Aside from its main thrust on Independence, there is a fair amount of meat in the Throne Speech, particularly on housing.

But it is also notable for what is missing, especially on the Social Agenda, which dominated last year’s speech.

While many items in the Speech can be defined as falling under the “Social Agenda”, direct references are mainly limited to the formation of a Social Agenda Management Resource Team, which is given the unfortunate acronym SAMRT.

It is hard to avoid the notion that SAMRT, as opposed to SMART, sums up the whole Social Agenda programme as a public relations exercise which has always has been less than the sum of its parts and has never been taken seriously — either within Government or without.

Still, the Government at last seems to be making a serious attempt to deal with the Island’s most serious social issue, housing, with the announcement of a raft of new projects extending from Dockyard to the Baselands.

On the face of it, along with Government’s claim that it has already provided homes for almost 800 families, this looks impressive, as does the promise to have the planned 330 rental units built within 30 months.

But the plans do not necessarily survive closer scrutiny. Some of the projects were promised in the 2005 Budget, some in the 2004 Throne Speech and so on. This year’s speech claims that Governmenht and the Bermuda Housing Corporation have provided 800 homes since 1998. But this figure includes more than 400 new mortgages obtained through the BHC, as opposed to them being provided to people in desperate need of housing. That may be unfair, because home ownership goes to creating a stable community, but it throws some doubt on the “headline” number, which seems to be being produced now to counter widespread claims Government has done nothing about housing since being elected in 1998.

Similarly, Government promises to build 330 homes over the next 30 months, but then details more than 500. These include the 200 homes planned for the Bermuda Homes for People development at Southside, which has been embroiled in controversy since its inception, while the 38 homes promised at Perimeter Lane have run into heavy neighbourhood opposition. Curiously, there is no mention of the homes proposed for Prospect, which have also hit heavy opposition.

More welcome news comes with plans for the homes at the site of the old US Navy hospital at Southside, and extensive home building in Dockyard. The latter plans are welcome and could, presumably, be built without too much opposition, although it must be assumed that a good deal of detailed work still needs to be done.

The other pressing issue for Bermuda is race and racism, and Premier Alex Scott promised a major initiative in the Speech on the issue. In fact, there are two. One is the creation of Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda or CURB. This in fact is a re-recreation since an initiative with the same name was launched under the United Bermuda Party Government in 1998, This time, the organisation will be tasked with recommending to Government tangible, achievable strategies on race. Because this body will join grassroots groups with CURE and the Human Rights Commission, it should be a powerful force, and on the whole it should be welcomed, although it also suggests that CURE and the HRC have failed to do this on their own, since that function is at least a part of their mandate.

The second initiative concerns an amendment to CURE legislation to “require large companies to review their policies to ensure that racial barriers to opportunity are removed”. Anything that removes obstacles to opportunity must be welcomed. But the devil is in the details and it will be interesting to hear more on this idea over the next few weeks.