yesterday the charge that his six-man Independence delegation to England is a "junket''.

Mr. Pearman, who heads the Cabinet committee preparing a discussion paper on Independence, leaves for London later this month with committee members the Hon. Maxwell Burgess, the Hon. Jerome Dill, the Hon. David Saul, and the Hon.

Clarence Terceira.

Adviser the Hon. Sir John Sharpe will accompany the delegation, but committee secretary Mr. Kenneth Richardson will not, Mr. Pearman said.

The group is to meet with Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Mr. Tony Baldry. Meetings are also expected with F&CO officials, the Privy Council executive, and the Bermuda Society, Mr.

Pearman said.

While the Deputy Premier described the trip as a fact finding mission for the discussion paper, known as a Green Paper, Opposition Leader Mr. Frederick Wade said the trip is a waste of time and money.

"All it is is a junket and a waste of public funds,'' Mr. Wade said.

There was no need for the trip, he said. In upgrading the previous Cabinet papers on Independence there was no reason to talk to British politicians, he said. The delegation would be told there were "no halfway houses'' on the road to Independence, and the question of metropolitan status for Bermuda would have to wait until after Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese in 1997.

If a delegation had to go to London, Mr. Pearman and Mr. Richardson would have been sufficient, Mr. Wade said.

Mr. Pearman said Mr. Wade's comments had "no substance whatsoever.'' Independence was a matter critical to Bermuda, and if the committee did not go to England, it would be accused of "dealing flippantly with it,'' he said.

More than two full days of meetings were planned on October 26, 27, and 28, Mr. Pearman said. Questions would cover both the effects of Bermuda turning Independent and possible changes if the Island remained a dependent territory, he said.