Oral Questions
*3039. Mr Kenneth Tiong Boon Kiat: To ask the Minister for Education (a) whether institutions under the Private Education Act must report sexual misconduct allegations to the Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA), and how many have SWDA and its predecessor entities received annually since 2021; (b) how many section 18 directions to cease deploying teachers followed; and (c) whether they will be required, like the universities, to have Victim Care Units, no-contact orders and codes of conduct.
*3045. Mr Kenneth Tiong Boon Kiat: To ask the Minister for Education regarding the six-school pilot from 2027 (a) what the pilot will establish about implementing smaller classes, whose benefit the Ministry has accepted since 2018; (b) whether other schools may adopt smaller classes based on its findings before a system-wide decision; and (c) what additional teachers it requires, and whether recruitment for wider adoption will begin alongside it rather than after it.
*3049. Mr Kenneth Tiong Boon Kiat: To ask the Minister for National Development (a) whether tenants of a Joint Singles Scheme flat are informed at allocation that rent is charged on a household basis; (b) what has the review on extending individual charging to Joint Singles Scheme households concluded; (c) whether the household's rental arrears affect a tenant's eligibility to buy a flat; and (d) if so, whether HDB will disregard a co-tenant's non-payment.
*3063. Mr Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Malik: To ask the Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs with reference to the existing offences under section 5 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1993 and sections 304C and 335A of the Penal Code 1871 (a) in the past five years, how many cases have involved a household member being charged with failing to protect a child from sexual abuse; and (b) whether these provisions are adequate, especially in cases where the abuse may persist undetected for years.
*3065. Mr Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Malik: To ask the Minister for National Development (a) what measures are in place to prevent unauthorised or improper access to sensitive housing records and databases by HDB officers; and (b) whether these measures have been independently reviewed and found to be adequate.
*3069. Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong: To ask the Minister for National Development whether HDB or the Ministry of Health has (a) conducted any surveys, studies or reviews of demand for Community Care Apartments; (b) assessed the take-up and resident outcomes of Harmony Village @ Bukit Batok; and (c) whether and how any such findings informed the decision to lower the eligibility age for Community Care Apartments from 65 to 55.
*3084. Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis: To ask the Minister for Transport regarding delays to the North-South Corridor (a) whether engineering complexities and geological, groundwater and subsurface risks encountered were identified in pre-construction site investigations; (b) if so, why were they not adequately addressed as part of construction plans; and (c) whether the LTA can publish the ground information provided to tenderers and the actual conditions encountered at affected sites.
*3086. Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis: To ask the Minister for Transport (a) what will be the licensing regime and road traffic regulations that will apply to autonomous vehicles that operate as ride-hailing vehicles from 2028; (b) how will such regulations differ from what currently applies to human-driven private hire vehicles; and (c) whether the Ministry will be revising the relevant road transport legislation ahead of the fully driverless ride-hailing service.
*3090. Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis: To ask the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) whether MAS can consider requiring financial institutions to give job candidates a specific fit and proper reason when rejecting them following background checks; and (b) how does MAS ensure financial institutions genuinely assess the circumstances of past convictions in their hiring decisions, particularly those who have not been issued any prohibition order.
*3091. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) whether public officials’ purchasing property based on non-public land-use information constitutes a breach of statutory duties or civil service rules; (b) whether public officials’ asset declaration rules will be expanded to cover immediate family members and co-habitants; and (c) whether retrospective checks for anomalies will be conducted on past property transactions near unannounced infrastructure projects.
*3092. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for National Development (a) whether NParks will expand targeted crow shooting operations to Hougang, Bedok Reservoir and Serangoon; (b) if so, when; (c) if not, what specific factors prevent expansion of such operations; and (d) whether NParks has received sufficient feedback regarding bird aggression in these areas to warrant inclusion.
*3098. Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Development in light of the Ministry of Education's pilot of smaller classes in six schools from 2027 (a) whether the Ministry will pilot lower educator-child ratios for Kindergarten 1 and 2 classes in Anchor Operator preschools; and (b) whether it will assess educator workload, teacher-child interactions, classroom quality and children’s developmental outcomes.
*3099. Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim: To ask the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment with regard to the Beverage Container Return Scheme and, to date (a) what is the reverse vending machine rejection rate for eligible containers; and (b) what recourse is available to consumers who are unable to obtain refunds for eligible containers.
*3101. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) of the 9,200 non-resident employment growth in the second quarter of 2026, how many were (i) Work Permit (ii) S Pass and (iii) Employment Pass holders, respectively; (b) of the S Pass and Employment Pass holders, which occupations saw the highest growth; and (c) how did this compare with resident employment growth in those same occupations.
*3105. Ms Eileen Chong Pei Shan: To ask the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Approved Code of Practice for Platform Services applies to cumulative or streak-based incentives and acceptance-rate or cancellation-rate thresholds, beyond the existing provisions on per-job time limits; (b) whether changes to such schemes trigger a mandatory risk assessment review by platform operators; and (c) how many platform operators' risk assessments the Ministry has inspected since January 2025.
*3112. Ms Eileen Chong Pei Shan: To ask the Minister for Transport with regard to Go-Ahead Singapore's $646 million alternative bid for the Tampines bus package against the lowest base bid of about $596 million (a) what were the respective weightages for quality and price; (b) how each shortlisted bidder ranked on quality and on total score; and (c) what quality factors justified the price difference.
*3113. Ms Eileen Chong Pei Shan: To ask the Minister for Transport regarding Go-Ahead Singapore's contract for the Loyang bus package which provides a two-year extension option (a) what procurement rules govern extending contracts beyond contracted options; (b) on what basis was the contract extended from 2023 to 2026, and why it was not re-tendered then; (c) whether it has been extended again, until when; and (d) what is the fee for each extension.
*3115. Mr Fadli Fawzi: To ask the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health (a) whether the Government will take any regulatory action against Vanguard Healthcare in the case of an 85-year-old woman who allegedly did not receive help after pressing the emergency call button in her community care apartment; and (b) what actions will the Government take to ensure that community care apartment residents receive the services that they have subscribed for.
*3138. Ms He Ting Ru: To ask the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) whether civil servants are required to declare property purchases that may relate to non-public information on future transport infrastructure; and (b) how such declarations are cross-checked against officers' access to planning information.
*3139. Ms He Ting Ru: To ask the Minister for Education in relation to the 2027 pilot on classroom redesign in six schools (a) what criteria will determine which classes, levels or subjects receive smaller class sizes; (b) how streamlining of teachers' non-teaching duties will be assessed alongside class size changes; (c) what metrics will measure the pilot's success; and (d) whether findings will be made public before wider rollout is considered.
*3140. Mr Pritam Singh: To ask the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment in view of the noise generated by individuals who deposit large quantities of recyclable cans and bottles at the Beverage Container Return Scheme (BCRS) vending machines located at HDB void decks in particular, whether the Ministry would consider requiring recycling machines at these locations to be turned off during official HDB-mandated 'quiet hours’.
*3169. Mr Low Wu Yang Andre: To ask the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health (a) what system-wide service standards govern Community Care Apartments’ 24-hour emergency response, including acknowledgement, welfare contact, physical attendance and escalation after a missed alert; and (b) whether the Ministry will require independent assurance and annual publication of aggregate compliance and incident outcomes.
*3182. Mr Fadli Fawzi: To ask the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) how the Public Service Division (PSD) currently monitors property purchases by civil servants and their immediate relatives; (b) whether PSD intends to strengthen controls over property purchases by civil servants involved in strategic planning and land use decisions; and (c) whether PSD will investigate property purchases by civil servants around other types of infrastructure such as new schools.
*3183. Mr Fadli Fawzi: To ask the Acting Minister for Manpower for each year since 2017 (a) what is the number of complaints made to the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) in relation to pregnancy-related discrimination; (b) how many were escalated to the Employment Claims Tribunals (ECT); and (c) what percentage of TAFEP complaints and ECT cases, respectively, are resolved in favour of the employee.
*3184. Mr Fadli Fawzi: To ask the Minister for Education (a) what are the plans to ensure that students living beyond 2km of the 12 schools with a two-track scheme for Phase 2C of Primary 1 registration will have easy access to the schools by school bus or public transport; and (b) whether there are any plans to expand the eligibility for school bus subsidies for such students.
*3199. Mr Fadli Fawzi: To ask the Minister for Digital Development and Information (a) whether and how the National AI Council has assessed recent industry warnings on the extinction risks from AI; and (b) whether the Council itself has developed a strategy or adopted measures to mitigate AI safety and alignment risks.
*3200. Mr Fadli Fawzi: To ask the Minister for Digital Development and Information in light of recent incidents of AI agents escaping containment (a) whether existing safeguards for agentic AI use by the Public Service are sufficiently robust to guard against breaches; and (b) whether any cyber-attacks involving unsupervised agentic AI have been reported to any Government agency.
*3203. Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim: To ask the Minister for Education (a) how many primary schools have school-based Student Care Centres with waiting lists and how many pupils are affected; (b) whether school-level capacity, enrolment, vacancy and waiting-list data will be published; and (c) whether the ability to secure an affordable student care place forms part of the ongoing sector review, and if so, when an update will be provided.
Written Questions
2100. Mr Kenneth Tiong Boon Kiat: To ask the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) whether volunteering at a Meet-the-People Session is a political activity under the rules for public officers, as MOE treats students' attendance as exposure to community issues; (b) whether officers of the Civil Service and statutory boards may volunteer at any Member's session regardless of party without seeking permission; and (c) whether the Public Service Division will inform officers accordingly in writing.
2107. Mr Kenneth Tiong Boon Kiat: To ask the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) how many requests to change the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 Plan (RIE2025) grant's scope were approved and refused annually since 2021; (b) what proportion of its academic research funding was investigator-led, which the plan undertook to increase; and (c) whether RIE2030 will fund investigators and teams for a programme of research in a domain, free to change direction, rather than a fixed proposal.
2124. Mr Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Malik: To ask the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) in view of the rise in workplace fatalities in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in the preceding two years, what fatality rate or trend will prompt the Ministry to reintroduce Heightened Safety Period-style interventions; and (b) whether the current measures remain adequate to reverse this trend.
2126. Mr Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Malik: To ask the Minister for National Development whether a change of residential address will require owners to reduce the number of cats to two even though all the current cats are already licensed under the Cat Management Framework pre-September 2024.
2135. Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis: To ask the Minister for National Development in the case of married couples or the fiancé and fiancée scheme (a) whether CPF Housing Grants that are made available are conditional upon buyers being listed as co-owners rather than one buyer being the sole owner and the other being listed only as an essential occupier; and (b) if not, what is the rationale for de-linking ownership from grant eligibility.
2146. Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) what are ECDA’s estimates, if any, of the additional educators and annual costs required to lower Kindergarten 1 and 2 ratios in Anchor Operator preschools from 1:20 and 1:25 to 1:15 and 1:20 respectively; and (b) whether the sector-wide job redesign project will examine staff-child ratios.
2147. Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim: To ask the Minister for Transport (a) how many bus services operate predominantly with single-deck buses during peak periods and how many cannot deploy double-deck buses due to route or infrastructure constraints; (b) how many requests for peak-period enhancements since 2024 were declined because loading was below LTA’s threshold; and (c) whether loading is assessed against the capacity of buses actually deployed.
2148. Ms Sylvia Lim: To ask the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) since February 2024, in how many cases of death of a CPF member have eligible beneficiaries under intestacy laws accessed information on nominations made by the deceased member; and (b) whether the prevailing access process automatically recognises eligible beneficiaries or requires case-by-case verification.
2150. Ms Eileen Chong Pei Shan: To ask the Minister for Law in respect of freelance interpreters engaged by the Courts for languages not covered in-house (a) what minimum qualifications, accreditation or language assessment are required before engagement; (b) what training in court procedure and interpreting ethics is provided; and (c) how their interpretation quality is assessed after engagement.
2153. Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis: To ask the Minister for Transport in each year since the introduction of the bus contracting model (a) what is the breakdown by operator of the key performance indicators tracked including (i) excess wait time (ii) on time adherence and (iii) scheduled mileage and other quality indicators; and (b) what is the breakdown by operator of the annual incentive payments and penalties awarded.
2154. Ms Eileen Chong Pei Shan: To ask the Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs for each year in the past five years, what are the number of (i) accidents reported (ii) accidents involving injuries and (iii) accidents involving fatalities reported for (i) passenger cars (ii) private hire cars and (iii) taxis, respectively.
2156. Mr Fadli Fawzi: To ask the Minister for Digital Development and Information (a) whether AI companies make their latest frontier model available to the National AI Council or any other Government agency before deployment for an independent evaluation of national security risks or hidden vulnerabilities; (b) if not, whether the Government will seek such access from AI companies as countries like the US and UK have; and (c) if not, why not.
2157. Mr Fadli Fawzi: To ask the Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs how will the liquidation of properties related to the $3 billion money laundering case proceed, in view that bids for multiple properties recently failed to meet the Government’s reserve price at auction, while safeguarding taxpayers’ interests.
2160. Mr Low Wu Yang Andre: To ask the Minister for Transport regarding LTA’s planned AI system using bus cameras to detect bus lane encroachments (a) how its reported 90% trial accuracy is calculated, including sample size and false-positive and false-negative rates by intended use; (b) whether every AI-detected traffic offence will be reviewed by an authorised officer before enforcement; and (c) how motorists can challenge an erroneous detection.
2172. Ms He Ting Ru: To ask the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) for each year from 2016 to 2025, what was the highest and lowest total dollar remuneration, of (i) Ministers (ii) Senior Ministers of State and Ministers of State and (iii) Senior Parliamentary Secretaries and Parliamentary Secretaries, inclusive of fixed pay, all bonuses and allowances; and (b) whether the Government will publish such figures annually going forward.
2173. Ms He Ting Ru: To ask the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) what proportion of the 4,620 job redundancies in the second quarter of 2026 were due to cyclical restructuring rather than AI adoption; (b) whether the Ministry will begin tracking AI-attributed retrenchments as a distinct category; and (c) how the Ministry verifies if firms receiving AI grants are unfairly displacing workers.
2174. Ms He Ting Ru: To ask the Acting Minister for Manpower (a) what proportion of the 4,620 workers retrenched in the second quarter of 2026 were non-residents; (b) how these compares with past non-resident retrenchments; (c) why the six-month re-entry rate for retrenched workers fell to 54.9% from 60.7%; and (d) what is the breakdown by residency status for the re-entry rate for retrenched workers.
2187. Mr Pritam Singh: To ask the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) for each General Election since 1965, whether data is available on the proportion of newly appointed political office holders who spent more than half of their pre-political careers in the private sector, and if so, what are they; and (b) whether this proportion of appointments has increased significantly since ministerial salaries were benchmarked against private sector professions in 1994.
2188. Mr Pritam Singh: To ask the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) for new political office holders appointed after each of the last three General Elections, whether data is available on the average percentage change in their annual salary, including variable bonuses, immediately before and after appointment, and if so, what are they; and (b) what is the breakdown of these salary changes across bands of (i) 25% (ii) 50% and (iii) 75% or more, respectively.
2190. Mr Low Wu Yang Andre: To ask the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health (a) what were the Rare Disease Fund’s fund size, investment income, donations and expenditure for each of FY2023 to FY2025; (b) how many patient applications were received, approved, rejected or pending in each year; and (c) what donor-authorised principal is presently available for drawn down of donation for Cell, Tissue and Gene Therapy Products.
