SMOKING (PROHIBITION ON ADVERTISEMENTS) (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read. 4.30 pm

The Acting Minister for Health (Mr Yeo Cheow Tong): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Harmful effects of smoking

Today, the pattern of illness in Singapore is dominated by smoking related diseases such as lung cancer, coronary heart disease and chronic bronchitis. Together they account for about 30% of all deaths in Singapore. Scientific evidence has shown that cigarettes are linked to at least 85% of all deaths from lung cancer, 75% of deaths from chronic bronchitis and 25% of coronary heart disease cases. Last year, cigarette smoking was largely responsible for the deaths of about 2,600 Singaporeans. This works out to about seven deaths a day.

Smoking Control Programme

Measures to control smoking were first introduced in 1970, when legislation was introduced to restrict tobacco advertisement, together with programmes to educate the public on the harmful effects of smoking. In view of the increasing pool of evidence on the health hazards related to smoking, my Ministry launched a coordinated, intensified national smoking control programme in December 1986, with the aim of promoting non-smoking as a norm in Singapore.

To achieve this objective, we must discourage and prevent the young from taking up smoking, while encouraging and helping existing smokers to give up this harmful habit. My Ministry is striving to achieve this through our public health education programme through the mass media, through talks and exhibitions to members of the public, especially school children, national servicemen and young workers, and through personal counselling by doctors and nurses. The legal requirement to have rotating health warnings prominently displayed on cigarette packs will also serve to remind smokers of the risks that they are taking.

Sir, it will take time to achieve the objective of non-smoking as a national norm. In the meantime, we need to continue to safeguard non-smokers from the harmful effects of cigarette smoke. Non-smokers have a right to smoke-free air. The Ministry of the Environment has therefore recently expanded the restrictions on smoking in various public places.

Smoking among young

How have we fared in our efforts so far? Our health education and other smoking control programmes have definitely made an impact. The prevalence of smoking has fallen from 23% in 1977 to 19% in 1984, and has levelled off at 13.5% in 1987 and 1988.

Our latest survey showed that whilst an encouraging 25% of smokers were convinced that they should give up smoking because of the harmful effects, a significant number of the young are still tempted to experiment with smoking and eventually they become addicted to it. This is because our health messages to the young are being nullified by cigarette advertisements and various promotional gimmicks.

Inadequacy of present legislation

In recent years, the tobacco industry has increasingly used the exemptions provided in the existing legislation to extensively promote their products. These include the distribution of souvenirs and subtle advertising by means of posters at retail outlets. These posters associate smoking with sophisticated young men and attractive women engaged in sporty or glamorous activities. Such cigarette promotion efforts if allowed to continue will undermine our efforts to discourage smoking.

Purpose of Amendment Bill

Sir, the purpose of this Bill is therefore to tighten the existing legislation on the prohibition of advertisements related to smoking. The Bill seeks to make the provisions more explicit and comprehensive and widen further the prohibitions concerning all forms of promotion of smoking. This is part of our multi-pronged approach to the problem of smoking.

Sir, I will now deal with the major provisions of the Bill.

Provisions in the Amendment Bill

Prohibitions on advertisements and sales promotions

The Bill seeks to prohibit the following:

(a) advertisements which mention or depict the brand name or trademark of tobacco products on any notices, vehicles, souvenirs, mementos and gifts;

(b) sale of any product with a tobacco product as a free gift and vice versa;

(c) sale of tobacco products packaged together with any other products;

(d) distribution of free samples of tobacco products to persons other than those in the tobacco trade; and

(e) giving of tobacco products as prizes in any lottery, draw, game or competition.

Certain advertisements allowed

Sir, my Ministry recognises that some tobacco companies are also involved in services and products unrelated to tobacco products. Section 3(2) allows bona fide advertisements by such companies to be considered and allowed on a case-by-case basis. It also allows the Minister to approve certain advertisements which mention the name of the tobacco manufacturer or distributor as a sponsor of an event or in congratulatory messages.

Owners or occupiers of premises

The Bill makes it an offence under section 3B for owners or occupiers to permit their premises to be used for the display and publication of smoking advertisements.

The penalty for committing this offence the first time is a fine not exceeding $5,000 or six months' imprisonment or both. For subsequent offences, the penalty is a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment of not more than one year or both.

Rebuttal presumption

Sir, currently, posters and other cigarette advertisements are often displayed on hoardings at construction sites and other locations. Smoking advertisement leaflets have also been dropped in letter boxes. It is not possible for the authorities to physically apprehend the culprits who are involved in putting up such posters or dropping such leaflets. Section 3C of the Bill provides that if more than 10 copies of such smoking advertisements are found in the possession or premise of a tobacco manufacturer, distributor or retailer, he is presumed to have knowingly taken part in the publication of these advertisements unless he can prove to the contrary.

Penalty

The penalty for all offences committed, except that under section 3B, is a fine of not more than $10,000 or six months' imprisonment or both for the first offence. For subsequent offences, the penalty is a fine of not more than $20,000 or imprisonment of not more than one year or both. The increase in the fines is necessary in order for them to have an adequate deterrent effect.

The Bill also allows minor offences to be compounded with fines not exceeding $1,000.

Sir, the proposed amendments will allow us to curtail cigarette advertisement and promotion, thereby preventing the tobacco industry and retailers from directly or indirectly promoting the sale of their products to the general public. This will help to further reduce the number of smokers in the future, thereby contributing to the better health of all Singaporeans.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Dr Wan Soon Bee (Pasir Panjang GRC): Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to give my fullest support to this Bill.

Sir, the impact of smoking on health is not a mystery to any of us. Time after time, research has shown that many health hazards are directly linked to habitual smoking. This addictive habit is a major contributory factor to some of the deadliest diseases known to man.

Smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer, an often fatal and extremely painful disease. Statistics from the Ministry of Health show that 80% to 90% of lung cancer deaths are attributable to smoking. This is frightening indeed. But what is less well known is that smoking causes other forms of cancer as well. For example, cancer of the oesophagus, cancer of the bladder, mouth, throat, pancreas, kidneys and cervix. In short, smoking is an important causal factor associated with most forms of cancer.

Smoking is also notorious for its role in cardio-vascular diseases. People who smoke are three to four times more likely to develop heart attacks as compared to non-smokers. Four out of 10 deaths caused by heart attacks are attributable to smoking, as well as half of all stroke cases.

Each year, 2.5 million people around the world die from diseases related to smoking. What is amazing is that in spite of these morbid statistics, there are still so many people who continue to smoke.

Perhaps the worst thing about smoking is that it not only hurts those who have consciously chosen to smoke, it also harms those who by no choice of their own are forced to continually inhale polluted air filled with cigarette smoke. For too long this is the problem faced by the passive smoker. The smoker not only puts himself at risk, he is also putting his spouse, children, friends and colleagues at peril. Even unborn children are not spared.

The costs associated with smoking are too high for us, as a responsible Government, to ignore. Every year, many of our fellow countrymen are dying tragically and painfully because of this addiction-forming habit. Their families and friends share in this traumatic experience, all the more so when the victim is at the prime of his life. In addition to this pain and suffering, there is the economic cost of smoking.

It is generally accepted that smokers are less healthy and fit as compared to non-smokers and are thus prone to infections like colds and flus. This causes a higher rate of absenteeism among smoking workers, leading to thousands and thousands of lost man-hours every year. Their overall lack of fitness also means that they are not as productive as they could have been. Add to this, the economically active workers who die from heart disease, cancer, etc. are all citizens who would otherwise have contributed to our nation. Then there is the financial burden associated with hospital and medical expenses. The irony is that people actually spend money every day for years to do harm to themselves.

Perhaps it is not easy for us to convince those who are already hooked on the habit to give it up. But we must at least try to prevent those who have not started from doing so. We must actively discourage smoking by making our population aware of the risks inherent in smoking and by disallowing any form of advertising which might encourage smoking.

All of us have been subjected to subtle persuasiveness of advertising. Advertisements are very effective, especially in this technological age, in creating markets for its products. The young are especially vulnerable to the impact of advertising. One has only to follow the fads of the young to see how easily they are swayed by advertising. This was the main reason behind the enactment of the Smoking (Prohibition on Advertising) Act of 1970. It was not so much aimed at reducing smoking amongst those who were already smokers but to try and eliminate the persuasive impact that smoking advertisements had. The aim was to protect our population, especially the young from the constant bombardment of cigarette advertisements that invariably glorified smoking. These would inevitably arouse the curiosity of people to try out smoking. A recent survey among school students aged 9 to 20 years old showed that 20% of the boys had experimented with smoking. 36% of them became regular smokers. This shows how dangerous experimenting with smoking can be. The urge to experiment must surely be greater when one is constantly being told in advertisements that smoking is refreshing and is associated with success and prestige.

I believe the 1970 Act has achieved its objective to a great extent. It has successfully eliminated most forms of cigarette advertising in Singapore. However, its effectiveness has been reduced by certain loopholes which allow the tobacco companies to circumvent the 1970 Act. Some of the examples are giving away free samples of tobacco products, giving away cigarettes as prizes in competitions, a common practice at the moment.

In addition, the Amendment Bill also seeks to increase the effectiveness by providing for stiffer penalties. I believe these stiffer penalties are a more realistic deterrent and hopefully would persuade would-be offenders to think twice. I hope that this Bill will be able to achieve its intended objective.

The extension of the no-smoking law in public places from 1st November is a step in the right direction. It may appear harsh, but I think it is necessary in order to safeguard the health of many non-smokers who for years have had to put up with smoky environments in many public places. The effectiveness of the ban, however, cannot be maximised unless non-smokers learn to assert their right to breathe unpolluted air. It is time that non-smokers stood up for their rights. 4.47 pm

Dr Aline Wong: Sir, I have only a few points to add to what the Member for Pasir Panjang has just said.

I support the Bill for the obvious reason that we must do everything we can to try to reduce further the proportion of smokers among our population. One way is by curbing advertisements. I particularly welcome the provision banning the giving away of free samples of cigarettes. In our daily activities, we come across distributors giving away free cigarettes at balls, dinners and dance functions, etc. They could be very tempting for people to light up.

I personally, however, feel that by banning advertisements in Singapore, probably our efforts may be nullified by the fact that our population is still exposed to advertisements in foreign publications and TV channels from neighbouring countries. So I would urge the Ministry to concentrate further on public education to target our campaigns at the young. I find it particularly disturbing to see very young children starting to smoke. Peer pressure is one important reason why they do that. How can we counter that? I think the Ministry should come up with some very innovative strategies.

In our goal to achieve or to shape a smoke-free nation, we have to be a little realistic. In every country, in every society, there is bound to be a small proportion of adults who cannot give up. And so long as they do not smoke in the presence of others, thus harming others' health, I think they should be left to decide pretty much on their own whether or not to quit, now that they know that it is harmful.

Since the extension of the ban on smoking in public places is now being mooted and will be in force very soon, I would also like to take this opportunity to ask the Minister two questions. First, what is the reason for not extending this ban to private offices? People who work in offices where people smoke will be inhaling this polluted air for eight hours of the day.

Second, in extending or enforcing this ban in public entertainment areas, I think we need to have some consideration for tourists and people who have to do entertaining of foreign clients in certain places, eg, restaurants in hotels, hotel lobbies and such like. I do not know whether the Ministry has already conducted some dialogue sessions with people who own these establishments and see whether some way can be devised to accommodate the tourists. These establishments can be required to install separate ventilation systems or improve upon the present ventilation systems so that smoking and non-smoking areas will not get mixed up in the air circulation. I hope we can find some way of accommodating this kind of business clientele. After all, our campaign should be aimed at Singaporeans. We cannot hope to convert four million tourists every year who pass through Singapore to become non-smokers over night.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to support this Bill.

I think smoking is a bad habit. There is no doubt about that. The Minister has quoted statistics to prove that there is a correlation between bad health and smoking, in particular to the disease of lung cancer.

The present amendment is certainly a step in the right direction. Everything that could be done must be done to protect the health of the citizens. But like Dr Aline Wong, I think this is still not enough. There must be a lot of public education, especially among the young citizens. If we look at the statistics, you will find that the consumption of tobacco and cigarettes is increasing every year, something like five times from 1978 to 1988. So if the statistics are any indication, cigarette and tobacco consumption will still continue to rise.

Most of these smokers pick up this bad habit when they are young. I have heard that many of our youngsters learn to smoke when they are doing their national service. I wonder whether the Ministry is aware of this and whether the situation is true. If it is true, then the Ministry of Defence must certainly do something to correct this situation. I think an intensive campaign must be launched amongst our young national servicemen to show that it is not necessary to smoke to portray an image of toughness or ruggedness.

The other point I would like to bring up is with regard to section 3(2). It would appear that the Minister can give certain approvals to cigarette manufacturers to advertise if they sponsor certain events. I wonder whether it is morally right. On the one hand, you discourage or curb the cigarette manufacturers from making profit and on the other hand, you accept their money for charity. This is surely a contradiction.

Mr Chew Heng Ching (Eunos GRC): Sir, our anti-smoking programme has been effective. As the Minister has said, today we have one of the lowest percentage of smokers in the world. This success is attributed to the efforts of the Government as well as Singaporeans at large. I support the objective of this Bill, ie,to further curb cigarette advertisements which promote and encourage smoking.

Sir, I notice that clause 6 of the Bill provides for exemptions to advertisements relating to smoking contained in the newspaper, which is published or printed outside Singapore and is brought into Singapore for sale or distribution. If one looks around us today in Singapore, Sir, whether in the office, in the public library, in bookshops or at home, the number of foreign newspapers or publications is not insignificant. A good number of these publications still carries cigarette advertisements.

Sir, I am not advocating that we ban the circulation of these foreign publications or newspapers. While we are trying to pro- mote a healthy society, we should not inadvertently cut ourselves from the rest of the world by restricting the free flow of news and information. I think there must be a trade off.

My question to the Minister is whether the Ministry has assessed the impact of these cigarette advertisements in foreign newspapers and publications on the Ministry's anti-smoking effort and programme.

Dr Lee Siew-Choh: ( In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, on behalf of the Workers' Party I support the Bill in principle. Today, there is no longer any doubt that cigarette-smoking is a most harmful social habit. It causes ill-health to the smoker in many ways. It is a major cause of chronic lung disease, coronary heart disease, stomach ulcer, cancer and premature deaths.

It also harms other people in the vicinity. In the house, the health of the whole family, including the children and babies, and even the unborn child, can be badly affected by the "side-stream" smoke and passive-smoking, ie, forced inhalation of polluted air caused by uncaring smokers. In public enclosed places, it harms even more people.

Cigarette smoking also contributes to economic losses, both to the individual and to the nation, as a result of chronic illnesses and loss of productivity, to say nothing of accidental fires which cause loss of property and even lives.

Cigarette smoking may relieve tension in some smokers. But it really benefits only the tobacco industry and its advertisers, and paradoxically the Government. To maximize sales of cigarettes and profits, the tobacco companies frequently embark on promotion exercises and spend huge sums on advertisements in order to induce and entrap impressional adolescents into trying the first puff. Advertising themes are subtle. They are usually associated with high society, economic and professional successes, romance, popular games and exercises.

Since 1971, Government has taken some small steps to discourage smoking in public places. But though the number of smokers in Singapore has dropped since 1984, these steps have nevertheless not been able to prevent many of our young men and women from getting hooked onto cigarette-smoking. This may be because of peer pressure, so-called "colour-OK", family influence, ignorance of the harmful effects of cigarette-smoking, and so on. But the influence of tobacco-promotion advertisements is certainly most important.

The present Bill will go only some way to help protect our impressionable young men and women from subtle cigarette-smoking promotion advertisements. Many of such cigarette-smoking promotion advertisements still come through in popular foreign magazines and other publications. And lest we forget, also from TV and radio of surrounding countries.

Exemptions in clause 3(2) and in Clause 6 of the Bill offer exemptions which big cigarette-smoking promotion advertisers will certainly make use of to circumvent the whole exercise of prohibition. It can be anticipated that more cigarette-smoking promotion advertisements will appear in channels permitted in the exemptions. And since many foreign publications and TV shows enjoy popularity among Singaporeans, it would mean that the whole purpose of the Bill is almost negated.

Therefore, if Government intends to cut off harmful cigarette promotions from our people, it should seriously consider plugging these exemption loopholes. One way is to censor or blackout in some way all the cigarette promotion advertisements in foreign publications that come into Singapore. The other way is to get SBC to put up Cantonese serials in Singapore to counter the Cantonese serials from foreign countries. But is the Government serious about prohibition of cigarette-smoking advertisements? I believe this is a big question mark. 5.00 pm

Today cigarette smoking is on the downward trend in the United States and the United Kingdom. But it is spreading in the developing countries in the Third World and this problem seems to be getting more and more serious. Cigarettes sold in the developing countries contain more nicotine and other noxious ingredients than the cigarettes sold in the United States and the United Kingdom. But the Government has not done much to stop the imports of such noxious cigarettes. We should prohibit and ban the import of cigarettes which contain too high a noxious ingredient.

In 1982, the United States Surgeon-General reported that "cigarette-smoking is clearly identified as the chief preventable cause of death in our society and the most important public health issue of our time." In Singapore, the Government has emphasised the importance of public health and the prevention of diseases. Our Health Education Department has done a good job. And now, they have announced the extension of the smoking ban to public access areas. Although unwelcome to smokers, this will certainly help to protect the health of many non-smokers who constitute more than 80% of our people. This is to be applauded. But all this may not be enough, as some Members of Parliament have mentioned.

The first thing, in my opinion, that the Government should do is to cut down or reduce the social tension in our free-enterprise system which has caused many people to take up smoking. It is precisely because of this social tension in our society that cause many people to smoke. Of course this would entail a good deal of reforms and even changes of policies, and it would take a long time.

Next, many people believe that the Government should do more than mere prohibition of cigarette advertisements. They regard cigarette-smoking as an addiction which, in many ways, is no different from other types of drug addictions. If Government could take such strong action against the usage and trafficking of drugs like heroin, opium and others, and is even preparing legislation to impose the death penalty for offences connected with opium, cocaine and ganja, etc., then for the good of all the people, the Government should impose an immediate ban on the imports of all cigarettes containing nicotine above a certain amount, followed by a step-by-step imposition of cuts in imports of all cigarettes into Singapore. This would certainly improve the general health of the whole population and go a long way to protect our young men and women from taking up the cigarette-smoking habit. This would also reduce to a minimum the pool of Singaporean cigarette-smokers who cannot give up the habit. Of course, the Government's loss in revenue would be more than fully compensated for by the improved health of the whole population and the generally increased productivity of our people.

The question is, Mr Speaker, Sir: would the Government be prepared and willing to accept my proposal, first, to impose a ban on imports of the more noxious high-nicotine content cigarettes, followed then by a step-by-step ban on the imports of all cigarettes? Or does the Government want to shirk its responsibility in the matter and do nothing in this direction by hiding under the excuse of free enterprise and free market?

I hope the Minister will respond to what I have said.

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: Sir, first, I would like to thank all the hon. Members who have spoken up to fully support the amendments to the Act.

Dr Wan Soon Bee, Member for Pasir Panjang GRC, has given a very accurate and thorough description of implications and consequences of smoking. Smoking has implications not just for the smoker himself but for the family, the friends, the people around him and definitely has a tremendous impact on the economy. That is why we are having such a strong programme to reduce the rate of smoking. Several Members, including Mr Chiam and Dr Lee Siew-Choh, have asked about whether the smoking rate has gone up. The rate of smoking has gone down significantly. The import of tobacco may not have gone down, but that is partly due to the fact that much of the cigarettes are bought by the tourists as well. Therefore, with the tremendous increase in tourist arrivals the sale of cigarettes would have gone up significantly at the airport.

The key point is whether the rate of smoking amongst our citizens has gone down and that rate has gone down very, very significantly. I quoted the figure just now - 23% in 1977, today 13(r)%. The rate of smoking today in Singapore is probably amongst the lowest in the world, if not the lowest. It is far lower than in any of the other developed countries. Although, as Dr Lee said, the rate of smoking in the developed countries has gone down, they are still a long way from where we are today and the smoking rate is still in the range of 30-odd per cent in many of these countries.

Dr Aline Wong is correct in saying that the advertisements in Singapore cannot be shut out completely because we have such an open economy. The same concern has been expressed by Mr Chew Heng Ching. Sir, our concern is to make sure that we minimise the access to advertisements in Singapore. For advertisements that come in through the air waves from radio stations, from TV stations in the neighbouring countries, there is nothing we can do about them. As regards imported publications, at the present moment the imported publications are sold largely to subscribers. So in terms of readership it is quite limited. But we will definitely be looking into what we can do to reduce their impact.

With regard to the impact on tourists from our various programmes, the aim is not to convert tourists who are smokers to non-smokers. That is not our job. But our job is to make sure that the cigarette smoke of our tourists and local smokers does not have the opportunity to impact drastically on our local non-smokers. Therefore, air-conditioned restaurants where the smoke is being re-circulated have been placed under the extended restriction which will be effective on 1st November 1989 by the Ministry of the Environment.

As to whether it is possible for such restaurants to be exempted if they have a separate ventilation system, I will convey the suggestion to my colleague, the Minister for the Environment.

Sir, with regard to offices, the restriction on smoking in public areas is meant to cover places that are frequented by members of the public. These people go there for various businesses. But for the management and staff of offices, I think they have the ability to restrict smoking in their own areas if they want to. This is a choice which at the present moment we are quite happy to leave it to them. If the office staff feel that their colleagues who are smoking are irritating them, then they should speak up and work out with the management of their offices on how to minimise the number of people who are smoking there or to give them certain opportunities to smoke in their own little office, for example. But that is something we should leave to the private sector to work out on their own.

Mr Chiam made some statements about national servicemen picking up smoking while they are serving national service. If I recall, Mindef is quite aware of our national priorities to minimise the rate of smoking amongst young people and Mindef has taken a very active role in working with the Ministry on this programme. They have also cooperated in terms of educating the national servicemen on the dangers of smoking.

With regard to section 3 (2), Mr Chiam has stated that there is a contradiction in accepting the contributions to charity of tobacco companies whilst we are discouraging them from advertising. Sir, we never turn down any contributions to charity from any company as long as they do not use that contribution to further their aims. There is nothing wrong with that. If they are prepared to sponsor a big event and not use that sponsorship to promote their products, I think there is nothing that should prevent us from accepting their contributions.

Dr Lee Siew-Choh has come out with a whole array of points, many of which have only a peripheral relevance to smoking. He stated that people smoke because of the social pressures. Sir, there are many ways for people to defuse the tensions from pressures which are either induced by work or by other factors. Smoking may not be one of them.

The main approach that we must take towards smoking is one of education. Control of advertisement is part of the multi-pronged approach that we are taking. But the main approach at the end of the day must be our public health education programme. Singaporeans are intelligent people and that is why as a result of the public health education programme, the prevalence of smoking has gone down so significantly in the last 12-15 years. We will continue to intensify our education programmes. We will continue to review ways to make it more effective, review ways for us to reach out more effectively to various sectors of the population. One of the key sectors that we are concentrating on is, of course, the younger people. Because if we can educate and discourage them from taking up smoking, then they will never become smokers. And that is the only way to go if we are trying to achieve our aim of making non-smoking a norm in Singapore. With that as an objective, we will be investigating, reviewing, and looking for new ways to pass on the message to our people of why they should not be smoking.

Dr Lee also talked about the dumping of cigarettes with high nicotine and high tar content on Third World countries, and he stated that the Singapore Government had done nothing about this. Sir, he is wrong. Earlier in the year, we have already informed the tobacco companies that we are implementing limits to the nicotine and tar content of the cigarettes which they can import into Singapore. The limits that we have imposed are about the lowest in the world and that has made the cigarette companies quite unhappy. The ban on the import of cigarettes above those limits will come into being at the end of this year. We have given them enough lead time to prepare and to make sure that the cigarettes that meet our specifications are available.

As to whether it is possible to ban all imports of cigarettes, this is a step that is not feasible at all. Cigarettes are unlike heroin or cocaine. Those are addictive drugs which have a tremendous impact on not just the takers but our society, because they inevitably lead to crime and other problems. But through our education programme, we will try to reduce the number of smokers and thereby as the numbers, shrink, the peer pressure and the public pressure on them will, in the end, result in our being able to achieve the norm of non-smoking in Singapore. At the end of the day, there will still be a few people who are die-hards and who will still smoke for various reasons. We cannot stop them, but we can make it very difficult for them to harm other people.

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 Yeo Cheow Tong].

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