The creation of an independent body to monitor the Government's expenditure was at the centre of a sustained exchange between Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh in Parliament yesterday, during the debate on the national Budget.

The Workers' Party (WP) secretary-general had called for the creation of such an office in Parliament to enhance scrutiny of government expenditure.

In his round-up speech, DPM Heng said there are already independent audits by the Auditor-General's Office, as well as parliamentary scrutiny through the Estimates and Public Accounts Committees.

With the WP already represented on both these parliamentary bodies, Mr Heng said a new office would be "a wasteful duplication of these functions".

Mr Singh responded that a parliament Budget office is "not an unusual institution in many parliamentary democracies" and that it is not just to help the opposition, but all MPs.

He recounted that as a member of the Estimates Committee some years back, a senior civil servant had remarked then that she could not be smarter than her boss, the Finance Minister.

A parliamentary Budget office would hence be able to provide independent analysis to confirm the efficacy of the Budget and that state programmes are delivering the desired outcomes, said Mr Singh.

Mr Heng rebutted Mr Singh's arguments and the anecdote about the senior civil servant as "totally convoluted (as) one does not lead to the other".

He noted that the Ministry of Finance (MOF) had released its interim assessment on the impact of Covid-19 Budget measures earlier this month, ahead of the Budget speech, so as to be accountable about the outcome of various support measures.

"There is a reason why I put out the interim report, even though the full effects have not been (felt), because I am conscious that we have used a big part of last year's Budget, we have used the past reserves, and that I have a responsibility to account for those outcomes," said Mr Heng.

He asked if Mr Singh or any of the WP MPs had read the report, and questioned the purpose of setting up a new office when information on the impact of programmes in last year's Budget was readily available to be scrutinised.

Mr Singh replied that the proposed parliamentary Budget office will balance out the MOF and its political office-holders' agendas by providing a perspective that is "completely independent of what Government is saying about the outcomes".

Mr Heng said the details of different schemes get discussed in the debates over the various ministries' budgets.

"This Budget debate is a serious debate about whether our broad direction is correct and do you have suggestions on how we can do it better? I'm open to your ideas, but I have to say, unfortunately, so far I have heard none," he said.

During the debate on MOF's budget later, Associate Professor Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC) also suggested setting up an independent fiscal council to evaluate the budgetary implications of major policy proposals by the Government and opposition, at a proposed initial cost of $20 million.

In her reply, Second Minister for Finance Indranee Rajah said that similar entities were created in countries such as Australia, Britain and the United States in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.

"In these cases, fiscal rules had proved insufficient to ensure prudent management of the public finances before the crisis," she said. "The context in Singapore is very different. The ills which led to the need for IFIs (independent fiscal institutions) in other systems are not present in our system and we continue to keep a very strict eye on our fiscal prudence."

As the Government and People's Action Party MPs would have a grasp of the costs of their proposals, Prof Lim was effectively asking for a new office to serve the opposition MPs, she said.

Noting that members of an independent fiscal council are not elected representatives, Ms Indranee said difficult decisions cannot be outsourced.

"Robust, intellectually honest analysis is important to foster more informed parliamentary debate. But ultimately, there is no substitute for having the political courage to make difficult budgetary choices," she said.