Mr Leon Perera: Thank you, Mr Chairman, Sir. Just three clarifications for Minister Masagos. I will try and keep it short. Firstly, would the Ministry consider the proposal contained in my Budget speech to set a poverty line and measure the number of families, particularly, the number of children, who fall below this line everyContinue reading “COS 2022: Clarifications on Poverty Line, Financial Assistance, and Inter-generational Social Mobility”
Category Archives: COS 2022: Leon Perera
COS 2022: Clarifications on Preventive Healthcare and Recognition for Cleaners
Mr Leon Perera: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Just saw two clarifications. The first one to Minister Ong. As the Minister observed, the preventive healthcare has been a long journey. HPB was founded in 2001 and we have been spending, I think, about $300 million a year for quite some time. But over the last 10Continue reading “COS 2022: Clarifications on Preventive Healthcare and Recognition for Cleaners”
COS 2022: Healthcare Infrastructure
Mr Leon Perera: Mr Chairman, over FY2016 to 2018, our public and total healthcare expenditure remained constant at 2.1% and 4.1% of our GDP respectively, approximately, but has since increased. For comparison, Japan spends 9.3%, Germany spends 10.7% and the OECD average is about 8.8%. However, these two years have shown that we need a muchContinue reading “COS 2022: Healthcare Infrastructure”
COS 2022: Healthcare Workers’ Working Conditions
Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied): Mr Chairman, I recently filed Parliamentary Questions on junior doctors’ working conditions. I would like to call for a review of the current 80 working hour per week guidelines, with a view to reducing it marginally, say, to 70 hours. Some overseas studies do show that work hour reforms are notContinue reading “COS 2022: Healthcare Workers’ Working Conditions”
COS 2022: Food Insecurity and Unhealthy Eating
Mr Leon Perera: Mr Chairman, Sir, a recent study estimated that 10% of resident households were food insecure in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this, with many low-income families struggling from the financial fallout. Food distribution drives do important work, but may be fragmented and lead to food wastage if rations are unsuitable dueContinue reading “COS 2022: Food Insecurity and Unhealthy Eating”
COS 2022: Reviewing Approaches to Tackle Poverty
Mr Leon Perera: Mr Chairman, Sir, in my Budget speech, I argued for a war on poverty and a different approach based on defining a poverty line, channeling all schemes through FSC social workers, reducing the stress involved in applying for financial assistance, providing longer lead times and larger amounts of financial assistance based onContinue reading “COS 2022: Reviewing Approaches to Tackle Poverty”
COS 2022: Early Intervention Programmes
Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied): Mr Chairman, Sir, students from low-income families tend to be more vulnerable to long-term absenteeism in schools. For families where persistent absenteeism is an issue, I would like to propose a conditional cash transfer programme – not a transfer to the Child Development Account – for these students in Primary and SecondaryContinue reading “COS 2022: Early Intervention Programmes”
COS 2022: Carbon Capture
Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied): Mr Chairman, Sir, nature-based climate solutions are powerful methods of carbon capture. They also have the added benefit of protecting ecosystems. As we move to set up our carbon trading hub and companies consider buying carbon credits from overseas entities to offset emission, there is a pressing need to ensure projects areContinue reading “COS 2022: Carbon Capture”
COS 2022: Clarification on Publishing of Schools-related information
Mr Leon Perera: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Just one point of clarification to the Minister Dr Maliki who addressed my cut and it is in relation to my cut where I asked if the Government can publish data by SES, background, for admissions into the different categories of schools: Government, Government-aided and Independent. I think thatContinue reading “COS 2022: Clarification on Publishing of Schools-related information”
COS 2022: Understanding Socio-economic Status Trends in Education
Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied): Mr Chairman, I filed a Parliamentary Question last November, asking for data on the socio-economic backgrounds of students admitted into different categories of Secondary schools, such as Government, Government-aided and Independent categories. I wanted to find out the extent to which students from well-off families were concentrated in the more popularContinue reading “COS 2022: Understanding Socio-economic Status Trends in Education”
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