Efforts to Drive Support for New Shared Parental Leave Scheme and Commencement Date for Scheme

7 Ms Hany Soh asked the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance with regard to the new shared parental leave scheme (NSPL) announced on 18 August 2024 (a) what is the rationale for commencing the NSPL on 1 April 2025; (b) whether the Government will consider bringing forward the NSPL commencement date to 2024; and (c) if the commencement date cannot be brought forward, whether there are alternative support measures available to prospective parents who will otherwise miss out on the NSPL benefits.

8 Mr Desmond Choo asked the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance what are the planned efforts with the tripartite partners to drive support for the new shared parental leave scheme, especially on the utilisation of paternity leave.

The Minister, Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for Finance (Ms Indranee Rajah) (for the Prime Minister): Mr Speaker, may I have your permission to take Parliamentary Question Nos 7 and 8 together?

Mr Speaker: Yes, please.

Ms Indranee Rajah: Thank you. The new Shared Parental Leave (SPL) scheme is a significant enhancement of our parental leave provisions, providing 10 additional weeks of paid leave that can be shared between both parents to care for their infant.

The implementation date of 1 April 2025 was set after extensive consultation with the tripartite partners. We had considered implementing the new scheme earlier so that more parents can benefit. However, employers had requested for a longer lead time to prepare for this change, as companies need to update their administrative processes and to put in place new measures to manage their employees’ extended absences. This is especially so because the new SPL scheme involves a leave-sharing feature, which requires coordination between both parents and their respective employers. Time is also needed for the Government to effect various legislative and operational changes.

We fully understand that parents who miss out on the enhancements could feel disappointed. However, the deferred start date is necessary to ensure that all stakeholders involved are ready to implement the changes. Implementing the new SPL from 1 April 2025 strikes a balance between giving employers sufficient time to make the necessary adjustments in this tight labour market and allowing parents to benefit from the enhancements as soon as possible. As such, we are not able to bring forward the implementation date.

Parents whose babies are born before 1 April 2025 will still be eligible for comprehensive support under the Marriage and Parenthood package. These include the recent enhancements to the Baby Bonus Scheme that provides for higher financial support, as well as the doubling of Government-Paid Paternity Leave, on a voluntary basis, and Unpaid Infant Care Leave since 1 January 2024 to give parents more time to care for their newborn or to settle caregiving arrangements.

During this transition period, before the new SPL takes effect, we encourage employers to update their manpower and business approaches to facilitate more progressive workplace practices and to foster a more family-friendly culture. Employers who can provide more than the current legislated provisions, whether in the form of leave or other support, are encouraged to do so as this can position them as employers of choice.

The Government will continue to work closely with the tripartite partners to support the implementation of the enhanced parental leave provisions. We will organise webinars for employers to understand the operational details of the scheme and to provide more information on existing grants and resources employers can tap on to strengthen their manpower planning capabilities and to support their operational and system adjustments.

Our research has shown that utilisation of parental leave is often dependent on workplace support. We will work with the tripartite partners to shape workplace norms and culture, including to establish the norm of fathers taking leave to care for and bond with their infants.

We will also emphasise the need for good communication and responsible behaviour on the part of both employers and employees. Employees should be mindful of their employers’ operational needs and act responsibly by informing their employers as early as possible once they know that they are expecting a child. Employers, on their part, should be facilitative and supportive of employees’ parental leave plans. Employers and employees should work together to put in place covering arrangements that best meet the needs and constraints on both sides.

We need to work together as a society to create a culture that embraces families and children, and supports fathers in playing a greater role in child-raising while meeting employers’ needs. Together, let us build a Singapore Made For Families.

Mr Speaker: Ms Hany Soh.

Ms Hany Soh (Marsiling-Yew Tee): I thank Minister Indranee for the response. I believe there are a lot of employers out there who welcome these ideas and are thinking of ways on how to adopt them. But on the other hand, there will also be employers who adopt a wait-and-see situation to see how the situation develops by the time the implementation is in place next year.

So, I am thinking, whether the Government is working closely with the tripartite partners to identify the good practices of current and existing employers or those who are already ready to adopt these practices to share and amplify such good practices, so as to encourage more employers to come onboard and embrace this in time and ahead of the timelines?

Ms Indranee Rajah: I thank Ms Hany Soh for her supplementary question. The answer is, yes, we are working with the employers and the unions on this. In fact, I think the point Ms Soh made was that some employers may not be acting proactively, they may adopt a wait-and-see approach. But what employers should bear in mind is that come 1 April 2025, it is mandatory, it comes into effect.

So, they should use the time between now and 1 April 2025 to get their processes in place. In fact, that start date of 1 April 2025 was at the request of the Singapore National Employers' Federation and the other employers that we spoke to – because they needed the time to put this in place. We are also, as I mentioned earlier, conducting webinars for the employers because many of the employers do have questions. In the engagements that I have had with them, I found that many of the questions are actually operational ones. They are the detailed, technical ones and sometimes, they ask what happens in this situation, what happens in that situation. We thought that the best way to deal with that is to have these webinars for them, so it allows all the employers to come, ask their questions and share their best practices with each other.

Mr Speaker: Mr Desmond Choo.

Mr Desmond Choo (Tampines): I thank the Minister for her reply. Just one supplementary question. Across the Labour Movement, both the younger workers appreciate the move and the older workers similarly understand the reason why this has to be done. For a workforce that is ageing and could shrink over time, the worry among the older workers or those who already have children and do not intend to have more, their worry is, "I have to cover more duties and I might need to do this for many more years to come if the Government policies work as well as they are supposed to".

So, would the Ministry provide guidance on how employers can better support these workers, the existing ones, in carrying the additional load? How can some of the support from the Government be better shared with the workers and can we expect further support for these workers?

Ms Indranee Rajah: I thank Mr Desmond Choo for his supplementary question, which is a very valid concern. Because in the post-announcement engagements that we have done, a number of employers have asked us how will they cope. Mr Choo is representing the viewpoint of the older employees; or maybe not older, because it could also be the single employees who will have to take up some of the slack.

So, there are a few things. The first thing to remember is that this is Government-Paid Parental Leave, or Shared Parental Leave, which means that the employers do not have to bear the salary for the period when the employee is on Shared Parental Leave. That means that frees up the money that they would otherwise have had to pay. With this money, you could hire other workers to come in as substitutes. That is one possible solution. Another possible solution would be, those who have to cover for their colleagues, you could pay them extra, which is fair, because they are carrying an additional load. And you remunerate and you compensate them for that. So, yes, for the period of time when their colleague is away, they have to work harder but at least you are compensating them.

We also encourage employers to continue to invest in technology and systems that would help with automation, digitalisation – anything that lightens the workload. For those, they can tap on things like the Productivity Solutions Grant and all the other grants that the Government has made available.

Finally, this is more under the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) than the Prime Minister's Office, but MOM has been putting aside training and packages that employers can tap on, for their human resource departments to know how to do this better and to plan for this. Because it is not just the Shared Parental Leave; do not forget, there is also the flexible work arrangements – all of which have a common feature, which is this flexibility and how do you replace people or cover in their absence. So, these are resources and tools which the employers can tap on.

Mr Speaker: I am trying to get as many Parliamentary Questions (PQs) to be answered today as possible. So, I will only allow Members who filed PQs to ask supplementary questions for today.