Appropriateness of New Zealand's Smoke-free Generation Law for Singapore

19 Ms He Ting Ru asked the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health whether the Ministry has reviewed the impact of New Zealand’s smokefree generation law and its potential appropriateness and effectiveness in Singapore’s context.

The Minister of State for Health (Ms Rahayu Mahzam) (for the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health): Mr Speaker, New Zealand has withdrawn their plans for a smoke-free generation law. We will continue to monitor international developments and learn from the experiences of other countries in the area of tobacco control.

Mr Speaker: Ms He.

Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang): Thank you, Mr Speaker. While it is true that New Zealand has withdrawn the proposed cohort ban, I understand that there were some figures that were published at the time when this was being debated, which indicated that for example, the impact on the budget books to the ban was in the region of maybe a billion New Zealand dollars, but then there were some estimates as well that is anticipate to save billions of dollars in the long run in terms of healthcare costs.

My supplementary question in this regard is, has Singapore done similar estimates and what are the figures for how much we are expecting if let us say if we were to introduce a similar cohort ban? What would be the impact be, both in terms of our revenue, in terms of taxes, and also in terms of the healthcare costs? That is my first supplementary question.

Then the second supplementary question: New Zealand actually did very extensive polling in relation to the support for the ban. I think most of the results have come out very strongly in favour in the population, not just for non-smokers, but also in smokers. So, my question would be, has Singapore carried out similar studies? And what are the findings and whether the Minister of State can share the findings in Singapore, about whether the public is in favour of such a cohort ban?

And finally, I believe I asked a similar question in January 2022, and this question also came out in the House in 2023, where the Minister of State shared at the time that we remain open to such a cohort ban in Singapore, and that this was being studied. I understand as well that countries like the United Kingdom (UK) have actually introduced legislation. It is being debated in the UK Parliament about, I think the UK they were thinking of banning the purchase of cigarettes for those born in 2009 and later. There was a timeline that was mentioned, I believe in January 2023. Can we have more clarity about what our timeline would be for the studying of this cohort ban possibly to be introduced in Singapore?

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I note the Member's concern on this policy, and I also want to acknowledge that there were also many other Members when this matter was raised who were very interested in this tobacco-free generation policy, and for its implementation in Singapore.

I wanted to clarify that when we look at learning from other countries, the main focus is looking at what is it that we want to try and resolve, the issue that we want to solve. In Singapore's context, we are looking at the concerns with regard to smoking. We already have in existence a very robust multi-prong strategy with regard to how we want to curb smoking. This includes having a comprehensive mix of policy measures, public preventive education, as well as cessation programmes, including also our tax prohibitions. These efforts have helped us to see a decline in the smoking prevalence, and at this juncture we have achieved an all-time low of 8.4% in 2024.

As we continue to look as to how we can improve the statistics and how we can help the generations moving forward, we do have to be mindful about what is the problem that we want to solve.

We have looked at how the other countries have rolled this out. As I mentioned, New Zealand has decided to repeal this legislation. Malaysia, also, who had announced it, had also removed it. Yes, UK had announced plans in October 2023 for a generation that will not be legally able to purchase tobacco in their lifetime. We will be continuing to look at how they will implement this.

We have concerns about how the implementation will be carried out, and so we are mindful as to how this would affect the implementation here. We are continuing to be open to this. We will announce if there are any movements in this front. You would be interested to know that we continue to be in engagement with Dr Koong Heng Nung, who was the original advocate of tobacco-free generation and we remain open to see how this can evolve.

We will study and see what the developments are in the other countries.

2.00 pm

Mr Speaker: Order. End of Question Time. Personal Explanation. Mr Ng Chee Meng.

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