Just days after Speaker of the House of Assembly Stanley Lowe agreed to cut off debate on the Coco Reefs concessions order, he apparently agreed on Monday to reject Parliamentary questions on Government travel.

This decision appears to have been prompted by Government. The rationale, which Mr. Lowe said in a press statement from the Department of Communication and Information that he accepts, is that the questions were asked in the last Parliament, and it is therefore inappropriate for them to be answered in this one.

It is not at all clear whether this means the questions can be resubmitted now, or if they are off the table forever.

Certainly, Dr. Brown's comments, incorrectly carried in the same press release as the statement from the supposedly politically independent Speaker, mean that Government will not have "time wasting" questions on Government travel suggests they never will be. Never mind that this is public money that is being talked about and that it is obvious that Government travel spending has soared to the extent that it is being reviewed as part of Government's cost cutting programme.

And never mind that Dr. Brown spent the entire election campaign dodging questions on Faith Based Tourism before the election on the basis that there were questions pending in the House of Assembly.

Now that it is convenient, he is simply not going to answer them.

This is a travesty. Since the Premier can now apparently instruct the supposedly independent Speaker on the administration of the House, the House of Assembly is barred even from talking about issues, let alone acting on them. The Premier will decide when legislation is voted on. The Premier will decide what questions are "substantive" and which are not.

That may be all right with the majority who voted the Progressive Labour Party back into power last December. They may feel that Dr. Brown and the PLP were elected to govern and that is what it is doing.

But they should remember that the end, whatever that is, does not justify the means. Accountability, especially in an Island where the Auditor General can be jailed but never charged, where access to information legislation may never see the light of day and where the chances of whistleblower protection legislation being enacted are slim to none, lies with Parliament, and especially with the House of Assembly.

It should be the place where elected MPs can get answers to questions on issues of the day and where they can speak freely on issues of public concern.

This is not an exclusive right of the Opposition; it is a right that every elected MP has in order to represent their constituents properly. MPs of all political stripes should be very careful about surrendering these rights, even if there is some perceived short term political advantage to be had. You never know when the shoe may be on the other foot.

A statement last night from the UBP suggests that this decision on questions is not fully settled and that there may be fresh developments tomorrow. It is critical that the independence of the Speaker is maintained, and Mr. Lowe, as the most experienced MP in the House of Assembly, will know this better than most.

He has an opportunity to reaffirm the independence of the Speaker for future generations and his successors. He should take it.