WP and PSP welcome NDR 2024 policy shifts, call for deeper reforms on public housing

SINGAPORE: A day after Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s maiden National Day Rally speech, the opposition Workers’ Party (WP) and Progress Singapore Party (PSP) welcomed the policy shifts he announced, although they also called for deeper reforms in public housing policies.
From the middle of 2025, singles will be included in schemes that give priority to those applying for BTO flats to live with or near their families. The Enhanced Central Provident Fund (CPF) Housing Grant will also be increased, especially for lower-income couples looking to buy their first homes.
In a statement on Monday (Aug 19), the WP noted the extension of the priority scheme to singles. But it referenced its 2020 manifesto which calls for the eligibility age for singles to apply for a BTO flat to be lowered from 35 to 28.
Currently, singles aged 35 and older can buy new flats from the Housing and Development Board (HDB) but this only applies to two-room Flexi flats.
Sengkang GRC MP Louis Chua elaborated on WP’s stance during a parliamentary speech in September 2022.
He said at the time that most Singaporeans “would have been in the workforce for a few years and have begun to lead more independent lives” aged 28.
Mr Chua suggested that lowering the eligibility age would go a long way towards HDB’s stated aims for Singapore’s public housing to be “inclusive” and to “reflect the diversity of our society”.
He also stressed that any lowering of singles’ eligibility age for BTO flats would “not detract from marriage and family formation”, citing data from past exercises that show they are not in competition with young couples and families for the same type of flats in non-mature estates.
In its statement on Monday, the WP called on the government to “make this deeper policy reform sooner than later”, so as to “more comprehensively allay concerns among singles regarding housing access”.
In a Facebook post on Monday, PSP secretary-general Hazel Poa said that her party was disappointed that the government has “yet again failed to address the root problem of our public housing policies, which we believe require a fundamental rethink”.
The move to increase the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant for couples with lower income “is simply more of the same”, said Ms Poa.
She reiterated two schemes that the PSP had suggested in 2023. These include the Affordable Home Scheme which proposed land costs be deferred when flat buyers purchase a home from HDB, with such costs to be paid only if the flat is sold on the resale market.
The other PSP proposal, the Millennial Apartments Scheme, suggests that the government provide a large stock of “quality flats” near the central business district for young Singaporeans to rent for two to five years at affordable rates.
On the introduction of a new SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support scheme, the WP said it was in agreement with Mr Wong that losing a job can seriously destabilise workers and their families.
The new scheme gives lower- and middle-income workers who involuntarily lose their jobs temporary financial support of up to S$6,000 for over up to six months. 
The WP cited its 2016 policy paper that called for the implementation of a redundancy insurance scheme.
Its proposal aims to ease the financial pressure on workers who are made redundant, to provide them with a longer runway to find suitable re-employment and to minimise the toll of unemployment on the health and well-being of their families.
The opposition party said it reiterated the call in its 2020 General Election manifesto as well as during the Budget 2023 debate in parliament.
According to WP’s manifesto, retrenched workers would receive a payout equivalent to 40 per cent of their last drawn salary for up to six months.
The payout would be capped at S$1,200 per month with a minimum payout of S$500 a month to benefit low-wage workers. Payouts after the first one would be conditional on the worker actively seeking a new job or undergoing re-training.
WP added its redundancy insurance scheme was “designed with a view to be funded mainly by premiums paid by workers while they are employed, rather than by taxpayers”.
PSP’s Ms Poa similarly welcomed the benefits for the involuntarily unemployed.
The Non-Constituency MP noted that she had called for temporary financial support for the involuntarily unemployed during the Budget debate in February, recognising that retrenchments are becoming increasingly common.
“We are glad that the government is now ready to implement the scheme to aid the involuntarily unemployed,” she said.
“However, the PSP thinks that based on currently available details for the SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support Scheme, more can be done for lower- and middle-income workers.”
Both the WP and PSP also welcomed Mr Wong’s announcement that parents of newborns will get an extra 10 weeks of shared leave. 
Parents will have a total of 30 weeks of paid leave when a new shared parental leave scheme is fully implemented on Apr 1, 2026. 
Referring again to its 2020 manifesto, the WP said its proposal entitles parents to 24 weeks of government-paid leave. It is shared between mothers and fathers as they choose, but with a minimum of 12 weeks to be granted to the mother and four weeks to the father.
WP said Mr Chua as well as fellow Sengkang GRC MP and Associate Professor Jamus Lim had repeated this call during the parliamentary debate on the White Paper on Singapore Women’s Development in April 2022.
Ms Poa said the PSP is “heartened that the new PM continues to place great emphasis on uplifting our nation’s low total fertility rate”.
The additional weeks of shared parental leave is a “much-needed change to promote the sharing of parental duties”, she added.
Ms Poa noted that during the debate on Singapore women’s development in parliament in 2022, she had called for parental leave to be shared equally by default with the flexibility to reallocate the leave between the parents based on mutual agreement.
“But we believe that more still needs to be done to encourage couples to have children,” she added.