Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on Hawker Stall Subletting and Hawker Succession Scheme

Question:

To ask the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (a) for each year since 2012, how many cases of hawker stall subletting have been detected; (b) for each year since the introduction of the Hawker Succession Scheme (HSS) on 1 January 2022, how many hawkers have taken up the HSS; and (c) whether NEA plans to review the HSS to discourage subletting.

Answer:

1 The National Environment Agency (NEA) takes a firm stance against subletting and conducts regular inspections to ensure that stallholders personally operate their stalls. Between 2012 and 2024, NEA has issued termination notices to about 230 stallholders who had received previous warnings for not personally operating their stalls. In 2024 alone, NEA issued Letters of Warning to more than 230 stallholders who did not personally operate their stalls and issued more than 30 termination notices.

2 The objective of the Hawkers Succession Scheme (HSS) is to facilitate succession rather than address subletting. Today, retiring veteran hawkers can pass down their skills, recipes, and hawker stalls to their family members or relatives. The HSS provides an alternative by matching them with aspiring successors, facilitating an apprenticeship process and transfer of the stall. Thus far, six veteran hawkers have successfully completed the transfer via the HSS, while four are currently in the process of doing so. NEA is further working with two other veteran hawkers to find suitable successors.