Budget Debate Speech 2026
Mr Speaker, Singapore's families have heard the announcements.
They know what has been promised.
What they are watching this debate for is something different: whether the design behind those promises is sound enough to actually deliver, whether the support will reach the families who need it, and whether it will do so in time and with the certainty required to make the most consequential decisions of their lives.
That is the lens through which I wish to examine the family support measures before this Chamber today.
Stepping in the right direction and closing the distance are two different things.
The question is whether the way these schemes are built — who gets what, when they get it, how much, and whether families can count on it — is working as well as it should.
For families trying to make ends meet every month, these details are not small things.
It is the difference between support that reaches them and support that is promised but falls short in practice.
I will raise three specific points on that gap.
On Equity Across Childhood: The Missing Equivalent for Older Children
Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister stated at the start of this year that the Government's goal is to give every child a good start in life and to support families at every stage of their journey.
I want to test that aspiration against a structural feature of Budget 2026 that I do not think has received sufficient attention.
Budget 2026 provides $500 in Child LifeSG Credits for every Singaporean child aged 12 and below.
These credits are flexible: usable at a wide range of physical and online merchants for groceries, pharmacy items, transport, and daily household expenses.
They are a meaningful and welcome form of support.
But Budget 2026 contains no equivalent measure for families with children who have moved beyond primary school.
There is no corresponding credit, no top-up, and no new flexible support for the household costs that continue to accumulate as children grow older.
The $500 in flexible relief is available for the 12-year-old. For the same child one year later, there is nothing new in this Budget.
I want to be careful about what I am and am not saying.
I am not suggesting that older children receive no support from the Government at all.
Edusave contributions continue annually, and families with children in secondary school can draw on those funds for approved educational expenses.
But Edusave funds are ring-fenced for educational uses: school fees, enrichment programmes, and approved school-related expenses.
They cannot be used for transport, groceries, utilities, or the broader household cost-of-living pressures that do not disappear once a child moves beyond primary school.
The Child LifeSG Credits address precisely those costs.
Their absence in Budget 2026 for families with older children is a gap worth examining.
I anticipate the Government may say that the CLC is designed for the early childhood stage, where developmental evidence supports concentrated investment, and that the Edusave system addresses older children's education needs adequately.
I accept the developmental argument.
But the question I am raising is not about developmental priority.
It is about household affordability.
A family with a secondary school-going child faces transport costs, utility bills, and grocery expenses that are undiminished by the age of their child.
Budget 2026 provides flexible relief for one cohort of families.
It does not for another.
I invite the Ministry to clarify whether it was a conscious decision to limit flexible support to children aged 12 and below, leaving families with older children without an equivalent, or whether this gap has simply not been revisited as family expenses have evolved.
If it’s the former, I would appreciate clarity on the rationale.
If the latter, I urge the Ministry to review whether some form of flexible household support, for older children, should be introduced in future Budgets. In this regard, I echo Mr Shawn Loh’s suggestion that LifeSG credits be extended systematically to all parents with children up to 16 years old.
On Scale: ComLink+'s Coverage Ceiling Must Be Named and Addressed
Mr Speaker, the Ministry has reported that ComLink+ is now supporting around 10,000 families in public rental housing.
ComLink+ represents a serious and thoughtful attempt to tackle intergenerational disadvantage in a more structured way.
The family coach model of proactive outreach, co-created action plans, and multi-agency coordination represents a meaningful shift from passive assistance to active empowerment.
I have no concerns with the model but with the scale.
I am not comparing ComLink+'s 10,000 families to the total public rental housing population.
I am asking about families in public rental housing with children who meet the programme's own eligibility criteria, specifically households with at least one child under the age of 21, and assessed as requiring sustained support.
That population is smaller than the total rental housing stock, but it is significantly larger than 10,000.
I would ask the Minister to share what is the Ministry’s estimates as the total number of families eligible for ComLink+ under its current criteria.
The reason that number matters is this: Budget 2026 enhances the Progress Packages for families already in the programme.
Higher quarterly payouts, better milestone incentives, and more flexible disbursements.
These are meaningful improvements, but only for families who already have a family coach.
They do not reach the families who are eligible but not yet served.
They deepen the well without widening it.
I recognise that scaling an intensive coaching relationship cannot be done overnight.
Training effective family coaches takes time, and the Ministry is right not to compromise quality for speed.
But that argument, while valid, does not explain the absence of any stated coverage target in Budget 2026.
I am therefore asking the Minister three things: first, to state the current number of eligible families not yet served by ComLink+; second, to state the Government's coverage target, expressed as a proportion of eligible families, and the year by which it intends to achieve it; and third, to confirm what investment in coach recruitment and training is included in this Budget to move toward that target.
These are not unreasonable asks for a flagship empowerment programme entering its third year.
The stakes of this coverage gap extend beyond the families themselves.
ComLink+'s design is premised on early intervention: reaching families before their difficulties compound, before school attendance deteriorates, and before debt accumulates beyond manageability.
Every year a family is eligible but unserved is a year in which the programme's own preventive logic is not applied.
Enhancing payouts for those already inside the programme is valuable.
But it does not recover the ground lost while eligible families wait.
A coverage target would allow the Government to hold itself accountable to the programme’s objectives.
On Implementation: Closing the Gap Between Announcement and Delivery
Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister announced two expansions taking effect from January 2027: the monthly household income ceiling for preschool subsidies will rise from $12,000 to $15,000, benefitting more than 60,000 additional families; and the student care fee assistance ceiling will rise from $4,500 to $6,500.
I support both measures fully.
I also note that the reduction in fee caps for both Anchor Operator and Partner Operator preschools, which took effect in January 2026, already provides some interim relief to middle-income families.
But even accounting for that, a family earning $13,500 a month, above today's subsidy ceiling and below the incoming one, is still paying more than they should be for another nine months.
The principle of their entitlement to support has been conceded by this Budget.
A household with two young children that spends $1,200 to $1,800 monthly on childcare fees would have to continue paying these amounts for 9 more months.
That expense is significant.
I would ask the Minister whether a transitional bridging measure, targeted specifically at families between the old and new thresholds, could be introduced for the interim period.
The January 2027 date is also worth pressing on.
Singapore’s financial year begins on 1 April, and many budget measures take effect on that date.
And this is not a new subsidy category being built from scratch — MOE and ECDA already have the means-testing infrastructure, the disbursement systems, and the operator reimbursement processes in place.
So what specifically requires this expansion to wait until January 2027, rather than taking effect at the start of the financial year in April 2026?
If this is a deliberate policy decision rather than one driven by operational constraints, we must recognise that the families who were promised this relief will continue to bear a significant financial burden for an additional nine months.
A bridging measure would also be welcomed.
It is not unusual.
When GST went up, the Government did not simply announce the increase and leave lower-income households to absorb the gap until the next Budget.
Offset packages were timed deliberately to cushion the transition.
CDC vouchers have been deployed at short notice because cost-of-living pressures do not wait for administrative calendars.
That same instinct — targeted, time-limited, with a clear end date once the new thresholds kick in — is exactly what I am asking for here.
The instrument already exists.
It has been used before.
It can be applied here again.
Summary in Malay
Mr Speaker, in Malay.
Saya ingin merumuskan tiga perkara utama yang telah saya kemukakan hari ini.
Pertama, berkenaan jurang dalam Bajet 2026 bagi keluarga dengan anak-anak berumur lebih 12 tahun.
Bajet 2026 memperuntukkan $500 dalam bentuk Child LifeSG Credits kepada setiap kanak-kanak Singapura berumur 12 tahun ke bawah.
Kredit ini fleksibel dan boleh digunakan untuk pelbagai keperluan isi rumah seperti bahan makanan, pengangkutan, dan perubatan.
Namun tiada sebarang sokongan fleksibel setara yang diperuntukkan dalam Bajet 2026 bagi keluarga yang mempunyai anak-anak yang telah melepasi peringkat sekolah rendah.
Kos hidup isi rumah tidak berkurangan apabila anak membesar.
Dengan itu saya berharap Pemerintah dapat mengkaji perkara ini dalam Bajet akan datang.
Kedua, berkenaan skop program ComLink+.
Program ini merupakan satu usaha serius yang telah mempertimbangkan cara untuk menangani isu ketidaksamaan antara generasi secara lebih tersusun dan sistematik.
Satu dari cara ini adalah dengan menggunakan pendekatan jurulatih keluarga yang proaktif untuk membantu keluarga berpendapatan rendah yang tinggal di rumah flat sewa awam.
Namun setakat ini, program ini hanya meliputi kira-kira 10,000 keluarga, sedangkan bilangan keluarga yang layak adalah jauh lebih besar.
Bajet 2026 meningkatkan pakej sokongan bagi keluarga yang sudah sedia ada di dalam program ini, tetapi tidak menyatakan sebarang sasaran atau pelan untuk meningkatkan jumlah dan latihan jurulatih.
Saya ingin bertanya kepada Kementerian berkenaan, berapakah anggaran bilangan keluarga yang layak tetapi belum disertakan di dalam program ini, serta sasaran dalam pengambilan jurulatih baru di dalam Bajet ini.
Ketiga, berkenaan jurang masa antara pengumuman dan pelaksanaan subsidi prasekolah.
Menaikkan had pendapatan untuk subsidi prasekolah daripada $12,000 ke $15,000 dan had bantuan yuran penjagaan pelajar dari $4,500 ke $6,500 adalah langkah yang tepat dan saya menyokong sepenuhnya.
Namun kedua-dua perubahan ini hanya berkuat kuasa pada Januari 2027.
Saya ingin bertanya mengapa langkah-langkah ini tidak boleh berkuat kuasa lebih awal, contohnya pada April 2026, memandangkan infrastruktur yang diperlukan sudah pun wujud.
Sebuah keluarga yang berpendapatan $13,500 sebulan, yang berada di atas had subsidi pada masa ini tetapi di bawah had baharu, masih terpaksa menanggung kos yang lebih tinggi selama sembilan bulan lagi.
Saya memohon Kementerian berkenaan untuk mempertimbangkan sama ada langkah peralihan sementara — seperti yang pernah dilakukan melalui pakej offset GST dan baucar CDC — boleh diperkenalkan untuk keluarga dalam kelompok ini.
Conclusion
Mr Speaker, I want to close not with demography but with equity, because that is ultimately what each of these three points is about.
Every family the Government has acknowledged as deserving support, through fee cap reductions, through expanded subsidy thresholds, and through ComLink+'s design, should receive that support well: with predictability, without arbitrary age cutoffs, without a nine-month gap between announcement and delivery, and not only if they happen to be among the 10,000 families with a coach already assigned to them.
The three asks I have made today are specific and proportionate.
A published review of whether the structure of support for families with post-primary school-aged children is well-matched to the costs they actually bear.
A stated coverage target and coach investment plan for ComLink+.
And for the third point: an explanation of why April 2026 is not feasible as a start date, and if the gap cannot be closed, a transitional bridging measure for families who are caught waiting, using instruments the Government has deployed before.
Sir, these are not only questions about families already in the system. The same conditions — cost, uncertainty, and the gap between announcement and delivery — are shaping whether the next generation of families forms at all.
Just this week, The Straits Times reported that 2025 recorded the lowest number of marriages in Singapore since 2020, a third consecutive year of decline.
Researchers point to longer-term shifts in how Singaporeans perceive marriage, but also to concerns that policy can more directly speak to: uncertain economic future, a higher cost of living, and the need to be financially stable before starting a family.
They are signals that the conditions for forming a family do not yet feel sufficiently stable or attainable to many.
If Budget 2026 is serious about strengthening families, the support it offers must speak not only to households already formed, but also to those still deciding whether they can afford to form one.
Flexible support that falls off at age cut-offs, programmes whose reach falls short of eligible need, and subsidy expansions that arrive later than necessary may each appear defensible in isolation.
But taken together, they risk reinforcing the very hesitation that policy design should be working to reduce, not entrench.
Nonetheless, I support the Budget.
