Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): Mr Chairman, Parliament currently has seven standing Select Committees. But none of these is specific to individual Ministries. This is quite unlike many other legislatures around the world.
The United Kingdom’s (UK’s) House of Commons, for example, has Select Committees for every government department, like Defence, Home Affairs and Transport, to name a few. Australia’s parliament has House Standing Committees on Health, Aged Care and Sport and on Employment, Education and Training, among others.
These Select Committees examine each ministry’s policies, spending and administration. They are empowered to inquire into and report on any matter referred to them by the House or Minister. The committees may call in subject matter experts to give testimony and answer questions from members that can inform their considerations.
Select committees also provide a platform for members to better understand each other’s positions and that of the government. The government may share in confidence with committees information that shapes its policy stances. The committees can discuss legislation or major policy changes before they are officially tabled so that there is more room to work out, compromises before each party takes its position publicly.
After a thorough scrutiny of legislation and policies, the Select Committees can make recommendations to parliament before bills and motions are debated and voted on by all MPs. This process will lead to more informed and constructive debate and better decision making in parliament. The committees thus help to contribute to more effective governance, build political consensus and strengthen national unity.
For these reasons, I call on Parliament to set up Standing Select Committees for each Ministry or group of related Ministries, consisting of MPs from all political parties represented in Parliament. They should be supported by the Parliament Secretariat and meeting minutes should be made available to all committee members. Ministries should endeavour to engage them on a regular basis.
The Leader of the House (Ms Indranee Rajah): I move on now to the second point about Parliamentary Committees or Select Committees, which Ms He alluded to, and I think that was essentially the main point of what Mr Gerald Giam raised. He is essentially saying that in addition to the Standing Select Committees that we have, we should create more Select Committees to oversee various Ministries, if that is how I understood him correctly, and that has been done in other countries.
I think the question that we have to ask ourselves is, in the other countries where they have these multitudes of Select Committees, are they necessarily better governed? Do they necessarily have better outcomes? Are their Parliaments more efficient? Is their government more trusted? I would venture to say no, not necessarily, to all of those questions. In fact, on many international rankings by any measure, you will find that Singapore fares well in governance, transparency, in lack of corruption, or in low corruption. Where it is discovered, it is dealt with promptly, quickly and decisively.
Having more Standing Committees or more Select Committees would not be very productive. For example, it would be unproductive for every Ministry to have to answer to a standing Select Committee. Setting up a Committee for each Ministry requires significant time. Ministries would also have to expend scarce resources reporting to and preparing answers for their respective Committees. These are resources which could be spent on important policy work.
Members will also be keenly aware that our Parliamentary Sittings have grown longer, busier and more frequent. Ministries are spending more time than ever preparing for Parliamentary Sittings. There is a cost to this as it eats into the time that the Ministries have for their policy and other work. For these reasons, creating Standing Select Committees for every Ministry would do little to enhance accountability or increase productivity or efficiency.
Instead, we convene ad hoc Select Committees where appropriate, for smaller groups of MPs to study and report to Parliament on specific topics, and sometimes novel issues of national interest.
One example is the Select Committee on deliberate online falsehoods, which Ms He also mentioned, that was appointed in 2018 to study what was then, and still is, a new and complex societal problem. To examine this one policy issue – just this one, not even the work of the entire Ministry – the Committee held 16 meetings over eight months, conducted public consultations with many stakeholders, and received written representations and oral evidence from individuals and organisations alike, before reporting its findings to Parliament.
So, you can imagine having many more Standing Select Committees, each one to inspect one Ministry that oversees many policy issues would be very costly in terms of opportunity cost as well as the time taken up for the civil servants, the Ministers and the Ministries to do this. Since most of our policy issues are cross-cutting, the value of setting up Ministry-specific committees is also questionable.
What we have is a system that works. When the Ministries have a policy, it is brought to Parliament, either through a Motion or during the Budget debate, which has a broader overview, or when a specific Act is being passed. We must remember, a Select Committee is really a mini version of Parliament as a whole. But here you have everybody that is able to ask questions and participate in debate. So, the public does not lose out by this.
In terms of being accessible to the public, that does not actually have much to do with Parliamentary procedure. That has to do with how MPs conduct themselves in their everyday duties, where they see and speak to their residents, interact with their residents and then bring the issues that are of concern to their residents to this Chamber. We are well-versed with all the concerns of the residents of Clementi. [Laughter.]
This is how you bring residents’ issues to the Chamber and how you make Parliament accessible. That is the work that has to be done on the ground.
The Chairman: Mr Gerald Giam.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: I thank the Minister for answering my cut. Sir, is the Minister saying that, and I paraphrase, that Select Committees do not lead to better governance and trust?
I do not think she has established that causality. I am referring to Select Committees in other countries. I do not think she has established that causality, that they lead to poorer governance and trust. Because is she saying that they cause the people to trust the Government less, because of the Select Committees?
Ms Indranee Rajah: I thank the Member for his clarification. No, I am not saying that at all. What I was responding to is the underlying assumption that always goes with the proposal to have Select Committees.
I assume that the reason why the Member suggests having Select Committees is: he feels it would make for better governance and that it would make for better accountability. I am addressing that point.
I am saying that having Select Committees does not necessarily guarantee nor give you better governance or better accountability. I am saying that the processes that we have give a lot of room for the Government and Ministers to be held to account. And I am saying that the system that we have already allows for very good governance. I do not think that having Select Committees essentially overseeing Ministries or having Ministries reporting to them will improve things.
My reference to other countries was then to say that, when you look at those other countries, they do have Select Committees or their equivalents, but are their outcomes better than ours? It does not appear to be so. That was the point I was making.
The Chairman: Mr Giam.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: I thank the Minister. A second clarification on the point she makes about Select Committees being unproductive and a drag on Government’s resources. What about the resources used by Government Parliamentary Committees (GPCs)? How is the time and resources that Ministries spend answering questions and briefing GPCs justified? Even more so, given that they are not Parliament organs, but PAP party organs?
Ms Indranee Rajah: I thank the Member for this clarification too. I am afraid the Member may have it back to front. GPCs are a party construct. They are called “Parliamentary Committees”, but they are not a “Parliament Committee”. They are PAP Committees, but they are called “Government Parliamentary Committees” because they come from the party forming the Government.
They were formed, for those who are familiar with its history, back in 1987. When they were formed, then-Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong took pains to explain that they were different from Select Committees, which include representation from all parties. GPCs do not.
The purpose of the GPCs was to allow the ruling party, which was the dominant party, to enable or to help the Government’s MPs to perform their duties better, by playing a more effective role in the policy-making process, to tap on their expertise and to allow them to give political feedback.
In other words, the role of the GPCs within the party construct is to give feedback to the Ministers and to the Ministries, to enable the Government to do better policy-making. It is not the reverse, where the Ministries brief the GPCs or report to the GPCs.
Ministries can brief GPCs where there is a matter that they need to seek the GPCs’ input or views on, but the inputs are given through the Minister, because the GPCs essentially are a party construct. Essentially, the GPCs’ role is to scrutinise legislation, to make suggestions to the Minister, and to help the Ministries to do better.
For example, the Pioneer Generation Package is not means-tested. This was something that the GPC for Finance Chair Mr Liang Eng Hwa strongly advocated for and it was something that was fed back to us. We took that into account.
I know that others also give feedback, and we take feedback from everyone, but essentially, the GPC framework is the party’s way of organising their MPs to give feedback to the Minister. I think just this year, for example, members of the GPC for Communications and Information tabled a Motion on building an inclusive and safe digital society, and members for the GPC for Health filed a Motion on improving mental health and well-being.
So, the role of the GPCs is really for MPs from the governing party to help the Government to do better.
The Chairman: Mr Giam. One short clarification, please.
Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: Thank you for your indulgence, Chairman. Just one last set of questions. Do GPCs get confidential briefings by Government Ministries that are not made available to opposition Members? The Minister said that GPCs get information through the Minister. Does that mean that civil servants do not brief the GPCs?
Ms Indranee Rajah: Ministries may brief a GPC for the Ministry’s purposes, if the Ministry wishes to seek feedback or to find out about something which the Ministry is doing. But if there is anything which is political, that is really not for the civil servants. That is really for the Minister and the GPCs, because the GPCs come from the same party as the Minister.
Parliament
7 March 2024
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=budget-2407
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 