Consideration of Matters regarding Member of Parliament, and Suspension of Member

Mr Speaker, I refer to the Motions filed by the Leader of the House on 14 September, precipitated by the Motion filed by PSP's Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) Hazel Poa on 7 September calling for the suspension of Mr S Iswaran.

In my view, there are two key issues for Parliament to consider: first, whether it is fair and proper for a duly elected Member of Parliament (MP) to be suspended from responsibilities towards his or her constituents and legislative duties before due process is concluded; second, what Parliament ought to do when an MP has been effectively interdicted from MP duties arising from actions taken by his or her Party leader.

First, let me speak on the issue of fairness.

The hon Member Ms Hazel Poa's case is that a Member should be suspended from Parliament because he has been arrested and is being investigated for the serious offence of corruption. However, the centrality of the rule of law in Singapore renders the hon Member's suggested course of action premature, a point made all the more stark because we do not even know the details of what Mr S Iswaran is accused of. Parliament should be mindful of the dictum of presumption of innocence.

With respect, I would also request PSP colleagues in the House to consider the precedent their Motion would create should a future government decide to fix Opposition MPs by way of politically motivated investigations.

Sir, in some cases, those who have been investigated under the Prevention of Corruption Act have not been charged. In a few other cases, accused persons who have been brought to trial have been acquitted or the prosecution applies to withdraw the charges. In yet other cases, those convicted at first instance have seen their convictions overturned on appeal. Any of these scenarios could come to pass in Mr Iswaran's case.

In the Workers' Party's (WP) view, the wheels of justice must be allowed to fully turn before Parliament decides what to do.

The WP cannot agree to the Motion filed by the PSP. It would not just be unfair and premature but, significantly, this House would be seeking to overturn the electoral mandate given to Mr Iswaran by the people through the ballot box by prematurely passing judgement on him.

This leads me to the second issue on how to deal with an MP who has been put by his party leader on indeterminate leave of absence from Parliament with full MP's allowance. While it may not be appropriate to suspend Mr Iswaran from Parliament, it may well be appropriate to suspend the payment of his MP allowance.

WP MP Mr Dennis Tan raised this matter of Mr Iswaran's MP allowance in Parliament last month.

Mr Speaker, there is disquiet among members of the public because he continues to collect his allowance. As far as I know, Mr Iswaran is neither performing duties in his constituency nor in Parliament and his likeness is not found on Town Council or People's Association banners in West Coast Group Representation Constituency (GRC).

The Prime Minister said in this House last month that if Parliament wants to stop an MP's allowance, Parliament has to move to interdict the individual as an MP and Parliament has not done that and, I quote, "What has happened is that the MP has been on a leave of absence and, eventually, when the case is settled in one way or another, then consequences would follow." What needs to be noted, however, is that the Prime Minister's act of interdicting Mr Iswaran as Minister appears to have effectively interdicted him as an MP as well.

For the WP to decide on whether to support the Leader's Motion, there are a few questions I would like to ask the Leader in order that this House can understand the full extent of the restrictions on Mr Iswaran as an MP.

My first question is: can the Leader confirm whether Mr Iswaran's ban on entering Government buildings extends to Parliament House? Does Mr Iswaran have access to the Public Service Division's MP Appeal System and is he rendering assistance or expected to do so to his residents in his capacity as an MP?

My second question addresses the Prime Minister's comment that consequences will follow. It is unclear if those, I quote, "consequences" include a clawback of the MP allowance. I would advance that such a clawback for the period during which he has not performed MP's duties would be a reasonable expectation of the public. So, my second question is this: can the Leader tell us whether a clawback of Mr S Iswaran's MP allowance is within the PAP's contemplation in so far as clause (c) of the Leader's Motion is concerned? For completeness, it is this issue that forms the basis of my Parliamentary Question today and filed on 7 September about the duration Mr Iswaran is expected to be absent from Parliament.

My third question concerns para (c) of the Leader's Motion where it says that this House will consider this matter when the outcome of ongoing investigations is known. This contrasts with what the Prime Minister said during the clarifications of the Prime Minister's Ministerial Statement on Mr Iswaran last month. The Prime Minister said and, I quote, "If there is a case, the case has not been heard, he has not been found guilty or acquitted or whatever."

My third question is this: can the Leader clarify whether the word "outcome" in para (c) of the Leader's Motion means that this House will consider this matter once investigations are completed and a decision has been made on whether charges would be preferred against Mr Iswaran or if it means that this House will consider this matter only upon conclusion of the entire criminal justice process, including any possible appeal?

The WP's position on the Leader's Motion will turn on the responses to these three specific queries.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to thank all Members who have spoken on this and made their contributions to this very important debate.

I would like now to respond to what has been said by Ms Hazel Poa and the position of PSP, but also to help Members understand the principles and the tenets upon which we should act in such a situation.

Insofar as Ms Poa and PSP's position is concerned, what does concern me greatly, is that her Motion and the move to suspend Minister Iswaran does not appear to come from a place of principle. It is, by her own admission, specifically targeted at Minister Iswaran and not a matter of policy or principle.

In order to decide what we must do for this, it is very important to first understand what the law is. And that is why I asked Ms Poa under which specific provision she was seeking to suspend Mr Iswaran. Because as I understood her argument, which is the same as she has posted on social media, her argument, PSP's argument is that: "I want to cut your pay. And because I want to cut your pay, I want to suspend you." In other words, "this is the result I want, and therefore, I would suspend you."

But that is not the correct approach, because when you look at our rules, you will see that generally, suspension is a punishment. It is punitive in nature, generally. And the cutting of pay is a consequence.

So, we must first ask ourselves: in what scenario do you suspend and has that threshold been met? Where do we start? We start with the PPIPA.

The PPIPA does have specific provisions on suspension. Let me deal first with the part that deals with the allowance because that is where PSP is coming from. Section 29(3) of the PPIPA says, "no salary or allowance payable to such Member for his service as a Member of Parliament shall be paid in respect of any period during which he is suspended from service in Parliament." So, section 29(3) is the provision that says that if you are suspended, then you do not get your pay. But that begs the question: when are you suspended?

Well, there is a specific provision in section 20, which says that "for any dishonourable conduct, abuse of privilege or contempt on the part of a Member, Parliament may" – and then, it has various things – "may suspend him from the service of Parliament for the remainder of the current session of Parliament or for any part thereof."

So, there is one specific provision which has a certain threshold with three requirements: dishonourable conduct, abuse of privilege or contempt. But that does not apply in this case. It has not been made out yet.

If subsequently something arises out of the investigations that you can say constitutes dishonourable conduct or abuse of privilege, then maybe so, but that has to be considered down the road. But, at this point in time, can we say that section 20 has been triggered? I would respectfully say no.

Then, there is the next provision, which is section 19. Section 19 says, "without prejudice to sections 20 and 21, Parliament may, in accordance with its Standing Orders, suspend any Member from the service of Parliament for the remainder of the current session or for any part thereof". Section 19 tells you to look at the SOs. So, let us look at the SOs. And that is why I asked Ms Poa the question earlier.

The relevant SO is SO59. SO59, subsection (1) has a specific provision on suspension. It states: "Whenever a Member has been named by the Speaker or the Chairman immediately after the commission of the offence of disregarding the authority of the Chair, or of persistently and wilfully obstructing the business of Parliament by abusing the rules of Parliament or otherwise, then if the offence has been committed by such Member of Parliament, a motion shall forthwith be proposed by a Minister or Parliamentary Secretary present that the Member shall be suspended from the service of Parliament and the Speaker shall forthwith put the question on that motion, no amendment, adjournment or debate being allowed".

Whatever else one may wish to accuse Mr Iswaran of, we certainly cannot accuse him of the conduct listed out in SO59. There may be others who may have offended that SO, but not Mr Iswaran. So, that does not apply.

That brings us to the provision that Ms Poa referred us to earlier, which is SO59(5). But SO59(5) is a general provision which just basically says that Parliament can move a resolution.

So, if you are relying on that provision, effectively what you are saying is that "because I can pass a Motion to suspend you, I will." That is where the question of principle comes in. Should this House do something just because it can? The question is not, "should we do it because we can" and even then, I have to put a reservation there, because I am not sure that it can be read as broadly as Ms Poa puts it.

But for the sake of argument and just for the sake of argument, if it is as broad as she says, as a Parliament and as a House, we have to act on principle. Because if we do not, it becomes very dangerous. Because, what it then means is that we can pass any resolution that we like without having regard to values, principles or standards and targeted specifically at any Member of this House.

Think about what kind of Parliament that would be. What would be the standards of integrity of such a Parliament? What would be the sense of fairness and how would people regard this House if we did something like that?

So, I would be very, very cautious before we say that we suspend a Member just because we can. It is quite important that we should establish the principles of suspension.

When I asked Ms Poa what are the principles she is advocating, she listed a few. Let me go through them in turn.

First, she said it is because Mr Iswaran is under investigation for corruption and corruption is a serious offence. But then I ask Ms Poa, what about rape? What about murder? If a Member is under investigation for those offences, should the Member be suspended? Ms Poa did not have an answer. She said she had not thought about that, which means that she had not thought about the principle.

This is worrying because it means that when PSP advocates something, they are not acting as a matter of principle, but as a matter of targeting a specific individual and that is my concern.

And anyway, in any event, whilst Mr Iswaran is under investigation under the Prevention of Corruption Act, firstly, it has not yet been established whether he has done any wrongdoing yet, at this point of time. So, as I mentioned before, the facts are not known, the specific allegations against him are not known. So, on what basis do you suspend?

The next thing Ms Poa said was that we should suspend because Mr Iswaran is on leave of absence. Leave of absence, in and of itself per se, cannot be a reason for suspension. If that were so, then we would have to suspend Mr Faisal Manap. He was on leave of absence because he was ill. But we do not do that, because he was ill. So, in other words, it is not the leave of absence in and of itself. It is the reason why you have to take leave of absence. And in this case, Mr Iswaran was effectively asked to take leave of absence because it is untenable for him to perform his duties as a Minister and it will be very difficult for him to perform his duties as an MP whilst under investigation. So, as a matter of proper, good order, he should be on leave of absence.

Then, the next point that she made was because he was under arrest. Well, yes, when you are under investigation, part of Police procedure is that you are under arrest, but I come back to the same point. This is still at the investigative stage, and you have not actually established whether there was any wrongdoing.

So, then she made the next point that he was not performing his duties. Here, let me just make a very short digression to say that while he has not been able to perform his duties as an MP, his constituents are still being looked after. I wanted to make that point because it is very important that his constituents know that they are still being taken care of and are in good hands.

In fact, Minister Desmond Lee has been doing the Meet-the-People session. He and another MP, I think Miss Rachel Ong, have been doing house visits. The other MPs in West Coast GRC have been covering events on the ground. So, I just wanted the residents of West Coast GRC to know that notwithstanding the fact that Mr Iswaran has to be on leave of absence, they are still being taken care of.

Then, Ms Poa talked about the question that, well, it is taxpayers' money that is being used in the interim period. But the important question is – what is the principle? You do not suspend somebody just because you do not want to pay him. You have to suspend him because there is a principle that has been breached or a threshold has been crossed.

It may well be, depending on the outcome of the investigations, that that threshold may be crossed. I do not know. None of us know at this stage. So, that is why my Motion at this point in time says that we should wait until the outcome of the investigations before deciding what to do, simply because that threshold has not yet been met.

And on this, I note that the Leader of the Opposition had also taken a similar position, for which I do thank him. Because he said Parliament should be very mindful of suspending somebody in the meantime and this would set a precedent should the Government decide to fix anybody. He also talked about the wheels of justice and that we must not do anything precipitously – this is not the Leader of the Opposition's words – but essentially, what he is really saying, which is the same thing as what others have said is, "do not pre-judge the issue".

And that is correct, because the Leader of the Opposition and Mr Faisal Manap are under investigation. They were referred to the Public Prosecutor.

On that, I just also want to say that when you look at the way that we approach that, we did not suspend them because we felt that it was better for the outcome to be heard. In fact, we went further in that case. Because here, in this Motion, I am only asking for us to wait till the outcome of the investigations. In the case of the referral to the Public Prosecutor on the Committee of Privileges Inquiry for Mr Singh and Mr Faisal Manap, we actually said that we would wait till the outcome of the proceedings.

Let me just read from the relevant report, because the Committee of Privileges' recommendations were that "Mr Singh be referred to the Public Prosecutor, for further investigations, with the view to considering if criminal proceedings ought to be instituted in respect of his conduct before the Committee, and that Mr Faisal be referred to the Public Prosecutor for further investigations for his refusal to answer relevant questions put by the Committee and consider if criminal proceedings ought to be instituted".

And what the Committee of Privileges said in their recommendation was this: "Based on the evidence before this Committee, we are satisfied Mr Singh had told untruths to this Committee. Parliament is empowered to summarily decide on the matter and also decide on the appropriate sanctions based on our findings. However, we recommend that Parliament refers Mr Singh's conduct to the Public Prosecutor, with a view to consider the institution of criminal proceedings. We would also recommend that Parliament consider deferring any action to be taken in respect of possible dishonourable conduct and contempt of Parliament until criminal proceedings, if any, are complete."

The point I want to make is this. The specific offence in that case was dishonourable conduct and contempt. That falls squarely within section 20 of the PPIPA. The Committee of Privileges had made its finding with regard to Mr Singh and Mr Faisal Manap. Mr Singh and Mr Faisal Manap, of course, dispute that. I understand that. And that was the reason why we said they should go to Public Prosecutor.

But the Committee of Privileges and this House would have been well within its rights to say: "We accept the findings of the COP [Committee of Privileges] and we act immediately under section 20." But we did not. We did not because we felt that, as a matter of fairness, we should wait and see what the outcome of the proceedings were.

And so, the actual resolution which I moved was this: "that Mr Pritam Singh's, Ms Sylvia Lim's and Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap's respective roles as set out in the report, in relation to the untruth spoken by Ms Raeesah Khan in Parliament, and Ms Lim's or Mr Faisal's stating of untruth to the Committee on oath or affirmation and the appropriate sanctions in respect thereof, be deferred until the conclusion of the investigations and criminal proceedings, if any, against Mr Singh." So, in that case, I went further, and I said to wait till not just the conclusion of the investigations but the conclusion of the proceedings.

In this case, I am saying, let us wait until the conclusion or the outcome of the investigations because that would put this House in a better position to know what to do.

Let me just come back to some of the other questions that were asked.

Mr Singh had a question. Mr Singh supports the position that Mr Iswaran should not be suspended at this point in time, I think. His second question, though, was, what should Parliament do in the interim period. And I think his position was that it might be appropriate to suspend his MP allowance. That is what I think Mr Singh said.

The difficulty with that, and this is what Ms Poa was alluding to, is that there is no provision in the PPIPA currently to suspend allowance. It is a binary position: if the person is a sitting MP, he receives the full allowance. If the Member is suspended, then he does not get any allowance. So, the law does not provide for anything in between.

Ms Poa mentioned that she had, in the original Motion, wanted to provide for clawback but was advised by Parliament – which I think is the current position under the law, that there is no provision for a clawback. So, the question is: what do we do?

Currently, right now, given the state of the law and given that we do not know the facts and that we do not know the outcome of the investigation, that is why I have said we should wait till the outcome of the investigation. Then, we have a clearer idea of what to do.

And the next question then is, what should we then do with respect to the monies that are paid with respect to Mr Iswaran.

I think the answer is this. We will look at it again when we know if the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) intends to bring any charges and if so, what the charges are. We will consider a clawback, if justified. If he is charged, the Prime Minister will consider the allegations and accusations against him and decide whether to make him resign and to pay back both salary and allowance without waiting for legal process.

Bear in mind, this is a party discipline matter. It is a party discipline matter. And the Prime Minister would do this on the basis that he has not lived up to the party discipline and standards of conduct, whether or not he has committed offences. And if it is really necessary, then we will consider what to do with respect to legislation.

But there will be issues there. That is the reason why I say, again, that these are issues that should be considered when the outcome of the investigation is known. Because it may very well be that at the end of the investigation, he is also cleared. And if he is cleared, then what we would have done in the meantime, if we accept Ms Poa's Motion, is that we would have suspended him and we would have docked his pay when there was, in fact, no need to.

At the end of the day, it is a question of where is the balance, what is a fair way of dealing with this, given the current state of the law, given the current state of knowledge that we have?

Ms Poa's approach is, really, let us just ignore whether or not he has done anything wrong. Let us just suspend him because it is a matter of money. And then, if need be, we pay it back.

But I think we need to approach it as a matter of principle, which is that, at the current time, when you cannot say clearly that some threshold has been crossed, then we say wait, see what the outcome of the investigations are. And if, depending on the outcome, a threshold has been crossed, then we will certainly look at it as a matter of party discipline. And the Prime Minister has very firm views on standards of integrity and conduct, and he will not let the matter rest if thresholds have been crossed.

I think that assurance I can give, which is that if certain thresholds had been crossed and if warranted and merited, we will do something. As to what exactly we will have to do, we will have to see what happens. But I have said quite plainly that we will certainly consider a claw back and also think how to do it.

So, I hope that sets Members' minds at rest, because if we do not suspend him today, it does not mean that you cannot do so in the future. If you do suspend him today, you are effectively saying that he has done something wrong, when there is no basis at the present time. There may well be later; we do not know. But at the present time, it will be premature and prejudging the issue.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to thank all who have participated in this debate.

All of us share a common desire to maintain high standards of conduct in this House and to treat Members who are under investigation firmly and fairly. These are motherhood statements that few are expected to disagree with. How we apply such standards, however, may not be the same. Such differences will come to the fore when we apply them to specific cases, like in the case of Minister Iswaran.

While PSP feels that it is fair to suspend Minister Iswaran for now and to back pay him when he is cleared of all wrongdoing, the Leader of the House does not think so. That is a judgement call and I think we will have to agree to disagree.

I have also asked for leave to table an amendment Bill to make it possible for Parliament to back pay Minister Iswaran, if necessary.

Under current provisions in the PPIPA, no allowances are to be paid to Members who are suspended from the service of Parliament. We have proposed to amend that provision to allow Parliament to pay such allowances if a resolution is passed. This amendment gives Parliament the flexibility to decide whether suspended Members should be paid their allowance, whether in full or in part. Without this flexibility, Parliament is hampered in taking timely disciplinary actions. If we are unable to back pay and we have to uphold the principle of innocence until proven guilty, it means that we cannot suspend any Member until the entire legal process has been completed. This may be a long period of time.

We are, in fact, being held ransom due to the lack of provision to back pay. Regardless of Parliament's decision on Minister Iswaran, we believe that the amendment should still be passed. There is only an upside, no downsides to this amendment.

Let me now address the issues that have been brought up by various Members.

I think the common theme that runs throughout is the presumption of innocence. All who spoke – Mr Lim Biow Chuan, Mr Raj Joshua Thomas and Mr Vikram Nair – made the same point that by suspending, we are presuming that he is guilty. That is a point that I dispute. I think that argument is a red herring.

If suspension means presumption of guilt, then I am afraid we have been doing that on many, many occasions. Police officers have been suspended from duties and placed on half pay while they are under investigations, as evident in answer to a Parliamentary Question just yesterday and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has also said that is a standard practice for Police officers.

So, the fact of the matter is suspension is not a determination of guilt. It is merely a measure that is commonly used to deal with situations where a person is under investigation. Most of the time the suspension comes in two parts: suspension of duties and an effect on the pay.

In this particular case, the Prime Minister has already made the decision to suspend Minister Iswaran from his Ministerial duties and reduced his pay to $8,500. He has also suspended him from performing his MP duties and have his other colleagues cover for him in his constituency. So, the suspension is already done. All that I am asking for in this House is to suspend the allowance as well.

In addition, Members Raj Joshua Thomas and Vikram Nair also mentioned that MPs have the mandate of the people and, therefore, suspension of duties should not be lightly done. I would like to seek clarification from them. Does this mean they have an issue with the Prime Minister's decision to suspend Minister Iswaran from his duties as an MP?

The Leader of the House said that while section 59(5) says Parliament can suspend a Member, we should not be doing something just because we can. I believe I made it very clear why we are asking for this. It is not just because we can. I have also listed the three reasons why I think we have a good case to suspend Minister Iswaran.

The Leader of the House proceeded to address them one by one, but she does them in isolation. For example, when I said that he is not performing the duties, she quoted the example of medical leave. But the three conditions are meant to be taken together, not individually. For example, when we say that you can vote if you are a Singapore Citizen and aged 21, you do not tackle the criteria one by one, age 21 separate from Singapore Citizen. Both conditions must be satisfied.

PSP feels that adopting a harsher stand against corruption versus other wrongdoing is fair, given the extremely high salaries we are paying Ministers to stay corruption-free. Since we are paying such extraordinarily high salaries, is it not fair for the consequence of corruption and the handling process of its investigation to be correspondingly tougher?

Adopting a light touch approach here will only send the wrong signal. The sanguine approach adopted towards Minister Iswaran's MP allowance stands in stark contrast to the approach adopted towards the public. If Minister Iswaran continues to receive over $20,000 per month while not performing any duties and under investigation for corruption, while ComCare recipients who are permanently unable to work due to old age, illness or disability get $640 per month, what does this say about our values? How is it equitable that Minister Iswaran gets in one month what these ComCare recipients get over three years? If the investigation and prosecution take one year, the amount he continues to receive will be equivalent to what these ComCare recipients get over 38 years.

PSP urges the House to suspend Minister Iswaran and to back pay him if and when he is cleared of all wrongdoing. We have explained why our approach leads to better use of taxpayers' money while making sure that Minister Iswaran is not penalised should he be found innocent. This is in line with our idea of being firm and fair.

We trust that all who have been following this debate are well able to come to their own conclusions. We will leave it at that.

I thank the Member for his clarification. First, it is important to remember that there is a distinction between Mr Iswaran's role as a Minister and his role as an MP. As a Minister, he was appointed by the Prime Minister. So, he holds that position at the Prime Minister's pleasure. The Prime Minister, therefore, also has the ability to interdict him and to tell him to stop carrying out duties as Minister whilst he is under investigation. That is because his appointment flowed or came from the Prime Minister.

That is as I understand it and if I am incorrect, my colleagues will set out the correct position. But that interdiction includes a direction that he should not be allowed access to all Government buildings. That flows from the Ministerial position; and that is obviously because you are under investigation, and you do not want to prejudice the investigation.

Then, there is the issue of Mr Iswaran's status as an MP. Mr Iswaran's status as an MP was not by appointment, by the Prime Minister or otherwise. He was elected. He was elected by the constituents of West Coast GRC. His mandate comes from them, and you can only suspend or take away his ability to act as an MP in accordance with the PPIPA. And I have taken Members through those provisions.

So, in other words, currently, because he is not suspended, if Mr Iswaran wanted to come today and enter Parliament, he can because he is an MP. But as a matter of party discipline, he has been requested by the Prime Minister to also cease his MP duties because you can imagine how difficult it is to carry out your MP duties when you are under investigation or even to come to Parliament. Imagine if he was sitting here and somebody were to ask him about the investigation, what is he going to say? I mean, the investigative authorities are listening to this. This is a public matter. He might end up jeopardising his own case.

So, as a matter of party discipline and good order, he has been asked to stay away and, at least to his credit, he has complied with that – even though he is entitled to come in as an MP.

That is why I think I should also clarify something which was said earlier by Ms Poa, which I think I have just clarified by my explanation. I think Ms Poa said something to the effect of Mr Iswaran being suspended by the Prime Minister. Did Ms Poa say that? Anyway, the direction to stop work as a Minister – the interdiction – comes from the Prime Minister in his capacity as Prime Minister to Mr Iswaran in his capacity as a Minister.

Insofar as not carrying out MP duties and going on leave of absence, that is something which is requested by the Prime Minister as a matter of party discipline. Mr Iswaran could come to Parliament if he wants to, but he has not done so because he has listened to what he has been asked to do.

Leave of absence and not being able to perform MP duties is quite different from suspension. Suspension is as provided for under the Act and certain criterion and thresholds have to be met. That was the clarification I wanted to make.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I feel compelled to speak and seek clarification from Ms Hazel Poa as to what is her purpose and intent in comparing this amount of allowance that is still being paid until a verdict has been reached on Minister Iswaran's case, with the payouts from ComCare. Because I believe Ms Poa as an ex-public servant knows very well that these are budgets that are completely separate from each other. And it does not mean that simply because you suspend an MP, that money is going to go to some further ComCare applications. So, I would like to clarify what is her intention in bringing up this analogy?

We are talking about Government financial resources. If it is not paid, it will actually be still within Government coffers that can be redirected elsewhere.

I thank Mr Leong Mun Wai for his clarification. First, he says that he is concerned about the salaries and, of course, what would happen in the case when somebody is not performing. Well, as I said earlier, if a certain threshold has been met, if it was warranted, then we would consider having a clawback. How that is to be affected remains to be seen. Because as explained today, the law as it currently is, does not allow for it. This does not, however, preclude the Prime Minister from, as a matter of party discipline, requiring it. And if Mr Iswaran acceded to that, then there is actually nothing more to be done, if it warranted it.

So, to ask me now, can I confirm that we will have a Bill or something to amend – my answer is, wait and see what the outcome of the investigation is because such a Bill may not be necessary.

What I can assure Members of is that, at least on our side – the party's side – we will do what is right and what is fair, having regard to the circumstances. That assurance, I think, I can give.