The Anguillian newspaper posed the following question to the Minister of Home Affairs and Constitutional Reform. Mr. Kenneth Hodge, late last week:
When the second session of the Anguilla House of Assembly begins in November, following its proroguing, will the Governor deliver a Throne Speech setting out the Government’s policies and agenda? The question was based on the practice, in previous years, when the then Governors delivered such a speech. It was equivalent to the Queen’s traditional address at the opening of the British Parliament.
Minister Hodge replied to the newspaper by saying that Premier Dr. Ellis Lorenzo Webster, Leader of Government Business, would deliver the address. As a matter of fact, it is many years that the Government has not done so and hardly, if ever, had previous political leaders bothered about the matter. It cannot even be ascertained when last, other than now, that the House of Assembly was prorogued.
Minister Hodge repeated his view during a Radio Anguilla interview on Wednesday, October 13, 2021.
The Premier’s address, on Government’s policies, programmes and legislative agenda will be seen not only as a departure from the traditional Throne Speech by the Governor. It will also show that, at this time of constitutional reform, and the building of an Anguillian island nation that, at least, at the coming new session of the Anguilla House of Assembly, colonial practice is not as much as it used to be in the past.
Of course this is notwithstanding that, during the GST debate earlier this year, two British-appointed Ex-Officio Members voted to ensure the passage of the contentious Bill, while two Elected Ministers did not support it.
