More than 50 questions on haze, car ownership rules, a healthcare system outage and child protection have been filed ahead of Tuesday’s sitting.

Transboundary Haze

The haze is the largest topic. MPs want to know whether Singapore’s laws are effective against a recurring problem, and why investigations into four companies over the 2015 haze remain unresolved after 11 years. Questions also cover enforcement under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, the economic and health costs of the haze, and protections for students and outdoor workers.

Government action so far includes a joint task force with Indonesia to investigate firms linked to forest fires, the first notices issued to Singapore-based firms under the Act, and possible changes to existing laws or new legislation. MPs have asked what is being done to hold companies accountable, how investigations of firm owners and financial links might be coordinated, and how preschools without air-conditioned indoor spaces are prepared for haze.

Car Ownership and COE Changes

The Land Transport Authority has proposed combining the Category A and Category B Certificates of Entitlement into a single category, with surcharges and rebates linked to a car’s open market value. MPs are asking what problem the change is meant to solve, whether it will keep meaningful differences between mass-market and higher-value cars, and whether families and small businesses that rely on cars will be considered. Other questions ask whether the fees and rebates are set as percentages or fixed amounts, and how to make sure rebates reach buyers rather than being absorbed by dealers.

Healthcare System Disruption

A technical fault disrupted services across all three public healthcare clusters for nine hours on 13 October. The national health technology agency Synapxe said there was no sign of a cyber incident. MPs want to know whether the shared system has an independent fallback, what the maximum restoration time is and whether it was met, how many patients were affected, and why backup systems did not prevent the outage. They also ask whether investigations are complete and what steps will reduce future disruptions.

Child Protection

Several MPs have asked about safeguards after an eight-month-old baby died in September 2024 following repeated abuse by his parents, who were sentenced to jail on 21 October. Questions focus on how suspected abuse of children aged three and below is identified when they are not known to social services, how warning signs seen by carers and professionals are linked, whether the SAFER framework would have detected such cases, and whether information from healthcare visits should feed into cross-agency risk assessments.