News that Government is considering changes to the rule that prevents Bermudians married to non-Bermudians from owning more than one home is very welcome.

This policy may have been put in place with all the right intentions — to ensure that Bermudians continued to own most of the real estate in Bermuda — but it was ill considered and has proven to be discriminatory — not to non-Bermudians, but to Bermudians who happened to marry someone who happened to be born somewhere else.

As MP John Barritt said, the fact that some marriages between Bermudians and non-Bermudians are marriages of convenience is no reason to punish others.

On Friday, Junior Immigration Minister Walter Roban was unable to say more than that his Minister, Sen. David Burch is considering changes and may be able to announce them before the end of this Parliamentary session. But it will be interesting to see what Sen. Burch, who in public has been uncompromising on this issue, will have to say.

Coco Reef lease

Auditor General Heather Jacobs Matthews' decision to investigate the new lease for the Coco Reef Hotel is welcome.

This lease, which replaces its controversial predecessor signed in 2003, is still not officially public after Government rejected the claim that Parliament had oversight over the lease, because it was issued by the quasi-autonomous Bermuda College.

But the reality is that the College is Government-owned. It gets almost all of its revenue from the Government, which also appoints its board and its follows Ministry of Education policy with regard to tertiary education. For example, in 2007, the Progressive Labour Party promised to abolish fees for full-time Bermuda College students and it was done. Had the board refused to follow that policy, it is clear its membership would soon change.

Aside from that, this audit is long overdue. Few of the recommendations made by Mrs. Jacobs Mathews' predecessor, Larry Dennis, have been taken up, most glaringly that the lease should have been put back out to tender because the final lease bore so little resemblance to the original.

And now, essentially behind closed doors, the lease has been renegotiated, with the term extended to 125 years from 50 and that the hotel will now pay more for the electricity it uses. The hotel will also pay $200,000 a month in rent, with additional rent to be paid if the hotel makes a gross profit, something that has not yet happened.

It may be that the audit finds that everything, except the secrecy with which the new lease was negotiated, is above board and sensible. Either way, this will give the general public some assurance that their property is being looked after properly.