ROADTOWN Tortola BVI, November 29th, 2011 -- Good morning everyone. I am happy to give this briefing on my recent trip to the UK. When this Government was sworn-in on November 9, we made a solemn pledge to the people of these Virgin Islands to ‘Put our Country First’

And, to ‘Put our Country First’ means building healthy and productive relationships with the rest of the world and this is what we were able to accomplish while in the United Kingdom.

My team to the UK included Financial Secretary Mr. Neil Smith; Assistant Secretary for External Affairs in the Premier’s Office Ms. Najan Christopher; elected representative for the eighth district Mr. Marlon Penn; advisor Mrs. Lorna Smith.

We also received valuable support from the BVI London Office, - in particular its Director Mr. Kedrick Malone and Political Analyst Mr. Benito Wheatley at that office.

I am pleased to report that I had a successful round of meetings with the Minister for Overseas Territories, Mr Henry Bellingham, MP followed by a series of other meetings which I will get to in a minute.

I firmly believe that by the end of last week we had set the right tone in the UK-BVI relationship that will serve us well going forward.

Let me first speak about the bilateral meeting with Mr Bellingham:
In that meeting we discussed the major economic challenges facing the Virgin Islands. As you know, the Territory has had to adhere to the borrowing guidelines.

The Framework for Fiscal responsibility is an evolution of the borrowing guidelines. One of the elements in the fiscal framework is the requirement to send the budget to the UK two months prior to approval.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the UK Government way of calling on the Government of the Virgin Islands to commit to being more fiscally responsible.

Ladies and gentlemen; we did not sign the document nor did the UK Government attempt to force us to sign it.
The framework was clearly proposed by the UK based on the performance of the previous administration.

We made it clear that we were not prepared to just pick up from where the previous administration left off, but rather to decide on the best way forward to economic viability.

I thought it was important to remind Mr Bellingham that this was my second time as leader of the BVI but more importantly that after 37 years of managing our own fiscal affairs we were not prepared to now have them managed for us.

I am happy that I was able to successfully negotiate for more time to assess the Territory’s financial condition and to put forward an effective strategy to restore fiscal balance and responsibility.

I am really pleased that Minister Bellingham was so receptive to our concerns and expressed the HMG’s desire for constructive engagement with these Virgin Islands. Representatives from the FCO are expected to visit In January of next year to discuss our various options in moving forward quickly.

We also discussed the UK’s plans to publish a new White Paper on future relations between the UK and the Overseas Territories. I again indicated that the BVI would require more time to carry out consultations with the public and public service on the UK-BVI relationship for input in the forthcoming White Paper.

In the coming weeks therefore we will be consulting with the public on the BVI-UK relationship to feed into the White Paper.

We will also be consulting with the ministries, department and statutory boards of Government. Please speak frankly about the direction you would like to see our relationship with the UK go as we seek to further define our relationship with the UK Government.

Mr Bellingham and I also discussed ways of improving the administration and responsiveness of Government to our people perhaps through Parliamentary Secretaries which are very prevalent in HMG

Assistance with Autism in the BVI: We campaigned on an Agenda to give greater attention to Children with special needs. We were therefore pleased to meet later in the day with Ms. Sue Osborn, Chief Executive of Kingwood Trust. Mrs Osborne had visited the Territory in 2009 and met with government officials here as well as with some children with autism and their parents.

Ms. Osborne subsequently submitted a proposal for the establishment of a pilot programme to assist autistic children and adults for a period of 18 months to two years. The basis of the proposal is that Kingwood would provide initial support and train local staff to work with both children and adults with autism, and then hand over the management and delivery of the entire service for local management at the end of the second year.

A donor has now been found to pledge up to US$381,529 for the establishment of the autism programme. We are anxious to take this programme forward and our further discussions at the OTCC meeting the next day gave us even more confidence that this programme will succeed.

The two-day OTCC meeting chaired by Minister Bellingham and facilitated by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was very productive.

Perhaps of most use to the Territory was the UK’s new strategy of going beyond the FCO and getting Ministries or as the UK call them ‘departments’ actively involved in assisting the territories. For instance, using the same autism programme as an example, the Department of Education in the UK can offer specialised training of our teachers thereby ‘jumpstarting’ this important programme.

In other areas of education I also discussed the biggest challenge to our students survival in the UK – that of coping with the rapidly climbing cost of education in the UK with the Permanent Secretary.

The Government departments all made fine introductory comments and fielded many questions from the OT’s. Of special interest to the BVI were presentations by the Department for International Development; Ministry of Defence; Treasury; Transport; Communities and Local Government; Culture, Media and Sport; Home Office; Business, Innovation and Skills; Works and Pensions; Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; and Energy and Climate Change.

Given our thrust in business development I was very keen on the offerings of the Department of Business, Innovation and skills. I was also very proud of the work that we have done in the BVI in area of the Environment and climate change.

And, here I must divert. We were disappointed that our bid to have the Copper Mine point in Virgin Gorda be declared as a UK heritage site for special funding. We were disappointed that this did not happen. But, we were encouraged that the UK Government presented other areas where the funding could be assessed.

The Cooper Mine Point on Virgin Gorda is representative of a 19th century Cornish copper mine of commercial and industrial significance. This site is unique in the British Virgin Islands for its social history.

The UK Company Virgin Copper, also known as the Virgin Gorda Mining Company operated the mine between 1835 and 1862.

The first mine shaft at the copper mine on Virgin Gorda was sunk in 1838, but work ceased in 1842 due to financial reasons.

The Copper Mine National Park is actively managed by the National Parks Trust and its staff of terrestrial wardens, who are based on Virgin Gorda. However, the ruins are at risk from weathering due to its exposed location at Copper Mine Point and destabilisation, which has been exacerbated by recent hurricanes.

Stabilisation work on the mine structure of the engine house and the chimney stack took place in 1998 by a Cornish stone mason and also 2005, facilitated by a local contractor. The cost of stabilising the chimney stack ruins were jointly met by the National Parks Trust and the Copper Mine Committee through fundraisers held over the last 12 years.

Local stone masons will be trained in stabilization and restoration of heritage sites. This opportunity to learn a new skill will enable the creation of local capacity to conduct other historic restoration and stabilisation projects at other sites throughout the British Virgin Islands; and Guided tours for students and visitors will be offered, as part of the core services.

This is an important site toward our heritage and tourism product. We would like to continue to pursue this project in context of other projects such as the Sugar Works museum which was completed a few years ago.

We will follow through in accessing public sector expertise and training through secondments to many of these departments and the strengthening of links with the Commonwealth and European Union (EU).

As I said in the Press Release we were all pleased to hear from the Foreign Secretary Mr William Hague who reiterated the commitment t support the territories in a more tangible manner as I described earlier.

On the financial services front we were given assurances of stronger support in international fora while we in turn reiterated our commitment to maintaining the highest standards. We also made a strong case for being give the same level of recognition as the Channel Islands in terms of our robust anti money laundering regime. The indications are that this will now be taken forward.

You would have heard all about the signing of the Hertfordshire County Council MOU so I won’t dwell on that other than to say that I am delighted that our athletes have found the perfect place to train and reside just before the upcoming Olympics.

Following my trip there on Friday morning I cannot say enough how grateful I am to that county for their generosity to us. And for this, we have Dean the Sportsman Greenaway for being such a great ambassador for the BVI.

There is of course much more ground to cover with the UK but as I said at the beginning this was an excellent start and I am very encouraged by the outcome of the visit.
I thank you.

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