Debate on President's Address

Mr Seah Kian Peng.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the President has asked us to broaden the way we conceive of "merit", which is another way of saying "who deserves what" in terms of opportunity and access to finite resources.

Today, it has become fashionable to hammer this word "meritocracy", as if those of us who use it do not know it was originally coined as criticism. Michael Young, the British sociologist, in 1958, argued that a system that rewarded merit defined as "IQ plus effort" is as flawed as that one rewarding accidents of birth, because having cognitive ability is as much a matter of genetic lottery.

This is true, except we may prefer to adopt this system, compensate for its shortcomings rather than adopt the alternatives which are random assignment, other criteria such as money, power or birth.

Let me give you the Singaporean rendering of meritocracy which should be seen against our general governance model.

In 1971, then-Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew gave a famous speech about 300 people in a jumbo jet. Most of us remember that speech for the graphic image of the jet crashing and a country bereft of leadership. But the main idea for me is this, how did these people get on the plane?

Mr Lee said at the time, and I quote, "The main burden of present planning and implementation rests on the shoulders of some 300 key persons." He goes on to say, "Outstanding men in civil service, the Police, the armed forces, chairmen of statutory boards and their top administrators." And then, he goes on to say, "These people come from poor and middle-class homes. They come from different language schools. Singapore is a meritocracy. And these men have risen to the top by their own merit, hard work and high performance. Together they are a closely knit and co-ordinated hard core. If all the 300 were to crash in one jumbo jet, then Singapore will disintegrate. That shows how small the base is for our leadership."

This idea that a man comes into leadership, or indeed, into any position of opportunity, by what he can do, how hard he has worked, the stuff he himself is made of, not who his father was, who his friends are, or how much money he has. This idea that one looks at a man and not his pedigree is as old as Plato's Republic and the Chinese Imperial Examinations. In Singapore, this must remain the only way to get on that jet.

The fly in this ointment, of course, is that the two are not unrelated. How much a man is, determines how many advantages his son or daughter has, who this son marries, and in turn, the kinds of privilege he confers on his own offsprings. And so on unto generations to come.

In Singapore, there are people who are born into HDB rental blocks that their parents live in, as well as those who inherit good class bungalows (GCBs) that their parents may themselves inherit. The Government can make sure that both have a roof over their heads, they have vaccinations in the clinics, that the sons of the rich serve alongside those of the poor in National Service, but there is no way that the first can afford everything that the second does.

We talk often of income inequality and that is indeed an issue. But what I want today to speak about is wealth, because that is an even more glaring offence to the meritocratic ideal. There are 2,700 billionaires in the world – their money comes, not only from their income from work but also through their ownership of capital – property, stocks and the businesses that they owned.

We could reset the game after each round – tax bequests heavily so as to erode the advantages of inherited wealth – but there are two constraints on this: the first is to recognise the ancient instinct which urges us to strive so as to be able to leave something for our family as our legacy; the second is a practical benchmark – that Singapore must set tax regimes for the rich, with an eye on the rates in the rest of the world, rather than merely responding to local pressures.

Having said this, I do think that we can tax the rich further, especially in specific expenditures such as, super cars. I asked this in my Budget debate speech and I ask the Finance Minister, at some point again, to consider a separate category of Certificates of Entitlement (COEs) for super cars costing over a million dollars. The billionaires should compete among themselves so as not to allow the state to benefit from their preferences for luxury goods. The same goes for the tax for GCBs, country club transfer fees and so on.

Net worth is not net income, and it is the first which may be a stronger force for fracture. My second point on inherited wealth is to ask for some data. The data on the Gini coefficient is clear. After adjusting for Government transfers and taxes, the Gini coefficient fell from 0.437 in 2021 to 0.378 in 2022, the second lowest on record. It is a sign that Government transfers are a good way to reduce income inequalities.

But the Gini coefficient includes only wage income. It does not take into account capital income which is likely to be more uneven in distribution. I do not know what the wealth distribution is in Singapore, but the Government may consider releasing some data so as to help public discussion.

I am not asking for a segregation of the super-rich in terms of everyday life, merely in tax regimes, as a matter of fairness. They are, of course, still free to enjoy $4 or $5 wanton mee at one of my coffeeshops at Serangoon Central. We need to keep common spaces open because these are, after all, financed by tax dollars.

The second piece of the puzzle is, therefore, the redistributive function of the state. In order to keep us from fracturing along the lines of inherited wealth, we must also level the playing field for those who are not unto the manner born. In health, education and housing, as well as some elements of transport and financial planning, we must create a minimum standard of living for all Singaporeans.

I would like to suggest one radical idea: the top 40% of each cohort already have access to state resources in the form of higher education. The budget of our top two universities here run to billions of dollars a year, with high resources inside the classrooms, the best labs, professors; and outside: with overseas travel, mental health and wellness and a close network of mentors.

What about the rest of the other 60%? Can we think of some educational spending or resourcing for the 60%? Whether in terms of skills, continuous training, micro-credentials, or even the sort of non-academic opportunities, including sports, which Mr Murali has talked about, that Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) affords to their students? This latter could include opportunities in the arts, sports as well as access to community service and overseas exposure.

Our SkillsFuture Credit framework that we have is good, but I think it should be further institutionalised with additional resources targeted for this 60% group. Singapore would then truly be a home which provides higher and lifelong education for all.

Five years ago, in 2018, also in response to the President's Address then, I had said that we must make sure that a boy born to poor parents must have more from the state than one born from the rich. This aggressive redistribution, which is a hallmark of Singapore's socialism, must become even stronger and not just in fiscal policy, but in public censure of any pretence to social class.

In this, I refer to the most recent incident where the resident of a condominium mocked, humiliated and ridiculed a security guard for clamping the wheels of his car. His utterance – flaunting his wealth, his contempt for the guard is abhorrent and has no place in Singapore. There are some things that money cannot buy and in Singapore, this includes the price of insult and derogation of any man doing an honest job.

We have in 60 years indeed, gone from mudflats to metropolis and may now have a different level of wealth and income but we must not stand for those who think money buys access to a different class.

In our schools, in our army camps, in this House of Parliament, we stand or fall as one.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I have been a Member of this House since 2006 and it has been a true privilege to stand alongside my colleagues of all political colours. Our jumbo jet may be a lot bigger today, but entry is still by merit and there is still just one class.

Today, as in 1971, we are still flying the same flag, with the same five stars: democracy, progress, peace, justice and equality. Today, the success of Singapore lies not within the few in a jet, but in the multitude of ideas in many people who live and work on this island.

In 1971, Mr Lee was speaking of unity and the need for all Singaporeans to feel that we are, at the root of our identity, one people. At that time, his fight was to avoid being torn under and along racial lines.

At that time, a Malay newspaper had been advocating "bumiputera" policies. One Chinese newspaper, on the other hand, has been playing up pro-Chinese Communist news. The English press at the time had been pushing for "more permissiveness in sex and drugs and worked up a campaign against National Service."

In 1971, the way towards unity was to build common ground in a common language and culture, and a stake in a prospering country.

Today, we may all speak a common language, our schools all teach in English and the power of different language newspapers may have weakened. But we still face provocations, falsehoods, dissension sown and manufactured, and we still face a world who has no interest in the success of Singapore.

Aside from the fault lines I spoke of earlier, there are other challenges: foreign and other malign influences through social media, the rise of a victimhood culture where each special group stand on its rights and sees "micro aggressions", where subjective feeling and "lived experiences" take priority over objective truths and rational discourse.

And as Singapore ages, the demands for state resources for older Singaporeans will rise, we can expect rising resentment among the young. In 2017, Greece and Italy spent around 15.5% of GDP on public pensions; Austria, France and Portugal spend around 13% to 14% of GDP. The entire Singapore budget is only about 18% today. So, this is a serious issue which we must tackle.

The challenges today are as numerous as ever. It seems it is the fate of a small nation, to always strive lest we fall. This can exhaust and frighten, or it can inspire and energise. The choice is ours, all of us who have chosen to fly this jet together. Sir, I support the Motion.

Imagine for a moment, if you will, being a teenager again. The awkward parties, the search for self, the facial breakouts. But one of the feelings that many of us will find inextricably linked to our adolescent years is one of exclusion. Now imagine the same feeling, only that you are now supposed to be a fully functioning, fully participating adult in society.

Mr Speaker, Singaporean incomes present themselves as somewhat of an enigma.

By some measures, we are among the richest countries in the world. Measured in terms of a common currency, Singapore comes in at fifth in 2022, ahead of Qatar and the United States (US), and just shy of Switzerland. When adjusted for actual purchasing power, we climb even higher; to third, just behind Ireland and Luxembourg, two European countries often used as tax shelters.

But amid this wealth, we also see sharply dissonant scenes of the elderly picking up cardboard, selling tissue packs, or clearing plates at hawker centers, of an underclass of workers who live in dingy, overcrowded rental flats and rely on food handouts, of people who quip that in Singapore, you can be poor, or you can be sick, or you can die, but you cannot stop working.

In her address last week, Mdm Halimah urged us to improve our social compact and strengthen our social safety net, emphasising how, I quote, "the fruits of progress must be shared fairly."

I support the President's sentiment and the Motion, but in this speech, I will speak more about the apparent economic success declared by the headline numbers versus the economic precarity felt by a large group of Singaporeans. I will go on to discuss hard living in Singapore, especially after the pandemic, before concluding with proposals that can help us hopefully improve the circumstances of those who are struggling the most.

Living in Singapore is not cheap. Look around. The market price of a 4-room HDB flat – all 970 square feet of it – ranges from $460,000 in Jurong East to a whopping $860,000 in Queenstown. Sengkang, the district I represent, recently saw a flat change hands for close to $1 million dollars. And island wide, close to a dozen 4-room flats sold for more than $1 million-dollar mark in the first quarter. Observers expect this trend to persist.

The cost of a new Japanese sedan, like the Honda Civic that I drive, is $180,000, around five times the price of what it goes for in other advanced economies. Put another way, buying a car would cost close to three years' salary of a typical middle-income individual here, compared to around 14 months in the US.

Our decades-old aspiration toward Swiss standards of living has, alas, also brought with it Swiss-style prices. Reports routinely place Singapore, tied with New York, as the most expensive city to live in in the world. While this Government has argued that such metrics do not reflect the typical experience of a Singaporean household who consume different things and have access to taxpayer-funded grants and subsidies for big-ticket items like purchasing an HDB flat, the sting is that many of these things the rest of the world deem affordable is, for us, not.

That said, by some measures, Singapore is eminently affordable, at least when compared to other advanced economies. Delicious hawker meals, which we rightly celebrate as a part of our natural, intangible heritage, can be had for a few dollars, plus a dollar more if you happen to live in Sengkang.

Our public transportation system is excellent and many of us commute on it on a day-to-day basis by paying relatively affordable, albeit rising, fares. Most of us are able to send our kids to school without the need to resort to expensive private schooling that would break the bank.

Whence the discrepancy? It stems from the fact that for those among us that do not own or have access to capital, life is exceedingly hard. It is one of working long hours but barely getting by, of living out each day with little hope for the future, of seeing the enormous prosperity that our country has achieved but feeling that, somehow, this has mostly passed you by.

But for those of us who own assets like stocks and bonds, who run or inherited a business, or were fortunate enough to get on the housing ladder early on, it is possible to enjoy the fruits of this wealth and rely on high-asset prices to cushion the effects of high prices of goods and services.

Moreover, the challenges of the poor would likely have been compounded by the pandemic. Across the globe, economically vulnerable households have tended to fare poorly as a result of the COVID-19 shock. Detailed surveys from economies, both Western and Eastern, suggest lower-income groups experienced greater job market losses. In Singapore, two separate studies by DBS on account balances revealed that close to half of lower-income groups suffered significant falls in income, with around half within that group experiencing drops of more than 50% and had less than a month of emergency funds available.

This may seem especially unfair, since the less well-off were often our essential workers and had to continue on in the frontlines, even as the rest of us sheltered comfortably at home. Unfortunately, the poor did not find much relief after the pandemic. Inflation hit hard, reaching peaks of 7.5% in August and September last year. While this has come down, inflation, in excess of 6%, continues to eat away at incomes.

A more recent survey by DBS found that wage increases have failed to keep up with inflation and for the lowest income group, expenses have grown close to five-and-a-half times faster than their salaries. Even by the Government's own statistics, household real wages decreased in 2020 and 2021, and the small increase last year does not fully make up for the losses.

In contrast, there are those of us who have been lucky enough to have sufficient savings to invest and, in some cases, have been able to tap on higher interest rates offered by the market to shore up our finances. But such discrepancies only serve to further exacerbate the discrepancy between the wealthy and the rest.

Researchers who have devoted their lives to studying poverty tend to believe that its causes may be broadly defined into two groups. The first argues that low incomes constrain the ability of the poor to save, eat well and pursue educational opportunities. Since poverty causes poverty, the solution is to offer one-off transfers that help the poor extricate themselves from their plight. A second group believes that the poor are limited by their God-given abilities, talents or motivation, and they will always be among us and the solution is to provide small, but repeated, income support.

I believe that there is merit to both these perspectives on poverty. Inasmuch as we want to offer opportunities for those of us to escape the poverty trap, the basis of most of the Government's anti-poverty policies, there are those that happen to be endowed with less potential, stricken by physical or mental disability, or who face persistent discrimination, and hence, require the support of society-at-large. And in a rich, advanced economy, I believe that doing so is the correct and compassionate thing to do.

Regardless of which school of thought one subscribes to, the fact remains that if we are to help the poor, we must know who they are. But in Singapore, we have yet to establish an official poverty line. This is both puzzling and exasperating. We take pride in ourselves as people who are quantitatively sophisticated and highly efficient; we make and meet KPIs. Targeting the poor is impossible, or at least, imperfect, without an official, transparent benchmark.

We have, instead, a confusing mishmash of thresholds that have been applied by different agencies at different times. We sometimes see reports for the lowest quartile, or quintile, being treated as the poor, or simply the halving of median household incomes. The HDB income threshold for rental happens to be $1,500, while the ComCare threshold is closer to $1,900. The Department of Statistics instead pegs the Average Household Expenditure on Basic Needs at $1,250, albeit this low figure was from two surveys ago and the calculation does not seem to have been updated.

Other unofficial lines, based on ensuring social inclusion or allowing for relative, not just absolute, poverty would suggest higher amounts. These range from $2,500, to as much as $6,400. One may quibble with these numbers and this Government has certainly done so, by arguing that the high-end estimates overstate what are needs versus wants in the household.

A poverty line is defined as the lowest income level that would be deemed adequate in a given country. This leaves a tremendous amount of latitude in terms of what is "adequate". What may be regarded as an absolute minimum necessary to purchase goods and services for basic needs in a poor country may be shockingly low, when set against expectations of needs in a rich country. Indeed, there is clear evidence that as countries get richer, the value of what is conventionally regarded as a basic need changes.

And the fact is, we are no longer a developing country. The sort of things that we need to be as a full participant in Singaporean society has changed. Smartphones may seem like an unnecessary perk to some, but without one, many basic Government services become increasingly difficult to access. A holiday may strike others as a luxury, but for large families cooped up in tiny apartments, a brief getaway to Malaysia offers an important respite that can ensure the mental health of parents.

And money spent on "ang pows" and gifts and celebrations are not just frivolous spending; they represent rites of passage and acts of reciprocity that speak to a moral economy and societal norm, which cannot be reduced to dollars and cents.

It is, in my view, an insult to suggest to a family that the supplemental tuition that their struggling kids need to stay afloat in our overcrowded classrooms is not sufficiently "basic." Or that spending on deodorant in our hot and humid climate, particularly before an interview or a big date, is truly "discretionary".

Part of the problem is a disconnect between what this Government has claimed to be basic, versus what Singaporeans themselves perceive as necessary for human flourishing. But if we can all agree that a good life includes opportunities to education and decent healthcare, employment with work-life balance and a sense of inclusion when one participates in social, cultural and religious activities, then why do we not extend these to the most economically vulnerable in our midst? Life is not just about making it day-to-day, but about thriving, as all humans, poor or not, have aspirations.

It is time for an official poverty line. This line should be established based on components that go beyond just the crude, "basic" needs of housing, food and clothing. Set up a committee, with representatives, from not just MSF, but also leaders from civil society and experts from academia, to figure out what this should be. Then, peg all thresholds for Government assistance, especially ComCare, to this line or higher, but never lower. The Local Qualifying Salary, effectively our minimum wage for Singaporeans should likewise be tied to this line.

Even after we have established a new threshold for ComCare, we need to recognise that the system can stand to be refined. At this year's COS debate, I suggested that the ComCare approval process can be intrusive, onerous and demeaning. While I agree with the general principle of being responsible with public monies, we should not become overzealous in the opposite direction.

It is tempting to design a public welfare system that attempts to sieve out only those that we deem "worthy" of support. So-called "welfare kings or queens" should be excluded as such individuals undeniably exist. We may even have some "regulars" in our Meet-the-People Sessions, but they are few and far between.

Most of my residents possess a lot of self respect and feel uncomfortable seeking help from the state, even when they are going through a tough situation not of their own making. A system that is stingy about financial assistance to the eight or nine folks that just want a little bit of support in a particularly trying time, just to deny the one or two abusers, strikes me as excessive and especially since all that effort translates only to a modest payout.

Furthermore, support is often granted for an unbearably short time – three to six months in the first instance. With precious few exceptions, how can someone's lot improve in just three months? Even when we make appeals and reappeals to agencies, such as the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), we are often told that we should wait for six months before trying again, since life circumstances are unlikely to change much in the interim. And even if they did, providing some additional months of support would help those who are in need partially fill up the hole that they find themselves in.

As my hon friend Mr Leon Perera has argued in this House, poverty imposes a non-trivial "bandwidth tax": the cognitive burden of poverty, in and of itself. Being in dire financial straits not only imposes mental stress as one searches for job opportunities; it can affect our handling of all-important job interviews, or our performance in a job during the probation period. It steals mental resources that are better spent on improving our situation or providing care for our dependants. It even reduces the little pleasure we receive from what we are able to consume.

Think back on the last time when you had a tight budget before your next paycheck came in and how you had to worry about whether you could make the rent or the mortgage, pay for your meals next week or clear bills that would keep the lights on. Play out that exercise every single day and week, and you will sense what it is like to be poor. Layer on that, the need to "prove" that you are indeed poor every few months to a Social Service Office (SSO) officer, who has the power to snatch away the fragile lifeline that you have.

We can reduce the need for such burdensome and intrusive pre-approval scrutiny by obtaining many documents directly from our public and semi-public agencies, such as rental or utilities. We can deploy conditional cash transfers (CCTs) in exchange for desired behaviour, such as supplementary educational expenses or preventative healthcare spending, and use the fulfilment of the condition as sufficient evidence to qualify for support.

We could set the default that automatically qualifies all Singaporeans in rental flats for an extended period in the Fresh Start home ownership programme, as recently suggested by a local social sector leader.

The Government might argue that beyond ComCare, there is the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS), our other key anti-poverty programme, that is also aligned with incentives. But, as I suggested before, not everyone who is poor is able to work and even when they can, circumstances might constrain how much they can.

The WIS is based on an earned income tax credit (EITC) which, in turn, is a refinement of the negative income tax. Without going into technical details, it is sufficient to note that our scheme tends to be viewed more as a grudgingly offered financial supplement, conditional on one putting in sufficient work hours, rather than a genuine anti-poverty tool aimed at helping provide additional support to our low-income earners.

This is in part because the amounts offered by the WIS are paltry, majority of which is not even accessible for meeting daily needs, since most of it goes straight to the Central Provident Fund (CPF). Even with the most recent revision, topped-up amounts come to $350 a month at best, and can be as little as half that.

While any additional help is undoubtedly welcome, I have had many residents share that the support hardly makes a dent in high cost Singapore. This is exacerbated by our low-income thresholds – $3,000 a year – before one is disqualified. In contrast, the maximum income for the US programme is closer to twice that.

The $500 minimum monthly income requirement introduced last year may also inadvertently exclude workers who are most in need of the flexibility afforded by our part-time employment. While the ostensible reason for the requirement is to exclude some of the more well-off families from benefiting from the programme, it seems like the more tried and tested tool – total household or spousal income or the annual value (AV) of one's residential property – would be sufficient to rule out the non-poor.

Indeed, while we are reassured that those who are already on ComCare would automatically receive Workfare, I am sure that we are aware of many poor families, who for various reasons, are not on ComCare – perhaps because of the onerous documentary criteria I mentioned earlier or if they happen to have an estranged child who is also a high-income earner.

Were these individuals to work only limited hours, perhaps due to health or age, the limited additional support Workfare promises would nevertheless not be available to them.

Workfare also seems to be blind to the differential needs of parents with children. The WIS, to put it bluntly, is independent of dependants. This is in contrast to the approach in other jurisdictions where support is significantly higher if the household has one or more children. This approach makes absolute sense, since parents not only have more dependants to support, they also need to make arrangements for childcare were they to enter into the workforce formally.

Finally, Sir, it is worth pointing out that there are age conditions associated with the WIS, where those who are younger receive less support than the elderly. But this is curious. Why would the youthful poor necessarily need less money than the elderly?

This becomes more odd when —

Mr Speaker, Singapore’s Independence was a product of the post-war decolonialisation wave, that started in the late 1940s with the independence of India. That was also the period that saw the birth of the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and, in later years, the World Trade Organization (WTO).

These organisations formed the backbone of the modern multilateral world we live in. Common values recognised in international law included the recognition of the sovereignty of nations and the prohibition against the use of force except in self defence.

With the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO, trade among nations grew and the world became more interconnected. This was a backdrop that was conducive to Singapore’s growth as a small nation since the rule of law is especially important for protecting the small and the vulnerable.

The last few years have seen an unprecedented retreat from multilateralism. Russia’s attack on Ukraine was a breach of the UN Charter and the prohibition against the use of force. However, Russia, through its predecessor state, the USSR, is also a charter member of the UN with a veto in the security council. The breach of the UN Charter by a charter member is worrying for the rule of law and it is important for the rest of the world to take a firm stand on this if we intend to maintain the rule of law.

Two of the biggest beneficiaries of the liberalisation of trade following GATT and the WTO are the US and China. They are now the two biggest economies in the world. Yet, the rivalry between the two is now threatening the system on which both prospered. Other countries are also taking their cue from the superpowers, and we see increasing calls for protectionism from different countries. In the long run, this is likely to create more silos and a divided world.

The multilateral system is not dead, but I think it is important for those that believe in its importance to continue to speak up for it and help bring in those who are sceptical. The source of the scepticism is that free trade has sometimes exaggerated the differences between the rich and the poor in different countries. As jobs and roles move to different countries, there will inevitably be winners and losers at home. For those who believe in multilateralism, I think it is important for us to acknowledge some of these side effects and then have domestic policies that correct for this.

I think the multilateral system has benefits for everyone, not least of which is greater security. And in this testing time, we need to win back as many of the sceptics as we can.

Singapore itself has not been immune to some of these effects and this leads me to the second area I wish to address in my speech. The President’s Address acknowledged the importance of Singapore continuing to grow, but that these opportunities must be shared equitably.

I believe this is fundamental to preserving our society where everyone has opportunities.

Singapore’s growth over the years has been remarkable and, as we moved from third world to first, the living standards of almost all our people improved dramatically. However, now that we are a developed country and our GDP per capita is among the highest in the world, continuing to be a growing high-income country is more difficult. We need to find better, higher-paying jobs for our citizens.

At the same time, with higher incomes all round, the cost of living is generally higher as higher incomes for citizens translates into higher costs for wages for businesses and higher rentals as people pay more and compete for the real estate. Additionally, global inflationary pressures and higher interest rates also add to pressures in the cost of living for Singaporeans.

Against this backdrop, I think the measures in the President’s Address to ensure that Singaporeans continue to have opportunities to train and get employment throughout their working lives is vital. I would also suggest that this be coupled with income support while people undergo training. This should be enough to tide them over temporary rough patches.

Going to an earlier stage, I think it is important for our schools to remain the great leveller for education. In the past, children would attend school and learn things like the alphabet from there. I recall entering Primary 1 without any knowledge of how to read or write Tamil, but it was still possible to learn from scratch.

Now, with most children having preschool education, the entry benchmark has risen and basic literacy and numeracy is required for children attending Primary 1, failing which, more may fall behind. This means those who miss preschool, who are predominantly from lower-income families, will start off on the back foot. It is therefore even more important to ensure that preschool is attended by all children and either make this compulsory or have strong measures in place to encourage universal attendance.

The next matter, which I think has been alluded to by some of the earlier speakers, is the proliferation of tuition, even after children attend school. Parents across all income groups try their best to supplement what their children learn in school with tuition. In HDB heartland malls, an increasingly larger footprint is being used for such services.

While such services are helpful for children, there is a concern by parents who cannot afford such services that their children may lose out. I have some parents who come to MPS to seek assistance when they are going through a rough patch and they often indicate their children’s tuition expenses are part of their normal monthly expenditures. Of course, MSF rarely gives financial assistance to cope with such expenses.

There are other self-help groups that come in to provide support for this but it will be good if we can develop a system that places less emphasis on tuition. Education in our schools is highly affordable and of a very high quality. It is important that parents believe such education is adequate for their children and that children who are unable to attend or afford tuition and enrichment classes do not get left behind. This is an important part of keeping our playing field open for children of all backgrounds to thrive.

(In Tamil): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] The reopening of Parliament this time coincides with the Tamil Language Festival. This year there are 42 events being organised by a range of different organisations. This event receives strong but quiet support from the Government, which through the Tamil Language Council, provides grants for the organisation of events at this festival.

I am grateful to the Government for its strong support for the Tamil language in Singapore. The Tamil speaking community makes up around 5% of our population and it is one of Singapore’s official languages. The Government supports the language in many ways.

The Tamil Language Council supports the Tamil Language Festival.

Another committee, the Tamil Language Learning and Promotion Committee, otherwise known as TLLPC – which I have chaired for several years – offers support for the learning of Tamil outside of classrooms. The TLLPC team organises events and supports activities throughout the year to make the use and learning of Tamil language fun.

Grants are also given for the production of local Tamil content by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) under its Public Service Broadcast Programme and this allows for the creation of good quality local content, which is monitored by the Indian Programme Advisory Committee.

This support is commendable and has helped the Tamil language remain a vibrant language in Singapore.

Tamil is now also widely offered across more schools. When I was in preschool in the 1980s, it would have been very difficult to find preschools offering Tamil as a second language. When my father was in primary school in the 1950s, he started studying Tamil in Primary 1, but had to drop it in Primary 3 when his teacher passed away and no replacement could be found. He then had to switch to the Malay language. We have come a long way from those days, with Tamil now available across many preschools and government schools.

One issue that has arisen now though is the shortage of Tamil teachers in schools. As the number of Tamil students are small, there are fewer Tamil teachers than for other Mother Tongue languages. However, even though the number of children is small, the Tamil children in schools still have a variety of different needs, including children across different age groups and with different subject-based banding.

Yet, because of the shortage of teachers, I understand some schools have been forced to combine Tamil classes with children in different subject-based bands coming together for the same class. This makes common teaching difficult. It will be helpful to know if the Ministry of Education (MOE) has any plans to deal with this issue. This may include plans on how we may develop a larger pipeline of Tamil teachers for our Government schools and preschools.

The learning of Tamil in Singapore has come a long way, with quiet support from the Government going a long way. I am grateful for this support and hope it will continue.

Mr Speaker, in her address to Parliament, the President called for a “broader and more open meritocracy that works well for all Singaporeans”. A lynchpin of our system of meritocracy is our education system, which is the subject of my speech today.

Singapore’s education system has gone through several changes over the years, from the introduction of streaming in 1981, to the introduction of Subject-based Banding (SBB) in 2014, to the roll out of Full SBB starting in 2020. Yet, even with these changes, one major feature of our education system remains central – examinations.

As a parent of two children who have gone through PSLE and are now in secondary school, I am rather familiar with both the joy and – more often – the frustration that parents go through when helping their children through major national examinations.

Tutoring my own children has also provided me insights into the academic curriculum and its continued focus on examinations. I remember spending an inordinate amount of time working with my children through assessment books and past examination papers. I would often have to peek at the answer sheets behind, so I could teach them how to answer science questions with just the right number of points while putting up with taunts from my own offspring, which went along the lines of, “See, you also don’t know!”

I would also have to repeatedly drill my children on mathematics problem sums. To get a good pass in Singapore’s examinations, students need to not only answer questions correctly, but also quickly, or risk the “horror” of having many unanswered questions at the end of the paper, due to examination time limits.

Many mid-year examinations have been done away with, but these have been replaced with weighted assessments which occur throughout the school year. The major national examinations like the PSLE, "N", "O" and "A" levels always loom just around the corner. Perform poorly in any of these examinations and the students will find their future educational options narrowed down or delayed – a prospect that many students and parents fear, no matter what the Government says about the many pathways to success.

There are positive effects of examinations. They can incentivise teachers to cover their subjects more thoroughly, a skill which our local educators excel in. Examinations motivate students to work harder to gain a sense of accomplishment.

However, there are also negative effects of examinations. They can motivate students to aim for test mastery instead of subject mastery. Tests encourage teachers to narrow the curriculum and lose instructional time, which could lead to “teaching to the test”.

Examinations, typically, assess only certain aspects of a learner's knowledge, potentially overlooking other aspects of their education. Examination outcomes may not be definitive since they are solely based on a student's performance on the examination day. If a student is unwell or performs poorly under stress, it could adversely affect their examination results and their scores may not be an accurate reflection of their grasp of the subject matter. If the student fails to achieve their desired examination results, they will have to settle for courses of study in secondary schools or tertiary institutions that they may not be so inclined towards.

National examinations induce tremendous amounts of stress on students, as they determine their future educational pathways and, consequently, their future careers and earning potential. While it can be argued that it is good for young people to learn to cope with stress, when stress becomes toxic, it can have negative effects on learning and knowledge retention and, in extreme situations, could become chronic.

By channelling their energies into preparing for examinations, students may forgo opportunities to experience the joy of learning and achieving mastery in what really is important for life.

The streaming approach puts students through a standardised test like the PSLE, sorted them into good, average and weak students, and put them on different education streams in secondary schools with different subject combinations based on their test scores. The new Subject-based Banding approach also sorts students into good, average and weak students for each subject, and channels them into subject combinations based on their assessed ability in each subject.

While subject-based banding is less rigid than streaming, it is still based on the same principle. A student has to meet a specific test score in order to study the subjects they are interested in.

The ostensible reason for implementing this sorting mechanism is to provide some assurance that the student can cope with the rigours of that subject or subject level before being allowed to take it. This is probably why through-train programmes are currently available mainly to an elite few students who qualify for the Integrated Programme by virtue of their stellar performance in the PSLE. There is little risk that these students will become early dropouts of school.

In contrast, the Workers’ Party has proposed a 10-year through-train programme from Primary 1 to Secondary 4 as an option for parents who want their child to bypass the PSLE. Our proposed through-train programme gives students 10 years to prepare for their first major examination at Secondary 4, allowing them to learn at a pace suited for them while developing other areas of interest. The 10-year through-train programme will pair up existing primary and secondary schools and complement, not replace, the non-through-train tracks in these schools. My hon friend, Assoc Prof Jamus Lim, elaborated on this proposal in detail during the COS debate earlier this year.

We need to make our education system less of a sorting mechanism for identifying students’ abilities and more of a launchpad for students to discover their strengths and interests and develop deep skills in their areas of interest.

Students should not be channelled away from their interests just because they did not obtain a certain cut-off point in their examinations. There might be concerns that some so-called “kiasu parents” will push their children to take subjects that are far beyond their abilities. However, I believe that most Singaporean students and their parents are keenly aware of their own limitations and will not bite off more than they can chew. After all, if a student takes a subject at too challenging a level, they will have difficulty scoring the much coveted "A1"s in national examinations.

I would now like to move on to another aspect of education which needs more focus in Singapore – financial literacy.

Singapore is a major financial hub, with numerous global, regional and local institutional investors and high-net-worth family offices based here. Billions of investment funds are raised and managed in Singapore.

Yet, Singaporeans generally lack the financial know-how and confidence to manage their own personal finances and plan for their future. In a private sector survey in 2022, more than half of Singaporeans considered themselves “financially illiterate”. The same survey showed that financial literacy is the lowest among the age group of 18 to 24, at only 35%. In the MoneySENSE National Financial Capability Survey 2021, four in 10 respondents said they lacked knowledge of basic financial concepts, such as risk diversification and simple and compound interest, and more than half had not developed a retirement plan.

MoneySENSE is Singapore’s national financial education programme. In the two decades since it was started, it has launched various programmes and provided resources to help Singaporeans better manage their finances. However, the programmes seem to be mostly ad hoc and campaign-driven. Various surveys have been conducted on financial literacy among Singaporeans since its launch, but it is not clear how much the financial literacy of Singaporeans has improved over the last two decades, as these surveys do not seem to have followed the same scope or framework.

Based on the results of the recent surveys, it appears that a lot more needs to be done to enhance Singaporeans’ financial capacity and literacy. And instead of doing more, it appears that some co-funding of financial literacy workshops for schools under MoneySENSE has been discontinued.

For a developed country, with such high educational, wealth and income levels, and an established status as a leading international financial hub, the survey results show worrying statistics about the financial literacy rate in Singapore. To improve our financial resilience as a nation, there is a need to plug the current financial literacy gap among Singaporeans and empower Singaporeans with the knowledge and confidence to take greater ownership of their financial well-being.

I would like to share three suggestions to systematically uplift the financial literacy of Singaporeans and empower them with the knowledge and confidence to manage their own financial health.

First of all, I would like to suggest that the Government develop a National Financial Literacy Framework to provide a systematic basis for benchmarking improvements in financial literacy levels over time. In the Financial Literacy Survey conducted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in 2005, a scoring system was mooted, covering both knowledge and action. However, it appears that the scoring system was discontinued in subsequent surveys. Aggregate financial literacy statistics of Singaporeans should be established, measured and tracked as part of ascertaining Singapore’s financial resilience.

Second, I would like to suggest that the Government establish a National Financial Education Programme under MOE to provide proactive and comprehensive financial education for Singaporeans across all ages.

I note that the Minister for Education had mentioned previously that financial literacy is infused into subjects such as Character and Citizenship Education (CCE), and that the Student Learning Space provides self-paced lessons for students to learn financial literacy. However, I believe financial literacy is such a critical subject matter that we should not adopt a “by-the-way” approach.

Instead, we should equip Singaporeans across all ages with deeper financial knowledge and confidence. This should include not just MoneySENSE’s Tier 1 knowledge of basic money management but should also aim to significantly improve Singaporeans’ financial capacity in Tier 2, which is financial planning, and Tier 3, investment knowhow.

Financial literacy should be included as a standalone subject taught in schools, as good financial habits need to be started from young. It does not need to be an examinable subject. Financial literacy clubs can be included as a co-curricular activity across all schools. These clubs can also be set up at all community and SAFRA clubs, with structured activities.

Third, the concentration of household wealth in residential property assets needs to be addressed to give Singaporeans the financial freedom to explore other asset classes for their retirement planning in order to achieve better diversification and improve returns on their assets.

According to the Department of Statistics, almost half of Singapore’s household wealth is in residential property assets. A DBS report has indicated that property will no longer be the best retirement investment in Singapore in the future. Having half of Singaporeans’ wealth in a single, relatively illiquid asset is a financial risk. Contrary to the common perception, other asset classes have also generated returns comparable to Singapore's residential real estate, even in the Singapore property boom period, especially after factoring in costs related to holding and transacting properties.

As I had mentioned in my speech on the Motions on public housing in February, we need to moderate the growth in housing prices and ensure they do not outpace Singapore’s economic growth. It is unlikely that Singapore’s economic growth will be anywhere close to what was achieved in the past few decades. Therefore, it is also unlikely that, moving forward, Singaporeans’ residential property assets can deliver a level of returns similar to what was previously achieved, without causing undue inflationary pressures.

Equipping Singaporeans with better financial literacy will help them to become willing to have a more diversified asset portfolio and make more sound decisions while doing so, taking into consideration their risk profile and circumstances. This could, in turn, better secure Singaporeans’ retirement adequacy.

Mr Speaker, in summary, our education system should provide more opportunities for our students to pursue their interests as long as they have demonstrated their commitment and ability to complete the whole course of study. We need to move away from the over-emphasis on preparing for high stakes examinations, and place greater focus on enjoying learning and achieving subject and skills mastery.

Equipping Singaporeans with greater financial knowledge and confidence will enable them to take charge of their financial well-being and make better-informed decisions on their personal finances. Strengthening Singaporeans’ financial resilience will also serve to enhance our overall resilience as a nation.

Finally, Sir, I would like to respond to what the hon Member, Mr Murali Pillai, said in his speech earlier on. Sir, unanimous agreement on both sides of the House is not a prerequisite for national unity. Rational and responsible debate in Parliament that focuses on policies, not personalities, is the way to express our diverse views and improve our policies, with the objective of improving the lives of Singaporeans while remaining united as one people. Sir, I support the Motion.

Sir, meritocracy is part of the Singapore ethos and is one of the key contributors to our success. It may be defined as a system, organisation or society in which people are chosen for or occupy positions of success, wealth, power and influence on the basis of demonstrated ability and hard work. In other words, it is a system in which there is a promise of reward in recognition of talent and industry.

This promise of reward has encouraged many Singaporeans to set ambitious targets for themselves to achieve as best they can in business as well as in the Public Service. This has driven our economy and has also attracted global talent to Singapore who have contributed tremendously to us becoming an international business hub. Meritocracy continues to be relevant, and we should maintain it as Singapore's key societal organising principle.

However, our form of meritocracy has also led to unintended consequences. First, professions of the mind have been over-prioritised over professions of the hands and has led to significant differences in renumeration. Second, intergenerational transfers of wealth threaten to create a permanent over-class which gives rise to inequity in access to opportunities.

I thank the President for having raised these concerns in her speech. I would like to make some suggestions as to how we could tackle these challenges.

First, we should look at recognising the value of the work done by workers who work with their hands or who are in the practical professions. The President specifically raised this. I submit that we should leverage heavily on the existing and any upcoming Progressive Wage Model (PWM) sectors to achieve this. How can this be done?

Primarily, the PWM is a wage ladder. In this regard, I would like to encourage the Government, unions and industry to consider accelerating the wage increases of our PWM workers. Raising wages will help to effect the shift in our definition of merit by showing that the work done by these workers, even if not generally considered work of the mind, is also important and will of the reward.

For example, cleaners ensure the cleanliness of Singapore which is a distinctively Singaporean characteristic that contributes to our comfort and health and the aesthetics of our country. It is important work and it is often backbreaking work. It is physically intensive. There is no reason why such work should be considered lesser than other work and less deserving of high reward.

We should also accelerate job redesign by incentivising employers. One way would be to modify the wage rungs in the existing PWMs such that each has a basic and an enhanced sub-realm. In order to qualify for the enhanced sub-realm, workers must be trained in specific skills, for example, the use of technology. In return, they will be entitled to a higher wage floor within that PWM realm. Employers who hire more of these workers and pay at the higher rates could receive a progressive wage and hence, rung incentive. This will encourage more employers to transform their businesses to upskill their workers and to offer more sophisticated services to their clients.

There is already a Progressive Wage Credit Scheme but this payout is across the board for all wage increases. Could we consider tweaking it so that it does not support all wage increases in the PWM sectors equally, but provides more support for the right types of wage increases? This will help to improve our workers not only in terms of what they earn but also redesign their jobs from being largely manual to being higher skilled, uplifting how their jobs are perceived, as well as how they themselves feel about their professions.

Next, we can foster changes in mindset towards the practical professions by choosing our nomenclature carefully. Instead of referring to these sectors as low-wage sectors, perhaps, we could consider referring to them as maybe emerging wage sectors or emerging wage workers. The whole purpose of the PWM is to get these workers out of being low-wage earners. But, if on the journey there, we keep referring to them as low-wage workers, we may unwittingly create a stigma that will stick even after we have lifted them from being low wage.

Second, I would like to propose that we also create opportunities in our education system for students to be exposed to the practical professions so that they can see and experience the work done by these sectors and learn to appreciate that all work is good work. Perhaps, one day, we will see our students seeking internships or apprenticeships as technicians, arborists or waiters, and not just in law firms and banks.

Finally, Sir, as raised by the President, there is a need to address intergenerational wealth accumulation and the formation of a permanent overclass. I would like to suggest that the Government consider introducing a limited inheritance tax by way of a stamp duty tax on inherited real property.

Inheritance tax is a form of wealth tax and can be gradated so that it is progressive in nature; that is, the wealthier will be taxed more and would pay more. The raison d'etre for this is that the rich presumably benefit more from state resources and also because progressive taxes act as a means to redistribute resources in society.

In principle, I do not think that many would dispute the principles behind wealth taxes. However, we must be careful when designing and implementing any form of wealth tax so that we do not undo the features that underpin Singapore's success and prosperity in the first place. We must avoid becoming unattractive as a destination for foreign investment or to disincentivise our people from working hard and aspiring to grow their wealth. In other words, wealth taxes should not diminish the value of merit and should not affect our overall attractiveness as a business hub.

Currently, inherited residential property is not taxed and does not even attract stamp duty. The Government can consider introducing a tax based on the percentage of the value of the property and the percentage of tax should be higher the more expensive the property inherited is. The minimum could begin from, say, a property value of S$5 million and gradated upwards from there. Inheritance tax in OECD countries can go as high as 40%. But I would suggest more modest rates, perhaps in line with the additional buyers' stamp duties, that can go up to 25% for Singapore Citizens and 35% for foreigners.

The tax regime should be able to take into consideration the personal circumstances of beneficiaries and provide appropriate exemptions. There should, for example, be exemptions for beneficiaries with special needs and HDB flats should also be exempted from inheritance taxes – and hopefully, they will not reach that limit of S$5 million anyway!

There should also be provision for beneficiaries to be able to pay the tax by instalments over a period of time. Some would argue that some beneficiaries may not be able to afford the tax despite having inherited a multimillion-dollar property. My view is that they should sell the property to make payment of their dues to the Government. There are also mechanisms that an individual may take up, for example, life insurance that can cover any taxes that beneficiaries may have to pay after that individual has passed.

Why do I suggest an inheritance tax on property?

Inheritance taxes are different from estate duties. Estate duties tax the estate of a deceased person and, in my view, this could be seen as a form of double taxation because the deceased had already paid taxes while alive. In this regard, inheritance is anyway not treated as a gift under the law. It should be treated as a form of income received by the beneficiary and like all income, it should be taxed.

The basic principle, Sir, of meritocracy is that one should be rewarded for his capabilities and hard work. Inheritance provides rewards that are not pursuant to capability or hard work. They are unmeritorious rewards that one is entitled to only by virtue of birth and/or bequeathment. It does not stimulate innovation, entrepreneurship or industry. In fact, it entrenches entitlement and it promotes indolence.

Although it may be the impulse of parents to wish to provide for their children and to leave a legacy, inheritance, in my view, is a very antithesis of meritocracy. As a Scottish American industrialist, Andrew Carnegie said, "The parent who leaves his son enormous wealth generally deadens the talents and energies of the son and tempts him to lead a less worthy life than he otherwise would have."

A large proportion of the wealthy at this point store their wealth in property. And, as a form of investment, it is generally less helpful to society at large than other things of wealth, like capital or shares, which contribute to economic output as well as to employment.

Further to this, as for any text, we should also consider whether it would result in onerous administration and whether it is sustainable. Taxes on inherited real property are relatively easy to administer as valuation is straightforward and, in Singapore, transfer processes are transparent. It is therefore the lowest hanging fruit to promote equity and fairness and fair access to opportunities across generations based on merit. Introducing such a tax may have a collateral benefit of lowering property prices by easing house price inflation and properties being put up for sale that may not have otherwise come up on the market.

This having been said, there are many serious considerations in whether it is appropriate to implement wealth and inheritance taxes. It is not something that we should rush into because it may itself have unintended consequences. But as the President said, as we prosper as a society, those who have already done well will seek to pass their advantages to their children, and this could lead to advantages and privileges becoming entrenched and persisting over generations. Inheritance taxes are one measure we could consider implementing to battle this.

I do not think that we should seek to build a classless society or that children should not be allowed to benefit from their parents' hard work. What we should aim to build is an inclusive society where capabilities and hard work in every sector are recognised and rewarded, and where, even when one attains success, he does not feel that he has become superior or be given the right to look down on others but feels responsibility to help others to advance as well.

We must also take steps to prevent an entrenched overclass from forming by rich families building wealth over generations and scions benefiting from nothing but the hard work of their forebears. All must feel the need to work hard in Singapore in order to earn our rewards. We must act on this; for if we do not, we risk descending from a meritocracy to an aristocracy and that, Sir, is what we must avoid at all costs.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the Labour Movement supports the broad directions of the Government set out in the President's Address. Underpinning these is the strong foundation of trust that was demonstrated and strengthened through our shared experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), our vision is for "a better and more meaningful life where workers of all collars, ages and nationalities can work, live and play together in Singapore." And we achieve this through Singapore's unique brand of tripartism in which the Labour Movement stands shoulder to shoulder with our partners towards the shared objective of growing the economy, to secure better wages, welfare and work prospects for all workers.

In the pandemic, our local businesses and workers were heavily impacted. NTUC worked closely with the Government to coordinate assistance programmes to protect lives and livelihoods. Our support ranged from unions' ground efforts with companies to "cut costs to save jobs", to the provision of cash relief to union members and helping tens of thousands of workers with skills retraining and job placements.

All these policies and programmes are not possible without the trust and value that tripartism had achieved over the years. As Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong had said in his speech at the May Day Rally 2018, "Tripartism has seen us through every crisis since Independence... Through our first major recessions, the oil crisis in 1970s, the major recession in 1985… It showed us through the Asian Financial Crisis, SARS and the Global Financial Crisis. Each time, the challenges seemed daunting, sometimes even overwhelming. But without the Labour Movement partnering companies, without the NTUC partnering the PAP in a symbiotic relationship, without the Government, unions and businesses sharing responsibility for Singapore's future, we would not have made it here."

Tripartite trust built up over decades withstood many trials and tribulations in our young history and was strengthened after each and every crisis. COVID-19 was no exception and we must continue to strengthen this trust that is the basis of tripartism going to the future.

Moving forward, the Labour Movement will persist in our efforts to protect the rights and to advance the interests and aspirations of all workers. The future of work will have new sets of challenges and difficulties: ever-evolving geopolitics, technological advancements and disruptions and sociocultural shifts. NTUC will continue to renew and strengthen our compact with our workers.

To do so, NTUC launched the #EveryWorkerMatters Conversations (#EWMC) last year to refresh our compact with our workers and to give greater assurance that we will journey with them, alongside them and to champion their cause.

Through the #EWMC, we have heard the voices of various groups of workers across all ages, sectors and backgrounds, and we will adjust our strategies to meet their needs and their aspirations.

I will now share three main areas that NTUC will focus on going forward: (a) expand career opportunities; (b) enhance assurance and protection; and (c) ensure career resilience.

Let me start with the first area – expand career opportunities – with a quote from the President last week, “Every Singaporean must have the opportunity to take on work they find meaningful and fulfilling, build on their talents, give of their best and be rewarded fairly for it.”

At NTUC, we want to provide each and every worker with an equal chance to choose a career that they want and to advance as far as they wish in a way to allow them to grow and to develop. Let me highlight two worker segments and what are our plans for them.

First is the skilled tradesmen. In early February 2023, the NTUC Secretary-General mooted the Career Progression Model (CPM) as part of our efforts to uplift workers in skilled essential trades, to develop their skills, help them attain mastery and build long-term potential careers. The CPM was a continuation of what the NTUC Secretary-General said previously in 2020, and again in 2021, about professionalising the solar technologists and plumbers respectively through a Career Development Plan. COVID-19 border restrictions revealed an urgent need to step up our efforts to uplift this sector.

There are currently more than 50,000 local workers in skilled trades, ranging from electrical and electronic tradesmen, building and related trades workers, among others. However, there is also a growing concern of a “skilled trades gap” as the older generation retires, coupled with the lack of qualified candidates to step up to fill the gaps. According to the Singapore Labour Force Survey 2022, more than half of the craftsmen and related trades workers are currently above 50 years old.

NTUC wants to ensure a sustainable supply of locals into these trades to meet our national needs. To start off, NTUC will prioritise three essential trades that have a direct impact on our daily lives – plumbers, electricians and air-conditioner technicians. Supporting these workers is also part of our social compact to be a more inclusive society, where we do not just recognise cognitive skills but also technical and hands-on skills.

Another key group that we set out to engage is youths. Youths today are faced with a more competitive education and employment landscape. At the height of COVID-19 when there were limited jobs, the SGUnited Traineeships Programme has been a tremendous help. But NTUC thinks that our younger workers, embarking on the first steps in their careers, will need more support.

We want our future workforce to be able to dream big, aspire high and achieve their fullest potential in whatever they wish to do in a wide range of career opportunities. Mr Raj Joshua Thomas will be happy to hear that we will be partnering many Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) to allow a lot more opportunities for our young undergraduates in this area of work.

NTUC’s networks with industry and with workers of different cohorts make us well placed to link them up with internship opportunities and career mentors across different sectors. We will share more on our plans over the next few months.

The second area of focus is to enhance career assurance and protection. We want to support our workers with their immediate concerns in tackling higher cost of living and also in addressing mid- to longer-term issues of job security, unemployment support, retirement adequacy and also caregiver support.

For our lower-wage workers, the Labour Movement has been actively pushing for more workers to be covered under the PWM. We have made much progress in uplifting lower-wage workers and will continue to press on to cover all sectors and to implement PWM in good time.

Our mid-career workers, especially those above 40 years of age, are another segment of workers who are very vulnerable to industry disruptions and restructuring. They are also in a particularly precarious position should they lose their jobs, as they generally have more dependents and more financial responsibilities. We will continue to advocate income support for those who lose their jobs, tied to certain active job seeking and reskilling. My fellow Labour Member of Parliament Mr Patrick Tay has been championing for unemployment support and protection in Parliament since as early as 2014 and on several other occasions in the House, and I am sure he will continue to push for it through the PME Taskforce proposal that was finalised in 2021.

NTUC also recognises that more protections should be accorded to our freelance and self-employed workers, including our platform workers. The recent announcement on work injuries compensation, improving housing and retirement adequacy, and enhancing representation is a welcomed move. We will continue to work closely with the tripartite partners to see through the implementation and to further strengthen their representation.

Our senior workers should also be tapped upon and valued for their experience and their industry knowledge. Our workers must also be assured that they are able to achieve basic retirement adequacy.

Finally, workers with caregiving responsibilities often find it challenging to balance their career aspirations, finances and caring for their loved ones. We want to look into how we can better support them to reduce the mental and emotional load on caregivers.

The third area of focus for NTUC is to ensure career resilience. As the global job market evolves, our workers will experience change and disruption over their lifetime in their career. And this increases the importance of career resilience and upskilling. To plan for a longer horizon, NTUC will support our workers to handle career changes by developing new and deepening existing skills to stay relevant and competitive.

During the Budget debate, I have called for training allowances to be given to mid-career workers to give them greater peace of mind in undergoing longer and also undergoing the SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme. I have also called for increased financial support and protected training time to enable workers to acquire deeper skillsets throughout their careers, or equip themselves to pivot to new areas. Going forward, this is an area that will need support from all tripartite partners to ensure our workers’ skillsets remain relevant and our businesses have adequate workers to sustain our future economy.

Finally, I will continue to call on all employers to work with NTUC to form the Company Training Committees (CTCs). With the acceleration of digital and green economy, it is imperative for companies to plan ahead, to capitalise key trends and transform their businesses. Through CTCs, NTUC will support companies to do all that, plus redesign jobs, upskill and reskill workers and collectively achieve greater business and workers’ outcomes. CTCs are a win-win initiative for employers and workers, supported firmly by the Government through the CTC grant. Mr Speaker, Sir, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mr Speaker, in order to better understand the aspirations of our workers and better serve them, NTUC has rolled out the #EveryWorkerMatters Conversations that lasted for one year, starting from August last year. Through more active communication with our workers, we want to work together with them to create a better future.

NTUC will focus on three key areas in our future work: first, help workers to capture economic opportunities in the future; second, protect our workers' interest; and third, increase the career resilience of our workers.

First, NTUC will help workers capture opportunities in the future. We hope that through the Career Progression Model, we can encourage more Singaporeans to enter craftsman and related trades such as plumbing, electrical works and air-conditioning maintenance and master a skill. This will also ensure the continuous development of these industries. We also need to ensure that our youth and young workers, no matter what economic situation our country is in, will be able to find suitable jobs, use their skills and contribute to our economy.

Second, NTUC will continue to protect our workers’ interests. In the short term, NTUC will help our workers address higher cost of living; in the medium to longterm, NTUC will help address urgent issues including providing better jobs, unemployment insurance, retirement adequacy and care support.

As the global economy and technology continues to advance, workers between the ages of 40 and 50 will continue to face higher risk of being unemployed or replaced. The Government, during the pandemic, has rolled out many programmes to help our workers retain their jobs. In the future, NTUC will work together with the Government to expand our programme to help more Singaporeans.

In addition, with the number of platform workers rising and the development of the gig economy, NTUC will work together with our tripartite partners, through the Advisory Committee on Platform Workers, to enhance the retirement adequacy, housing security and work injury insurance for our platform workers. These will better represent the interests of our freelancers and self-employed workers.

Third, improving our workers' career resilience. We must encourage our workers to continue to upskill and strengthen their competitiveness and adaptability in the new environment. During the Budget debate, I have asked for more training allowances and training time so that workers can receive long-term and deeper training with peace of mind.

In addition, since 2019, NTUC has encouraged enterprises to set up their Company Training Committee (CTC) to help the company to transform and upgrade and allow their employees to participate in training to upskill and transform. We hope that with more enterprises joining this programme, more workers would be able to master future-ready skills and companies can enjoy stronger competitiveness too.

In conclusion, our goals are very simple. We want to help our workers to find a job that they are proud of, protect their livelihood and create a brighter future with quality jobs and lives.

(In English): Mr Speaker, Sir, in Singapore, generations of Government and NTUC leaders have worked hard to uphold personal integrity and trust in every aspect. And the dividends can clearly be seen in the way we have navigated through the pandemic. However, we must be vigilant to always nurture this trust because we are not immune to what is happening around us and around the world.

As the Labour Movement, we will continue to advocate workers’ interests through improving wages, welfare and work prospects. As shared by Mr Lee Kuan Yew at a mass rally in Geylang Serai in 1959 and, thereafter, repeated at the NTUC’s 50th Anniversary Dinner in 2011, and I quote, “In Government, I have never forgotten that it is in the interests of workers and their unions that we must strive for growth and development. In other words, growth is meaningless unless it is shared by the workers, shared not only directly in wage increases but indirectly in better homes, better schools, better hospitals, better playing fields and, generally, a healthier environment for families to bring up their children.” The President Address last week sets out the Government’s plans to achieve just that.

In the Labour Movement, our commitment is to always put workers first, ensure that workers will have better job opportunities, assurances and protection and the resilience to adapt, upskill and retrain themselves to remain relevant for the future. Mr Speaker, I support the Motion. [Applause.]

Mr Speaker, Sir, in my maiden speech three years ago in a similar Address of Thanks, I talked about the building blocks of our nation and society. I likened it to the Lego bricks that my son loves to play with.

First, at the core of its structure, each brick must be strong. This is the family unit and each of us, fellow Singaporeans.

Second, the interlocking connection between each brick must be strong. This is our social cohesion that makes building something bigger than ourselves not just possible but also durable in the long run.

Third, the different shapes and sizes of each Lego brick not only complement one another but also when combined makes them unique and vibrant. This is our multiracial and multi-religious society that makes Singapore rich not only in culture but also diverse in views and expertise.

This is why I resonate with the Address of the President, which reiterates the Government's commitment to strengthen our basic building blocks – our families and fellow Singaporeans – by holding on to our core values of fairness, inclusivity, mutual support and giving back to society. These values were embodied in the many success stories of our everyday Singaporeans working together with the Government, the community and the businesses to help all of us get through the pandemic together.

For me, President Halimah's speech not only presented the Government's priorities and plans in the coming period, but it also acknowledged how we managed to overcome the pandemic and its challenges together as one society. The President's speech also reminded us that we face an important challenge to ensure that there remains continued trust between the political leadership and our people and between all of us fellow Singaporeans.

This is not to say that we have to be monolithic or homogenous in our views and approach. We need courageous Singaporeans who are brave enough to experiment things differently, who dare to speak up and are willing to stand up for the issues that matter to all Singaporeans.

Inevitably, this part of the nation-building process means that there will necessarily be divergent views – each with its own benefits and trade-offs. The rigour of debates and contestation of ideas on issues that are important to Singaporeans can help all of us formulate new ways forward for Singapore. Iron sharpens iron.

However, at the same time, such discussions must be done respectfully and responsibly, based on facts and on honest terms. Whether these discussions are in the halls of this House or in the comfort of our homes, we can hold different opinions but we must believe in the same vision for the betterment of Singapore.

This must be our pillar of strength – our unity in diversity regardless of race, religion or political inclinations.

Through the Forward Singapore conversations, the Government's call to involve various stakeholders – employers, workers, community partners, civil society and, indeed, all Singaporeans – in our nation-building means that we would be able to tap on our nation's greatest resource; not our Reserves but each other's strengths and expertise.

We must unlock our collective spirit to help one another. This is the principle of social solidarity where the people, through its government, bear equally the responsibility and burden for helping fellow citizens. The task of helping the underprivileged or vulnerable in our society does not fall on the shoulders of the Government or civil society alone but on all of us.

But how do we maintain such social cohesion and solidarity? Just like the Lego bricks, we need to strengthen the interlocking connections that bind us and guard against threats and external forces that seek to divide us and undermining our painstakingly built level of trust in the institutions of our nation and society.

During the first half of this Parliament term, this House has debated and passed various pieces of legislation to further put us in better stead to withstand against such potential external forces through amendments to the Online Safety Act, enactment of the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act and the formation of the Digital and Intelligence Service of the SAF.

Externally, we must continue to remain vigilant and ensure our laws keep up to date with global trends, threats and developments. Internally, we must remain steadfast and committed to our Singaporean values of living in an open but multiracial and multi-religious society. The pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of societies all over the world. Global studies have found that there is a correlation between the pandemic and explicit xenophobic and racial prejudices.

Anti-discrimination or legislative guards against hate speech go some way but we also need a softer approach for a more enduring harmony. I look forward to the Government's plans to ensure that our laws remain relevant in maintaining our social and racial harmony.

In particular, I am looking forward to the full implementation of the Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act, first announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during the 2021 National Day Rally speech. This will complement the existing Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act passed since 1990.

The new law is meant to consolidate all current legal powers dispersed across the Penal Code and Sedition Act to ensure the maintenance of racial harmony in Singapore. It will not only provide the powers to restrain someone from committing an offence regarding racism but also compel them to learn more about the other race. This understanding and appreciation of one another's values and cultures is the key towards breaking the cycle of ignorance and racism.

I hope that the law will also offer protection to whistle-blowers who report such instances of racial prejudices and unfair employment practices.

Besides protection and safeguards on our social cohesion, we also need ways to promote social solidarity. I agree with the President that as we strive for success and progress for our nation, we must not allow our society to stratify into those who have and those who are left behind. We need to build a sense of collective responsibility among us.

We must appreciate the interdependence between people in our society. We must make Singaporeans feel that they can improve the lives of others and, in the same process, uplift their own lives in a meaningful way.

This begins with our young. As such, I welcome the changes to our education system to promote greater social mixing and competency-based subject learning and the infusion of value-based interactions and engagements in our children's educational journey.

In adulthood and working life, we see more businesses – both employers and employees – dedicate more pro bono hours towards corporate social responsibility activities on various causes that are beneficial to Singaporeans. We must continue to promote and incentivise this "paying it forward" as part of our working culture here in Singapore and truly understand that there is no contradiction between doing what is best for the company and doing what is good for the community and nation.

The President also emphasised that in paying it forward, we must help one another to stand tall with dignity and pride. This means that it is not patronising from the perspective of the person receiving.

In this regard, I am glad that we have provided various uplifting measures that allow those who need a helping hand to get the boost they need to upgrade and upskill themselves in the path towards social mobility. This is a work in progress and we must continue to refine the approach and solutions in a targeted yet dignified and respectful manner without converting the social mobility ladder into a crutch of help that will be both belittling and debilitating.

The last term of our Parliament session has also seen the Government afford more help through housing, healthcare and social welfare policies, passing legislation to form the Public Defender's Office to allow greater access to criminal justice and changes to the Misuse of Drugs Act, which affords greater vigilance against the scourge of drug abuse, especially on the vulnerable segments of our society.

We must continue to keep a close eye on areas that will affect the social harmony and justice for the vulnerable groups in our society. Sir, in Malay, please.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] In my view, President Halimah's speech not only lays out the Government's priorities and future plans, but it also acknowledges how we managed to overcome the pandemic together as one people. At the same time, however, the President's speech recognised that the key challenge is to ensure that there was continued trust between the political leadership and our people and between Singaporeans.

Our pillars of strength are peace and unity in diversity regardless of race, religion or political views. I agree that the approach and discussion of issues that concern our people and community should be discussed respectfully, responsibly, factually and judiciously. I agree that generally, for issues that are important to our country, many of us place national interests above individual rights. However, this is not always guaranteed and the critical challenge for all of us is to prioritise social cohesion and our country’s progress in an ever-changing post-pandemic world.

Let us respond to the call for unity to ensure that while we achieve progress for our people and country, we do not overlook those who are in greater need so that they are not engulfed in the tide of modernity and change. We should not leave them behind because if everyone does not experience happiness and progress, our social fabric will be incomplete and imperfect – as the Malay proverb goes, it will be like an unfinished dress because the thread ran out and the needle broke.

(In English): Mr Speaker, Sir, as our society grows through decades of nation-building, we have built a sense of identity and belonging as Singaporeans. However, who qualifies as a member of our society should not be narrowly defined and we should not be quick to succumb to the othering phenomenon and the pitting of "us" versus "them" – whatever "us" and "them" mean.

The fault lines in our society can be easily exploited, knowingly or unknowingly, through the differences in how we look, where we come from, whether or not we can speak a certain language, whether we belong to the same social standing or whether we agree or disagree on a particular policy. We cannot allow these to seep into the language of our politics and divide us.

I concur with the President's call for all of us to close ranks and stand united regardless of race, religion or political affiliation, especially when it comes to core national interests.

SG50, SG Together, SGUnited, SG Cares – all of these campaigns are reminders of what we can achieve when we remain united in our hearts and minds. Let us continue to stand with one another. I stand in support of the Motion.

Mr Speaker, as the President highlighted in her speech, this new session of Parliament is happening at an important milestone of our history, indeed, of world history.

After three years of the COVID-19 crisis, we now confront other formidable challenges. But as we have seen again and again in our history, we can find opportunities in every crisis and move quickly to take advantage of them.

There are stark realities facing Singapore and the wider world. From the war in Europe to deepening big power rivalry in our part of the world, we all feel a palpable sense of danger – danger not just to the economy, but also to an open and stable global order.

We will continue to be afflicted by these external headwinds. I know many Singaporeans worry about the unexpected twists and turns that may lie ahead. They see interest rates, prices and bills going up and impacting their livelihoods.

That is why I had implemented comprehensive support measures in this year's Budget. These measures will help to cover the inflation-induced increase in spending for lower- and middle-income households.

Some of the support has been given out, while others will be rolled out progressively over the year. We have and will continue to do everything we can to address the stresses and strains that people feel on the ground.

Besides tackling the cost of living, sustaining growth will be more challenging in this new environment. We will have to redouble our efforts to attract investments and talent, and create good jobs and opportunities for Singaporeans. We will have to intensify the pace of restructuring and transformation to stay ahead of the competition.

All this will not be easy, but COVID-19 has shown that Singaporeans have what it takes – the grit and resolve to overcome tough challenges. The odds may appear stacked against us, but we can turn challenges into opportunity. With pride in our history and strength from our unity, we can forge ahead with confidence. So, I say – do not fear. Never lose heart.

We will build on our strong foundations, but we must also have the courage to change where change is needed. This is what my colleagues and I have set out to do with Forward Singapore. Through this exercise, we are reviewing our policies across all areas. We will ensure that the broad middle of society and their children see continued improvements in their lives, and that we close the gaps for the more disadvantaged groups.

We have heard from Singaporeans over the past months – your views, aspirations and ideas. The many conversations and partnerships have yielded fresh insights on what we can do differently in our next stage of nation-building.

Today, I will share some of the key shifts that we will embark on as part of our new social compact: a new approach on skills; a new definition of success; a new approach for social support; a new approach to caring for our seniors; and a renewed commitment to one another – less about "I" and "me", more about "us" and "we".

If we succeed in effecting these shifts, we can secure a stronger social compact and not just among ourselves, but between this generation and future generations to come.

Let me start with our new approach on skills, for skills are the lynchpin to lifelong success.

The skills journey begins early in life. We want every child to have a strong foundation that can propel them forward through life. We know that the first few years matter greatly in shaping a child's potential. So, we are scaling up the KidSTART programme nationwide to reach out to more lower-income parents and to close the early gaps in our children's lives.

Beyond the age of three, we are stepping up the provision of MOE Kindergartens and Government-funded preschools. Enrolment in preschool at ages five to six is already near universal, but the attendance rate of children from lower-income families can still be improved. At ages three to four especially, more children from such families can also benefit from enrolling in preschool. We will study how to strengthen their participation in these early years of development, so that we can give the children in these families the best possible start in life.

Once our children enter the school system, there is a comprehensive system in place to help them develop and grow. We already provide more resources in our schools to support children with greater learning needs. And we will continue to do more on this front, so that every child can realise his or her full potential.

But there is a deeper challenge in our education system: our concept of meritocracy remains too narrow. Many feel caught in a rat race from a young age – under pressure to get the best grades, get into what they perceive to be the best schools so that they can get the best university places.

Many parents, too, are anxious about their children's future. Some go to great lengths to maximise their children's chances to get into perceived brand name schools, even preschools.

A decade ago, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said that "Every school is a good school”. I fully agree with this. Because in Singapore, everyone can be assured that, no matter which schools their children are admitted into, they will receive a good education, and they will be well supported by their teachers.

That was my lived experience too. I went to the primary and secondary schools near my home and reaped the full benefits of learning in those schools.

That was decades ago. And the quality of our schools and teachers has improved dramatically since. These days, our teachers do not just focus on content and knowledge. They help our children to think independently and instil in them qualities and values that contribute to lasting success in life.

Remember, at the end of the day, we are more than our grades. We are more than the schools we go to.

This is an aspiration Singaporeans have voiced for some time now, from when we held Our Singapore Conversation a decade ago. Since then, we have made significant moves and slayed some sacred cows.

Today, PSLE T-scores are a thing of the past. So will be the labels of Normal (Technical), Normal (Academic) and Express streams. In their place, there is full Subject-based Banding (SBB).

We hope these moves will go some way to remove the stressors in our education system. But more importantly, we hope they will signal to all in society that we are serious about refreshing our system.

I hope that our society too – every man, woman and child, young and old, rich or poor – all of us will be serious about refreshing our mindsets about schools and grades. It is not possible to change something that has become so ingrained in our nature by government decree. We must be the change we want to see in our society. Every Singaporean must want to give themselves and their children more breathing space to discover and develop their diverse talents and to maximise their potential.

How do we achieve this?

A key mindset shift is to recognise that formal education early in life is not the endpoint of our meritocracy. Far from it. Our refreshed meritocracy must be a continuous one, with learning opportunities, milestones and ladders at multiple junctures. All must have the chance to try again, do better and move forward in life, years after leaving school.

So, the skills journey begins in schools but it does not end with schools. Our new approach on skills must include a fresh commitment to making continuous learning, reskilling and upskilling a way of life.

In fact, this will become more important with slower economic growth, rapid technological disruptions and greater job churn. To remain an upwardly mobile society, lifelong learning will be key – not just upskilling once and being done with it, but multiple times, to become more adaptable and resilient, well-equipped and confident to face the future.

To get there, education cannot be confined to the first 25 years of our lives. Learning must be a lifelong journey for the whole of our lives.

We launched SkillsFuture in 2015. We have made some headway since then, but there is still much more to be done. We are therefore looking at major changes to strengthen SkillsFuture.

We aim to reduce the costs and lower the barriers to training. We will work with industry partners to come up with effective training programmes, including work-based learning options. These courses will have to be better curated and vetted so that they translate into meaningful employment outcomes. We will discuss with tripartite partners how we can support workers to take time off to train. This will help the workers individually, but it will help businesses too.

At the same time, businesses must shift their emphasis from hiring credentials to hiring skills and invest in the development of their employees. And Singaporeans themselves must be open to change.

Sir, let me share with you the story of Afifah. Nur Afifah Bte Rakif graduated with a Diploma in Communication and Information Design 11 years ago, when she was 22. She later chose to teach in a preschool in 2013, took up various early childhood education programmes to reskill and upskill, and became the Deputy Centre Lead of the NTUC First Campus. To strengthen her skillsets, she is now pursuing a degree under the Singapore University of Social Science (SUSS) Work-Study Programme and will graduate later this year. Afifah exemplifies the spirit of lifelong learning and the value of reskilling and upskilling in pursuing one's passions. And I salute her.

With this new approach on skills, how well you did in school should not define the opportunities you can unlock nor should it determine your entire life. You are not stuck at your highest formal educational level attained; you can update your skillsets, pivot to new careers, seize new opportunities and keep moving forward in life.

Some other nations aspire to create a welfare society from cradle to grave. We will aspire to create in Singapore a full-fledged learning society – from cradle to grave. [Applause.]

That is how we will become a people ready for the future and equipped to succeed.

But what does success mean? Naturally, it means different things to different people, in different places. Yet somehow, as a society, we tend to converge around a few material definitions – the size of the paycheck or the property we own.

How can we shift our lens and collectively adopt and embrace wider definitions of success? After all, success is really for each one of us to define. There is no model answer to follow. We should not feel pressured to compare with others or to conform to preconceived notions. The Japanese talk about discovering your "ikigai" – something that gives you a sense of purpose and joy. We should strive to be a meritocracy where everyone can be the best possible version of themselves and where there are many ways for diverse talents to contribute and earn respect in our society.

Mindset shifts are necessary, but I do not think mindset shifts alone will effect societal change. It is not enough to say we will celebrate a variety of professions. Our economic structures, remuneration and career prospects in various professions must also be consistent with what we value.

So, we will consider ways to tilt the scales and narrow the wage gap across professions. One specific way is to further professionalise skilled trades, like electricians and plumbers. Why not enable them to attain accreditation for their skills and set a clearer progression ladder as they take on greater responsibilities? We can ascribe the right values to such forms of labour and grant such workers greater remuneration as professionals.

More broadly, we also want to give Singaporeans who graduate from ITE and polytechnics stronger assurance; that their wages and career prospects will not be too far below their university-going peers and will not be permanently conscribed to be below. So, they do not have to succumb to a paper chase to secure a good salary and a viable career path. They can excel in the professions that they have trained in and have the aptitude for, be it hospitality, infocomm, social services or others. There are many ways to make a difference, many talents to nurture and many forms of contributions to reward.

Take lower-wage workers for example. Many of them serve in essential services, like security, lift maintenance and cleaning. We have been doing much to uplift lower-wage workers through Workfare and the PWM, and we will continue to do so: increase wages, set out a skills ladder, and provide opportunities to upgrade. We cannot close the gap altogether between lower-wage and median workers, but we can certainly stop their wages from diverging too far.

Here, I have a plea to everyone: for a new definition of success to become a reality, all of us – as consumers – must be willing to bear a higher cost for the goods and services we consume. We must recognise the important work that our fellow citizens undertake to keep our society going and do our part to uplift them and boost their wage prospects.

I know this is not an easy ask, given the rising cost of living. But we will do our best to manage the pace of change and to help everyone, especially our lower- and middle-income families, adjust to this new environment. And I might add too – all will gain when even the most vulnerable among us become better off. We will become a better people, a more just and a more equal society.

In a more uncertain world, we must also relook our approach on social support. How can we assure both the broad middle and the vulnerable that they can meet their needs in life and not fall by the wayside or be left behind?

For the vulnerable, we have been gradually shifting our approach from social assistance to social empowerment. We want not only to help people tide through difficulty, but also to boost their sense of drive and purpose, and strengthen their sense of agency and ownership over their own circumstances.

For example, today, we have the Fresh Start Housing Scheme to help second-timer lower-income families, like Mr Gan and his wife Mdm Chai, own a home. The two of them work as cleaners and they lived in a rental flat in Redhill. But they were determined to buy a home of their own for themselves and their young daughter.

Mr Gan and Mdm Chai joined the Fresh Start Housing Scheme and received personalised support and financial guidance from HDB and social service officers (SSOs) throughout their home ownership journey. They received a $35,000 Fresh Start Housing Grant and the rest of the loan will be fully serviced by their CPF contributions.

Today, the Gans are proud owners of a 2-room flexi flat in Bukit Batok. They collected their keys two months ago and just moved in earlier this month. Their daughter is very excited about getting to decorate her own space. And over the next five years, our officers will continue to walk alongside them and give them the support they need.

The Fresh Start Housing Scheme is, in effect, a means to uplift and empower the vulnerable. We want to expand this approach of empowerment to cover more forms of social assistance. For instance, we could provide additional financial help to vulnerable families who do their part to help themselves, such as staying gainfully employed and sending their children to preschool regularly. So, the more a family takes ownership of their goals, the more we will help you to reach even higher – a mutually reinforcing, virtuous circle.

We also want to consider another group: persons with disabilities (PwDs). We will do more to alleviate the impediments they face in life and adopt new ways of caring for and empowering them. In particular, we want to reduce the financial burden on parents of children attending special education (SPED) schools and care centres.

Equally important is to empower persons with disabilitiesPwDs when they reach adulthood. We will involve and enable them to contribute to society. The onus is on all of us to find ways to affirm the dignity of our differently-abled citizens and enable them to realise their full potential.

Sir, all of us must come together to fight the ills of inequality. Singapore must never succumb to the kind of harsh inequality we see in so many other parts of the world. However treacherous the terrains ahead, so long as Singapore continues to progress, all Singaporeans must continue to progress, with none among us left behind.

No less important in our social strategy is to assure the broad middle that they, too, can be confident of meeting their needs at every stage of life, even in the face of setbacks. Housing, education and healthcare – these are basic needs for all Singaporeans. This Government has delivered on all these fronts over the decades and we will continue to do so.

We know that housing is top-of-mind – we have discussed this recently in Parliament, in the housing debate, and in the Budget. We are sparing no effort to ramp up the supply of Build-To-Order (BTO) flats and to catch up on the delays caused by COVID-19. We have tightened the rules, so that flats go to those who need them most, as quickly as possible. And we are doing more to help younger married couples and parents own their first home. We will get this work done and we will deliver the results. Affordable and accessible public housing will always be a key pillar of our social compact under the PAP Government.

Our approach to social support also extends to how we will support our people in the face of setbacks. In a more volatile jobs landscape, we can expect more among us to be displaced from time to time. Today, we help the unemployed through schemes like ComCare and the COVID-19 Recovery Grant. They provide timely assistance while upholding our ethos of work and self-reliance.

But we also know that losing a job is a major setback, which can easily destabilise workers and their families. So, the Government will consider doing more to support our displaced workers. We know that automatic unemployment benefits can, and have, often led to negative outcomes elsewhere, because displaced workers who receive generous benefits may find it more attractive to stay unemployed, rather than to get back into the workforce.

So, we want to design a support scheme that provides assurance but avoids these negative outcomes: a targeted re-employment scheme that will reduce the strain on displaced workers to make ends meet, while still encouraging them to continue with their upskilling and job search.

We intend to make this shift in our social strategy, so every Singaporean can be confident. In this harsh, unpredictable world, we will have your back and we will support you. We will cheer you on, so you can strive to achieve, do your best and bounce back stronger. [Applause.]

Strengthening our assurances extends to caring for our seniors too – this is an urgent need, given our rapidly ageing demographics. By the end of this decade, one in four Singaporeans will be above 65, as Members are well aware. We must adopt a new approach to care for our seniors well and in a sustainable way.

We embarked on Healthier SG recently to care for our seniors upstream. Healthier SG signals a shift from treating illnesses to promoting health. If we can help our seniors stay healthy, we will reduce the need for medical intervention and hospitalisation downstream.

But care for seniors goes beyond physical health. As our seniors age, we want them to be cared for in their own homes for as long as possible, rather than in a nursing home. This way, they can remain active and purposeful in their golden years, surrounded by family, friends and familial activities. It will not be possible for everyone, but I believe we can make it possible for most.

And we will invest in our infrastructure to make this happen: build more Community Care Apartments; expand the network of Active Ageing Centres; improve access to home-based care services; and work with community partners to prevent loneliness and social isolation. We will do all this and more, so we can create a home truly for our seniors.

Our seniors must also be confident of meeting their retirement needs. We achieve this through our CPF system, which we will continue to evolve and update. The Government, in fact, now plays a larger role in CPF through higher interest for those with lower CPF balances, the Matched Retirement Savings Scheme, as well as supplementing CPF payouts with Silver Support. We will study enhancing these schemes to better support our seniors, including those nearing retirement who have less runway to work and save.

For younger Singaporeans, as long as you work and contribute to your CPF consistently, we will ensure that your needs in old age can be met through CPF. And for those who do not have the ability to work, we will find other ways to look after your retirement needs. This is our promise to Singaporeans of every generation.

Let me move on to something that underlies our refreshed social compact: we need to be less about "I", "me" and "mine", more about "we", "us" and "ours". It was our sense of collective responsibility that saw us through the pandemic, and it is the same sense of collective responsibility that will carry us through our next bound.

A social compact is not just about what Government will do for the people; it is also about what Singaporeans will do for one another. So, our refreshed social compact is not just about the Government doing more and Singaporeans depending more on the Government. Rather, it is about the Government, businesses, unions, workers, the community and civil society all doing their part for fellow Singaporeans. It is about all of us coming together, to forge a society of opportunities and assurance for everyone.

One way to realise this is to nurture a broader culture of philanthropy and volunteerism: where we take responsibility for each other and especially to help those with less. This goes beyond money, it includes investing time and effort in nurturing others – from mentoring the young to providing those from disadvantaged circumstances with access to networks and opportunities.

Another way is to create more opportunities for Singaporeans to partner the Government and one another in policy-making and co-creation. We will continue to involve Singaporeans and other groups in co-designing and shaping our neighbourhoods. We will provide more avenues and platforms for our youth to come up with policy ideas and build the future Singapore, for they are Singapore's future.

The Government will never stop investing in our urban infrastructure, developing our HDB towns by providing more facilities and amenities, and making concerted efforts to become a City in Nature. But ultimately, it is up to all of us to contribute their own passions and energies to turn this city into an endearing home.

Becoming the best home is also very much about the intangibles – among them, embracing a more holistic way of life. Be it working out flexible work arrangements; treating ourselves and one another with greater kindness and compassion, knowing that good mental health is a key part of good health overall, or creating a conducive environment for Singaporeans to start and nurture families. We made some moves in the Budget this year, such as increasing paternity leave and we will consider what more can be done.

This project of making a better Singapore has always been, and will always be, a work in progress. It has been a relentless effort over the decades. We will never stop improving, not just for ourselves but also for future generations. This ethos of building for the future, rather than burdening or weighing down our descendants, is key to Singapore's success. The prudence of the previous generation has enabled us to find our way through the COVID-19 crisis. We must do the same for those who come after us. So, let us steward our resources well, so that our children and grandchildren will be well-endowed and well-prepared to tackle any challenge the future may bring – be it the climate crisis, the next pandemic, or the unknown unknowns which will come.

Sir, I have provided a broad overview of what we hope to achieve through Forward Singapore. Over the next few days of the debate, my colleagues will elaborate further on specific aspects of the agenda. Taken together, what do these shifts to our social compact mean? In fact, some ask, has the 4G team shifted to the left?

It is not so simple. Our governing approach is not so easy to characterise along the traditional political spectrum of left and right. After all, we have always strived to appeal to a broad base of Singaporeans. We have always taken care not to base our legitimacy on any narrow social group or class.

We also do not blindly copy or replicate the models of other countries. Even the first generation of PAP leaders, who began their political lives as democratic socialists, spoke of a "Socialism that Works" – for they did not want any part of what they already knew was failing in Europe and elsewhere.

The countries with more welfarist policies, in continental Europe and the Nordics have much higher levels of state-financed welfare provisions. Their governments typically spend above 40% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP), compared to 18% in Singapore. To fund such high spending, they impose high income taxes, usually much higher than 30%, even for the middle-income groups, with Value-added Tax (VAT) or Goods and Services Tax (GST) taxes ranging from 20% to 25%.

Some may think this is a good model for Singapore, but from our point of view, from the Government's point of view, it is very clear: we do not intend to adopt such a model of comprehensive universal welfare. Instead, we will chart our own way forward, staying true to our core values. While we will indeed do more to strengthen social safety nets, we will move with prudence and discipline, and not end up inflicting heavy tax burdens on everyone. Today, our overall tax burden for the middle-income group is far lower than other advanced nations and we will strive to keep it that way.

More than that, we will ensure that our programmes achieve better outcomes for our people. In fact, we are already doing better than many other countries in areas like healthcare, education and housing; doing better not in terms of how much we spend, but in terms of outcomes – the value that we achieve from every dollar of public spending. We are doing better and we can keep on doing better.

That is the spirit and intent behind the shifts we are considering – be it skills and continuous learning, social empowerment, active ageing and retirement adequacy, or housing assurances. The changes will benefit Singaporeans from every walk of life – they will uplift the vulnerable and also advance the well-being of our broad middle.

In fact, among the more advanced nations, Singapore is one of the few where people in the middle have experienced large increases of incomes in the last 20 years. The middle-income group in Singapore now has higher real incomes – real incomes after netting off inflations – than in many other places; higher than the US and most European societies and well above that in other advanced Asian societies, like Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea.

We will continue to sustain real income growth for the middle. This is why economic growth is non-negotiable for us. We already know that our growth rates will gradually come down as our labour force expands more slowly and becomes older, but growth remains essential. If we do not grow the economic pie, there will be fewer jobs and less scope for social support. So, please do not be mistaken. This Government will and must always be pro-growth and pro-inclusivity. Securing our economic competitiveness will become more, not less, important in the next phase of Singapore. This is incumbent upon all of us, and upon my team: we will create good jobs and a good future for all Singaporeans.

Underlining our governing approach is the core ethic of individual effort and personal and family responsibility. We want Government actions to reinforce, not negate, individual and collective responsibility. We want Government actions to catalyse more involvement by other members of society – employers, unions, community groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Then we can all chip in and do our part collectively, to tackle inequality, rekindle social mobility and move forward together.

Sir, I believe the Opposition, and the Workers' Party (WP) in particular, broadly agrees with and supports the Government's policy directions. They want us to do more in certain areas, as we have heard from the speeches today and I am sure in the coming days, but there is general support for the moves that we have proposed.

But there is one fundamental difference. When we plan to spend more, the PAP Government will always tell you plainly how we propose to raise revenues and ensure that our Budget remains balanced over the medium-term. The Opposition has offered some revenue alternatives, but their sums do not add up. We do not need to go through the detailed arguments again. But without the GST, which the WP still does not support – and I am not even talking about the increase in GST, but the entire GST which the WP still does not support – we will face a huge funding gap. None of the alternatives that the WP has suggested will make up for the shortfall.

In this debate and over the course of the remaining term of Government, I look forward to hearing concrete alternatives from the Opposition – not just opportunistic or populist ideas to chip away, bit by bit, at the trust in Government, but a serious alternative agenda for an alternative government.

That is how politics in a first-world Parliament should work. I have said this before: I do not assume that the PAP will win the next General Election or that I will inevitably take over as Prime Minister. Every General Election from now on will be about who forms the Government; not just what percentage of the votes the PAP receives and how many seats the Opposition wins. As we develop into a mature democracy, we must have not just a serious Government, but also a serious Opposition that thinks carefully about what it will do as government. Where the Opposition have good ideas, or where they can make a contribution to the ideas for improving our country, we welcome them. But we ask that you be upfront about the realities and trade-offs we face as a country, and be honest about your plans, policies and intentions.

Mr Speaker, our world has changed; so too must our way of doing things. Our refreshed social compact will be our compass for the road ahead. Forward Singapore is a bold agenda, and it depends on all of us to realise. Though we will not see change overnight, we can each start to embrace the new social compact today.

If we all do this, we can be assured that we, too, will benefit when others feel a deeper sense of responsibility towards us. We can then sustain a virtuous circle of uplift, progress and confidence, and thus strengthen our solidarity and trust as a nation. The more we put into this new social compact, the more we will receive in return. And society as a whole, Singapore, will grow stronger and fairer; more just and more united.