Legislation enabling the Government to get a clear picture of how prices on essential goods transition from the docks to store shelves is crucial for reining in the island’s cost of living, the Ministry of Home Affairs has said.

The ministry added it was still often in the dark when it came to delivering a comprehensive public price-comparison tool, as authorised in legislation approved in March.

It said only the grocer Lindo’s had “supplied complete data” — and that the Cost of Living Commission had written to each retailer individually to resolve this ahead of the latest legislation getting tabled.

The response came from Alexa Lightbourne after the Bermuda Chamber of Commerce gave comeback to the Cost of Living Commission Amendment (No 2) Bill 2026 this week, describing the mood among the island’s consumers as “frustrated” and distrustful of how prices were set.

However, the chamber said the Bill, requiring businesses to provide a monthly breakdown of how costs were set on essentials and empowering the minister to intervene, amounted to “compulsion”.

Ms Lightbourne replied that the Government and the chamber “agree on the starting point” in the goal of easing the cost of living.

The Bill was approved by MPs in July but paused in the Senate on July 22 before it could come to its third and final reading, which will be debated at the next sitting of the Upper House.

The ministry stated: “Families in Bermuda are paying more for food than at any point in the past decade, and they are entitled to know whether relief granted in their name reaches the shelf.

“The Bill exists to answer that question. Since 2023, Government has removed or reduced duty on essential goods.

“In the most recent year, that relief amounted to $4.6 million in duty forgone on $50.7 million of grocery imports. Across all cost-of-living measures, including fuel and electricity relief, it totals roughly $4 million over successive years.”

While the ministry acknowledged that the Cost of Living Commission was able to see what a household paid at the register, it “cannot yet see the costs that sit between the dock and that register”.

“The Bill gives the commission that second view.”

Ms Lightbourne insisted that while a shelf price “tells a family what they paid”, the costs behind it would reveal “whether the duty Government waived was passed on”.

“This Bill lets the commission follow the journey an essential good travels and the costs that build its final price. That is verification. It is the same verification the chamber says it wants.”

Along with essential commodities listed in its regulations, the legislation was said to cover three named critical services: electricity, telecommunications and trucked water.

The ministry said: “Those services already report their costs to the Regulatory Authority. The Bill lets the commission see how regulated charges reach a household bill.”

Responding to the Chamber of Commerce’s concern that the wording of the legislation could lead to it getting applied to “any other business that sells to a Bermudian household”, the ministry said: “Restaurants and general retail sit outside the Act.”

It said the legislation and its regulations set “a common standard for what a compliant submission looks like” on how prices were set — which would allow the price comparison tool for consumers to launch.

Ms Lightbourne added: “Every retailer that supplied its data in full has nothing new to do under this Bill. The compliance burden falls on the gap between what was asked for in 2022 and what was delivered.”

She said the ministry had heeded the chamber’s alternative proposals, and that “several are already in motion”.

A “public-facing aggregator” called for by the business group, using price details already online from the private sector, was said to be “in build”.

The chamber had also suggested a “grocery code of conduct” as an alternative to price control.

The ministry responded that a consultation paper for the proposed Competition Act 2026 covered such a move, and invited the chamber to “submit that proposal formally through it”.

Lastly, the ministry stated that proposals such as freight offsets and cutting the island’s sugar tax were “matters for the Ministry of Finance, and this ministry will carry them forward”.