Debated in Parliament on 4 Mar 2020.
Debate in Committee of Supply resumed.
Chairman, I would like to thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for her answer. In terms of the regulation of the pet animal trade, I feel that the past few years have focused a lot on the cats and the dogs, but the pet bird trade has largely been forgotten. The same pet bird shop looks exactly the same as 30 years ago.
In terms of traceability, I think for pet birds, currently, there is possibly no traceability which is why someone is confident that they can distribute 800 birds by illegally smuggling them in. I hope that the Senior Parliamentary Secretary can step up enforcement of the pet bird as well.
Ms Sun.
I am sorry. I am not quite sure if that was a question or a point.
It is actually a request that NParks do not forget about the pet bird trade when stepping up the enforcement on the regulations.
Yes. Indeed, NParks has not forgotten about birds. That is why, with the efforts of ICA together with NParks, they had seized the shipment of 815 birds that the Member mentioned. And I would just like to share that if you look at the number of illegal bird smuggling cases, it has been coming down over the years. In 2016, it was eight cases; in 2019, it was two cases, one of which was cited by Mr Yee. So, I just like to give him the assurance that we have not forgotten about birds.
Mr Louis Ng.
Thank you, Sir. I am very happy that the person that is sitting on the chair I used to sit on also now asks animal-related questions.
But if I could bring the topic back to cats. Can I just ask Senior Parliamentary Secretary that the current rule is that you are not allowed to keep a cat in a HDB flat. So, how and when does HDB enforce this ruling, because a lot of the residents I see, most of the time is because they complained against a neighbour and the neighbour, then realises, "Oh. You have a cat there. Now, I complain about the cat." And the cat becomes a sort of collateral and then, they are forced to remove the cat.
Let me repeat – when does HDB enforce the current rule of a resident not allowed to keep a cat in an HDB flat.
The second clarification is back to the divorcees with shared care and control. I am very thankful that we will exercise flexibility for those where one party has already has private housing. But could I ask further whether we can waive the mutual consent if both parties that have shared care and control are low income, meaning that both cannot really afford to buy from the open market and would need subsidised HDB flats?
Ms Sun.
I thank the Member for his question. The HDB will investigate if the feedback is related to pet-related disamenities, and it is not that a cat is a collateral in bad relations between neighbours. HDB will investigate that the feedback is related to pet-related disamenities. And if really there is irresponsible cat ownership and this is found to be the reason, then HDB would advise the owner accordingly with the assistance of relevant agencies where necessary.
Mr Ong Teng Koon. Sorry. Minister Lawrence Wong.
Mr Chairman, the short answer is yes, we are very reasonable people and we want the best for the child. So, in a case where indeed, both have divorced, they have one child, it is shared care and control and each individual wants subsidised housing, today, the rule does not allow the child's name to be together with both parents. But if they both need subsidised housing, on a case-by-case basis, if they are indeed lower income, they cannot afford to buy a home themselves, we will look at these cases and we will see what we can do to extend flexibility to them.
Mr Ong Teng Koon.
Mr Chairman. I wish to thank the Minister, on behalf of the residents of Blocks 115 and 119 of Marsiling Rise for his kind and compassionate consideration of the situation with the introduction of the Lift Access Grant. I wish to ask the Minister whether such grant will be available to flat owners who have purchased the flat prior to the announcement today or will be available to subsequent owners as well. And if the granting of the Lift Access Grant will automatically enable them to buy a flat from the HDB or would they have to buy from the resale market? Can they sell the flat to the HDB or must they sell to the resale market; in which case, will future owners also be eligible for this grant?
Mr Chairman, the grant will be made available to all HDB owners with immediate effect, once this has been announced. So, anyone who owns a HDB flat, regardless of whether you are first-timer, second-timer, nth-timer, but you are the owner of a flat and your flat does not lift access, and you have mobility issues, that is the condition. Then, we will help you get a new flat or a resale flat where there is lift access. And the grant will be extended to that owner to facilitate that transaction.
How to go about doing it? There are various ways. If the person wants a flat very urgently, then getting it from the resale market makes a lot of sense. If they want a new BTO flat nearby and if there are balance flats, HDB could consider allocating one, if there is a balance flat. But that depends on whether there is availability of such a balance flat nearby. So, it depends.
On the sale of their present flat, we will require them to sell the flat before making the new transaction. We will try our best to help them but, in the first instance, it is the responsibility of the homeowner to engage an agent and look at whether or not they can sell the flat in order to make the purchase, whether it is new or resale. If they do face difficulties, then I will ask them to approach the HDB branch and we will see whether we can find ways to help them.
Dr Lily Neo.
Thank you, Mr Chairman. Earlier in my speech, I asked whether there are assessments by HDB for applicants of Joint Singles Scheme (JSS) to ensure that they are free from mental illnesses and medical conditions before compelling them to stay together. May I ask Minister Wong whether he will look into the JSS for those who have no family members to share with. Because I also noticed that HDB always gives applicants a list of names for them to call themselves to choose their own tenants to share with. And that is really very difficult.
So, as Minister Wong earlier said, we have been improving our HDB policies to facilitate Singaporeans in their housing needs. JSS has been around for the last 30 years. So, why can we not tweak this to facilitate just the most vulnerable group in our society? Would he consider?
Mr Chairman, I thank Dr Neo for the suggestion. In fact, it has been tweaked, it has been evolving. JSS today is different from what it used to be, because now we have partitions, we provide more privacy, we give flexibility and anyone that comes with medical conditions with a reason that they need to stay alone, we are prepared to consider, we are prepared to be flexible and allow them to stay on their own. So, it is not a blanket no. We do provide flexibility for those with medical conditions and with exceptional circumstances to stay on their own.
The reason why we cannot depart from this and say, "Everyone live on their own now", is the real constraint which I mentioned earlier. If we are going to double, triple the number of rental units that we have in order to accommodate them, because every JSS tenant wants to split up, we do not have land. That is a real constraint. So, there is no land available to build more. We have got to build new flats, we have got to build new rental flats.
I hope Members understand. We are not trying to be hard-hearted about this. There is just not enough space to build so many more new housing units. We try to optimise where we can and as the Senior Parliamentary Secretary said just now, when we did a survey of JSS tenants, the majority of them do get along and are okay. We are dealing with a minority and we can manage that if they do not get along, if there are medical conditions. If they do not get along in the first instance, let us try to find ways to pair you up with somebody else. If you have medical conditions, then we will look at your case, and we will consider allowing you to stay on your own, if there is a need to.
Mr Louis Ng, I will allow your question if it is not about cats. You have already asked a question about cats.
It is about cats.
Okay, it better be a new one.
It is a confirmation, actually. I just want to confirm with the Senior Parliamentary Secretary that when HDB receives a complaint, they go down and investigate. If the cat is not causing any disamenities, the resident will not be asked to remove the cat. Am I correct to say that?
Yes, you are correct to say that.
Er Dr Lee Bee Wah, your last question. You have asked six already.
It is not about cats, Sir. I would like to ask the Minister of State two questions. Just now the Minister of State mentioned that due to the change in their own country, that is why the carpenters and the tilers are not coming. That could be part of the reason but what we heard from the industry is that they are not coming to Singapore but they go to some other countries. That is why I urge BCA to study and see what is the reason they do not come to Singapore, so that we do not suffer if we do not tackle this problem now.
The next question is about cutting of the S Pass. We need the S Pass holders for DfMA, for PPVC, more so because they are more skillful. If the Polytechnic graduates do not join the industry, by cutting the S Pass, really, will give our construction industry a double-whammy. I hope you will really look into this.
Just to make it clear to the Member as well, I did say we will study this. I was just saying, some examples provided were that the supply is also changing, as well as demographics. But of course, if they go to other countries, then, basically, it could also mean that we do not pay well enough and other countries are also paying better. There are different reasons, but I do agree – let us not come to conclusions. Let us do our study, which I said we will do.
The second one on the S Pass reduction, certainly we have put in place various programmes, as I shared earlier. Apart from the IHLs, we are also putting on stream PCPs. As we have shared in many of our speeches earlier, even MOM in the Budget, that the Government is putting a bit of focus into mature workers to see how we can transform and move along. As I have also shared, in terms of those coming from the manufacturing sector, for example, they can move to DfMA. There are different skills required beyond just the Polytechnic graduates; mid-careers can also shift into such sectors.
We do see some slowdown in certain sectors such as process and marine, but these are areas in which we can also look to see how some of the workers can be moved into construction as we build. What I hope is that we continue to attract our Polytechnic and ITE graduates. Yes, some of the Polytechnic graduates may move on to University and ITE graduates move to Diploma too. We need to continually build that pathway for them, so that a career in construction also becomes more attractive.
We are looking at all levels, not just on the IDD, BIM or DfMA side. Even for the lift too, we have put in the PWM to ensure that our steady stream of workers coming through from ITE also get better-paying jobs, so that they do not either get substituted by cheaper foreign labour or have to go elsewhere for better-paying jobs.
These are some of the efforts that we are putting in place, whether it is PCP, BIM, attracting mid-careers, as well as those coming in from the University, Polytechnics and ITEs. It is a whole slew of measures.
At the same time, we recognise that there are some jobs at the work permit level that we need to continually depend on our foreign workforce for. Therefore, you do not see us cutting the whole Dependency Ratio Ceiling (DRC), it is just the sub-DRC. The grunt work of construction is still being provided for, so that we continue to grow and build our infrastructure.
Chairman, I thank the 22 fellow Members who filed a diverse range of cuts, and Minister Lawrence, Second Minister Desmond Lee and Minister Grace, Minister of State Zaqy and Senior Parliamentary Secretary Sun Xueling for their comprehensive replies. We are reasonable people, so I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The sum of $3,009,534,100 for Head T ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates.
The sum of $9,992,249,700 for Head T ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.
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