The doors have been locked for decades — but hopes are now being raised that taxpayers could at last be let into meetings when MPs discuss how their cash is being spent.

United Bermuda Party MP John Barritt spotted a chink of light in Friday's Throne Speech after Government revealed it wants to modernise the legislature and create an efficient and effective model of legislative democracy.

Details were brief, but Mr. Barritt is hopeful it could ultimately lead to the opening up of parliamentary meetings such as the public accounts committee, private bills committee and rules and privileges committee, which the public have never before been allowed to attend.

Another way Bermuda's legislature could be brought into the modern age, says Mr. Barritt, is by setting up an interactive parliamentary website so people can view and comment on legislation, draft legislation and bills as they pass through the system.

Reading the Throne Speech, Governor Sir Richard Gozney said Government will champion the convening of a parliamentary conference under the auspices of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

"The aim of this conference will be to craft a modernised legislature and to equip Bermuda with an efficient and effective model of legislative democracy, fashioned through an inclusive, participatory process," said Sir Richard.

Mr. Barritt said such a conference could involve representatives of many jurisdictions getting together to discuss their experiences of updating democracy.

"As someone who's been beating the drum for some considerable time now about the need for parliamentary reform, I'm pleased to say that this is now receiving some recognition from the Government in the form of this in the Throne Speech," he told The Royal Gazette.

This newspaper's A Right To Know: Giving People Power campaign has been calling for parliamentary committees to stop meeting in secret since January last year.

The UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee recommended in a report last year that Bermuda should cease holding closed parliamentary committee meetings.

Mr. Barritt, the UBP's spokesman for legislative reform, said: "I think what's required is political will to get on with parliamentary reform.

"We have got to change the culture completely. If this is the way Government wants to make it happen, I'm all for making it happen."