House of Assembly Speaker Stanley Lowe has been accused of being a "puppet'' of Premier Jennifer Smith and allowing Parliament to fall into disrepute because he is afraid to stand up to her.

Former United Bermuda Party Minister Quinton Edness said Mr. Lowe gave Government MPs prefential treatment and did not control the House of Assembly.

He said the public was losing faith in Parliament because Mr. Lowe had allowed debates to degenerate into personal mud-slinging attacks.

He spoke out after Mr. Lowe threw Shadow Works and Engineering Minister CV (Jim) Woolridge out of the House two weeks ago after he refused to apologise to Telecommunications Minister Renee Webb.

The angry exchange between the two took place while UBP leader Pamela Gordon was speaking.

Mr. Edness, a former Labour and Home Affairs Minister, said Mr. Lowe should have stopped Ms Webb when she was questioning Mr. Woolridge's integrity.

He told The Royal Gazette : "I've kept out of politics, but I've been shocked in the last two years listening to the way the Speaker conducts the business.

He is very unfair and very selective.

"In my mind, it is very much bringing the House of Parliament into disrepute and people are feeling this in the community.

"Jim Woolridge's integrity was being attacked by a Minister of the Government and if the Speaker had been fair he would have stopped Ms Webb from making this very personal attack, but he didn't.

"He allowed it to go on and Mr. Woolridge responded, perhaps not in the best way, and the Speaker suspends him rather than the person violating the rules.

That's happened time after time after time in Parliament.

"It's terrible. Its fairly obvious that the Speaker, who is supposed to be independent, is absolutely petrified of his leader, Jennifer Smith, and is afraid to do anything but her bidding.

"That's not the kind of person who should be in the chair as Speaker because it is creating and bringing the House into disrepute.

"He's like a puppet, and its not good for the conduct of the House. People are losing confidence that the standards that should be upheld in Parliament are not.

"The standards and integrity of members has fallen quite sharply -- its gotten to be a street scrap.

Speaker is `a puppet' Mr. Edness said: "Then people's business is supposed to be conducted and all we get is this vituperativeness and pedestrian arguments from one to another, and a lot of that is the responsibility of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker.

"They are not doing a good job and its affecting the House.

"People in the street will lose faith in the institution and its already going adrift in the minds of the public.

"You listen to the talk shows and hear the way they malign individuals and they feel its something they can do because it is done in Parliament.

"One of the things people are saying is that they are concerned that things are going adrift.

"There is a concern that the principles of running the country are being interfered with and its going to hurt us in the future.'' Mr. Lowe said yesterday: "The Speaker cannot descend to that.

"He must stay above such things.''