By MP for Punggol East SMC, Lee Li Lian
[Delivered in Parliament on 12 Nov 2013]
Madam Speaker, my speech will focus on the amendments made to Parental Leave as well as Child Development Co-Savings act.
I would like to seek clarifications on these 2 areas.
Parental Leave
With the inclusion of the 2 weeks shared parental leave between parents to the existing pool of leave which include maternity, paternity and/ or adoption leave, the Employment Act and Child Development Co-Savings Act will be providing new formula to compute these leaves. I would like to find out whether the new shared parental leave includes fathers of adopted children.
Can the ministry consider legislating employers to allow fathers to take the leave flexibly by days instead of by weeks?
If the government is leaving it to the mutual agreement between the father’s employer and the father for the leave to be taken flexibly by days instead of by block leave, these arrangements should be monitored closely and further evaluated.
Shared parental leave has to be allocated by weeks from the mother’s maternity leave to father. Can the ministry consider allowing fathers to return the shared parental leave back to the mother if it is not consume.
Child Development Co-Savings Act
Next, the Child Development Co-Savings act will be updated to accurately reflect the policy that parents’ total child care and extended child care leave is based on their youngest qualifying Singapore Citizen child under the Child Development Co-Savings act.
This is done to avoid situations where parents who have both an older Singapore citizen and a younger non citizen child double claim leave under both the Employment Act and the Child Development Co-Savings Act. I would like to find out from the ministry on whether there are such cases happening and if yes, how many of such cases have taken place over the last five years to warrant this change.
In conclusion, I welcome the changes and hope that the Minister is able to make clarifications in his response.