'BABY BONUS' SCHEME (Inclusion of first child and effective date)

Mr Ang Mong Seng asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider granting the 'Baby Bonus' to include the first child, and whether the effective date for this scheme will be the date of announcement instead of 1st April 2001.

The Minister without Portfolio (Mr Lim Boon Heng) (for the Prime Minister): The Total Fertility Rate or TFR was 1.48 in 1999. In other words, on average, each Singaporean woman was having at least one child. Therefore, it is not necessary to provide incentives for the birth of the first child. The "baby bonus" and other pro-family measures are meant to encourage married couples to go on to have their second and third child if they can afford to do so. Nonetheless, the baby bonus which will be given for the birth of the second and third child will help defray total family expenses and benefit all the children in the family, including the first child.

The effective date has been decided after taking into consideration the time for families to respond to the call for bigger families. There is no one date, which will satisfy all parties. Even if it were effective from the date of announcement, there would still be those who will miss it by a day. As the Prime Minister in his National Day Rally Speech indicated, Government has been generous in setting the effective date as 1st April 2001 to cater to early babies. Technically, it should be nine months from the date of announcement.

Dr Lily Neo (Kreta Ayer-Tanglin): Will the Minister clarify whether the "baby bonus" would be given to those who conceived after the announcement but deliver before 1st April 2001 due to unforeseen premature births?

Mr Lim Boon Heng: Mr Speaker, Sir, I think it is very difficult to be precise as to the date of conception. Some allowance has already been provided in the announcement that it will be effective from 1st April 2001.

Dr Lily Neo: May I ask the Minister whether it is unfair to these couples who have responded to the call for having more children after the Prime Minister's announcement and yet be deprived of the "baby bonus" because of nature and not through the fault of their own?

Mr Lim Boon Heng: Sir, it is not a matter of fairness. We have to look at this "baby bonus" in its proper perspective. It is an encouragement to families to have more children. We cannot count every dollar and cent as to who would benefit and who would not. As in drawing a date for the effective implementation of this "baby bonus", there will be some who will miss it even by a second.

Dr S. Vasoo (Tanjong Pagar): Can I ask the Minister why are they so clinical? Why can we not be more generous, since people are responding to the call?

Mr Lim Boon Heng: We are not trying to be clinical. We are trying to set a date for implementation. As I said in my earlier answer, even if we set the effective date at the point of time when the Prime Minister made the announcement, some people will still miss it.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Does the Minister not think that parents who do not need encouragement but already have more children in contributing to the population growth should also be given some rewards?

Mr Lim Boon Heng: Mr Speaker, Sir, we should look at this in its proper perspective. We have a falling fertility rate. What Government can do is to offer incentives as a signal to the people that we encourage families to have children. As I said, it is not a question of whether it is fair or not fair, whether we are being unfair to those who have children of their own accord naturally, even without the encouragement. It is to address a national problem of declining birth rates, the consequence of which we will see only many years from now. Look at these measures that the Government has announced as an encouragement, signalling to the people that we should have marriage and procreation, and that this is good for the future of Singapore.

Mr Ang Mong Seng (Bukit Gombak): (In Mandarin): Sir, the "baby bonus" is geared towards encouraging the families to have more babies, but it should not be confined to monetary measures only. Concessions in childcare centres and priority in housing should be given as incentives for them to produce a second or a third baby to fulfil the goal of the Prime Minister. Has the Government considered these measures?

Mr Lim Boon Heng: Some of the measures to encourage couples to have children have been announced. I know that there are many other suggestions that people would have on how we can give further encouragement to couples to do so. The measures which Mr Ang mentioned will be considered together with all other suggestions that we have received from the public. I would like to encourage all Members and members of the public to send in their suggestions. All of them would be considered for their practicality in a holistic manner and not on a one-by-one basis.

Dr Lily Neo: May I suggest another important incentive, ie, to encourage young married couples to start having children earlier in order to address the present trend of later marriages and postponement of having children?

Mr Lim Boon Heng: If the Member has effective suggestions as to how to encourage people to marry younger and have children younger, please forward the suggestions.

Dr Vasoo: Sir, even if our parliamentary colleagues are going to give suggestions on the issue of "baby bonus", the support from Government is just lukewarm.

Mr Speaker: Dr Vasoo, are you asking a supplementary question or you are asking the next question?

Dr Vasoo: Sir, I am trying to ask the Minister whether he would relook at the whole issue by encouraging younger people to have family formation and see whether we could be more generous by looking at other incentives which would be necessary to support population growth.

Mr Lim Boon Heng: Mr Speaker, Sir, the cost of raising children varies from family to family but I hear that many people think it is not expensive. Whatever bonus or incentive that the Government gives to couples for raising their children cannot fully cover the total cost of raising those children. As I said, the measures are really to signal, to encourage, and not to pay for the full costs of bringing up children. It is not a simple subject why people marry earlier and have more children, and why other people do not. So over the next few months, maybe even years, we would have to consider all the various aspects of this issue, learn from the experience of other countries, find out what works and what does not.

The more difficult area to consider would be the social changes that have taken place in society, not only in ours but I think worldwide, and whether those changes can be reversed. It has to do with the values that people hold and when we talk about the subject of marriage and family formation, we are really going back to the old fundamentals. As I said, if there are good ideas and viewpoints as to how we can do it, and do an effective job of getting more babies born, please let us have these suggestions and we will consider them carefully and, in due course, perhaps another set of incentives could be announced.

Mr Speaker: I think we have enough baby talk for one day. Can you ask the next question, Dr Vasoo?

Dr Vasoo: Question No. 8.