The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of the UK House of Commons has published their Seventh Report on the Overseas Territories.
It includes a wide variety of “housekeeping” suggestions regarding ways to improve governance in the Overseas Territories as well as to improve the UK’s relationship with them.
It includes a whirlwind tour of Bermuda’s dysfunctions including BHC and other alleged corruptions, harassing the auditor general, SDOs, PATI, and parliamentary reform (para 204-214). Other areas of interest:
- The PLP’s interest in independence apparently running counter to voters’ wishes and the trend in all the other Overseas Territories. (para 31-34)
- Bermuda is pissed at OFCOM (UK communications regulator) about quality of their representation over the island’s satellite orbits. (para 96)
- Rights of long term residents. (para 270-272)
- Bermuda Regiment. (para 276-285)
- A number of the aldermen and mayoral candidates of the Corporation of Hamilton made plaintive submissions, but these did not make the cut for the report.
Following are some of the specific recommendations that have been made pertaining to Bermuda:
- We recommend that the (UK) Government sets out in its response to this Report the steps it has taken to ensure that allegations of corruption at the Bermuda Housing Corporation, in the issuing of contracts, and of electoral fraud in Bermuda are properly investigated. We also recommend that the (UK) Government should encourage the Bermuda government to strengthen its transparency measures, including by establishing an independent Electoral Commission and ending the practice of Committees of the House of Assembly sitting in camera. (see para 214)
- We recommend that the (UK) Government should take steps to ensure that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender status is made illegal in all Overseas Territories. (para 260)
- We conclude that although extending voting rights to non-Belongers (aka Permanent Residents in Bermuda jargon) will be politically difficult for Overseas Territory governments, the (UK) Government should at least encourage local administrations to review this issue with regard to non-Belongers who have resided in an Overseas Territory for a reasonable period. We recommend that the (UK) Government should propose that non-Belongers’ rights be an agenda item for the next Overseas Territories Consultative Council. (para 275)
- We recommend that the (UK) Government should encourage the Bermuda Government to move away from conscription and towards the Bermuda Regiment becoming a more professional organisation, with voluntary and paid elements. We conclude that this could make serving in the Regiment more attractive, giving it the staffing resources required to extend into maritime duties. (para 285)
- We recommend that the FCO should encourage Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and Gibraltar to continue to make progress in improving financial regulation, in particular in arrangements for investigating money laundering. (para 311)
- We recommend that the FCO should strongly encourage all Overseas Territories which have not yet done so to introduce freedom of information legislation. We also recommend that the FCO should review with Overseas Territories what steps they might take to improve their public accounting and auditing capability. (para 233)
