Members
Parliament
Transparency
Dr. Douglas De Couto, JP, MP

Dr. Douglas De Couto, JP, MP

1768
Speeches
616,883
Words Spoken
69
Sittings Active
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
77 words
Local business, that is, everything except for IB and f inancial services grew only 2 per cent , or a meagre 0.3 per cent per year. That is essentially no growth at all. And I know there were some comments earlier, but I would remind the viewers that these are gov-ernment statistics. To aid understanding for the people in the …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
50 words
Mr. Speaker, other key indicators for the health of the economy are retail sales and shipping. These continue to show declines. Looking at full-year retail sales data for 2022, 2023, and 2024, after adjusting for inflation, total sales were 1.9 per cent lower in 2024 than in 2022. [Inaudible interjections]
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
99 words
Out of the seven sectors , after adjusting for inflation, lower. Out of the seven sectors reported, only motor vehicle sales and service stations showed an increase. In fact, in 18 out of 24 months in 2023 and 2024, or two -thirds of the months, total sales were lower than the same month a year before, adjusted for inflation. To …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
129 words
—eating less and drinking less. That tells you something is up. Thanks to emigration and cost of living increases, there are fewer people buying things, spending more, but getting less. Mr. Speaker, container volumes point in the same direction of fewer goods being brought to the Island and purchased. Although container volumes from April through September last year were up …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
379 words
Mr. Speaker, one of the Government’s favourite- cited statistics is the unemployment rate, which was 2.8 per cent in the November 2023 Labour Force Survey. What is driving this? Few-er people and fewer jobs. The reality is that the number of people has shrunk faster than the number of jobs. Government has outsourced our unemployment, as people who can’t find …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
77 words
Government’s own report, “Addressing the Challenge of an Ageing Population [in Bermuda]” described the problems very well. It also Bermuda House of Assembly described the negative impacts on our economic growth, health care, and pensions. And I don’t know about you, Mr. Speaker, I don’t find any of this amusing. Here is the short version: you can’t grow the economy …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
280 words
And you can’t properly fund health care and pensions with a shrinking, ageing population. We can either have more people, each paying less tax, or fewer people, each paying more tax. Government’s own estimate for the required increase in the working population at that time was 8,418 workers, or 25 per cent. Mr. Speaker, organisations like the Chamber of Commerce—which …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
168 words
Mr. Speaker, let’s talk salaries and cost of living. All those statistics might seem abstract to Bermudians who are working day -to-day. Our people who are trying to pay the rent, buy the groceries, keep the car running, and stop the house from leaking. How are these workers doing? Based on recent government statistics, we know that the median gross …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
64 words
In fact, rent costs grew 2.7 per cent, driven by 1.7 per cent increases for properties under rent control, and 3.5 per cent for properties not in rent control. Mr. Speaker, I know that some in this Chamber find these statistics amusing. I can assure you, there are many areas of this country where these are matters of getting by …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
66 words
Food increased 2.9 per cent and health costs increased 2.5 per cent. At the end of the day, while it is true inflation has slowed, for most people costs are still rising faster than their incomes. And that’s why Bermudians remain very concerned about their cost of living. I will say it a different way. Bermudians are very concerned about …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
151 words
Mr. Speaker, tourism has seen some improvements from 2023 to 2024, but remains far behind 2019, and continues to remain behind our competitors to the south. Tourism arrivals by air are 15 per cent higher from 2023 to 2024 but are down 27 per cent versus 2019. Airline capacity is 25 per cent higher than the prior year, but still …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
536 words
Mr. Speaker, while we rely on tourism as a key component of our local economic activity, providing a variety of jobs, attracting visitors, and consuming goods and services, it’s currently IB that drives our economy. IB drives our GDP. As a sec328 9 May 2025 Official Hansard Report Bermuda House of Assembly tor, IB is our largest employer. IB employees …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
359 words
Bermuda’s demographic crisis—an ageing and shrinking population—has negatively impacted our public pension funds: Public Sec-tor Superannuation Fund [ PSSF ], for Government Employees, and Contributory Pensions Fund (CPF), also known as Social Insurance. Mr. Speaker, for defined benefit funds such as the PSSF and CPF to work properly, all the components must be in balance: the proportion of active workers …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
774 words
Mr. Speaker, turning to health care. After eight years of this current Government, health care costs in Bermuda have continued to rise. And most of us have a story of a friend or relative Bermuda House of Assembly stuck on beds in the hospital hallways or suffering long waits due to lack of staff. Government has focused on increased expenditures …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
259 words
Mr. Speaker , education is one of the most important components for success in life. It comes in many forms, from hands -on to bookwork. Bermudians need to be well -educated, in whatever form that means for each person, so they can be empowered to take control of their own success. A well - educated populace with a mix of …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
95 words
Turning to Housing, Mr. Speaker . The One Bermuda Alliance believes that all Bermudians must be able to live in dignity, and this includes securing affordable housing. The housing situation [in Bermuda] has left many puzzled. Why, with an acknowledged decline in population, is housing harder and harder to find, at all levels of the housing ladder? The reasons for …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
609 words
Recent work by the Chamber of Commerce Economic Committee has provided valuable insight, that the average household size in Bermuda has reduced. That is, even with fewer people on Island, we need the same or even more units, as each unit will house fewer people. This is of course compounded by people not wanting to rent for fear of locking …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
207 words
Turning to energy, Mr. Speaker, last but not least of the cost -of-living drivers is energy. We in the Opposition proposed to give the Regulatory Authority (RA) more legal power to take into account costs to consumers when setting BELCO rates. We welcome Government’s promise to limit the costs BELCO can recover from customers and give the RA power to …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
666 words
Mr. Speaker, turning now to the Government’s recent financial performance, it is disappointing yet unsurprising that the Finance Minister persists in his charade of a so- called “surplus” for the recently concluded financial year. It reflects poorly on his credibility as a steward of our finances and, by extension, the Government and our country. The independent Fiscal Responsibility Panel 2024 …
9 May 2025 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report - House of Assembly
148 words
Finally, if Government truly wishes to maintain a contingency amount in the budget, which is not unreasonable, we suggest a separate budget line for that. Mr. Speaker, we are very disappointed to see very little progress in reducing the backlog of audit reports across Government. And, for two successive years the Auditor General has had to provide a Qualified Opinion …