Proposal for Cohort Smoking Ban in Singapore

1 Dr Lim Wee Kiak asked the Minister for Health with regard to the law imposing a cohort smoking ban that was recently passed in New Zealand (a) whether the Ministry can provide an update on whether the study on how the ban can be applied to Singapore has been completed; and (b) if so, when will the findings be published.

2 Mr Liang Eng Hwa asked the Minister for Health (a) whether an update can be provided on the study to impose a cohort smoking ban, which is similar to the recent ban imposed by New Zealand; (b) what are the issues that will be faced in its implementation; and (c) how soon can this cohort smoking ban be implemented.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health (Ms Rahayu Mahzam) (for the Minister for Health): Mr Speaker, before I begin, may I wish you a "Happy Birthday", as it is your birthday today? [Applause.]

Speaker, may I answer Question Nos 1 and 2 together?

Mr Speaker: Of course.

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: MOH is continually reviewing and enhancing our anti-smoking measures. This includes studying international practices and ideas on how to further reduce smoking prevalence.

New Zealand has introduced legislation to implement a tobacco cohort ban. It has, however, not banned vaping, unlike Singapore.

We will study further on whether New Zealand’s implementation approach is feasible in Singapore, as the implementation of the ban in New Zealand will be limited to retail sale to affected cohorts. Therefore, affected cohorts will still be able to smoke cigarettes that are supplied by their peers or others who are not from the affected cohorts. The tobacco-free generation policy in New Zealand will have a longer-term goal of denormalising smoking rather than completely curbing access to tobacco products in the short term.

Nevertheless, it is an interesting policy move that is worth studying further to see if it is appropriate and effective in Singapore’s context.

Mr Speaker: Dr Lim Wee Kiak.

Dr Lim Wee Kiak (Sembawang): Thank you. I have one supplementary question. It is not just New Zealand. Even Malaysia is looking at this. The question is apart from doing a generation ban, we have moved up the age limit to 21 years. Is MOH considering moving the age limit even higher?

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: Besides New Zealand, I believe Denmark, Malaysia and the UK have also announced their intent to introduce and implement this policy, but there are no details yet on these countries' legislation or timeline for implementation.

As Dr Lim Wee Kiak rightly pointed out, it is not that we are not doing anything. There are a lot of other things, including legislation and all that. We have to look at all these concurrently and see what is the impact it has made over the past few years. In respect of that particular issue, it is something that we will constantly review to see what is the effectiveness of doing so, in light of all the different measures that we have already in place.

Mr Speaker: Mr Liang Eng Hwa.

Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Bukit Panjang): Mr Speaker, this idea of the cohort ban has been talked about for some time. I can understand that the Government will have to be very careful in deliberating and it may take awhile. But we also know the ill effects of smoking and second-hand smoke. It is without a doubt, indisputable why we should curb smoking and second-hand smoke.

I want to ask the Senior Parliamentary Secretary why is the hesitation still there and what can be the downside to having a cohort ban on smoking? Now that we have been pushing for Healthier SG, would MOH not see this as a longer-term Healthier SG move, so that there is a structural shift towards better public health for the public and for the individual as well?

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: I thank the Member for the question. As mentioned, we are not closing our minds to this. In fact, we are reviewing it but we are also learning to see how it is going to be effective in our context. For a ban to be completely effective at curbing access to tobacco products for the affected cohorts, we need to introduce laws to penalise older persons who are not subject to the ban but they may abetting or supplying the products.

At this juncture, if we are looking New Zealand, they are actually not banning vaping and we have a certain strong position on vaping because we know that that is the start to a lot of the addiction to tobacco.

We are not closing to door to this. We already have many measures in place. As with everything, we want to make sure that it is effective because it is also the implementation, the resources that we have to put in. We must make that whatever, we do generates the outcome that we desire and we are not just paying lip service to it. That is where the effort is being put; to see, in conjunction with all the things that are already in place, how effective can this be and how can we tweak it to suit the purposes that we need at this juncture.

Mr Speaker: Mr Dennis Tan.

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong (Hougang): Thank you, Speaker. Could I ask the Senior Parliamentary Secretary one question? Is the Government setting itself any timeline to review this? As the other hon Member Dr Lim has mentioned, other countries are already looking into it and have expressed intention to introduce it. So, is the Government setting any timeline to review this prospect of having a generational ban?

Ms Rahayu Mahzam: I can assure the Member that these issues are alive. We constantly look into it. As Mr Liang alluded to, we are rolling out Healthier SG and different components of Healthier SG are things we are constantly looking at. These are things that are currently being reviewed, as we speak.

We have already announced that there is going to be a campaign against vaping, coming up in the first part of this year. Everything is running according to timeline. We do need to see, insofar as what happens in other countries, what the outcomes there are. As it stands, we are already constantly reviewing, constantly taking in feedback from partners that we are working with to see how best we can implement this.