Premier Alex Scott announced the formation of an Independence commission yesterday to encourage debate after his call earlier this year for Bermuda to split from Britain.

The 13-person team, picked to be representative of the community, will begin work in January and have up to six months to hold public meetings and take submissions.

A report will then be sent to Cabinet for Government to develop its approach.

The commission will comprise representatives from unions and organisations as well as individuals.

?Government will set them up and then leave them alone,? said Mr. Scott.

?The Bermuda Independence Commission will have the express purpose of educating, informing and encouraging discussion and debate on the subject of independence for Bermuda.?

The Opposition have been invited to enter into talks on Independence.

United Bermuda Party leader Grant Gibbons confirmed the offer had been made but had yet to consult with colleagues over the issue.

Mr. Scott said: ?There will be time to debate the subject of Independence and, at an even later point still, there will be time to mount our respective campaigns but right now must be the time for a comprehensive, fact-finding, analytical and reasoned approach.?

He said the issue of Independence had been around since the 1960s and the 1968 constitution was drafted on the basis that the Island would soon move to autonomy.

A poll released last month showed 60 percent were against Independence but Mr. Scott said a Government poll had shown 80 percent wanted more information on the subject.

Asked about the lack of a pressure group campaigning for Independence, Mr. Scott denied there was little interest about the matter.

?Everybody has an opinion right now.? The Bermuda Independence Commission (BIC) will serve to further raise interest, said Mr. Scott.

He said he didn?t believe the debate would get out of hand.

?Bermudians are very sober, they will be very responsible,? he said.

The Premier agreed Government had not really stimulated the discussion since he put the issue on the frontburner nine months ago but he said the BIC would get the debate going.

The names of BIC members will be released before Christmas, said Mr. Scott, who added that a ?short-list? of 80 names had been whittled down to 13 although one or two had yet to confirm.

Government civil lawyer Phillip Perinchief has been seconded to the Central Policy Unit, which is Government?s nerve centre, to liase with BIC and research the issue.

Mr. Scott denied there was a conflict of interest with having Mr. Perinchief, previously a vocal supporter of Independence, in that role.

He said Mr. Perinchief, as a lawyer, was capable of arguing both sides of a case.

The Premier said Independence was first comprehensively reviewed in a discussion paper presented to the House of Assembly in 1977, which was followed by a White Paper two years later and then taken up by UBP Premier John Swan whose bid for autonomy for Bermuda was lost in a referendum in 1995.

The Premier applauded the UBP for the work done on Independence and said public records from the Government Archives had been placed on the Government website portal.

?A review is long overdue,? he added.

He said he wanted to get beyond just talking about the cost of setting up embassies and the method of choosing Independence by either referendum or general election.

He said the public themselves would decide which method to go for or whether a hybrid method could be used.

Asked how this would work Mr. Scott said that, after the public discussion, Government would have a feel for what the public felt.