaebols in Korea, some of whom take an interest in the SME suppliers within their ecosystem. But in Singapore, such traditions are, by and large, absent which explains the context for the suggestions I am making.

Next, another point relates to SMEs starting up overseas. Can Enterprise SG provide small hot-desking facilities and business centres in its key overseas centres to support SMEs going abroad for the first time? Some foreign countries’ embassies and High Commissions provide such facilities for SMEs from their home countries in key global cities.

Such facilities would enable SMEs to rent a desk or a small office for a limited time, as they explore an overseas market or start their presence. While such facilities are available commercially in most global cities, having Singapore SMEs use the same facility and having that co-located with the office of Enterprise Singapore and other Singapore Government agencies in-country would facilitate networking with Government and collaborations among Singapore firms in that overseas market. Subsidised rental rates could also be provided to ease market entry. Access to such facilities should, of course, be limited to SMEs and not extended to large firms.

Next, Madam, I would like to talk about financing the growth of SMEs. Back in 2010, the Economic Strategies Committee (ESC) mooted the option of establishing an EXIM bank but the Government concluded that gaps in trade financing could be addressed by expanding the suite of trade and internationalisation finance schemes under what was then International Enterprise (IE) Singapore, without the setting up of an EXIM bank. Since then, Enterprise Singapore has launched various internationalisation finance schemes where the Government co-shares risks with participating financial institutions to support our SMEs.

However, I am not sure if all our SMEs feel that it is easy to secure financing, especially for overseas expansion. It should be noted that even with the Government sharing a high proportion of the risk, commercial banks may prefer other options to deploy their capital than lending to SMEs, as that still may be seen to carry some risks.

Surveys still show that many SMEs believe that there are gaps in our financing ecosystem. For example, according to the UOB SME Outlook 2021 survey, smaller SMEs with a turnover of less than S$10 million stressed a greater need for financial support to ease short-term cash flow issues and that they desired easier access to funding and grants. Larger SMEs with a turnover of between S$10 million and S$100 million wanted easier access to funding and grants; and collateral-free loans for business transformation.

While existing financing schemes have certainly helped some of our SMEs, it would be worth considering if the creation of an EXIM bank for SMEs could help us to reach greater outcomes in SME growth and development.

Having an institution that has the sole mandate to lend to and boost our SMEs, rather than relying on schemes driven by commercial banks who will, understandably, pursue primarily commercial priorities, can help us better address SMEs' financing needs. Hence, I believe the establishment of an EXIM bank for SMEs is an idea worth revisiting.

Next, protecting the intellectual property of SMEs is critical to fostering innovation in the SME sector. However, anecdotally, there is still a perception in some quarters of the business community that for very IP-dependent kinds of work, such as creative and consulting work, for example, large Government agencies may take ideas contained in the proposals submitted to them by companies and either adopt those ideas internally or pass those ideas on to cheaper vendors to execute, without the permission or knowledge of the company submitting the proposal that contained those ideas.

It is sad to think that some companies have this perception of their own Government agencies but I have come across this perception in conversations with SME owners. SMEs which feel that this may have been done to them would mostly not be inclined to complain or take legal action, due to the costs involved as well as the fear of antagonising the Government.

I would like to ask if all Government agencies are given strict guidelines to not treat ideas contained in proposals in this manner?

In conclusion, Mdm Deputy Speaker, the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity for us to leverage the burst of start-up formations that we have seen by creating an eco-system that enables these start-ups to thrive and scale-up as far as their ambitions can take them, driving job creation and creating a third engine of value creation that may be more rooted in Singapore than perhaps all MNCs are. Other successful economies around the world have thriving SME sectors, showing that these can co-exist with open economies and large global MNC sectors. Our very own equivalent of the German “Mittelstand”, or middle-sized companies sector, can form one of our pathways to the post-COVID-19 future.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Cheng Hsing Yao.

6.07 pm

Mr Cheng Hsing Yao (Nominated Member): Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I would like to declare that I work for a private real estate company.

Yesterday, I was very heartened to hear from the MTF an unequivocal commitment for the transition into living with the virus. I cannot emphasise enough how important this commitment is to the local and international business and investment communities who are making their long-term investment decisions into Singapore. Some have started to refer to Singapore as a "zero COVID-19 society", implying that we do not have the psychological resilience to transit into living with the virus. It is thus important for Singapore to signal our commitment clearly, not just to Singaporeans but also to the rest of the world our commitment. And it will be a great story to tell the world we will transit into the new normal through the methodical and pragmatic Singapore way.

Moving on, I would like to express that I support the Supplementary Supply and Budget Adjustments Bill and support the fact that, in this time of hardship, we must support one another where we can.

I would like to raise a relatively philosophical question on the sanctity of contracts. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are living in exceptional times and the Government has the unenviable task of making difficult decisions like the need for a circuit breaker or the Heightened Alert.

The Government has been very proactive in supporting businesses and saving jobs through very substantial schemes, such as JSS, tax rebates and so on. In addition, the Government has, through legislation, such as COTMA, directly intervened into private agreements. In essence, it has appropriated private resources to support certain segments of the value chain. I understand that these measures are extraordinary and even necessary, and the Government has explained that these unprecedented steps are not to be taken as the norm.

However, it is fair to assume that the path to recovery will be long and arduous. It is also fair to assume that there will continue to be shocks and disruptions that will require the Government to activate decisive steps for future lockdowns or other responses.

A critical part of Singapore’s foundation for its economic success is being business-friendly and transparent and demonstrating a respect for legal contracts. Rare instances of intervention in private contracts are understandable, but repeated interventions will make businesses and investors wonder if that will be the Government’s modus operandi going forward.

It would be useful if the Government could outline its philosophy on intervening in private contracts. For example, what are the considerations to activate such interventions and whether intervention is limited to certain sectors or would be applied more broadly, if need be? Besides the actual substance of the policies, the signalling from the policies is also important, especially for the business and investment communities that are making decisions on future long-term commitments.

Notwithstanding my clarifications, I support the Supplementary Supply Bill.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Don Wee.

6.11 pm

Mr Don Wee (Chua Chu Kang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I declare that I am working with a Singapore bank but I am not involved in the credit application process. I am in favour of all the measures in the support package.

I appeal to the Minister to provide additional support to our SMEs through Enterprise Singapore (ESG). Many of our SMEs are facing difficulties due to the prolonged pandemic crisis. For those utilising SME Working Capital under the Enterprise Financing Scheme (EFS), ESG shares the loan default risk with the Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs).

I propose that ESG increase its risk-share to 80% for both mature and newer companies, up from 50% and 80% respectively, and extend the maximum repayment period from five to eight years. This is because many financial institutions remain conservative, relying on old business models and track records, despite significant changes in our business environment. In the face of COVID-19, rapid technological developments, climate disruptions and changes in geopolitical dynamics, our SMEs need capital to transform their businesses and become more competitive. A higher risk-share by ESG will make it easier for our SMEs, especially newer companies, to get the necessary loans. Extending the repayment period will reduce the burden on these companies during the transition period.

I also hope that ESG can increase its risk-share for Enhanced EFS-Trade Loan (EFS-TL) from 70% to 80% and allow the existing trade loan to be included and eligible under this scheme.

For local companies providing products and services to Government agencies, Ministries and Statutory Boards, such as PUB, LTA and HDB, financial institutions may be able to provide them with bigger loans at lower interest rates if Government-related receivables can be used as collaterals. This is because of the trust financiers or banks have in our Government agencies as excellent paymasters.

Would MOF allow the transfer of such Government payment obligations and receivables from their vendors to third parties without the need for the suppliers to seek explicit approval from the Government “buyers”, in other words, the Ministries and Statutory Boards?

The flexibility to use these future cash flows as collaterals will be a big help to these contractors and suppliers.

IMDA implemented the nationwide e-invoicing network in 2019 to help businesses improve efficiency, reduce cost, enjoy faster payment and stay green at the same time. This network is an extension of the International Peppol eDelivery Network which enables businesses to transact with other linked companies. The nationwide e-invoicing network was launched in January 2019 and the nationwide e-invoicing network was renamed as InvoiceNow in September 2020.

The Singapore Government is one of the largest buyers in Singapore. Have entities like MOF’s VITAL started to require that its suppliers submit the invoices through InvoiceNow? This is the optimal period or timing to catalyse digitalisation, especially when the SME suppliers need faster cashflows.

Next, would the Government consider extending the tax exemption period to the end of this year for residents working in Singapore remotely for overseas firms?

Finally, I have a couple of requests on behalf of the retail and food and beverage sectors which have been hit hard by rounds of restrictions and closures. The first is for full waivers of foreign worker levies and work permit related fees until the end of the year. The waivers will lighten the burdens on retailers and F&B operations as they have problems finding Singaporeans to fill positions in the frontline and back-end. Many of these jobs are now being done by foreign workers. The second request is for subsidies to be also given to distributors and food producers who are also suffering due to the reduction in demand. Mdm Deputy Speaker, in Mandarin.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] My work in a bank has exposed me to several small and medium-sized enterprises which are facing many challenges, such as protecting the jobs of their employees, worrying about liquidity and also adjusting their mindset to digitalisation. SMEs employ more than 60% of the local workforce. Their survival also affects workers and their families.

I believe that the Government will, as always, help SMEs, but in the past two or three months, some areas have really experienced "roller coaster"-like changes in regulations, proceeding then stopping, turning on and then off, and some had been unable to recover. I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to revisit some policies and to help some sectors pull through this winter in a more targeted manner.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Senior Minister of State, Heng Chee How.

6.17 pm

The Senior Minister of State for Defence (Mr Heng Chee How): Mdm Deputy Speaker, thank you for allowing me to join the debate.

Yesterday, the three Ministers who co-chair the Multi-Ministry Task Force (MTF) explained the sequence of events that led to the tightening of posture to Phase Two (Heightened Alert). This action was all the more stark because of planned relaxation of numerous Safe Management Measures (SMMs) barely three weeks ago. One thing was very clear from their statements, which is the intent to move carefully and safely to reopen Singapore's economy and relax social restrictions. That intent remains unaltered despite this big bump on the road towards that destination.

Madam, I would like to share three points that I believe would be essential for mission success – the mission being how do we carefully and safely reopen Singapore's economy and steadily relax the social restrictions.

First, we now recognise that so long as our population is not sufficiently vaccinated, we will find it hard to accept COVID-19 big flare-ups. Yet, this is precisely what has happened to us over the last three weeks. So, it can happen and it has happened and we have to find ways to de-risk quickly. To de-risk as quickly as possible, we have to increase our vaccination rate as quickly as possible. We have to shorten the "night". In Chinese, there is a saying 夜长梦多, in other words, "when the night is long, there are many dreams", many things can happen if the period gets longer. So, we have to keep it as short as possible.

In pressing on with vaccination, we must note three aspects.

First, that our most vulnerable group, namely our seniors, have the lowest vaccination rate relative to other age groups in our population. Therefore, it is obvious, and I think we all agree, that we must do our best and our utmost to vaccinate them soonest to protect them.

Second, that children below the age of 12 are not being vaccinated. Because that segment of our population is not receiving vaccination, we have to "compensate" for that fact by pushing up the vaccination rates of the other age segments so as to attain population herd immunity.

Third, that as we take steps to reopen our borders, the people entering Singapore may not be vaccinated and may bring the virus into Singapore. If these inflow numbers are large, their vaccination status may impact on our effective "onshore population" vaccination rate. Therefore, we have to take that into account in safeguarding our herd immunity threshold. This again argues for vaccinating as high a proportion of our local population as possible to ensure that we have sufficient ballast.

For these reasons, I am strongly in favour of Government measures to incentivise rapid vaccination, including differentiating arrangements between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. We have no choice but to push hard and with great urgency.

And because we have to compensate for our unvaccinated young in order to achieve total population herd immunity, I am, therefore, also strongly in favour of maximum effort by tripartite partners to drive workforce vaccination, the working-age population. This Phase Two (Heightened Alert) experience over these last three weeks should convince everyone that vaccination is good both for workers' health as well as for companies' business continuity.

Second, we must keep our eye on getting ready to seize the upturn. It is true that the ups and downs in our prolonged war against COVID-19 have led to a certain listlessness and fatigue in our businesses and our people. But we must not let that take hold. Instead, we must do more to direct the attention and energies of businesses and the population to the gradually brightening global prospects. There is real hope and opportunity to be seized, provided we are ready.

And to be ready means that our industries and companies have to be innovative and competitive; and our workforce equipped with the skills, technologies and work arrangements to be effective in a post-COVID-19 or COVID-19-endemic world. This will not happen automatically. This result can only be achieved through solid tripartite partnership at industry and firm levels.

In particular, we must focus on three areas.

One, skills upgrading to meet new requirements. The requirements are constantly changing and changing quickly. We must upskill our workforce quickly enough. NTUC will scale our Company Training Committee (CTC) network and Ops-Tech roadmapping to help companies quicken their pace of adjustment and transformation.

Second, flexible work organisation. COVID-19 has forced companies to work much more flexibly and unconventionally in terms of how they arrange the manpower to get the work done. Many companies learnt that they can better tap and keep talent and good workers, both female and male, when they are willing and able to adapt their manpower models. This is a lesson learnt, it has delivered results in selected occupation types within companies in all industries and we must not let that go to waste. Learn the lesson and keep it for gain.

Third, fairness. A company's chances of success go up when it has a capable, engaged, cohesive workforce with high morale. Achieving this in the context of an increasingly diverse Singapore workforce, diverse in race, nationality, age, comprising both genders with equal ability to contribute at work and so on, means that the different segments must feel that they are treated fairly and have a joint stake in the company's success.

Fairness is multi-faceted. For example, given rapid changes in skills requirements, it will be almost impossible to protect specific jobs from change. We should rightly, therefore, move from trying to protect jobs to protecting workers through improving their employability. In the context of mature workers, a topic very close to my heart, I say this: whether the companies give their mature workers fair consideration and opportunity to train and upgrade their skills to stay employable will be key to whether their mature workers feel fairly treated relative to younger cohorts and whether they feel happy to stay and contribute, or otherwise feel discriminated, disengaged and dispirited.

On this, I am glad that MOM has decided to set up a tripartite committee to consider how best to enhance effective protection against discrimination of various kinds in the workplace, in order to unlock performance and potential. Done right, this will improve not only the optics of Fairness at Work but will actually hone it into a competitive advantage for Singapore businesses and workers. NTUC is committed to participate actively in this committee and to work towards win-win outcomes.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, the support measures and the Budget do not of themselves or are not just designed to be cushioned against the latest setback caused by a spike in COVID-19 cases. They buy us precious time to retool for a shot at better lives and livelihoods ahead. On this, I was greatly encouraged when I heard the speech by Prof Hoon Hian Teck just now, when he recounted, even as we look back, how we do not just look at the "now" even though we have to solve the problems of the "now", but, at the same time, we must look at structural adjustments – how do we strengthen our core, our ability, our capabilities to create and fight for that better future – quoting then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee. I thought that is exactly right and that we are on the same page. We must not squander this chance. Mdm Deputy Speaker, on this note, I support the Budget and the support measures.

6.27 pm

Mr Mohd Fahmi Aliman (Marine Parade): Mdm Deputy Speaker, as we look to celebrate Singapore's 56th National Day, it is also timely that we take stock of what we have achieved while looking to the future to see how we can move towards the new normal.

COVID-19 has been a trying period for us all and we are now faced with the challenging task of understanding how our world and our society have been changed. Many have felt the tangible repercussions of this period, be it via the loss of income or the many changes that we have had to make to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. But COVID-19 has also brought about many intangible changes. Many of us must deal with new and challenging circumstances that cause "pandemic fatigue" and mental health is on the decline for many.

However, as mentioned by Minister Lawrence Wong, "For Singapore, we can take heart that we are in a much better position to deal with the pandemic now than at the start." I applaud the targeted support measures to help our businesses and individuals most impacted by the tightened restrictions. At NTUC, we have been working closely with all stakeholders to help both businesses and workers alike and we will continue to do so for as long as necessary.

With these in mind, it is even more important than before to work towards creating a community where no one is left behind and we lend a helping hand to those who are particularly disadvantaged now, such as our lower-wage brothers and sisters in the workforce as well as our migrant workers.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, Mahatma Gandhi once said, "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." While we have all been affected by this pandemic, a particular group of workers who we must continue to support is our lower-wage workers. We have seen that in the past decade or so, from 2009 to 2019, the real wages of our resident lower-wage workers who are at the 20th percentile have grown by 39%, compared to the median of 33%. This is no small feat and is, no doubt, aided by our policies, such as the Progressive Wage Model (PWM), to uplift these workers and the efforts of our tripartite partners.

Last month, the Tripartite Cluster for Cleaners announced their review of the Cleaning PWM and, earlier this month, the Tripartite Cluster for Lift and Escalator also released their recommendations for our lift and escalator maintenance workers. These reviews take reference from the objective of the Tripartite Workgroup on Lower-Wage Workers (TWG-LWW) to ensure that the wage growth in the PWM sectors can continue to outpace median wage growth.

The Tripartite Workgroup is set to release its recommendations in the coming months and I would like to reiterate the hopes of the Labour Movement that these recommendations will lead to tangible outcomes for our workers, such as the expansion of the PWMs to cover more workers at the 20th percentile and below.

I am aware of concerns on the ground regarding a potential increase in manpower costs and how this could impact customers and firms alike. As I had mentioned in my previous speech, everyone has a part to play in creating a more caring and inclusive society. This, admittedly, may mean paying more but we are mindful of and share our partners' concerns to ensure that manpower costs remain sustainable for all to create better jobs with good working environment and increases in productivity.

In addition to ensuring sustainable wage increases, policies like the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) scheme continue to be an important tool in uplifting our lower-wage workers and significant improvements to the scheme have been made during the reviews in 2017 and 2020. I am assured that the Government will continue to review WIS at regular junctures and would like to reiterate my call to expand coverage of WIS by lowering the age eligibility of the scheme to 30 as well as increase the WIS payout for essential service workers.

By lowering the age eligibility, many more workers who may need help with their young families or the added financial help to upskill will be able to do so. Increasing the WIS payout to our essential workers will also acknowledge the valuable role they play in our society and the social value of their jobs. I would like to call for the Government to consider once again expanding the coverage of WIS to these groups to ensure the workers that need the most assistance remain adequately supported.

Beyond efforts like the PWMs and WIS, I am also encouraged by other efforts to support our lower-wage workers.

The Alliance for Action (AfA) for Lower-Wage Workers, for example, brought together people from different walks of life – students, business owners and unionists – with the aim to mobilise the community to support our workers through ground-up initiatives and help uplift their well-being. There are many promising ideas and I hope work will continue to develop these projects to show appreciation for our essential service workers.

One of these ideas mentioned during the recent AfA engagement is the Rest Area Guidebook, which includes 2D and 3D designs of plug-and-play rest area configurations. This complements the call made by the Labour Movement and our partners to provide our essential service workers with a more dignified and comfortable working environment, such as access to proper and reasonable rest areas. I am also heartened by the news that the project team has connected with *SCAPE and the National Youth Council to set up a rest area for their outsourced workers, with youth volunteers taking up the role of befrienders to these workers.

I hope that in the months to come, we will be able to hear more of and about these ground-up initiatives. I would like to encourage all stakeholders to continue their support of these tangible steps in creating a more inclusive and caring environment for our workers.

In addition to the support given to our lower-wage brothers and sisters, I am also encouraged to hear stories of many Singaporeans who have gone out of their way to appreciate our migrant workers. I am heartened by the response from the Second Minister for Manpower Dr Tan See Leng to the Labour Movement's calls to expand the Foreign Employee Dormitories Act (FEDA) to cover all dormitories in Singapore.

We believe that this move will help enhance the existing requirements with the additional needs in important areas, such as health and safety and the provision of social services, which should be afforded to all our migrant workers, regardless of their dormitories.

I also applaud the move to provide long-term access to primary healthcare for our migrant workers. The outbreak in the foreign worker dormitories has highlighted how early and efficient access to medical care is imperative not just for the workers or employers but also for public health. This effort, coupled with the ongoing discussion to extend the electronic payment of salaries to more workers, can help better protect the migrant workers who have come to Singapore to earn an honest living. Mdm Deputy Speaker, in Malay, please.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] In conclusion, as we take steps as a nation towards a new way of living, there is a pressing need for all of us to step up and support the particularly vulnerable during these trying times.

As a society, we should do more to appreciate our lower-wage essential service workers and our migrant workers who have continued to work tirelessly during this pandemic to ensure that Singapore does not come to a standstill. We owe them more than simply a word of thanks and we should work towards tangible ways to improve their wages, welfare and work prospects.

I would like to take this opportunity to applaud some of the efforts to support our lower-wage workers, such as those by the Alliance for Action for Lower-Wage Workers who have developed ideas, such as a Rest Area Guidebook, which includes designs of rest areas that can easily be put in place.

In addition, I would also like to take the opportunity to reiterate the hopes of the Labour Movement that the upcoming recommendations by the Tripartite Workgroup on Lower-Wage Workers will lead to tangible outcomes for our workers, such as the expansion of the PWMs to cover more workers.

In addition, I also urge the Government to consider expanding the WIS scheme by lowering the age eligibility of the scheme to 30 years, as well as increasing the WIS payout for essential service workers so that more can benefit from this scheme.

(In English): In conclusion, I would like to thank the Government for the targeted support measures that have been put in place to help the businesses and individuals most impacted by the pandemic. These have helped and will continue to help Singaporeans as we navigate this new normal.

NTUC, as always, will continue to work hard to support all workers but I would also like to take this opportunity to call upon all of us – the Government, organisations and individuals alike – to offer our support when we can to those who have been particularly affected during these times. With that, I support the Ministerial Statement.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Leader.

Debate resumed.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Abdul Samad bin Abdul Wahab.

6.40 pm

Mr Abdul Samad (Nominated Member): Mdm Deputy Speaker, the COVID-19 crisis has changed the lives and livelihoods of many workers. Just when we thought we can grapple with it, we are faced with another major setback. The daily local cases shot up, similar to when our migrant workers were impacted last year. This time, it is much worse as the clusters are within our local population.

Honestly, I believe, as fellow Singaporeans, we only have ourselves to blame, especially for the KTV cluster. I hope Singaporeans can stay vigilant and report such establishments that flout the safe management measures.

We have had a total of seven rounds of budgeted support schemes to help businesses and workers in affected sectors since the pandemic last year. The Government can only do so much. This latest development must remind each and every one of us that we have the responsibility and we have to work together to overcome this crisis.

Madam, prior to my current opportunity as a voice for my fellow union leaders, members and workers, I did not really follow through with the Singapore Budget debates. I was just a typical Singaporean who got on with his job daily and earned his keep. However, this opportunity has opened my eyes to the importance of the Budget announcements for our workers and fellow Singaporeans.

I recalled there was a part in the Ministerial Statement that really heartened me as a union leader. The Minister emphasised the importance of raising the capabilities of our local workforce. In my maiden speech earlier this year, I had called on employers to make our locals their employees of choice. This call by the Minister strengthens the belief and importance of having our locals with the right capabilities and competencies in our workforce.

Madam, many workers have had pay cuts or even lost their jobs during this pandemic. Industries, such as aerospace, tourism and food services, are severely impacted. Some need to transit from one industry to another to ensure that they have some income to tide over this crisis.

The Labour Movement has strongly encouraged workers to take advantage of this downtime and go for training in several ways. There has been an increase in training allowance to support self-employed persons. Unions have been pushing for employers to send workers for training before resorting to cost-cutting measures. Union members can also embark on their own training by utilising their Union Training Assistance Programme (UTAP) benefit.

Government assistance schemes, such as the Career Support Programme, Professional Conversion Programme and Capability Transfer Programme, have helped to train and transform our local workforce. In addition, SG United programmes give employers the financial support to employ our fresh graduates and mid-career workers in times of such uncertainty. Without this, Singaporeans would find it challenging to find employment as businesses freeze or reduce their headcount.

Many of you have heard about NTUC's Company Training Committees (CTCs). This reflects the commitment and collaboration from both union leaders and management to not just train for the sake of training but to transform their workforce to be more productive and competitive for the new business models.

The union leaders have been focusing on three areas for training towards three outcomes: the training would be targeted at being adaptable, embracing new technology and, at the same time, deepening their technical capabilities. This would make our workers better skilled, more productive and the unions will work closely with management to ensure our workers get better wages, better welfare and better work prospects.

For the record, the Labour Movement has achieved more than 600 CTCs across the different industries and these efforts would tie in nicely with the Government's efforts in the Job Transformation Maps.

Madam, I would like to take this opportunity to share the concerns of my fellow Singaporeans in the finance and banking sector. We have heard enough of FTAs and CECA as a policy. Now, let us hear what some of the workers have experienced on the ground.

One union leader shared from his personal observation and experience on the disparity in employment contracts between locals and foreigners. He had a disappointing experience of seeing the contracts of his local colleagues not being renewed but foreigners on contracts being offered permanent roles. Another union leader shared the pain in seeing groups of foreign talents that were hired with capabilities equivalent to our locals. He observed that the HR manager came from the same country as well.

These are just two examples, but, in reality, there may be many such cases. There has been such feedback raised and we need more affected parties to come forward to report such incidents or observations. While the Fair Consideration Framework is a means for locals to be given fair consideration based on merit, more should be done to respond to such hiring practices that favour foreign talents over our local workforce. I hope that the Government can consider further penalties beyond just suspension of work pass privileges for companies that have been found to have repeatedly chosen not to adhere to fair hiring practices. Yesterday, the Minister announced the formation of a Tripartite Committee on Workplace Fairness. I welcome this as a step in the right direction and I look forward to the recommendations from the Tripartite Committee.

Madam, this issue about foreigners and locals will not rest anytime soon. I believe that Singaporeans still welcome foreign talents if they help elevate our workforce capabilities, complement the development of local talents and contribute to our Singapore economy. However, the reliance on foreign talents should be mitigated with the available Government schemes to help upskill and transform our local workforce to seize these good-paying job opportunities.

I would also like to take this opportunity to urge my fellow Singaporeans to continue believing in ourselves despite such competition. Go out, acquire new skillsets, compete with the best to seize the jobs you want. Do not lose heart over rejections and failures. The Labour Movement is here with you, you will never walk alone. Madam, in Malay, please.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] The COVID-19 crisis has changed the lives and livelihoods of many workers. Some of them experienced pay cuts or even lost their jobs. In total, the Government announced seven Budgets with support schemes to help businesses and workers overcome this crisis.

In MOF’s announcement on 5 July, what caught my eye was the part where the Finance Minister emphasised the importance of raising the capabilities of our local workforce. This call by the Minister strengthens the belief and importance of having locals with the right capabilities and competencies in our workforce.

The Labour Movement has always encouraged workers to enhance their skillsets with new skills so that the workers can continue to compete for job opportunities with better outcomes. In fact, before this, the Labour Movement has already established Company Training Committees. This reflects the commitment and collaboration from both union leaders and management to not just train for the sake of training, but to also transform their workforce to be more productive and competitive for new business models. The union leaders have been focusing on three areas of training to achieve three outcomes: the training would be targeted at being adaptable, embracing new technology and, at the same time, deepening technical capabilities. This would make our workers better skilled and more productive.

We are all aware of sentiments regarding the workforce in the finance and banking sector involving the foreign workforce. This issue will continue to stay with us and will not rest anytime soon. However, I believe that Singaporeans will welcome foreign talents, if they help elevate our workforce capabilities, complement the development of local talents and contribute to our Singapore economy. However, the reliance on foreign talents should be mitigated with the available Government schemes to help upskill and transform the local workforce. We have to also avoid any disparity in employment contracts between locals and foreigners.

This aligns very well with the announcement by MOM yesterday on the formation of a Tripartite Committee on Workplace Fairness. This is a step in the right direction and demonstrates the Government’s effort to ensure a fair and transparent employment process. I look forward to the recommendations from the Tripartite Committee in due course.

(In English): Madam, on behalf of my fellow union leaders, I would like to convey our deepest appreciation to all our fellow Singaporeans serving in the healthcare sector for their sacrifices in taking care of the COVID-19 patients. Please press on, all of us will stand shoulder to shoulder in our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

In conclusion, the unions appreciate the Government answering our calls to support our workers and businesses. On this note, I support this Motion.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Melvin Yong.

6.52 pm

Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye (Radin Mas): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I rise in support of the Ministerial Statements made by the Minister for Finance, which seek to provide targeted support measures to help businesses and individuals who have been most directly affected by the tightened restrictions to combat the local COVID-19 clusters that have formed rapidly within our community.

The proposed extensions to the Job Support Scheme, the Temporary Bridging Loan Programme and the Enhanced Enterprise Financing Scheme–Trade Loan (EFS-TL) will be vital in providing businesses with much-needed liquidity to stay afloat. These will, in turn, help to save jobs in the most affected sectors and we, in the Labour Movement, are in full support of these measures.

In his speech, the Finance Minister also spoke about the realities of living with an endemic COVID-19 and how the Government is preparing a roadmap for Singapore to learn to live normally with the virus.

My speech today will focus on the indirect impact that COVID-19 has had on two vulnerable segments of our workforce. They are our migrant workers and our PMEs.

Madam, our workers are dying, literally. The first half of 2021 saw 22 workplace fatalities, with 11 deaths recorded in the month of February alone. More recently, three workers died within a period of five days in separate incidents in June. According to MOM, the workplace fatalities involved safety lapses, which mean that the accidents could have and should have been prevented.

The increase in workplace fatalities comes as we reopen our economy, with various tough safe management measures imposed at our worksites to curb the spread of COVID-19. Examples include cohorting of workers, establishing split teams and making sure workers do not cross zones within the worksite and even within the dormitory. While these measures have worked well in curbing the spread of the virus among our migrant workforce, have they inadvertently caused the rise in workplace accidents? Some workers that I have spoken to tell me that they used to be able to spontaneously assist each other in high-risk tasks at the worksite, such as during heavy-lifting works. But they cannot do so now, which means there are fewer eyes and hands to do the same dangerous work.

Or perhaps the issue is fatigue caused by an acute shortage of manpower in the high-risk sectors. According to MND, about 1,900 migrant workers decide to leave Singapore each month since the circuit breaker was imposed last year. Industry associations tell me that the reasons for their departure vary. Some because they were homesick; others because they were terribly worried about their family members back home. Companies have found it difficult to find replacement workers. So, more responsibilities are loaded onto their existing workforce. This, inevitably, leads to worker fatigue, which research has linked to a higher risk of workplace fatalities.

I am glad that the Government has recently allowed a relaxation of requirements for construction companies to bring in additional manpower from less traditional sources. Industry associations, too, have started a pilot to bring in migrant workers from India in a calibrated manner. I would like to ask how many migrant workers have been brought into Singapore through such schemes? Is the number even close to the monthly outflow?

Madam, we need to act decisively to stop the upward trajectory of workplace fatalities. If we do not act now, we stand to lose more lives to workplace accidents than to COVID-19 since the outbreak began. This is a grim milestone that we hope not to see.

I hope that the Government can review whether there is a causal link between the safe management measures imposed at high-risk worksites and the rise in workplace accidents and workplace fatalities. If so, can we adapt and review the cohorting and zoning rules if 100% of workers within the site are fully vaccinated?

The Labour Movement reiterates our continued calls for all companies in Singapore to conduct refresher Workplace Safety and Health courses for their workers, especially for those who have been away from the worksite for an extended period. I also urge companies to put in place strict measures to prevent untrained, uncertified workers from operating machineries and performing other high-risk tasks. In fact, all companies should participate in the Safety Time Out called for by the Workplace Safety and Health Council so that they can review their safety practices at their worksites.

Madam, beyond workplace safety, our migrant workers have also been grappling with social isolation. For the past 15 months, many of them have not been able to go out freely during their days off. This has had an impact on their mental well-being. I would like to urge MOM to monitor closely the mental health of our migrant workers. How does MOM intend to assist our migrant workers in overcoming the sense of social isolation that many in the dormitories are currently facing?

Madam, another group of workers whose mental health we need to watch closely are our PMEs. Many have been working from home in the past 15 months and a growing number are facing mental health issues.

According to a March 2021 survey commissioned by human resource software firm, Employment Hero, seven in 10 local employees felt stressed by COVID-19 in the past six months. The Labour Movement, too, has conducted our own ground sensing and about two-thirds of those we spoke to said they experienced difficulties distinguishing work and non-work hours when working from home. This might be why Microsoft's Work Trend Index reported that 58% of workers in Singapore said they felt overworked, while 49% felt exhausted.

But despite our high stress levels, there remain significant barriers to seeking assistance. A poll by SG Mental Health Matters found that almost 80% of the participants felt that costs would be a barrier to seeking quality mental healthcare. Zaobao also recently reported a local study that found that individuals who suffer from mental health issues are more than two times likely to lose their jobs.

Madam, we must take concrete steps to break the stigma and make quality mental healthcare more accessible to all Singaporeans. I hope we can review and consider legislating some of the recommendations listed in the Tripartite Advisory on Mental Well-being at Workplaces. If workplace burnout continues to be a key workplace mental health challenge, then we may very well need our very own Right to Disconnect legislation to safeguard our workers' mental resilience.

The Labour Movement is taking the lead to make mental health support more accessible for our workers. NTUC is working closely with the Singapore Psychological Society and the Association of Psychotherapists and Counsellors to put together an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) package for our unionised companies that is significantly cheaper than similar high quality EAP services found commercially. We want EAP services to be available in all companies.

Many PMEs have also given me feedback that the prolonged work-from-home (WFH) arrangements have caused other tensions to emerge. Neighbours now quarrel because of the slightest noise and smell. Our homes are meant to be a safe space where we can live, work and play in peace. But I can empathise with both sides: the new homeowner trying to move into their new home as soon as possible and their neighbours trying to do an important work presentation virtually from home. As telecommuting work arrangements become more prevalent, we must do more to ease the tensions between neighbours. Could the Community Mediation Centre provide statistics on the common issues that go to mediation, so that we can embark on a public education campaign to minimise such disputes?

Madam, in recent months, we have seen proposed travel bubbles with other countries bursting before they had the chance to fully form. While the COVID-19 pandemic has caused global travel to come to a virtual standstill, the working landscape has become more globalised than ever. The year-long WFH arrangement has normalised remote working and both employers and employees have started to realise that a mobile computing device with an Internet connection is all that is required to work globally.

I recently visited a large multinational company, where I met a Singaporean project manager who told me that he now manages multiple construction projects and tracks each worksite’s progress from the comfort of his living room. Is our workforce prepared for this new reality? What is being done to help Singaporeans tap on such global opportunities?

But, Madam, the reverse can also be true. What is to stop local contractors from hiring foreign project managers who need not necessarily be based physically here? What about the traditional IT, HR and finance jobs that can now be performed remotely from anywhere in the world? Should Singaporeans be worried about such “invisible” competition that cannot be controlled by our existing work pass systems? These are questions better tackled sooner, rather than later.

Madam, in conclusion, the proposed support measures by the Finance Minister will go some way in helping businesses in the sectors that continue to be directly impacted by the prolonged fight against COVID-19. But as we prepare for an endemic COVID-19, we must look beyond those directly impacted by the virus and care for those whose physical safety and mental health are at risk as they struggle to cope with the new normal. We also need to urgently consider the ever-looming threats and opportunities that the work-from-anywhere trend will bring and help prepare our Singaporean workforce for this new reality.

With that, I support the measures put forth by the Finance Minister.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Mark Chay.

7.05 pm

Mr Mark Chay (Nominated Member): Good evening, Mdm Deputy Speaker, and thank you for allowing me to join this debate.

Singapore is not a large country, but we are a strong one. We are known for decisiveness, solidarity amongst our people and business excellence.

We all know the severity of COVID-19. We crawled, staggered and eventually walked through it with fewer casualties than many nations last year. And we understand that the resurgence of infections and the Delta variant are real risks to public health. This crisis affects our entire society. But going back to Phase Two (Heightened Alert) will require additional financial support for many businesses in the sports and fitness sector.

Phase Two (Heightened Alert) for these businesses is an existential threat. The industry is grateful for the assistance given last year. Some businesses have recovered while others have not. For those remaining, it is crucial to their survival to receive additional resources.

Many may not think of sports and fitness as a priority segment, but it is a part of the magic that brings Singaporeans together. Because of Phase Two (Heightened Alert), sports are disrupted. Teams cannot train because the maximum group size allowed to gather is two people; athletes cannot compete. This creates an extra burden for our national sports associations and sportspersons.

Yesterday, the respective Ministers spoke about a roadmap for Singapore, which changes the posture from dealing with COVID-19 to living with COVID-19. I hope this roadmap marks the next chapter for a seemingly endless journey that is COVID-19.

Many may know that I am an Olympian. Many understand that it takes a lot of work to reach that level of competition. But many may not realise that the journey to the event matters more than the event itself. This is because sports are a test of character. They are a test of strength and, when one can make it to the pinnacle of achievement, sports become a vehicle of motivation and encouragement; a source of pride.

As we tune into the next 12 days of the Tokyo Olympic Games, we hope to witness many more amazing stories. Ahmed Hafnaoui, the 18-year-old Tunisian who won the Gold in the men’s 400-metre freestyle, and Anna Kiesenofer, the Maths lecturer who rode solo the last 40 kilometres of the women’s cycling road race to win Gold and Singapore’s very own Chantal Liew whose qualification to the Olympic Games is historic in and of itself as our first marathon swimmer to participate in the Games. What is important is the journey and not the actual event.

Even on a non-competitive level, fitness benefits include a physically healthier population and stronger mental health for Singaporeans. COVID-19 affects our entire society and the sports and fitness industry is no exception.

We need help. Additional resources in the relief Budget go a long way to ensure the industry’s survival. Right now, this moment, is an excellent opportunity to reaffirm my belief that we are in this together, Mdm Deputy Speaker; we are stronger together. I would like to speak for three groups of players in the sports and fitness industry.

First, the sports and fitness businesses. There are nearly 600 such establishments in the country. They serve 500,000 to 600,000 members, our residents. Without extra funding, these businesses cannot operate despite their contribution to society. With your support, however, the sector can.

It was allaying to hear from Minister Lawrence Wong's Ministerial Statement yesterday that additional support will be given to eligible businesses affected by Phase Two (Heightened Alert) protocols. These businesses will receive more rental relief. Landlords chasing tenants for rental arrears based on full rent have been causing a lot of hardship and pressure on businesses. Even if tenants wish to cease their businesses, landlords have gone after, or threatened to go after the tenants for rental arrears and damages for landlords’ losses of rent until the end of their leases. It would be good if MinLaw can legislate relief. Such a break would enable tenants of privately-owned commercial properties to terminate their leases earlier without penalty if they show that their revenues have been significantly impacted. Perhaps, the Minister for Law can reconsider reintroducing the Re-Align Framework for a period for the sports and fitness industry as the industry has been badly affected this time around.

It would also be good if the disbursement of the relief packages could be expedited. The previous support package from the last Phase Two (Heightened Alert) has not been disbursed. With the industry facing yet another set of heightened measures, it puts a strain on businesses. Companies have gone for almost four months without much income, costs are the only constant that companies have to continue bearing. As the hon Member Edward Chia shared earlier, businesses are facing low cash reserves. We need water to come quickly to fight the fire.

The second group is freelancers and self-employed persons. As the hon Member Sharael Taha highlighted, the Phase Two (Heightened Alert) measures have hit coaches and trainers badly. Incomes have declined between 20% and 80% during this period. Safe management measures make it impossible to conduct sessions for teams; and pivoting to online instruction for some of these sports and fitness companies is impractical. Can more support be given to our self-employed persons and freelancers?

Lastly, the National Sports Associations (NSAs) and the wider sporting ecosystem. NSAs are the cornerstone of the sporting ecosystem. They develop their respective sports from developing the high performance pathways, development programmes and coaching and officiating capabilities. A significant amount of funding comes from sponsorship and participation fees through events. Unfortunately, most national sports associations have not been able to run events in the past year. As national sports associations are an integral part of athlete development, a suggestion would be for the MTF to closely work with this sector in order to develop the roadmap for COVID-19.

COVID-19 will, no doubt, leave a lasting impact on the sports and fitness industry, in the way businesses plan and operate; and in the way Singapore and its residents view and participate in sports and fitness activities. One thing we cannot allow is for COVID-19 to affect our pipeline and our sports ecosystem.

With your help, the Government can be a teammate the industry needs, to make it through the next checkpoint. Hopefully, the last round, the last lap, the last hurdle.

I understand a reversal to Phase Two (Heightened Alert) is necessary, yet I hope this gives you more insight into the sports and fitness industry's needs and why it needs additional support.

We want to continue finding ways to keep citizens healthy despite a tightening of safety measures. This may mean investment in technology to host more virtual sessions. It may mean our coaches, teachers, trainers having to work longer hours to adapt to the safety measures. It definitely means we want to ensure that we can survive and impact Singaporeans in a healthy and meaningful way.

We also want to ensure employees in this sector have a chance to keep and evolve in their jobs. Please consider providing quick financial support for the sports and fitness industry. Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Supplementary Budget.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Louis Ng.

7.14 pm

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): Madam, I thank the Government for this Budget, a recognition of the unprecedented challenges facing our economy. That said, I hope the Government can also recognise that the problems sparked by this crisis are not just about money. They are also about time.

And on that note, I am glad that our Second Minister for Finance, Minister Indranee Rajah is now also the Minister in charge of the National Population and Talent Division. She can give both money and time.

Today, I will offer three suggestions related to time.

My first suggestion is about childcare sick leave. Today, students are still being sent home from schools and childcare centres because they exhibit COVID-19 symptoms. This practice started in 2020 and it continues today, more than 15 months later.

It is a good policy and I support it. Schools and childcare centres are places with high levels of personal interaction. Keeping symptomatic students at home protects other students and, in turn, protects their families.

But it is also a policy that creates huge challenges for parents. Parents with children under seven years old only have six days of childcare leave a year. Even before the pandemic, parents had told me that it was not enough. It was just enough to cover them for the six days when childcare centres close every year. Now, they have to take leave even when their young child has only a mild cough or sore throat. They are at their wits' end.

Worse still for parents whose youngest child is between seven and 12 years old. They only have two days of childcare leave.

Work-from-home (WFH) arrangements are not enough. Childcare leave is not enough. Annual leave is not enough. This is not new to the Government. This is why it offers childcare sick leave to public servants and this is why 50% of public servants take up the option of childcare sick leave even though they might have access to annual leave, childcare leave and WFH already.

What about the other Singaporeans? What about those whose jobs do not allow them to WFH? What about our frontline workers and essential workers who put their lives at risk for all of us?

I have spoken to teachers at childcare centres. They describe how some parents plead and beg them to simply keep the child at the sick bay. The parents say, "I cannot take another day off work. I really cannot."

The answer from the childcare centre is, of course, a "no". But parents are desperate.

What has not been emphasised enough is the public health role that parents play. By taking time off to care for their symptomatic children, they keep all of us safe. Just as we should not take our essential workers for granted, we should not take parents for granted as well.

Fifteen months. Fifteen months of sending symptomatic students home, of intermittent school closures, of on-and-off home-based learning. Parents need childcare sick leave to fulfil their public and moral healthcare responsibilities. The Government needs to legislate for this urgently.

Let me stress that this is not leave to run errands or go for a break. I am calling for childcare sick leave which is backed by a medical certificate (MC), which is issued by a doctor.

My second suggestion is about parent-care leave. We must legislate to provide our people with parent-care leave. It is not just the young ones who need our care. It is also the old folks, those confronting the harsh tides of ill health, unfamiliar technologies and lonely spaces. These folks, having lived through the racial riots, the oil crisis, the Asian Financial Crisis and SARS, now face COVID-19, possibly the greatest challenge our nation has faced yet.

For many, it is the straw that has broken the camel's back. Last year, suicides rose to its highest level in 10 years. The highest spike was seen among the elderly, with 154 elderly suicides, the highest in 30 years.

Madam, I remember bringing my late father for his medical appointments and I know first hand how confusing it can be at times when we were navigating the hospital, going from department to department. This was the pre-COVID-19 days.

Things have gotten much harder for our lonesome elderly folks. To attend a medical appointment, they have to fumble with TraceTogether and with SafeEntry, processes that may make no intuitive sense to them. The buildings they have to pass through may have half its entrances and exits mysteriously locked. The friendly faces on the streets whom they once asked for help are now covered by masks. It is an alien world for many of our elderly.

How we help our oldest citizens is not a straightforward question to answer but we know with certainty that they need care and support. For those lucky enough to have family members who love them, we must unblock this channel of care. We must offer working adults parent-care leave.

The Government already knows parent-care leave is important. That is why we offer it to our public servants. That is why public servants do take up such leave. But we need to extend this to the rest of our working adults.

Not all of us choose to bear children but all of us were born from parents. For those lucky enough to still have their parents around, we need to give them the opportunity to care for them, particularly in this time of medical and social emergency. We need to legislate for parent-care leave urgently.

Madam, my third and final point today is about our migrant workers. In the Resilience Budget, the Fortitude Budget and the various other supplementary Budgets, we have done a great deal to support Singaporeans and I thank the Government for that.

Out of sight and out of mind for many of us are our migrant workers. For much of the past 15 months, migrant workers in our dorms have been confined within their dorms. For many workers, the only places they have been are literally just two places: their dorm and their worksite. Some can apply for leave to leave their dorm but I understand it is not for everyone and it is only for three hours. Three hours out of the 168 hours a week, out of their dorms or worksite.

We Singaporeans complain about the restrictions on dining-in, about how we cannot squeeze our friends into a table of five or a table of two. These are fair complaints.

But the problem we face is, for many migrant workers, a distant fantasy. They have not gotten to go shopping. They have not had the chance to meet their friends. They have not had the chance to walk free like human beings. Their basic human needs of socialisation, entertainment, physical freedom have not been met. And remember, they, too, are worried about their loved ones back home during this pandemic, loved ones they have not seen for years.

I have heard heartening stories of volunteer groups that organise small group outings for migrant workers on Hippo buses with strict safe management measures in place. These ad hoc outings provide this small group of workers brief respite.

Such volunteer efforts, important as they are, are only temporary relief for a very small group of migrant workers. What is the Government's plan to let our migrant workers out of their dorms? Some migrant workers even live in dorms without recreation centres.

In the short term, can we, at least, establish regional recreational centres, open up spaces, such as old schools and open fields, to let small batches of migrant workers hang out?

In the long term, can we have a concrete timeline and plans to lift movement restrictions on our migrant workers? In particular, what is the plan for fully vaccinated workers when we reopen in Phase Three? These are workers who are also tested for COVID-19 regularly and live and work under strict safe management measures.

As with everything we do, there are risks involved. But we can have various measures to mitigate the risks of these plans. We can do things in batches, in phases. It is not all-or-nothing.

I remember at the start of our circuit breaker, many Members of this House as well as the Government spoke with heartfelt appreciation for the sacrifices of our migrant workers. But as our voices have wound down, our migrant workers' restrictions have not. They continue to suffer and, especially, suffer mentally.

We need to take concrete action in the short term and make concrete plans in the long term to ensure our migrant friends can meet their human needs of socialisation and physical freedom.

Madam, it is the right thing to do.

Madam, in conclusion, I stand in support of the new Budget measures today. At the same time, I hope we will support those suffering by offering them something other than money. We need to give childcare sick leave and parent-care leave to our working adults. We need to offer safe, calibrated ways for our fully vaccinated migrant workers to meet, socialise and unwind under strict safe management measures.

Time and physical freedom are things the Government has the power to offer and I hope we take urgent, concrete steps to offer them.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Yip Hong Weng.

7.22 pm

Mr Yip Hon Weng (Yio Chu Kang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, the events of the past few weeks, with large clusters forming, have demonstrated the importance of staying vigilant and adaptable. I thank the Minister for the continued support measures. I wish to touch on three specific issues.

First, the Government should be cognisant of the current situation when deciding on increasing rental and fee charges. We know that one group that has been badly affected is the hawkers and the market stallholders. When dining-in was suspended earlier, some hawkers faced the possibility of closing down for good. Some have probably already done so. Our current dine-in restrictions affect our hawkers and their incomes significantly.

Our hawker culture is important to us. It is our national asset. It is an integral part of our Singapore identity and recognised on the UNESCO Heritage List. Hawkers offer dishes rich in local flavours at affordable prices. This is pertinent in these economically uncertain times.

Can the Government do more to help our hawkers, especially those who would really like to continue but lack the financial means to do so? Is there any ongoing effort to reach out to those on the verge of closing down and giving up their licences?

I would like to circle back to the recently announced increase in rental fee charges. While calls to help hawkers hit badly by the re-imposed restrictions were circulating, news about NEA increasing hawker stall rents made its rounds. It appeared to be ill-timed and devoid of sensitivity and empathy.

Many members of the public spoke up on behalf of the hawkers. They expressed disappointment and dismay with the move. The subsequent response also came across as lacking in compassion.

NEA has made a number of exceptions in light of the pandemic, including subsidising table cleaning and dishwashing services. Could the rental revision not have waited at least until after the restrictions have been relaxed for a period of time? A rent increase is still an increase, regardless of how small and no matter how few would be affected.

This whole episode exemplified a seeming disconnect between the public and policymakers. I hope, in future, when similar issues arise, agencies can exercise more flexibility and sensitivity when imposing rental and fee increases. This is with the aim of ensuring that such a situation does not occur again.

Perhaps the Ministries in charge of the Statutory Boards and agencies should play a stronger gatekeeping role. They should make sure that such fee increases proposed by their agencies are approved before they are allowed to be implemented.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, my next point is to streamline and simplify the huge gamut of support measures for SMEs, which can be overwhelming.

I am glad that the focus of the Supplementary Budget is on SMEs. A significant amount of money is going to the SMEs in the form of the extended Jobs Support Scheme, rental reliefs, the extension of the Temporary Bridging Loan Programme and the Enhanced Enterprise Financing Scheme – Trade Loan.

Besides these, there are still many financing schemes under Enterprise Singapore to tap on. It is literally an alphabet soup of schemes. There are 10 grants alone under Enterprise Singapore and this does not include loans, tax incentives, investments, mentorships and so on.

Despite this multitude of assistance and with our economy faring better than last year, an annual survey report published in February revealed that 81% of more than 400 SMEs surveyed in the fourth quarter last year do not expect their businesses to grow this year. Thirty-nine percent are even expecting to cut manpower.

Although 95% of SMEs are aware of the pandemic support packages, only 61% took them up.

It is a shame that there is such a huge wealth of resources to support our local businesses and yet they are not put to use.

Businesses' feedback is that there are simply too many schemes. Businesses are, hence, not sure how or which one they are eligible for.

Has the Government done further analysis and engaged our SMEs to find out why the businesses are not participating? Can the schemes be further streamlined and repackaged so that companies do not have to deal with multiple applications for different schemes? Can we match eligible businesses to the right schemes and connect with these businesses to provide the necessary advice?

One solution is for the SME support to be delivered as packages instead of in a modular format today. The packages can be tailored for specific industries. The application process should also be digitalised end-to-end and be a seamless click through. In doing so, there might be a need to not only adjust the generosity of the packages but to simplify the packages that will enable and incentivise more SME businesses to get access to the support.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, my last point is on the impending GST increase.

Even as we look forward to a full re-opening of the economy, the Government will continue to incur many expenses to keep our businesses and individuals abreast with the evolving pandemic situation.

We are currently having the largest Budget deficit in our history despite the best efforts to manage the Budget judiciously. All these points to an impetus to bring forward the imminent GST hike, which is scheduled to be implemented between 2022 and 2025.

Nobody likes to pay increased prices, especially in this climate. But as the Government's expenditure goes up, with new support measures announced and extended, I am sure the GST hike has been looming in everyone's minds.

However, given the current circumstances, perhaps the Government should consider pushing back the GST hike for a few years. Even the traditional arguments for hiking GST and then providing rebates to the people worst affected may not be salient in a crisis like today.

If there is a need to raise money, perhaps the Government should consider raising other taxes within reason. This could be more acceptable to the general public once the economy stabilises.

In conclusion, Mdm Deputy Speaker, the strong discipline and sense of responsibility among Singaporeans have brought us through this pandemic. The Government should be more flexible and sensitive when imposing rental and fee increases, including the GST hike. The Government should also streamline support measures for individuals and small businesses, especially to make it simple for them to utilise. Keep it simple, keep it useful. In doing so, I am confident that the people and the Government can weather all storms together. I stand in support of the Supplementary Budget.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms Mariam Jaafar.

7.29 pm

Ms Mariam Jaafar (Sembawang): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I start with declaring my interest as a managing director and partner of a consulting firm that does work in the area of climate change consulting.

In my Budget Debate speech, I spoke on how Singapore can lead the way in climate change in our own way, taking into account our strengths and our constraints.

Since then, the climate change space has only intensified, with companies facing ratcheting pressure not only from climate activists, but also from investors, governments and citizens, especially the youths. In May, the Dutch court made a landmark ruling, ordering Shell to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030 from 2019 levels. It also deemed Shell responsible for emissions from its customers and suppliers, what we call Scope 3 emissions. The ruling also frames Shell's activities as a violation of the human rights of the citizens of the Netherlands. The ramifications could be far-reaching for the fossil fuel industry, as well as the countries for whom the industry makes up a significant portion of their GDP, including Singapore.

It is clear. The time for climate action is now. As we continue to manage COVID-19 as a society, we must fundamentally prioritise climate and sustainability to build back better. The best COVID-19 recovery plans will fight climate change, too.

And so, I was glad to hear the Minister reaffirm our commitment to invest in a green and sustainable future even while budgets are reallocated to extend more support measures for Phase Two (Heightened Alert). Singapore has made bold commitments to climate ambitions in Green Plan 2030. Minister Grace Fu has recently detailed plans on how the public sector will lead the way in areas like energy, waste, transport and infrastructure, to reach peak carbon emissions around 2025, five years ahead of the broader economy. All this is very, very, positive.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, about 65% of global emission needed to get to net zero can be reduced with existing technologies that are mature or in early adoption. An estimated $100-150 trillion investment over the next 30 years, more than in digital transformation, is needed to reach net zero globally.

Alongside commitments and policies, we have the opportunity to stimulate green growth with infrastructure investments and support for climate solution innovations, that is, investment in new technologies and enablement of new business models and markets as core tools.

Our strong financial position has always given us an edge. Now, the SINGA bonds give us another powerful tool. As we think about recovery, let us all ask ourselves if we have done all we can to accelerate those areas of climate mitigation that maximise speed and impact, such as the expansion of public transport, deployment of large-scale renewables, such as solar energy, building retrofits, expansion of the energy grid, including EV charging points, incentives for improving industrial efficiency and the scale-up of carbon capture, utilisation and storage.

There are many quick wins: reducing emissions through low-cost or mature technologies that typically also generate savings.

So, I urge the Government to prioritise and not delay on projects with climate-change impact for want of money or manpower. And, indeed, let us double-down on them. And for projects that have been delayed by COVID-19, these actually give us an opportunity to accelerate some transitions now.

Take the delays we have seen in housing projects.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, when HIP projects were delayed for some blocks in Woodlands, some of my residents came to me on a particular issue: clothes drying racks (CDRs). You see, a few years ago, in the HIP plan, they were asked to vote on L-shaped CDRs. But in the meantime, newer retractable CDRs came on the market. Since there was a delay, my residents asked, "Why can't we get the latest?" In this case, the answer given to us was that the stock had already been purchased and that was what the residents had voted on. Of course, they had not been offered retractable CDRs to vote on back then.

While CDRs may appear trivial for some, there are parallels to climate-change solutions in housing. HDB is already testing and implementing multiple initiatives for more sustainable towns, such as solar and smart LED. More ambitious moves are being implemented, such as the centralised cooling system in Tengah eco-town, where the district level scale gives the required economies of scale. These projects actually put us ahead of many other countries.

As we work through the backlog of new builds and improvement projects, I hope we will take the opportunity to consider if some changes ought to be made to the original plans to accelerate the conversion of every town to an eco-town, to leapfrog. And that, as an adviser, I will soon see in the NRP and HIP proposals not just new playgrounds and new toilets, but also new coatings and new energy-efficient kitchens and other appliances offered as options. Done at scale, it could pay for itself. The technologies already exist in housing and in other sectors.

For more costly levers and investments, let us accelerate efforts to support the growth of financing that mitigates climate risks, as well as the growth of the market for green bonds for sure and also transition financing and other tools that will be needed to realise the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Let us collaborate in ecosystems – companies, investors, Government and Universities and research institutions – to accelerate the speed and scale of change and overcome traditional barriers via collaboration and risk sharing. Whether it is petrochemicals, transport or shipping, an ecosystem approach is necessary, as well as a mindset shift. We need to start looking at companies not only as sources of emissions, but as providers of climate solutions that create business values.

The first generation of "green champions", companies like Next Era, Orsted, generated annual total shareholder returns of 30%, on par with big techs, while oil and gas majors had a return of negative 18%. Companies must see the business opportunity in climate action. Otherwise, the time may come when difficult and painful choices will need to be made on the sectors and industries that we can no longer afford in order to meet our sustainability commitments.

So, I call on companies to first ensure that their activities do not undermine climate action, then to advocate for stronger policies and promote green growth and jobs, to re-assure the Government that we are on the right track.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, Minister Ong Ye Kung yesterday repeated several times how our unique position in the fight against COVID-19 has been due to our unity and trust – how Government, businesses and the people work together. If we work together to put sustainability at the heart of our recovery, our COVID-19 response will be remembered as one that not only overcame a short-term recession and avoided a mid-term recession, but also created meaningful, long-term impact that will benefit us all, in Singapore and the world.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Dr Tan Yia Swam.

7.37 pm

Dr Tan Yia Swam (Nominated Member): Mdm Deputy Speaker, it has been a year and a half since the COVID-19 outbreak started in Singapore. In his speech on 5 July, Minister Lawrence Wong addressed how the Government was looking to support the population through the outbreak, namely, addressing the measures to take care of the health of the population and the financial support provided to individuals.

I thank the Minister and the rest of the Multi-Ministry Task Force on their hard work in fighting the pandemic and their care of the health of the citizens, especially in light of the two massive clusters. The various Ministerial Statements yesterday have been reassuring in answering some of the concerns I had over recent developments.

However, as we consider and debate the health of the economy, as a healthcare professional myself, I want to talk about the health of society. What kinds of health? I am talking about physical health, mental health and emotional health.

In this pandemic, I do not deny that the physical health of the people is a priority and we want to ensure that Singapore, to the best that we can, is COVID-19-safe as we push for greater vaccination rates. Yet, there might be better ways we can ensure that the society is safe, without measures being overly taxing on the people.

Rostered Routine Testing (RRT) that has been implemented is an extremely resource-intensive task. As we debate on the financial support being spent to help affected individuals and companies, we should also ask: has our spending to ensure that the population is safe been effective?

To date, there have been more than 13.6 million PCR swabs performed as part of the RRT, and a large part was for RRT, which has picked up a small handful of positive cases. This is an invasive, deep nasal swab that has been performed on construction, marine, maritime, manufacturing and migrant workers residing in dormitories on a regular basis since mid-2020, recently, implemented on inpatient healthcare workers. Inpatients and visitors also do a less invasive nose swab – the Antigen Rapid Test (ART) – before they are allowed entry to hospitals.

The costs are not only financial, but to the health of these people. MOH has replied that there are few reported adverse effects, but there are adverse effects nonetheless. I encourage the Ministry to do a survey and to provide support for people who have suffered adverse effects from the deep nasal swabs. The professional bodies may be able to assist in such a survey.

Deep nasal swabs should perhaps be used as the gold standard diagnostic test for the high-risk in a population, namely, identified potential clusters rather than be used for baseline screening in RRT. With promising developments of less invasive methods being used for testing, notably the saliva-based tests, breathalysers which some of you have tried out before the Parliament Sitting yesterday, I wonder if the implementation of RRT could be revised to include these less invasive but adequately effective testing methods.

But ensuring physical health is not enough. While the Ministries have worked hard to ensure that everyone is physically safe, it comes at the cost of mental health. At the national level, I believe this manifest as the fabric of society.

We see it last week, as we shifted back into Phase Two (Heightened Alert). As a nation, we just inched out of our shell, only to scoot backwards hurriedly. No man is an island. Not being able to dine in, not being able to meet people face to face, it takes a toll on the mental health of our people. In the past three years, the number of Police reports on physical assaults was the highest in 2020, despite us being supposedly prevented from coming into contact with each other. Acts of racism, violence and self-harm are on the rise. What I see is the hurt from these people. Hurt people hurt themselves and hurt others.

We cannot deny that we must stay safe to protect our loved ones. But we also cannot deny the strain that the pandemic has put on us, whether physically, emotionally, financially and our inability to reach out to connect with others. It will soon be reaching two long years in our battle against the pandemic.

We need to be able to support one another, especially to destigmatise mental illness and channel more support towards avenues where people can reach out and ask for help for their mental health.

Members of Parliament, a recalibration is required. The MTF described a future where Singapore would be in endemic mode on 24 June – but it has been a month and here we are, managing the virus in pandemic mode. With sudden changes, a lot of back and forth in the measures, with no sight of whether things can get better or how decisions are made, sometimes it feels like we are always having to shift and having to suffer. Money is only a stopgap to some of the issues we face. Grants can only do so much to help businesses recoup their losses, or for people to regain their jobs and their dignity.

We need to find a new, sustainable balance between preventing risks to our physical health and preserving the delicate fabric that holds our society and our economy together. We cannot keep chasing the wind. We need to take control of how we take and manage risks. While the vaccination target is a good one to have, it is not clear if we will shift out of Phase Two (Heightened Alert) once it has been hit. The pandemic is uncertain, but citizens will benefit if milestones have been set and we keep to them.

We need the Government to be able to trust us to do the right thing. No one wants to fall sick. No one wants to be the one responsible for the next outbreak.

The so-called KTV cluster: what exactly happened at these places? Do the patrons and hostesses understand how COVID-19 is spread? Is there a medical indication to perform urethral, vaginal and anal swabs to look for viral shedding? At the fish port and wet markets, likewise, what is the root cause of the spread? Could it be a simple barrier breach because their masks got wet?

By understanding the route of transmission, only then can we educate each other on how to minimise risks. These are some of the basic safe tips I know: wear a dry surgical mask; practise good hand hygiene; do not touch your face; keep a physical distance.

Reactive shutting down of all services causes suffering to many while the important lessons are not learnt. Prescribing group numbers without sharing the principles of these decisions will not help people make better decisions about their health. Give us some simple rules, with simple reasons why and let the people make that choice and trust that we can make the right choice.

As much as health and safety is of utmost importance, the body is not the only thing we have. We must make sure that the mind, the heart and the body are all healthy together. That cannot be achieved with fear incited to make sure we are safe, but with a more nurturing approach to ensure that everyone unites to stay safe together. Let us work together to create a healthy and happy Singapore.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Leader.

Debate resumed.

7.45 pm

The Minister for Finance (Mr Lawrence Wong): Mdm Deputy Speaker, I thank all Members for your comments and suggestions and for supporting the support measures that we have in place during the Heightened Alert period. Several Members have asked about COVID-19-related management measures. In fact, we had an extensive discussion on this yesterday. So, I do not really want to add much to this. But I do want to address briefly points made by several Members about the abrupt and sudden changes that we had all had to experience these past few weeks. I thought we had explained it yesterday but I think it worth repeating.

From the start of this pandemic, we have been upfront, transparent with Singaporeans about the challenges we face, about our assessment of the situation and sought to communicate that as best as we can. Obviously, it is very hard to predict what will happen. We do not even know what will happen in the next few days, let alone the next few weeks or months. So, everyone needs to understand that we are operating in a highly fluid, rapidly changing and very uncertain environment.

Just think about this: in the lead-up to where we are today, in early July, what were the cases like? Single digit and it was coming down. On 11 July, zero cases for the first time in quite a long while. Any risk dashboard would tell you things are okay and we would be able to move forward to open confidently.

Then, what struck? We had the KTV cluster. No warning, no early indicator, but it struck us. But based on our assessment of the KTV cluster then, we felt it was still possible to proceed but, perhaps, slow down the pace of opening. And, therefore, we put in place the "five, two rule" which we talked about yesterday.

But shortly after that, we had the Jurong Fishery Port cluster and our assessment of that cluster was that this was much, much more serious. The cases were already in the community through our markets, our hawker centres. There was heightened risk of exponential spread and our vaccination coverage at that time was not adequate. That is why we decided at that time that we had to return to Phase Two (Heightened Alert).

I think if you look at the facts today, I am fully convinced that that was the right judgement call. Look at where we are today. Up to now, the KTV cluster has had 245 cases, including two cases today. The Jurong Fishery Port cluster has had 902 cases, including 36 today. That is about four times the size of the KTV cluster and it is still growing.

Let us look at the cases of hospitalisation and those who are very ill, because, as we have said, that is also an important indicator. And that has gone up by three and a half times in the past week alone, from five in July – yes, it is a low base – to 18 yesterday.

If we had not done the Heightened Alert, the outcomes would have been far worse. Remember we still have 200,000 seniors above 60 who are not vaccinated. Are we prepared to live with an outcome where many of them fall sick and even succumb to the illness? Is that something we want to see happen in Singapore?

So, it is a very difficult decision. We understand. I know everyone is frustrated about the measures. The minute I announce something, I get it in my inbox already. I fully understand. But I hope Members in this House understand, too. We have tried very hard to explain to all of you in the hope that you, too, understand what an important, difficult but necessary decision this has to be, so that you, too, can do your part as responsible Members of Parliament in a crisis and pandemic like this, to explain to your residents, to your constituents, who, yes, I understand, are frustrated, are upset; explain why we had to do this – difficult but necessary.

And as I said yesterday, we will monitor the situation. We know that hospitalisation and ICU cases happen with a lag. So, we will see what happens in the next few days with the ICU cases and the cases of those who are severely ill. We will look at and see if we can continue to keep the cases under control. Fortunately, as of now, while case numbers are still high, it does not look like the numbers are rising exponentially. So, if the overall situation, as I said yesterday, cases, clusters under control; hospitalisation rates, ICU rates, remain acceptable and stable, at the mid-term of our Heightened Alert, which is coming soon, we will review and we will consider some easing for vaccinated persons only.

Then, I mentioned the next milestone comes in September when we will reach 80% of people in Singapore receiving two doses and, hopefully, similar coverage for our seniors aged 70 and above, then we can make the next move of easing. So, that is already revealing some sense of what roadmap one can expect. It is not all the details because we are still fleshing out details around specific measures and, potentially, next steps after September. And as I have said, when we are ready, when we have more information, we will certainly share this with Singaporeans.

Recognising that as we open up with a higher vaccination coverage, our focus will change and we will shift our focus, not just looking at daily infection cases but paying more attention to those who are hospitalised and in ICU. That would be the more salient consideration. Based on that shift, hopefully then, if we see more cases emerging as we open, we can have some confidence. So long as hospitalisation and ICU cases remain stable, we can have some confidence that we, hopefully, will not have to go back to Heightened Alert again. As I have said, important qualifier; so long as hospitalisation and ICU cases remain stable and at an acceptable level.

But we know that we cannot rule out things from worsening. We know that we cannot rule out the risk of new variants coming, that you may have a more severe outbreak, more people hospitalised and, therefore, we have to be prepared we may have to put in additional restrictions down the road; hopefully, not like what we had gone through over these past few weeks and months. But that is the uncertainty that we all have to face and we all should face it together, recognising that this is something we all have to deal with during this pandemic. I would certainly not like to have to impose restrictions again, if I can help it. But if the situation worsens to such an extent where hospitalisation and ICU cases go up, I think, despite our high vaccination coverage, perhaps because of a new variant, then we will have to understand these are the risks and why we may have to put in place such measures.

So, I hope this explanation will give everyone a better sense of understanding, appreciation, of why we did what we did and what to expect. We have shared as much as we can up to now. And as I have said, when further details are ready, we will share more.

Many of you also have suggestions on other COVID-19-related measures that you think might be adjusted and I want to assure you that the MTF will continue to study all these suggestions carefully, as we review and update our strategies.

Several Members offered suggestions in other areas like childcare leave and workplace fairness. These will require careful study by the relevant Ministries and will be considered and addressed on other occasions. So, I do not propose to dwell too much on them.

In my response today, I would like to touch on two broad areas that Members have raised. First, how we are helping workers and businesses to ride through this period of Heightened Alert. Second, how we are preparing for the next phase and gearing up for a post-pandemic world.

Let me start with the immediate support that we are giving. Our support measures, as all of you know, will cost more than $2 billion throughout this Heightened Alert period since May. Essentially, we have tried to reallocate as much as we can from the existing Budget to avail funds for the support measures. Based on the amount available for spending, we then had to carefully design the measures to meet the needs of businesses and workers who are most affected.

We also took into consideration the strong base of existing measures that have already been rolled out in previous Budgets and which are still in place today. They include the Wage Credit Scheme which continues to support businesses which provided wage increases to their Singaporean workers. The SMEs Go Digital programme and the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package, all of these schemes, programmes, measures, already part of the baseline, part of the existing support and the vast majority of the support, in fact, go to SMEs.

There is also existing support for specific areas like the arts and sports sectors, which Mr Sharael Taha, Mr Mark Chay and Ms Raeesah Khan spoke about. For example, sports coaches and fitness instructors can benefit from the Continuing Coach Education Training Allowance and the Self-Employed Person (SEP) Project Grant. Likewise, we have similar support schemes for arts and culture, freelancers and organisations.

Where access to credit is concerned, we had earlier extended measures like the Temporary Bridging Loan Programme and the Extended Support Scheme – Standardised to enable SMEs in affected sectors to defer principal payments on their eligible loans. I heard just now suggestions from Mr Don Wee and Mr Edward Chia to enhance some of these schemes and to extend the moratoriums for the loan schemes. For now, the MAS and our economic agencies assess that the credit market remains healthy and the current support measures are sufficient. But we will continue to monitor the situation closely and we will review the need for any adjustments. Meanwhile, our local banks are proactively reaching out to SMEs to provide relief and restructuring support based on their circumstances.

I also recognise that cash flow is a major concern for many SMEs and several Members highlighted this – I think Ms He Ting Ru, Mr Edward Chia and others. So, we will strive to push out the support as fast as we can. We will do so within our operational limits, while ensuring accuracy and good governance. In fact, Government's assistance is now flowing such that there is cash flow support to businesses throughout the year.

To illustrate, eligible firms have been receiving quarterly Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) payouts since April last year, with the most recent paid in June. And the cash payout under the Rental Support Scheme will be paid out soon in August, before the next JSS payout in September. So, we try to ensure a steady stream of cash payouts to businesses.

There may be businesses or workers who do not meet the qualifying criteria of some of our schemes and that is why we have the COVID-19 Recovery Grant - Temporary to cater to individuals who may not fit into any of our schemes. So, for example, hawkers in coffeeshops, they may not qualify for the Market and Hawker Relief Fund but they can apply for the COVID-19 Recovery Grant – Temporary and we will help them through that avenue. We are also helping these hawkers through rental rebates, to support them through the online delivery platforms and many other ways.

Likewise, we also consider businesses which are badly affected but may not fall neatly into the specified SSIC codes, because these are the codes we use to determine which category the business is in and then we would disburse the JSS payouts. The codes may not accurately reflect the kinds of business activities that the firm is involved in. So, since the inception of JSS, we do consider appeals from businesses. In fact, we have extended JSS Support for close to 6,000 companies through such appeals and companies that many Members talked about, those who are suppliers, vendors, to F&B, retail, events companies doing local events. All of these groups, if they appealed, have been successful. So, if you know of such cases, you can let MOF know, you can appeal through IRAS and we will look at each case on its own merit.

Likewise, agencies do exercise flexibility in implementation of the different schemes. With regard to the COVID-19 Recovery Grant – Temporary, for example, Ms Jessica Tan and Mr Sharael Taha asked about more flexibility for those with extenuating circumstances, flexibility around the income loss or annual value criteria. Again, agencies will look at each case and consider it on a case-by-case basis.

On rental relief, I recognise the difficult issues faced by landlords and tenants as Ms Jessica Tan had highlighted. I had mentioned it in my Statement yesterday and perhaps it is worth repeating the principles for intervention. The starting point is the sanctity of contract. We do not lightly intervene and we do so only in specific situations and in a carefully scoped manner. This is also in line with Mr Cheng Hsing Yao's caution that we should not create the impression that such interventions are now becoming the norm.

MinLaw is carefully considering the eligibility criteria and the details of the framework, which they will announce in due course.

Ultimately, landlords and tenants have a symbiotic relationship where both parties do well or, conversely, do poorly together. It is important to keep lines of communication open to ensure constructive discussions.

That is why we now have the Fair Tenancy Industry Committee that facilitates this by bringing together key representatives from Singapore's landlord and tenant communities to discuss issues related to retail lease agreements.

Several Members, including Ms Janet Ang, Mr Edward Chia, Mr Don Wee, had suggestions on quite a wide range of measures. We will study these options for future support, if necessary. But as many have also highlighted, the best way to help our businesses is to allow them to resume their operations and get their top line back again. That remains our priority.

When we do so and when we start to reopen our economy, reopen our borders, the manpower inflow will also resume. This will then address concerns about acute labour shortages in sectors like construction, marine shipyard and process, I think a point that Ms Janet Ang and Mr Melvin Yong highlighted.

Meanwhile, as these Members have noted, we have started several pilots to bring in migrant workers who would adhere to strict testing protocols in their home countries and then we bring them in safely. We will explore expanding these pilots to facilitate worker inflow in a safe manner.

Mr Melvin Yong asked about numbers. I do not have any concrete numbers with me but, obviously, the numbers are not going to be very large at this stage. It will take time to do this in a safe and sustainable manner.

That is why, to Assoc Prof Jamus Lim's question, it is not possible to do these development projects this year. It is not because of financial issues, it is not because of money and then, we can borrow and, therefore, do some of these projects. It is just that the firms will not have workers. And we do not want to rush to bring in workers and then end up with a large outbreak again. We have to do this safely. If we were to do this safely, it has to be done gradually, in a controlled manner, making sure that the pilots work first before we can scale up progressively. That is why our assessment is that these projects cannot be done this year and have to be deferred to next year.

Ultimately, no one can predict the trajectory of this pandemic. As I have said just now, if we continue on our path of reopening, hopefully, we can continue it in a continuous manner but I cannot rule out the possibility of occasional slowdowns or even pull-backs. If we do so, then we have to introduce additional restrictions and, at that stage, we will have to put in place another package to support businesses. If we have to do that, then we will need to find ways to fund such a package. But as Mr Liang Eng Hwa noted, it is becoming harder and harder to do so. You have to squeeze out the "next drop of funding". It is not easy.

Already, with this round, agencies have reviewed their development projects due to COVID-19-related delays; as I have said, it is not possible to do it this year because of manpower shortages. So, those delays of projects have allowed us to reallocate resources for the current support measures.

If we have to provide additional support later in this fiscal year, we will likely need to tighten Government spending across both operating and development expenditures to free up resources for such contingency needs. So, that is what we would do if we had to do another package within this financial year.

Mr Liang suggested setting up a pandemic economic response fund so we do not have to come to Parliament each time there is a support package and Mr Louis Chua, I think, also mentioned something similar with the idea of automatic stabilisers.

It may be challenging to set up such a fund this year because we will not have the resources to do so. But it is an idea we can study for the next Budget. If we do set up such a fund, we will have to strike the right balance to ensure that Parliament continues to have oversight over the relief measures.

Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that the situation may significantly worsen. If we were in such a serious and emergency condition, as I have said before, we will not hesitate to draw on the full fiscal firepower of our Reserves and we will seek the President's support to do so.

Besides dealing with the immediate challenges, we must prepare for the next phase. Life in a post-pandemic world will be different from what it used to be and we must expect greater uncertainty and volatility. We must continue this important work of transforming our economy and equipping our people with the skills they need in an age of change.

As we transition to this new normal, we must go beyond support measures, towards building strength and resilience for the future. We must continue to invest in growing our economy, strengthening our society and greening our home. Let me elaborate on each of these areas.

Our first priority is to expand opportunities and create good jobs for Singaporeans. To do so, we need a strong and vibrant economy. This will enable us to provide a high quality of life for all Singaporeans and enable them to achieve their aspirations.

As a small and open economy, rapid shifts in the external environment have profound implications for Singapore and COVID-19 has brought this out acutely. Countries have moved to reshore production activities. Industries and firms have accelerated the restructuring of their supply chains to reduce concentration risks. Remote working is becoming the new norm, reducing the importance of geographical factors in where companies choose to locate.

At the same time, fiscal stresses have led to the emerging international consensus on a global minimum effective tax rate, which we discussed. And this outcome will blunt our tax incentives to anchor significant activities in Singapore.

All of these trends can erode our value proposition as a hub economy.

I recently attended the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Venice. Being in Venice, I was reminded of how a city's fortunes can easily change. Venice enjoyed great prosperity in the Middle Ages. It was a vital trading hub, connecting the East with the West via the Mediterranean. But Venice did not adapt fast enough to changes in the world. The invention of the seafaring galleon, which could survive at sea for months, even years, meant that European states could set up new oceanic trade routes, bypassing Venice altogether. This marked the beginning of the decline of Venice.

What happened to Venice can happen to Singapore, too, if we are not careful. So, we must never take our hub status for granted. We must continue to stay open and double down on our connectivity as a trusted hub for commerce, trade and talent. That is why we thought that it was very important that we have the debate on the issue of free trade agreements (FTAs) not too long ago.

We must continually work hard to strengthen our value proposition as the gateway to Asia and the world.

Across industries, too, rapid technological change is bringing about new waves of disruption. As the global economy recovers, we are seeing increased levels of activity, start-up and company formation around the world, powered by new innovations and ideas. We see this happening in Singapore, too – I think a point that Mr Leon Perera highlighted just now.

We will strive to anchor and nurture more of such activities in Singapore.

Likewise, existing companies must be prepared to rethink their business models, strive for new horizons and push the technology frontier.

That is why we are systematically refreshing all 23 of our Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs) to spur restructuring and transformation and to develop new growth areas.

Take the example of the aerospace industry. It has been badly hit by the pandemic but, at some point, demand will return and the industry will recover. However, at that time, the future of the industry may be different. For example, we are seeing a shift towards sustainable aviation fuels. In the longer term, we could even see the emergence of hydrogen-powered aircraft. Digital services which leverage aircraft data to create new services, such as fuel optimisation and aircraft health monitoring, are also emerging.

We start from a position of strength with an established base of engine maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) activities in Singapore. But we cannot assume that this lead is going to be with us forever. We must actively pursue opportunities to anchor global Centres of Excellence with new technologies to ensure we remain a global node for aerospace MRO and manufacturing activities.

At the same time, we must help our local Singapore firms, our SMEs, to grow and build new capabilities to partner the multinational companies (MNCs) so that, together, we can have a vibrant aerospace ecosystem. This process of restructuring and transformation is vital to keeping our economy vibrant and strong.

So, the focus of our support measures will, over time, shift from providing pain relief, as we are now, to building deep capabilities for companies to innovate and transform. To do this, we have a suite of capability development schemes administered by Enterprise Singapore.

I recognise some Members have said that the schemes can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate; the process for administration can be cumbersome. I want to assure Members that Enterprise Singapore takes all these feedback and suggestions seriously. We are continuing to improve. For example, we have SME Centres, we have the Business Grant Portal and they will continue to look at the suggestions that Members have given to see how we can strengthen our SME sector and help even more of them scale up to new markets overseas.

Just as our firms are transforming, we must also envision jobs of the future. And I think many Members of Parliament have spoken on this, including the Labour Members of Parliament, and I thank all of you for your suggestions. And that is why our ITMs are complemented by Jobs Transformation Maps. They help to equip our workers with the relevant skills to take on new jobs as their firms and industries transform.

We work closely with our Institutes of Higher Learning to ensure that fresh graduates from our ITEs, Polytechnics and Universities are equipped with these skills. We pay special attention to mid-careerists, especially those in their 40s and 50s, as we recognise that it is harder for them to find jobs if they are displaced. That is why we work closely with employers and unions on training, reskilling, upskilling and career conversion opportunities for this group.

Through the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package, we have provided many opportunities for jobseekers over the past year.

I understand the concern amongst those in temporary jobs because they are worried that once COVID-19 is over, they may not have jobs. As our economy recovers, there will be increased demand for workers and more jobs will be created. We are monitoring this carefully to ensure that those in temporary jobs now will be emplaced into permanent positions.

One tangible help that the Government provides for this is the Jobs Growth Incentive, which has supported employers to expand their local hiring. Ms Foo Mee Har mentioned the good outcomes of this scheme in her speech. The scheme runs until September this year and we are reviewing its extension.

In sum, Singapore will never be a large market or the cheapest place to do business. But what has made Singapore an attractive value proposition for investors is our overall systems competitiveness: rule of law, strong intellectual property protections, connectivity to regional and global markets, an innovative and skilled workforce and, importantly, the strong spirit of tripartite partnership between the Government, unions and employers. We will continue to strengthen all of these factors to ensure we build a stronger and more vibrant economy.

Second, we will also build a fairer and more inclusive society because we want to progress, not individually or for our own families, but for our larger Singapore family. COVID-19 has deepened existing social inequalities on a global scale. Across the world, the lower-income and lower-skilled workers suffered the most from COVID-19. We have not been spared. COVID-19 has also exposed the vulnerabilities of certain segments of our society.

The support that the Government has provided to households and individuals during this period have helped to cushion the impact. But beyond the immediate support, we can and we will do more to address the stresses and strains brought about by COVID-19. The Government will, therefore, continue to review our social safety nets, paying attention to groups that have been set back during this pandemic. Let me highlight some areas.

For those who become unemployed, our current support goes beyond ComCare or the COVID-19 Recovery Grant. It includes a wide range of active labour market policy measures, like job-matching and skills training opportunities. We will study how we can provide more help for those who lose their jobs, with continued focus on employment facilitation. The Labour Movement will continue to be an important partner in these efforts, as Mr Abdul Samad and many others have also mentioned.

We also value the contributions of our caregivers. We introduced the Home Caregiving Grant recently to defray the costs of caregiving expenses. We will continue to see how we can better support our caregivers, together with the social infrastructure needed for an ageing population.

With the rise of the gig economy, we will examine how we can boost protections and strengthen the financial resilience of self-employed persons. This includes support for skills upgrading and transition to regular employment for those who wish to do so. These are some of the areas that we are now reviewing.

But the journey towards building a fairer and more inclusive society goes beyond redistribution and the provision of social assistance. We all have a part to play to ensure social mobility, opportunity and, importantly, dignity for every worker. We must put maximum effort to help every worker earn a fair wage and be accorded due respect for their contributions. It is with this in mind the Government, unions and employers have been collaborating closely to raise the wages and enhance the employability of our lower-wage workers, as well as to improve their working conditions.

The Tripartite Workgroup on Lower-Wage Workers, chaired by Senior Minister of State Zaqy Mohamad, is looking at how we can move faster to uplift even more workers in a sustainable and meaningful manner. This includes increasing the number of workers covered by the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) and offering progressive wages in occupations not covered by the mandatory PWMs. The Workgroup will release its recommendations in due course and we are confident that these will lead to tangible and beneficial outcomes for our lower-wage workers. We will also continue to regularly review the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) scheme, which works hand in hand with the PWM, to raise the incomes of our lower-wage workers.

Helping our workers is a continuous endeavour that cannot be accomplished by Government efforts alone. We will partner our unions, communities, employers and the workers themselves to ensure that we continue to protect the livelihoods of the most vulnerable amongst us.

COVID-19 has also taken a toll on our mental well-being. I assure Dr Tan Yia Swam, Ms Jessica Tan, Mr Melvin Yong and Ms Raeesah Khan who spoke on this issue that the Government takes very seriously the issue of mental health of our people. MOH and MSF have set up a new inter-agency task force, which transited from the COVID-19 Mental Wellness Taskforce. It is chaired by Senior Minister of State Janil Puthucheary and this task force will bring together the capabilities and capacities of different agencies to coordinate and oversee this important effort.

Together with our healthcare professionals and social service agencies, we have stepped up efforts and invested significant resources to enhance the mental well-being of Singaporeans and we will continue to do so. The focus areas include awareness, prevention, destigmatisation of mental health issues and treatment. We will also take care of the mental well-being of our migrant workers, which is an issue raised by Mr Louis Ng and Mr Mohd Fahmi.

For all of this work, the Government can only do so much alone. We will need Singaporeans to step forward and contribute your ideas, talents and energies, so that, together, we can do more to help the disadvantaged and vulnerable in our community. Let us rally together to build a Singapore where we develop the full potential of every citizen, where every person is respected and valued, and no one is left behind.

Finally, we will build a greener and more sustainable home. We will put sustainability at the heart of our recovery, as Ms Mariam Jaafar suggested just now. Earlier this year, we launched the Singapore Green Plan 2030. This is our national roadmap for a better and greener future. It sets out ambitious sectoral targets to green our living environment, use cleaner energy sources and be more resource-efficient.

Beyond 2030, by 2050, we aim to halve greenhouse gas emissions from our 2030 peak, with a view to achieving net zero emissions as soon as viable. As an alternative-energy disadvantaged country, this is a very ambitious aspiration to be net zero, but we are working very hard to make this happen. For a start, we are reviewing the carbon tax level post-2023, in consultation with the industry, to incentivise the shift to green alternatives. We are also investing in new technologies that can help reduce our waste and emissions. Importantly, all of us must all do our part by adjusting our consumption patterns and making changes to our everyday lives.

The transition will not be easy and it is not going to be costless. But there are also many opportunities to pursue from a green and sustainable Singapore. Sustainability will be a new growth area because it cuts across different industries. You can have green transport, green buildings, green power, a whole range of different new areas to explore. In some areas like renewable power, there will, naturally, be constraints on how much we can scale up within Singapore.

But our firms can export solutions overseas. For example, Sunseap, a solar company, is now building the world's largest floating solar farm and energy storage system in Batam.

We are also putting in place plans to make Singapore the leading centre for green finance in Asia. We can be a hub for the financing of projects in the region and even worldwide and we can be a carbon services hub to complement Asia's decarbonisation efforts. It is a difficult transition to make, but there are significant opportunities as well, as we enter into the green economy.

Building a more vibrant economy, a fairer society and a greener nation – these are all ambitious long-term goals. It will take significant resources, billions of dollars. To make these plans a reality, to achieve that, we need a sustainable fiscal strategy.

I mentioned the G20 meeting just now. The G20 consists of the major economies that make up more than 80% of the world's economy, including many of the world's advanced economies, all with high per capita GDP and standards of living. But nearly all are grappling with annual deficits and rising public debt, and COVID-19 has worsened their fiscal positions.

Why has this happened? It often starts with good intentions. For example, increase public spending on healthcare or welfare schemes, all with the best of intentions. But before long, entitlement spending balloons sharply as the economy matures and the population ages, outpacing the ability to raise revenues to cover these spending obligations. What happens then? A country turns to borrowing to finance its annual deficits, year after year. And this ends up quickly in a downward fiscal spiral.

What is more worrying is that societal norms and individual expectations change. An entitlement mindset sets in. It becomes politically very challenging to roll back any benefit and to raise taxes, or even to mention it. There is a tendency to short-change the future and to overspend on the present. That is why we must always resist the siren song of easy money and we must do our part to uphold a culture of fiscal responsibility and stewardship.

Our constitutional fiscal rules seek to achieve that by imposing strict discipline on how we go about spending and using our reserves. It is a framework that enables us to safeguard our reserves, while achieving a fair and judicious balance between the interests of today and tomorrow; a balance between spending for today's needs and saving for the future needs of today's generation and generations to come.

It does not mean that the rules can never be changed; I have said that before. But we should do so only after very careful consideration and take measured steps. In fact, we debated and amended the Net Investment Returns, or NIR framework, not too long ago in 2015. We made a considered long-term decision that balanced the needs of present and future generations. The NIR framework would make a very substantial contribution to the Government's annual Budget, but it was not meant to cover every funding need.

Therefore, we should not, at the first sign of need, push for changes in the rules now, just to take the easy way out and avoid having to raise tax revenues to meet our growing recurrent expenditure needs. That would not be the responsible thing to do.

As Mr Liang Eng Hwa and Prof Hoon Hian Teck both highlighted, we will have to raise revenues in order to meet our rising expenditure. Rising expenditure for very meritorious reasons, for all the things that we talked about: our economy, a fairer inclusive society, a greener nation. In deciding the timing of any tax increases, including a GST rate increase, the Government will take into account our fiscal needs as well as the prevailing economic conditions.

Mr Yip Hon Weng and Mr Louis Chua suggested that maybe the Government could consider other taxes instead of GST. The truth of the matter is that we need both. The GST rate increase is largely to fund higher spending in healthcare, especially as our population ages. It reflects the support we aspire to provide for every Singaporean: better healthcare for our elderly and for ourselves as we grow old. And because these are broad-based needs, we should fund them using a broad-based tax like GST. That is appropriate and that is responsible.

In fact, even with a two-percentage point GST increase, we will not be able to cover all our projected healthcare spending needs. As such, we have been increasing other revenue sources over the years, be it income tax, property tax or buyer's stamp duty. And we will continue to review these and other tax options for the future.

I should just make a point of clarification; it is slightly technical. Mr Louis Chua mentioned just now that SMEs contributed 29% of corporate income tax but accounted for just 9% of accounting profit. So, the suggestion is that SMEs pay disproportionately more in tax than non-SMEs; because 29% of corporate income tax, but just 9% of accounting profit.

This comparison is, in fact, not correct. Because, firstly, when we look at the accounting profit for all companies, it includes profits and losses. It is the bottom line, it is the summation of the bottom line. That is one.

Number two, corporate income tax is levied on chargeable income, not accounting profits. And Mr Louis Chua, I think, should know accountancy and that chargeable income is not the same as accounting profits. You have to make tax adjustments, like non-tax deductibles, expenses like depreciation or capital allowances. So, the two concepts are quite different. Only the companies with positive chargeable income need to pay corporate income tax. Those with losses can carry forward their losses to offset future years' corporate income tax liability.

In fact, close to 60% of all SMEs do not pay corporate income tax and it is quite clear from the data. We have replied to Parliamentary Questions as well. It is quite clear from the data that SMEs have a lower tax burden than non-SMEs or the larger companies. The effective tax rate for SMEs is 3% but the effective tax rate for non-SMEs is 8% to 10%. So, there should be no doubt. Our system is such that SMEs have a lower tax burden.

Going back to GST, some have expressed concerns that the GST is regressive. But, again, we cannot look at GST in isolation. Our GST system is unique in that it is tied to a permanent GST Voucher scheme, where we offset the GST for lower-income Singaporeans. And we also absorb GST for publicly subsidised healthcare and education. As part of the upcoming increase in the GST rate, we have set aside $6 billion for a temporary Assurance Package to cushion the impact for all Singaporean households, with lower-income households to receive more. In addition, we will enhance the permanent GST Voucher scheme. So, not just the temporary but the permanent layer to strengthen support for lower- to middle-income Singaporeans.

So, concerns about regressivity have been mitigated and will continue to be, as we plan for the GST rate increase. At the same time, remember that our public services and subsidies are designed to provide more help for the lower- and middle-income.

Put together, the outcome is that the higher-income groups pay more taxes than the benefits they receive, while the lower- and middle-income groups receive significantly more benefits than the taxes they pay.

As I have shared before, lower-income households receive close to $4 of benefits for every $1 of tax they contribute. This is how we ensure our taxes and transfers remain fair and progressive. And it will be anchored in a system of sound and sustainable finances.

Mdm Deputy Speaker, to conclude, COVID-19 will be a major chapter in our history. It will be remembered as the time when our usually bustling CBD laid empty; when we had to work from home; when we had to meet with our friends and loved ones over a screen. But it will also be remembered as the time we saw the best of Singaporeans amidst adversity and tough conditions.

COVID-19 is only one chapter. We have much going for us today and much more we can look forward to in the journey ahead. So, let us harness our collective strengths, keep striving to do better and write many more chapters of our Singapore Story together. [Applause.]

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Any clarifications? Mr Dennis Tan.

8.32 pm

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong: Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for the wrapping-up speech. Just one clarification. Actually, the last question in my speech has not been answered, regarding whether the Government will be providing a reimbursement to the Town Councils for the extra manpower expenses for the SafeEntry access management.

Mr Lawrence Wong: Thank you. I did not have the opportunity to address all the points that were raised by Members, so, I thank Mr Dennis Tan for reminding me on this point.

We will have to study the financial position of the Town Councils. I think that is what we will do. It is not just about this particular measure. This is a new requirement, but there have been many other things. At the same time, we have to look at and assess the overall financial position of Town Councils because already, today, the Government provides considerable grants and support to Town Councils in general.

So, we will work with MND that oversees the Town Councils, to assess the overall financial situation before we consider whether or not additional support might be needed.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Mr Louis Chua.

Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis: Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I thank Minister Lawrence Wong for sharing some clarifications on the numbers. And I was just wondering if the Minister will be able to share with us the breakdown in terms of the chargeable income, as broken down between SMEs and non-SMEs. I think that will also give us a better understanding.

As the Minister has shared, there is a difference between statutory income, assessible income as well as chargeable income. Having this additional information, which I also note that the Minister shared in my other Parliamentary Question (PQ) yesterday, I think that will help us to understand the numbers better.

I think the other clarification is, I was just wondering if it is incorrect to say that SMEs bear a higher proportion of the tax burden, given that just based on the numbers I am looking at, I am looking at $4.8 billion of corporate income tax paid by SMEs as a proportion of the $16 billion of corporate income tax paid by all companies. So, that is roughly about 29% versus SMEs being about 99% in terms of enterprise count.

Mr Lawrence Wong: Thank you. Well, I think to Mr Louis Chua's question, we will be happy to provide the figures. Perhaps the Member can file a PQ. There will be detailed data and we can provide all this in reply to a written question. Mr Chua has filed some of them and we have been forthcoming with the data. We will be quite happy to put it out, distinguishing between, as I have said, accounting profits and chargeable income. And then, we can do a more detailed analysis to see what the relative shares of tax burden are between SMEs and non-SMEs.

But we come back to the main point: effective tax rates for SMEs are much lower than the effective tax rates for non-SMEs in Singapore. That is a fact.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Leader of the Opposition.

Mr Pritam Singh (Aljunied): Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for the round-up. A quick question on an issue which some Members brought up, which is foreign workers who are currently still in the dormitories. I understand they get to go to certain facilities within a closed-off area in the dormitory for rest and recreation.

Is there also a roadmap for them when they can also be re-integrated into the larger community? They have been, as we know, locked down for a long time.

Mr Lawrence Wong: Thank you, Mr Pritam Singh, for this question. It is also a question raised by Mr Louis Ng and Mr Mohd Fahmi.

I did not elaborate on this in my speech, but just to say that we are very, very mindful of the mental well-being of these workers. We know that they have been subject to these restrictions for quite a long time. For now, the concern is that because of the large clusters that we are seeing in our community, we are quite worried about how they might catch the virus if they were to go out.

Having said that, the vaccination rates amongst migrant workers in the dorms are now very high and it is getting higher. We are, indeed, looking at two things. Number one, giving more allowance in the initial, very near term, something that we are doing, but will do more for them to go to the recreational centres, spend more time there. But, indeed, we are looking at allowing them to have the time to be out in the community as well. That is something that the MTF is looking at.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Pursuant to Standing Order No 44 (2), the Motion to consider the Ministerial Statement on Support Measures for Phase Two (Heightened Alert) and Phase Three (Heightened Alert) delivered on 5 July 2021 and the Motion to consider the Ministerial Statement on Support Measures for Phase Two (Heightened Alert) delivered on 26 July 2021, lapse at the conclusion of the debate.