The President of Tynwald, the Hon Steve Rodan MLC and the Speaker of the House of Keys, the Hon Juan Watterson SHK, supported by the Clerk of Tynwald Roger Phillips, have returned from the 25th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth (CSPOC) in Ottawa. The five-day conference took place from January 6 to 10 and provided an opportunity for Speakers and Presiding Officers from 37 Commonwealth parliaments to discuss and share experiences of parliamentary engagement, transparency and accountability.
At the opening ceremony held in the Senate of Canada, the Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada, Rt Hon Anthony Rota MP explained that that the aim of the conference was: ‘to maintain, foster and encourage impartiality and fairness on the part of Speakers and Presiding Officers of parliaments, to promote knowledge and understanding of parliamentary democracy in the various forms and to develop parliamentary institutions.’The programme for the conference included a workshop on parliamentary engagement, openness, transparency and accountability chaired by Mr Speaker, while Mr President chaired a session on parliamentarians as effective legislators and constituency representatives.

Additionally, in a CSPOC first, a one-hour session of five-minute presentations followed by five minutes of questions was trialled to allow for relevant and quick discussions on a wide variety of topics.

Mr President said: ‘This was a great opportunity for the Isle of Man to connect with parliaments right across the Commonwealth. The working discussions and sharing of best practice with other presiding officers by Mr Speaker and myself were very useful indeed. It’s important that the Isle of Man is promoted internationally and this conference is an excellent occasion to establish and renew valuable contacts.’Mr Speaker said: ‘Speakers and Presiding Officers have a key role in parliamentary leadership, which covers a wide variety of responsibilities such as making parliamentary accessible, creating development opportunities for Members and prioritising parliamentary resources.  This biennial conference offers a rare opportunity to get together and discuss constitutional and parliamentary developments, best practice and new ideas.
 ‘During this conference we discussed all of the above as well as securing the financial independence of parliament from government, self-assessment tools for parliament - such as the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association benchmarks for democratic legislatures and Sustainable Development Goal self-assessment toolkit - and how these operate in the face of everyday challenges. ‘It is easy in this day and age to read things on the internet, but it gives no feel for how things work in practice, especially under stress and in the environment of limited staff and resources. This, along with developing contacts, is the real value of face-to-face meetings.’ Details of travel and accommodation costs will be published on the Tynwald website in due course.

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For further information contact:
Clerk of Tynwald’s Office
Telephone: 01624 685500
Email: enquiries@tynwald.org
Website: www.tynwald.org.im