Falklands : Roger Edwards' Motion for Adjournment Speech
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 27.10.2010 (Article Archived on 10.11.2010)
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I, too, welcome Governor Nigel Hayward and his wife, Louise to the Falklands and wish him an enjoyable and productive time while he’s here.
MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT SPEECHES
Transcript by J. Brock (FINN)
Roger Edwards:
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I, too, welcome Governor Nigel Hayward and his wife, Louise to the Falklands and wish him an enjoyable and productive time while he’s here.
I thank my colleague for reminding us all of our right to self-determination and the wishes of the sovereignty of the people in the Falkland Islands. I hope, today, the absence of CBF on operational duties doesn’t give rise to the next subject I wish to speak on.
I followed what happened at the party conferences of the three major parties, strategic defence reviews and I followed also the debates and the defence cuts that were recently imposed by the British Government. We, of course, rely on the British Government for our defence, though I was delighted to note that there were several mentions of the deterrent that is in place in the South Atlantic and that it would be maintained as a deterrent to any possible future military aggression by our neighbours.
Away from that I would like to mention that at last we have a freight consolidation service going to Fox Bay as well as to the outer Islands. I think this is a big step forward. It was well supported by all members of the Assembly and I welcome it into being.
I also mention at the same time that we finally approved – yet again – and we have continued into the future with an annual subsidy for animals being transported to the abattoir. That, too, is very welcome and a boost to the farmers.
However, costs are rising across the board. We hear this morning in Standing Finance Committee the annual inflation rate is something in the order of 4%. This is still being done on the old shopping basket and we are still some way away from getting the new shopping basket but nevertheless it does show that our costs here are rising far greater than our incomes.
Costs are rising also because of regulation. Again, my colleague, Dick Sawle mentioned earlier on in his question about the difficulties imposed by MCA Regulation. Well, FIGAS costs are increasing because of the Air Support Safety International regulation. We are now being asked to pay for that regulation. The regulations already imposed by them are costing us several hundreds of thousands of pounds in having to install autopilots into the Islander, which has happily operated single pilot for some 40 years but now we have to spend some hundreds of thousands of pounds in fitting autopilots because they are operated as single pilot. And, we have to pay those people, it would appear, to impose those regulations upon us. And I do hope that Dick Sawle, when he goes away shortly, for the meeting of the Overseas Territories Consultative Council can argue against those costs being incurred by us here because I wonder, are we now going to be costed, charged for the MCA Regulations that puts onerous restrictions on us?
I read a report yesterday that 2/3rds of the legislation in the UK is now imposed by the EU. Only 1/3rd comes from Westminster itself. Are we going to find that regulation is imposed upon us to such a degree that we cannot operate. I leave you with that thought.
Mr Speaker, I support the Motion.
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