The Senate’s decision to postpone debate on cost-of-living legislation on Wednesday shows why the Upper House matters. The Senate’s role in Bermuda politics is to act as a revising chamber. It does not have the power to reject legislation permanently, but it can amend legislation or force a year’s delay on laws it thinks are flawed.

Constitutionally, the Government does not have a guaranteed majority in the Senate. It must persuade at least one of the three independent senators to vote with it if it wishes to pass legislation.

On Wednesday, the Senate unusually did not reject amendments to the cost-of-living law, but did delay its implementation until at least September, while reserving for itself the ability to turn it down then.

In part, the Government has been hung by its own petard. In common with many of its predecessors, it attempted to jam through a wide range of legislation, including the cost-of-living amendments, in the final parliamentary session before legislators break for the Cup Match holiday.

They are due to return for two more sessions in September before breaking again until the Throne Speech in November, when a new parliamentary year begins.

Independent and opposition leaders argued that they had not had sufficient time to examine the legislation and sought to delay the whole debate until September. This stratagem failed, but after a debate, and before the final vote, the opposition and independent senators refused to allow Government to suspend the rule requiring a further week’s break before the legislation could be passed. Instead, the six senators said they wanted more time to look at the law change.

The senators, rightly, said they would not be stampeded into passing legislation over which they have doubts.

The event particularly puts Joan Dillas-Wright in the spotlight because her two Senate colleagues, John Wight and Tawana Tannock, have signalled they will almost certainly oppose the Bill.

They have rejected the Government’s claims that this legislation is quite innocent and well-intentioned. The government senators argued that it was needed to give customers a clear understanding of how goods are priced and to ensure that customs duty reductions were passed on to customers.

Few people would not want a better understanding of how prices are calculated, especially when confronted with often eye-watering prices, especially compared with other countries.

More troubling were two other parts of the Bill. One requires retailers, when goods have been determined to be critical goods, to submit documentation to show why prices have increased by more than 5 per cent. Retailers say this increase is onerous and would add crippling costs to retailers.

The minister then has 30 days to decide if the price increase is justified. There are two problems with this. One is that this will have a devastating effect on fresh produce which will literally rot if it takes 30 days to decide on the price.

The second is with the principle of a government minister deciding what the price of a head of lettuce should be.

The retailers point out that the price of an item can fluctuate dramatically and is dependent on factors well outside of the retailers’ control.

The bigger concern is with price controls, which no matter how much the Government denies it, is what this is.

David Burt, the Premier, has publicly stated that the broad imposition of price controls does not work. But he has defended price controls being used to be certain that duty breaks on essential goods are passed on to the consumer.

The difficulty comes in determining how you decide that point while also giving individual retailers the ability to price items according to their own business models and strategies.

Interfering with these processes risks simply having the retailer withdraw the product if they do not see how they can make a return on it. Price controls, quite simply, lead to empty shelves. Retailers will not sell goods at a loss or at a inadequate margin. It makes no sense.

This is not to say that there is no room for any price regulation. Belco, which has a near monopoly on energy generation and a total monopoly on distribution, has its price regulated. But the Government and Belco sensibly allow the one significant variable — the cost of fuel — to fluctuate with the market, because it is the only practical solution.

But to take another example, the supermarkets are not a monopoly despite recent mergers, and there should be enough competition to force price competition.

That is not to say that food in Bermuda is not amazingly expensive. The Government is to be commended for reducing customs duty on essential foodstuffs, and should continue to do the same.

It now believes that these savings are not being passed on to the consumer, but has no real way of determining that — in part because the duty reduction may be a small part of the overall price of a good.

Further, a close examination of the Government’s own Consumer Price Index helps to explain why prices are so high. In 2022 in the wake of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, food prices jumped 7.9 per cent before rising 6.5 per cent in 2023 and 3.6 per cent in 2024. But in 2025, food prices rose 2.1 per cent — less than rent, clothing, fuel and healthcare. That does not suggest consistent price gouging.

This is not to say that price transparency is not valid; grocers in particular would do well to explain their pricing mechanisms. And grocers should also be aware that the consolidation in the industry to four main supermarket groups is cause for concern in terms of competition. If the industry consolidates further, the perception that it is maintaining artificially high prices will grow.

This is where the Government can play a more constructive role than in trying to dictate prices.

It should focus on encouraging competition and deterring monopolies. The best way to do that is to make doing business in Bermuda easier, not harder. The kind of compliance it will now require from business to explain price increases will place a heavier administrative burden on the smaller retailer, which does not have a substantial back-office operation.

Instead, by increasing regulation, the Government risks encouraging consolidation — the opposite effect than what was intended.

The Senate was right to force a delay in this legislation. It should also give Government time to rethink what may turn out to be a well-intentioned but wrong-headed law.