Parliamentarians wrapped up this year’s Budget debate last night after 56 hours of presentations by ministers over the last two weeks.

But in a surprise move, the Budget will not be ratified by MPs until Friday, after Dennis Lister, the Speaker of the House, was informed of a “sensitive technical issue”.

Most of yesterday’s session was taken up with debates on the spending plans for the Ministry of Economy and Labour, and the Ministry of Transport.

Wayne Furbert, the Minister of Transport completed his presentation well within the four hours set aside by the One Bermuda Alliance to discuss the brief.

Following an extended question and answer session, Mr Furbert moved that his ministry’s budget be approved and printed, before adding: “But I would also like to rise and report progress until the next day of sitting.”

That prompted Michael Dunkley, the Shadow Minister of National Security, to ask why the Government was postponing getting the Budget passed.

Addressing Progressive Labour Party backbencher Lovitta Foggo, who had chaired the debate, Mr Dunkley asked: “For clarification, I understand that the Budget debate is finished and so why the need to rise and report?

“I think that the House would be able to understand the reason to rise and report seeing as I’ve seen the Premier in the chambers.”

Ms Foggo explained that the matter was being deferred until David Burt, the Premier and Minister of Finance was ready to move all the Budget heads and the appropriation bill.

She added: “This is something that has been agreed to in the House by the Speaker so we will rise and report progress until Friday. It is now time for me to turn the House back over to the Speaker.”

Once Mr Lister had returned to the Chamber, he told Mr Dunkley he had decided to defer debate after speaking to representatives from both parties earlier in the day.

He said: “There’s a technical issue that has to be resolved first and both parties have been consulted in a discussion with myself in the chamber.

“I don’t know if your representative has informed you, but both parties have agreed that we’ll sit again on Friday after the matter has been resolved.

“All the business will be done on Friday. Members that brings us to a close of the discussion on the Budget for today. We will now move on to the other items on the order paper.”

Mr Dunkley said that although he respected that decision, he believed that MPs had a right to know why it had been made.

He said: “I believe this honourable House is owed an explanation by the honourable Premier on how we got to this position. Because I think we’ve had a pretty reasonable 56 hours of debate. There have been some good debates that have been back and forth with a lot of questions answered and posed, so I think it’s been a healthy process.

“But to come to the end of the debate half-an-hour before and hear rumours that it might be carried forward, I think the people of Bermuda deserve an explanation. Certainly members of the chamber need to know what took place. There has got to be an explanation.”

The Speaker stuck to his guns.

He said: “The reason you’re not getting an explanation tonight is because the matter is as current as it can be. We were only aware of it when I summoned your representative and the representative from the Government into my chambers and had a discussion about it.

“I made a decision that it’ll be carried over to Friday morning and on Friday morning you’ll get the appropriate explanation as to why we went to Friday morning to resolve it. But the matter is extremely current right now and it would be inappropriate to try and put a response to that when we don’t have all the facts in hand.

“I took time to have your representative and the government representative in my office earlier and we walked through what was before us and the option and the position I was going to take.

“But I took the opportunity to have both Opposition and Government in that room where we had the conversation. All parties in there realised the sensitivity of what was before us and we agreed on the position that I put.

“The ruling that I made was based on all the information that was provided to me. If I had taken the assumption that we could have this resolved tonight, we would have had it resolved tonight. I made the decision that we’ll come back, and I want that clear.”

Mr Burt stressed that there was nothing underhand in the Government’s request to have the matter carried over, adding that parliamentary regulations had to be followed.

He said: “I understand that the honourable member would like to make a point and I’ll just try to make it very clear. We are trying to ensure that we do all things right and all things proper — it is that simple.

“The fact is there have been 56 hours of debate, we have asked for leave to sit again on Friday morning. We will meet, we will report all the capital estimates, go ahead and pass the Budget in good time for the Senate to debate on Monday.

“There’s no need to make a point out of this. I know that some person will want to make a political point but there is no need to do so because all things will be done in a way according to standing orders, and that’s all I have to say.”

Last night Mr Burt explained that the request to carry matters over was made to allow the Appropriation Act to be passed during Friday’s sitting.

He said: "The House is scheduled to sit on Friday, March 15, and under the supervision of the Speaker and the Clerk to the Legislature, we ensured that the rules were followed, and the Opposition consulted.

“This is to ensure that the Appropriation Act is completed in good time for the Senate Budget debate which is scheduled to start next Monday."