Premier Jennifer Smith's bid to cut MP numbers is motivated by a desire to keep a tight grip on power, says Opposition MP Trevor Moniz who says the issue should be put to a referendum.

And he said Ms Smith was trying to tie the hands of the Boundary Commission by insisting it slash MP numbers rather than make its own decision.

Mr. Moniz said: "The PLP always talked about votes of equal value and single member seats, but they never talked about reducing the number of MPs. "She is using this as a stalking horse to increase her grasp on political control.

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

"She is trying to use her huge majority to bulldoze through her political agenda.'' He said: "They talk about the number of representatives being very high. I view that as a good thing. In other countries people don't know who their MP is -- and they certainly wouldn't dream of calling them.

"Here, we don't have another layer of Government such as county councils.

He pointed out Jersey, with a population of 80 to 90,000 people had 53 elected members. "I think that's a good situation.'' He said a smaller House of Assembly would allow her to weed out backbench dissenters unhappy with her style.

However Telecommunications member Renee Webb said Bermuda was over represented for a country of 38,000 electors and that the PLP had always said MP numbers needed to be slashed.

She said: "The number tossed around has always been 30 -- if you have eight cabinet members then that still leaves 22 backbenchers.'' She said requests for the previous UBP government to address this had been ignored -- the only change they had agreed to was to lower the voting age to 18.

Ms Webb noted: "That took place without a constitutional conference''.

Mr. Moniz was asked by The Royal Gazette whether the UBP should have tackled Bermuda's unequal electoral system in which tiny Paget has four Assembly members while Warwick, which is larger, has the same number.

He said the inequalities could be evened out without ending the system of seats based on parish boundaries.

He explained: "You don't have to disregard the parish boundaries. We know Paget is over-represented and Warwick is under-represented so you could reduce MPs in Paget from four to three and increase Warwick from four to five.'' He said the Government proposed three major changes -- evening up constituencies, single seat constituencies and reducing the number of MPs which they intend to give to the Boundary Commission to sort out.

"The UK say they are not interested in a constitutional conference on the issue and I can understand they don't want to set the agenda for the dependent territories -- they want to see us manage our own affairs,'' said Mr. Moniz.

"Boundary commissions in general deal with evening up of constituencies but whatever the Boundary Commission has to do should be on a bipartisan basis.'' He said it was a shame the Premier had tabled the motion on the last day of Parliament and since then the public has been absorbed by other things.

"It's quite wrong to say there has been no public outcry -- she knows the country is absorbed by the debate on long term residents.

He said the public should be consulted in a referendum on whether constituencies should be amended to go outside parish boundaries, whether there should be single seat constituencies and whether the boundary commission should have the authority to reduce the number of MPs.

He said Britain had been grappling with similar issues and it had always been done on a bipartisan approach.

He said: "They have had a boundary commission to deal with the national assembly for Wales -- it has the authority given on a bipartisan basis to increase the number of representatives for Wales.

He said if the boundary commission were to look at the numbers of MPs it should also be given the power to increase representation.

Mr. Moniz said: "You just can't tell them this is how you are going to do it.

"You could say you could increase or decrease numbers by up to five percent.''