Debated in Parliament on 8 Apr 2013.
Debate resumed.
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Mdm Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak. Singaporeans are at the heart of our nation and the family is the bedrock of our society. Encouraging Singaporeans to get married and have children is our top priority and remains the central starting point of our population policies.
In January this year, we enhanced the Marriage and Parenthood (M&P) Package for the third time since it was introduced in 2001. The enhancements address the needs of Singaporeans in different stages of their marriage and parenthood journey – supporting Singaporeans in getting married and setting up a home, defraying the costs of having and raising children, strengthening childcare support, as well as encouraging the sharing of parental responsibilities and better work-life harmony. I would like to encourage Members to support this Bill. While the Bill focuses on leave-related enhancements, the Package aims to create a pro-family environment, as suggested by many Members who spoke before me. Allow me to touch on the Package more generally and the Bill specifically.
The M&P Package supports our young adults in getting married and raising children. It underpins our societal values on the importance of the institution of marriage and I am very glad that Members Mr Gerald Giam, Asst Prof Eugene Tan and Mr Laurence Lien have supported us on that. We agree that the society values the importance of marriage. But there are also other societal goals that the Package supports and promotes. These are, first of all, to encourage responsible parenting by both father and mother; to foster self-reliance, with the Government avoiding the provision of financial incentives as the primary motivation for having children; to help and support mothers to continue working; and to promote a pro-family environment in our society, particularly in our workplace.
We have adhered to these social norms and values in formulating our Package so that the populace knows where we stand on these issues.
For these reasons, most M&P measures benefit families broadly across all socio-economic segments and have no income criteria. These include the enhanced Baby Bonus, new Medisave grant for newborns and MediShield coverage for congenital and neonatal conditions, the enhanced Co-funding for Assisted Reproduction Technology Treatment and the enhanced Foreign Domestic Worker Levy Concession.
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The M&P Package also includes targeted measures which are aimed at supporting working parents. For example, the leave schemes are targeted at working parents to help them balance their work and family responsibilities and benefit all working parents, regardless of income.
In addition, we recognise that working mothers may require the help of their parents or parents-in-law, or grandparents, or a domestic helper, to take care of their children while they are working. The Grandparent Caregiver Relief and Foreign Domestic Worker Levy Relief are meant to support working women in such care-giving arrangements. Other M&P tax measures, such as the Parenthood Tax Rebate and Qualifying/Handicapped Child Relief, provide more broad-based support to both working fathers and working mothers.
Member Laurence Lien asked about support for children from low-income families. He spoke about the need to support all Singaporean children, especially those from lower-income backgrounds. While I agree that families of lower income deserve greater help in general, we need to recognise that financial assistance for low-income families is not the primary objective of the M&P Package. Giving low-income families more help under the Package may inadvertently send a message that is incongruent with our emphasis on being self-reliant. Instead, the Government helps low-income families through a range of social assistance programmes, such as in income support, housing, education and healthcare. The developmental needs of children from low-income families are supported by higher kindergarten, childcare and student care subsidies under the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF). Low-income families, for example, receive significantly higher housing benefits.
In summary, the M&P Package will continue to help Singaporeans realise their marriage and parenthood aspirations while continuing to shape societal norms and values in the process. Since its introduction in 2001, the measures have benefitted the families of about 350,000 children, and with the enhanced Package, we expect even more parents and children to benefit from our efforts to strengthen the pro-family environment.
Members Asst Prof Eugene Tan and Mr Gerald Giam have asked if we could provide more support through M&P measures for single unwed parents. The Singaporean society remains primarily Asian, and most Singaporeans still value the traditional family structure of having children within a marriage between a man and a woman. The community at large does not appear ready to accept single-parent families as the norm. In the 2012 M&P Study conducted by NPTD, 80% of single and 85% of married respondents agreed or strongly agreed that only legally married parents should have children. The Government
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believes that a stable, intact family structure provides a more conducive environment to raise a child. Our policies and the M&P Package carry this belief.
Notwithstanding this, we understand that, more often than not, single unwed parents are victims of circumstances and usually not by choice. The Government takes a child-centric perspective and has, over time, increased the schemes and benefits that single parents can tap for their child. These include enhanced childcare and infant care subsidies, Medisave grant for newborns, and the enhanced Foreign Domestic Worker Levy Concession. In addition, the Government has recently extended infant care and childcare leave provisions to unwed single parents. This move is in line with MSF's efforts to enhance support to vulnerable families, of which single parent families are one such group.
Members Asst Prof Eugene Tan, Ms Low Yen Ling and Dr Intan Mokhtar have made some suggestions to further enhance the leave measures. To address Dr Intan's comments on maternity leave, I would like to clarify that all working mothers of citizen children are entitled to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave regardless of confinement order. For the first two confinements, the first eight weeks of maternity leave are employer-paid. The last eight weeks are funded by the Government. For the third and subsequent confinements, all 16 weeks of leave are funded by the Government. As Dr Intan pointed out, this signals the Government's encouragement and support for working mothers to have more children, while taking into consideration concerns by employers on business costs and operations.
During the review of the M&P Package, NPTD consulted widely and received a range of feedback on the M&P leave schemes. There were views calling for an extension of maternity leave, and also views to maintain the status quo. While we received feedback that an extension of maternity leave may benefit some working mothers, many women were also worried about the impact on their employability, career disruption, job security and losing touch with work. At the same time, employers were concerned about business operations being affected in a tight labour market. Member Mr Dhinakaran has also shared with us his concerns in this area.
Internationally, Singapore's 16-week paid maternity leave provision is quite generous. For example, South Korea provides 15 weeks of maternity leave, Japan 14 weeks, Hong Kong 10 weeks and Taiwan eight weeks. Taking into consideration trade-offs, such as the employability of mothers and the possible impact on employers' business costs and productivity, we have assessed that
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weeks of maternity leave is about right.
On childcare leave, we recognise that parents need time off work to look after their children. This is why we increased the childcare leave provisions in 2008 from two days to six days per parent per year for parents with children below the age of seven. Parents of infants below the age of two can also take six days of unpaid infant care leave per parent per year. This gives parents of infants below the age of two a total of 24 days of infant and childcare leave per year to look after their young children, on top of the 16 weeks of maternity leave – that is, including shared parental leave – and the one week of paternity leave.
Parents with more children will be able to enjoy the higher childcare leave entitlement of six days per year for a longer period of time until all their children have turned seven years old. And with the extended childcare leave, they will now also enjoy two days of childcare leave per parent per year, until all their children have turned 13 years old.
While more childcare leave may help parents with more children better manage their work and family commitments, we have to be mindful that we do not inadvertently affect their employability. Employers may find it difficult to manage their operations and manpower needs if their employees are absent from work often or for an extended period of time. Even with the Government funding childcare leave, we are mindful that some companies face practical difficulties. Childcare leave enhancements, therefore, have to be considered carefully, taking into consideration the needs and concerns of both employers and employees.
We agree with Asst Prof Eugene Tan and Ms Low Yen Ling that fathers play an important role in caring for their children and we should support fathers to get more involved in raising their children. To encourage shared parental responsibility, we introduced one week of Government-Paid Paternity Leave and one week of Government-Paid Shared Parental Leave under the 2013 Package.
The introduction of paternity leave, together with shared parental leave, complements the existing six days of childcare leave per year and six days of unpaid infant care leave per year in the first two years, to enable fathers to have more time to care for and bond with their children. Altogether, working fathers can now enjoy about three weeks of paid leave and one week of unpaid leave in the year their child is born.
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The one week of Government-Paid Shared Parental Leave is shared from the working mother's 16 weeks of maternity leave to bond with the child.
Ms Low Yen Ling has made a case for stay-at-home-mothers. In the case of stay-at-home mothers who have chosen to take time off work to care for their children, the working fathers can still enjoy paternity leave, childcare leave and unpaid infant care leave to care for their newborns.
Members will surely know that this is the first time we are introducing shared parental leave. It is significantly more complex to implement and administer than the other forms of leave because it involves both parents and their respective employers. One week of shared parental leave is a manageable period which would allow parents and their employers to get used to this new leave scheme and for employers to make the necessary adjustments to their existing HR policies and systems.
The M&P leave provisions have been progressively enhanced over the years to better support working fathers and mothers in balancing their work and family commitments. We appreciate the suggestions from Members and will take them into consideration as we continue to study ways to better support our working parents.
In conclusion, I fully agree with hon Members Asst Prof Eugene Tan, Mr Laurence Lien and Er Dr Lee Bee Wah that it takes more than financial benefits to raise Singapore's birth rates. Ultimately, we all recognise that the decision to have and raise children goes beyond dollars and cents. Singaporeans have children because they value the joys and fulfilment of parenthood. And Mr Laurence Lien put it wonderfully, expressing the deep joy and happiness that we, as parents, feel. It is a deeply personal decision which involves intangibles, such as investments in both time and emotion, to nurture and raise a child to be the best that they can be, as Er Dr Lee Bee Wah has so appropriately described.
The enhanced M&P Package consists of a suite of both financial and non-financial measures to support Singaporeans in different stages of their marriage and parenthood journey. Non-financial measures in the Package, such as the pro-family leave measures, create a more supportive environment for raising children. They encourage shared parental responsibility. It signals where we, as a society, stand on that – that fathers have to get more involved now. It also helps parents better manage their work and family commitments, allowing them to find quality time to spend with their children and care for their
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needs. We are also encouraging employers to implement and sustain more work-life measures for their employees through the Work-Life Grant. MOE and MSF are making significant changes over the next few years to the pre-school education and care-giving sector to improve the accessibility, affordability and quality of pre-school education. This will address the many stresses that Er Dr Lee Bee Wah has described.
The M&P Package aims to improve the child-raising experience and is supported by many other Ministries, such as MND for housing, MOE on education, MSF on supporting our families and MOM in work-life and employment practices. This is a whole-of-Government approach towards marriage and parenthood.
However, as I said earlier on, getting married and having children remain a very personal decision. The majority of Singaporeans hold positive family values and dispositions. Most Singaporeans aspire to get married and have children. We hope that the society, every one of us, in our capacity as family members, friends, colleagues, bosses and neighbours, play a role, be supportive in helping our young Singaporeans achieve their aspirations – to meet their life partner, to spend some time meeting one another, to experience the joys of family and children, and nurture the next generation who will grow up to shape the future of Singapore.
We thank Members for their suggestions and will take them into consideration as we continue to study ways to better support Singaporeans in their marriage and parenthood journey. Madam, I support this Bill.
Mdm Speaker, let me first thank all Members for their comments and suggestions on how we can move forward on this issue together. Let me round up Members' comments and put them into three sets of issues that we have to tackle.
First, many of you have given ideas on how we can extend the Marriage and Parenthood benefits to more parents. The second set of issues has to do with various suggestions on how we can refine the various leave schemes and benefits from both the perspective of the employers and the employees. And, third, most importantly, how do we create the entire environment for us to make
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Singapore the best place to have families and children?
Let me thank all Members for their suggestions. There are some things that we will do immediately. There are other things that we will do, perhaps, in due course, with your support.
Let me begin with the first. As Asst Prof Eugene Tan has mentioned, we have two sets of objectives in this entire discussion. Many Members have said that we want to continue to promote the family as the central institution in our society. We want to encourage people to get married; we want children to be able to have a happy environment within the ambit of a marriage. These are the reasons why we have the enhanced Marriage & Parenthood Package.
But many Members have also spoken of a different objective, which is that we should take care of the vulnerable families, especially their children, amongst us. As Members said, the children are innocent. They are brought to this world not because they have a choice and we should do our best to take care of them, regardless of their parents' circumstances.
These are two slightly different objectives. On the one hand, we do not want to send the wrong signal on the kind of values we hold in society towards marriage and the institution of the family. On the other hand, whatever else has happened, we want to be able to take care of all children amongst us and I think we can all agree on that.
For the first set of reasons, this is why we have the enhanced Marriage and Parenthood Package. We have addressed many of these challenges. For the second set of issues, we need another policy instrument. As many practitioners of policymaking will know, when you have two different objectives, you will need at least two sets of instruments. The Marriage and Parenthood Package is to meet one set of objectives, and we need another set of instruments to help the vulnerable families amongst us. I must say that we never, never, never discriminate against any child, regardless of what their parents did. I do not imagine what a single-parent family goes through. I come from one myself. I know it is difficult, which is why we endeavour to do our best to help the children, regardless of their circumstances.
But I would not say that the Baby Bonus is the most significant package to help the children. That has a different policy objective.
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We have other instruments to help children from vulnerable families. The most important thing that we can do for children in such vulnerable families is to provide them with the best education that they can get, to allow them to fulfil their potential to the best of their ability. The second thing that we can and must do for them is to make sure that their healthcare is provided for. These, to me, are the two critical things from my own personal experience, which is why we have invested so much in education and childcare to ensure that children, regardless of race, language, religion and socio-economic background, get the help that they need in getting out of the difficult situations that they are in.
If we look at the lifetime investment that we have in a child, I think the most significant one – and even in financial terms, the most significant one – will be in education. The subsidies that we give to every child, from infant care to childcare subsidies, education subsidies, Edusave, Post-Secondary Education Account (PSEA) and so on. The other very significant one is healthcare subsidies, which include the Medisave grant for newborns, MediShield coverage for congenital and neonatal conditions and other social assistance schemes. And we want to do more.
I have said during my Committee of Supply speech that in the coming year, we are looking forward to developing new measures to help vulnerable families – families that do not just need financial help but who require long-term handholding. Many of the single-parent families that Members have talked about fall into that category. They require financial help, mentorship, training, assistance in housing and so on and so forth. Our job and challenge is to package that help for them.
At the same time, we want to do what we can, to make sure that the children have access to this package of help and they know where to go to. As I have mentioned before, the most challenging thing for us when we help these families is to make sure that we can mobilise the resources of the community, to come forward together and provide the mentorship for these people.
I would say that we never, never discriminate against any children. Every child to us is precious. My Ministry will continue to assist them, but we understand different families need different packages and we will continue to design those packages for them.
While trying to simplify the schemes, it will not be possible for us to have one scheme to meet all the diverse needs of the different families in need and the different vulnerable families. I have no problem running different schemes,
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as long as I can meet the objective of helping each and every one of these families. I would like to encourage Members of this House to come and join us. Identify those families in need and help us to reach out to them.
I come to the second set of issues, which is about the refinement of the leave schemes. I think all Members supported the move towards paternity leave and the shared parental leave. We have made a start towards that trajectory. Where we eventually end up will depend on how fast and readily society is able to adjust. I would not rule out that, one day, the proportion between paternity leave and maternity leave may change. These are things that we, as a society, have to decide. But let us make the first step, to get us onto the correct trajectory. The rest of the second order details, we can adjust and refine along the way.
On adoption leave, Members have suggested a longer leave period, as well as more time for adoptive parents to take the leave. The Bill now enhances the adoption leave by making a voluntary scheme mandatory, and allowing it to be taken over 12 months from the birth of the child, instead of over six months previously. We have also shifted the start date of the adoption leave earlier on in the adoption process. Let us monitor this and see whether it meets the needs of the majority of the parents who want to adopt a child. As of today, the majority of them adopt their children within the first year. But if we need to make further adjustments, we can consider that in the future.
Asst Prof Eugene Tan has pointed out that there is a difference between maternity leave and adoption leave because maternity leave caters to the time required for the mother to physically recuperate from childbirth and nurse the infant before returning to work. It is for this reason that maternity leave is slightly different from adoption leave. Adoptive mothers who wish to take longer adoption leave, or couples who adopt older children, can tap on the six-day childcare leave and six-day unpaid infant care leave to spend more time with their adopted child.
On refinements to the protection provisions, Asst Prof Eugene Tan spoke about higher penalties for errant employers, while Mr Dhinakaran spoke about the penalties for errant employees and a whistle-blowing mechanism. We understand where the Members are coming from. We appreciate that. In designing any protection measures, there is always a need to balance the interests of the employers and the employees. What is most important in this is not the letter of the law but the spirit of the law.
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We hope all employers and employees can come on board to realise that it is a win-win and mutually beneficial relationship to promote a pro-family environment for employers to support employees in bringing up their families, and also for employees to realise that they, too, have a duty to work with their employers to work out a mutually beneficial relationship. This is part of the total environment which I will talk about later.
The current Bill represents a balance and this balance will evolve as society evolves.
We have already introduced higher penalties for errant employers – up to $10,000 in fines and/or 12 months of imprisonment for subsequent offences. Section 11 of the Child Development Co-savings Act also enables employers and the Government to recover payment from the employee if the payment was granted based on false or misleading information. Any employer, employee or even a third party can lodge a complaint to the Ministry of Manpower on employment malpractices he observes or suspects, and MOM will take the appropriate action. We would like to assure Mr Dhinakaran that all information provided, including the identity of the informant, will be kept confidential.
To sum up, let me come to the most important part, which is the third prong of what we have discussed, and how do we, together, create a pro-family environment for Singapore, and for Singaporeans to have children and a happy family.
I would characterise it in terms of three concentric circles. At the heart of it are the parents, the individuals. The second ring has to do with the environment that we live in, the society, the community. At the outermost ring, that has to do with our policies and the macro environment.
Let me start with the outermost ring. As Members of the House have mentioned, indeed, the Government provides the macro environment through laws and policies. We try to be as supportive as we can. Where we are able, we try to share the fruits of our labour with families, especially those who need it more. I hope Members of this House will agree with me that, within the finite pool of resources that we have, we should always try to help those who have less with a bit more. That is the way we go about designing our policies. Of course, some people might feel that they should get a bit more; some people might feel otherwise, but we should all agree that within the finite pool of resources that we have, we should help those with less, much more. That
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speaks for an inclusive society.
So, whether it is in terms of leave schemes or balancing the requirements between employees and employers, we will continue to find that balance. But the Government can only provide that part of the circle. We need the support of the employers, the businesses and the community to make for a more inclusive, more pro-family environment.
Beyond all the policies that the Government has, at the end of the day, the individuals, the parents come into contact with their employers day in, day out. They go into the work environment every day. What they experience will shape their perception towards the family. How pro-family the employers' practices are will shape and influence decisions made by the individuals. How we design our living environment, even our recreational environment, will send a signal to everyone about how welcoming we, as a society, are towards families and families with young children. How do we, as a community, respond to children screaming and running around us? Do we frown upon them or do we look at them with appreciative eyes? That speaks to the young parents deciding whether or not to have a child.
So, I agree with Members that we all have a responsibility and a part to play in making this pro-family environment possible, whether it is in the neighbourhood or in the workplace. We all can do our part.
Ultimately, that decision to start a family and have children is a deeply personal one. We can have all the correct policies, incentives and benefits and all the help schemes in the world, but if at the end of the day, our individual priorities and value systems are not geared towards having a family, then no matter what policies and help schemes we have, we will never be able to have that pro-family mindset.
We are not doing this because we are trying to see babies as economic digits. We want Singaporeans to have happy families because this is part and parcel of having a meaningful life in Singapore, beyond having a meaningful career.
Children are not economic digits. Children are part of our family life. It saddens me when people take out a balance sheet to try and calculate all the pluses and minuses financially, numerically, before they decide to make that leap of faith. I am sure our parents, with much less than us, never did that before they conceived us. If they had done so, maybe we would not be where we are.
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We would not even be here today. But it is a deeply personal choice.
What we can do is to make sure that we educate our young people and help them at every stage of their lifecycle. This is the reason why MSF has embarked on the Family Matters initiative. It is a life-cycle approach towards promoting family life, getting our people to share in the joys of family from young till they go out to work, and even after they have their children, at every stage of their lifecycle. From young, we have to start inculcating in our youths an appreciation of family life, that the family is the anchor of all that we do and it gives meaning to all that we do. When they are older, we try and help them to have the opportunities to meet their life partners, to settle down. Even after they got married, we try to give them help to make sure that we lessen the burden and the fear of starting a family. That is important.
But I am quite sure this will not yield us benefits in the short term, because this is a long-term challenge. It takes us many years to build that pro-family environment and mindset. And we want to make this possible across the entire environment – from the workplace to the community – which is why we are going to spend $40 million in the next three years to encourage that environment, to work with employers, to work with community partners, to bring that about. And we want to use all channels, all mediums, to send this message forth, and that is important.
If we get this right, then we will never talk about children as being a digit, because children become an intrinsic part of our family, part of our meaning in life. So, this is what we seek to do. At the end of the day, whether we talk about the M&P package or the TFR at the macro level, it boils down to individual decisions at the micro level. And this is where we need to have our values right, our priorities right, and then we can go forth and build that community that is pro-family, that business environment that is pro-family.
The Government will continue to endeavour to make sure that we walk this journey with all fellow Singaporeans. The Government will make sure that the macro environment is right, that we move on the correct trajectory to encourage the second circle – the businesses, the work environment, and so forth – to do their part. But, at the end of the day, we need to get the individual values and priorities right, without which the rest will not work.
On that note, I would like to thank all Members of the House for your support of this Bill, and I am quite sure that, with time, we will continue to evolve our policies to meet the changing needs of our society. And I hope that
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we can all walk this journey together and each of us doing our part to encourage a more pro-family environment to encourage that sense of love for our children.
*Question put, and agreed to.*
*Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.*
*The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Mr Chan Chun Sing].*
*Bill considered in Committee.*
[Mdm Speaker in the Chair]
Clauses 1 to 7 inclusive ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8 −
Clause 8. There is an amendment standing on the Order Paper Supplement. As inadequate notice has been given of this amendment, it is subject to my consent and the general assent of Members present. I give my consent for the amendment to be moved. Is it the pleasure of hon Members that the amendment be moved?
Hon Members indicated assent.
Acting Minister for Social and Family Development, Mr Chan Chun Sing.
Mdm Speaker, I beg to move,
"In page 12, line 23, to leave out "84" and insert "84A".
This corrects a typographical error under section 12(1), which unwittingly omitted section 84A when applying the provisions of the Employment Act to the maternity leave scheme under the Child Development Co-Savings Act.
Section 84A of the Employment Act deals with the protection of the employee's right to maternity leave payment if the employee is retrenched
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during her pregnancy. It has been applied in the Child Development Co-Savings Act together with sections 77 to 86. The Ministry of Manpower has repealed section 85 in the current round of related Employment Act amendments, and section 12(1) was re-drafted to exclude section 85. However, it should be read as sections 77 to 84A and 86 instead of sections 77 to 84 and 86.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 9 to 21 inclusive ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill reported with an amendment; read a Third time and passed.
PAPERCUTS