Leon Perera (Aljunied GRC): Getting those with less education hired
The Government should do more to help those with less education find a job, said Mr Perera, pointing to the prejudice faced by those who don’t have degrees and high levels of education.
He suggested that the Economic Development Board and Enterprise Singapore nudge foreign investors and local firms towards hiring some less educated Singaporeans, by making this one of the considerations in the award of economic incentives.
This way, these Singaporeans can be retrained so they can acquire the skills needed for them to earn higher pay.
Melvin Yong (Tanjong Pagar GRC): Make unit pricing displays mandatory
With product sizes and quantities shrinking as costs go up, it has become harder to figure out which products provide better value for money.
To make it easier for consumers to compare prices, it should be compulsory for supermarkets and other companies to display unit pricing, said Mr Yong.
He added that this should not be difficult, especially with many places using digital price tag displays these days.
NMP Abdul Samad Abdul Wahab: Extend childcare leave to parents of older kids
Singaporeans who want to have children should not worry about being left in the lurch, as there are many government schemes to help them, said Mr Abdul Samad. He backed his point by citing a friend who works as a postman and has 12 children.
To better support families, the Nominated MP suggested that the two-day childcare leave entitlement, now extended to parents until their children turn 12, should cover a longer period until the children finish secondary school.
Cheng Li Hui (Tampines GRC): More help for couples seeking fertility treatments
The Budget has been generous in supporting families, but the Government should also look at more “nuanced” ways of improving the birth rate here by providing more help for couples undergoing fertility treatment, said Ms Cheng.
She suggested building a fertility centre in the eastern part of Singapore so couples from Sengkang, Tampines and Punggol will have better access to fertility treatments. She also argued for allowing co-payment for pre-implantation genetic screening so that couples who have had miscarriages can have a better chance of success in subsequent rounds of in-vitro fertilisation.
Mariam Jaafar (Sembawang GRC): More support for those who lost jobs
Existing schemes could be improved to make it easier for people who have lost their jobs to bounce back. For example, the ComCare scheme can be tweaked to vary the assistance level based on income before a job was lost. This can be done for a limited time and subject to a person’s efforts to look for new jobs or attend suitable reskilling programmes, said Ms Mariam.
She noted that MPs from both sides of the House, including various members of the Workers’ Party and NTUC’s Mr Patrick Tay, have raised the possibility that the time may have come for Singapore to implement some form of redundancy or unemployment insurance.
These suggestions come amid an increasingly volatile environment and whispers that more retrenchments may be on the cards.
He Ting Ru (Sengkang GRC): Looking out for the lonely
Loneliness is often associated with retirees and older people, but studies around the world have found that younger people are, in fact, more likely to report feeling lonely, said Ms He.
She added that this cuts across cultures, genders and geographies, and asked the Government to look into the phenomenon urgently to better understand if it is happening in Singapore and how it affects the health of the people.
