PENSIONS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr W. A. C. Goode: Sir, I have the consent of His Excellency the Governor, which is required under Standing Order 33 (1) (b), to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

This Bill, Sir, and the regulations under it as contained in the Second Schedule deal with a very complicated and technical matter, namely, the provisions governing the awards of pensions and gratuities to members of the public service. Very detailed notes have been added to the Bill. These notes draw attention to and they explain all changes which have been made to the present law.

The first and main object of this Bill, Sir, is to consolidate and bring up to date our pensions law which is now 27 years old and has been amended and needs consolidating and revising.

The second main purpose of this Bill is to provide one uniform scheme of pensions and gratuities for all members of the public service of Singapore and that will do away with the invidious distinction which previously existed between those members of the public service who were on what was known as the Singapore Establishment and whose pensions and gratuities were governed by the Singapore Pensions Ordinance, and the other set of officers in the public service here who used to be on what was known as the Malayan Establishment and were on a separate series of pension regulations.

In making this consolidating Bill, we have extended to all officers in the public service the pension factor of one six-hundredth (1/600th) instead of one seven-hundred-and-twentieth (1/720th)-1/600th being the factor which previously was applied to officers on the Malayan Establishment only.

A number of other comparatively minor changes have been made in the Bill. They are improvements to bring the law into line with modern practice and, as Members will see from the Comparative Table printed at the very end of the Bill, we have, to a great extent, followed the legislation which was enacted in the Federation in 1951. There is one change which perhaps I should mention at this stage which is peculiar to Singapore in the sense that we are not in line with the Federation on it; and that is that we have made a change in what is known as the normal age for compulsory retirement. That at present is 55 and in this Bill, clause 9 (a) changes that for officers joining the service after this Bill has been enacted whose normal age for compulsory retirement will be 60. We have made this change, Sir, to take account of the fact that the general age of the population here has become higher than it used to be, and with the expansion of the public service we feel that the Government can no longer afford to allow officers to retire at an age when they are still capable of giving further good service to the public. The change, as I have said, will only be applied to officers joining the service after this Bill comes into force.

The Bill has been under consideration for a long time and has been discussed in great detail in the Civil Service Joint Council, and the Staff Side of that Council have accepted the Bill and the regulations as they are printed, subject only to one reservation. That reservation is that the Staff Side reserve the right at a later date to make representations asking for an option to retire to be given to officers at 45, whereas now it is 50. The Staff Side are not, at the moment, pressing that point but they wish to be free to raise it later should they so decide, and in the meanwhile they do not wish the enacting of this Bill to be delayed on that account. Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Mr Speaker, Sir, we note the statement of the Hon. the Chief Secretary that the Staff Side of the Civil Service has accepted the Bill with the reservation that they can make representations as to the optional age of retirement. I wish to place on record the point of view of my Party that, with rapid Malayanisation of the civil service, it becomes more and more imperative that experienced local officers should stay in the service for a much longer time than they were previously allowed. But at the same time it may be in the interest of the country as a whole if the recommendations of the Committee on the Age of Retirement, which were published on 19th September, 1952, were given careful consideration, and enacted in an amendment to this Bill. This Committee's Report at page 7 says: "(a) that an officer be allowed to retire on pension, and that the Government be allowed to require him so to retire, when, or after, he reaches the age of 45, or completes 20 years in the public service, whichever is the later; provided that at the age of 50 it should be possible for him to retire or be retired irrespective of length of service;

(b) that, subject to the provisions of paragraph (c) below, the age of 55 shall continue to be the age at which Government officers will normally retire;".

Mr Speaker, Sir, we are in agreement with the principles set out in clause 9 of the Bill that the normal age of retirement henceforth for officers who join the service after the passing of this Bill be raised to 60. It may seem inconsistent that we should support the recommendation contained in the Committee's Report that there should be an optional age of retirement for serving officers of 45 or after 20 years' service, whichever is the later. But one must consider the problem historically. Sometime before the war the Government first, I think, in the 1930's began to recruit local officers in the civil service. It meant, in effect, that the most capable, the best educated and those with the greatest capacity to contribute to the political development of this country joined the civil service. By British traditions, the civil service is neutral. It is there - the bureaucratic machinery that politicians can mount and operate. But in the Federation of Malaya they discovered very early on that, unless this rule was relaxed, it meant that a large number of capable men would be debarred from giving a much bigger contribution by having a hand in the shaping of the political future of the country. When this Committee made this recommendation, I feel that such considerations must have weighed on its mind. It is an open secret that there are many serving officers, both in the Federation and in Singapore, who are men who could contribute more to the political development of this country than the host of politicians that have so far presented themselves before the electorate of this country. We therefore wish to place on record our hope that in the not too distant future, after further discussions and consultations between the Government and the Staff Side Council, an amendment to this Bill, when it is passed, will be put before this House incorporating the main recommendations of this Committee.

Mr Goode rose -

Mr Speaker: Mr Chief Secretary, in reply?

Mr Goode: Mr Speaker, Sir, as I have indicated, the question of introducing an optional retirement at an earlier age is not prejudiced by the passing of this Bill, except in so far as it will be necessary to make an amendment to the law in order to bring it about.

I am somewhat flattered, I think, by the suggestion that the People's Action Party is going to have to come to the Government service in order to get some people of better calibre into its ranks; but, at the same time, we will, of course, have to weigh up against the advantage that I know that would have for the body politic the disadvantage that it might have if we lost too many of the key, good, efficient men in the public service in order to strengthen the political Parties.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Mr Speaker: Committee stage, what day?

Mr Goode: 6th June, Sir.

Mr Speaker: I think it is a convenient time to suspend. I will take the Chair again at 2.30 p.m.

Sitting accordingly suspended at 11.58 a.m. until 2.30 p.m. Sitting resumed at 2.30 p.m.