Chamber Concerned About ‘Regulatory Overreach’
The Bermuda Chamber of Commerce has raised concerns about the Government’s recent legislative and regulatory measures, and released a position paper on the “concerns of regulatory overreach in Bermuda.”
The document said, “The Bermuda Chamber of Commerce has been actively monitoring and participating in various legislative measures that the Government has been pursuing. Its immediate concern is the Cost-of-Living Commission Amendment [No. 2] Bill 2026, now before the Senate for its third reading. The concerns it highlights are not confined to that Bill: it extends to the parallel Ministerial-override proposals now advancing across banking and electricity regulation, and to the sequence of amendments and regulations that has been advanced under the Cost-of-Living Commission Act 1974 itself in the past twelve months.
“On the Minister of Home Affairs’ own House-floor arithmetic of 17 July 2026, the grocery duty relief the Bill exists to verify amounts to $4.6 million a year on approximately $50.7 million of grocery imports. Spread across approximately 30,000 Bermudian households, that is on the order of $150 per household per year – roughly $3 per household per week. Duty relief in that range is welcome; any amount that leaves the household is meaningful.
“The question this paper puts before the reader is why the Government has advanced or supported four legislative and regulatory instruments under the Cost-of-Living Act alone in the past six months, alongside the parallel Ministerial-override proposals under the Bank Fee Regulations consultation and the Electricity Amendment Act 2026, all in the name of verify a $3 per week pass through.
“The Chamber’s position is that this direction of regulatory design is not proportionate to the household benefit it advertises, is not consistent with the Chamber’s stated position of November 2024 nor with the Ministry’s own statements at the June 2025 Cost of Living Summit, and – on the primary evidence set out in this paper – is unlikely to reduce what Bermudian families pay at the register. What follows sets out the pattern, the case study of the Costof-Living Bill within it, and the Chamber’s continuing position on the direction.”
The 17-page Chamber Position Paper is here [PDF].
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I find it so interesting that everyone wants relief but then when relief measures are proposed then the business sector resists the relief. It is understandable as it may impact their profits, but from the consumer perspective, families need relief. So the hands of government are tied unless they just push forward with what they know is right.
People in Bermuda should not need relief.
Our reported rate of retail price inflation has been consistently lower than that of the U.S., the U.K., and Canada (from where we source roughly 90% of our imports) since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The question this paper puts before the reader is why the Government has advanced or supported four legislative and regulatory instruments under the Cost-of-Living Act alone in the past six months, alongside the parallel Ministerial-override proposals under the Bank Fee Regulations consultation and the Electricity Amendment Act 2026, all in the name of verify a $3 per week pass through.”
The answer is obvious. By announcing all of the legislation the PLP Government appears to be addressing the cost of living, but as you point out the net benefit is negligible, $3 per week.