Government will be pressing on with parliamentary reform but Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley says recommendations will not be implemented simply “for the sake of change”.
Before being adjourned until July 15, the House of Assembly yesterday passed a resolution to take note of the 2024 report of the Parliamentary Reform Commission.
Mottley, who wrapped up the debate which she started last week, said there now needed to be a meeting involving the leader’s of Government’s business in both Houses of Parliament to “discuss . . . the parameters of what goes to the Joint Select Committee for them to review”.
Parallel track
“I imagine that it will take some time since the rest of Parliament’s work will not come to an end but will continue on a parallel track,” she said.
“We don’t want change for the sake of change, because Barbadians learned the hard way in 2008 that an entreaty to change for the sake of change led to the lost decade. So that change in and of itself, is not necessarily being recommended.”
Mottley reiterated that “Government will have a position on certain matters that should go to a Joint Select Committee to determine how best or if or when we put certain things in place . . . with respect to the matter of some of these suggestions, whether it be national MPs, whether it be diasporic MPs, whatever . . . things that are not of immediate decision”.
One important matter to be dealt with is the tenure of President The Most Honourable Dame Sandra Mason.
The Prime Minister said that “later this year, the Honourable President’s term will come to an end, and therefore we must be in a position to ensure that the country’s business and our Head of State’s appointment and election by Parliament continues apace without any improper delay whatsoever”.
“So that this work here will continue. And whether it continues through immediate action of the Executive triggering action of Parliament, or whether it continues through action of the Management Commission of Parliament working on a Joint Select Committee to be able to determine those things that are best determined by the Joint Select Committee of Parliament, they will all take place.”
Mottley also told Speaker Arthur Holder that there was “virtual unanimity that you may well create history by being the last
person who sits in that chair coming from an elected bench”.
“And I think that all of us in here, from what I can gather, find favour with that, and that is not to get you out of a job, because you are in the job until such time as an election is called, and we are, by law are just [about] two years away from that date,” she said.
Code of conduct
Mottley believes that the establishment of a code of conduct for MPs is the first issue that the Management Commission of Parliament “ought to be addressing”.
She added that “the matter of access to constituency representation funds and the issue of the revision of the pension age, . . . all of those could as well come more or less in quick order, but we do accept that there are some things that require the deliberate further research of others”.
On matters like constituency representation, the Prime Minister said she asked Cabinet Office to do a research paper. Her feeling was that Parliament itself may well want to examine the issue.
This was to ensure “clarity as to whether the constituency representation allowances ought to be within the context of Parliament or ought to be within the context of the Executive, recognising that Parliament also receives its funds [and] does its own budget”.
“I think that Barbados can say that for the first time in a half a century, we have the possibility of reviewing how best we can improve how we govern ourselves and I look forward now to the actual execution of those policies that will allow us to have the rubber hit the road and to bring improvements to the people of this country.”
(SC)
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