FACTORIES BILL (Select Committee's Report)

3.50 p.m.

The Minister for Labour and Welfare (Tun Lim Yew Hock): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move,

That the Report of the Select Committee on the Factories Bill, as contained in Sessional Paper No. L.A. 14 of 1958, be adopted.

Sir, as stressed in the Second Reading of this Bill, the main purpose is to provide minimum standards of health, safety and welfare of factory workers. Singapore's industry is on the threshold of expansion, and it is considered the duty of this Government to see that factories if erected, should conform to the standard set out in this Bill.

The objections put forward to the Select Committee by various bodies have all come from existing businesses, and to a large extent their apprehensions appear unfounded. There is nothing in this Bill that would involve drastic changes in their everyday conduct of business.

As a protection for the existing family businesses that do not employ machinery of one kind or another, the Select Committee has seen fit to increase the number of those employed in a factory in clause 6 (4) from 6 to 10.

Sir, I beg to move.

Mr Chew Swee Kee: Sir, I second it.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Report of the Select Committee on the Factories Bill, as contained in Sessional Paper No. L.A. 14 of 1958, be adopted.

Bill read the Third time and passed.