controlled, to ensure the long-term economic stability in Bermuda.

Minister of Home Affairs Maxwell Burgess said restricting development via planning could run the risk of some projects not being built.

Speaking in response to PLP MP Ottiwell Simmons , who said that the planning department should have more say in the flow of development, he said businesses had to build when the time was right for them, when the capital was there.

Shadow Finance Minister Eugene Cox said the problem was that Government and private sector projects were both taking place at the same time, using up resources and labour. "If it was regulated by the planning department this wouldn't happen,'' he said. Ultimately what they were doing was providing jobs for young Englishmen to train in, he said.

But Environment Minister Harry Soares said the construction boom meant there was confidence in the country. He added that it would create jobs, and hoped that it would provide the opportunity for young Bermudians to take high level jobs in exempt companies and employ foreign labour at the lower end of the scale.

Mr. Soares was speaking as the House of Assembly gave a third reading to the Development and Planning Amendment Act 1998. It changes the classification of arable land to agricultural land to enhance its protection. In addition, it states that planning applications thereafter should go before the Development Applications Board, and not the minister.

The reason was, Mr. Soares said, that agriculture and planning all came under the Environment Minister's remit, and it would therefore put the minister in a difficult position, in considering a plan.