SINGAPORE ARMY (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.07 p.m.

The Minister of Defence (Mr Lim Kim San): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time." The Bill seeks to amend a few sections of the Singapore Army Act, 1965, the principal amendment being the addition of a new section 85A. Section 85 of the Act provides for the mode of enlistment of persons offering to enlist in the Singapore armed forces. Persons offering to enlist are required to sign an attestation paper and take an oath in the presence of a magistrate.

The provisions of section 85 do not obviously apply to national servicemen since they do not come under the category of persons "offering to enlist". Therefore it is considered desirable to make special provision for the enlistment of national servicemen into the Army. Section 85A also makes it mandatory for a national serviceman called up for full-time service in the Army to take an oath or affirmation. National servicemen called up for part-time service in the People's Defence Force, the Special Constabulary and the Vigilante Corps also have to take a similar oath or affirmation.

The other amendments to the Act are not so important. They are clause 2 of the Bill - amending "Army Council" in section 50 of the Act to "Army Board" to conform to the terminology used elsewhere in the Act.

Clause 4 amends section 86 of the Act by reducing the period of three months, during which a recruit can purchase his discharge, to one month because it is felt that three months is too long a period to give to a recruit who has enlisted in the Army to decide whether or not he wishes to carry on in the Army; one month should more than suffice.

Clause 5 amends subsection (1) of section 97 by deleting the requirement that to be eligible for enlistment in the Army a person must not only himself be a citizen but must have been born in Singapore of parents one of whom was born in Singapore or be the issue of a citizen. Instead, possession of Singapore citizenship in itself is substituted as a sufficient requirement. This is necessary in view of the fact that there are many citizens who would like or are liable to serve in the Army but who were not born in Singapore of parents one of whom at least was born in Singapore.

Clause 6 amends section 158 of the Act by deleting the reference to the Modification of Laws (Armed Forces) (Singapore) Order, 1963, as one of the laws repealed by the Act and substituting the Federation Regiment Ordinance, 1952.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. -[Mr Lim Kim San].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.