The United Bermuda Party this afternoon called on Ministers to limit their Budget speeches in order to enable “robust and searching” debate.A two-week Budget debate is due to start tomorrow in the House of Assembly where Ministers will go through their relevant departments in detail.In the past some Ministers have used up almost all the time they have been allocated, leaving just a few minutes for the shadow minister to respond.This afternoon the UBP’s Cole Simons issued a statement saying that the Premier in her Budget Statement had committed her Government to an “open Budget process” to develop opportunities for greater public feedback and engagement in decisions on spending and taxation.“The United Bermuda Party wholeheartedly supports this commitment to transparency and we look forward to the two-week debate, to start this process.“Our hope is for a robust and searching debate that enables as many Opposition and Government backbenchers to participate as possible. This is something that has not happened in the past because of the time taken by ministers and their opposite numbers,” said Mr Simons.He added: “Now, under the New Standing Orders, we have 56 hours set aside (14 hours more than before) to include as many heads of expenditure as possible and to allocate to each one the time we think they warrant.“For this to work, we need Government ministers and shadow spokesmen to adhere to reasonable time limits, and we think no more than one hour each is reasonable. This will work where we have allocated four or more hours to a particular ministry, but not where we have scheduled three hours or less. In these shorter debates, we hope common sense and reasonableness will prevail for the sake of allowing more voices to be heard.”He said the UBP was prepared to leave time at the end of each debate for ministers to reply to questions.“We also look forward to receipt of briefs by ministers, which, under the new Standing Orders, they are required to share at the time of reading. It would of course be more helpful and constructive if these briefs were shared with shadow spokesmen in advance.“This is a critical debate for Bermuda. It gives us the opportunity, on behalf of the people of this country, to connect the dots in terms of the impact of Government’s enormous debt burden on its spending and tax proposals.“We have an opportunity to debate whether the particulars of the plan to cut $90 million in current account spending is helpful or not; to determine whether it is being done to a plan or not, to question whether cuts to people-helping agencies in a time of hardship are appropriate or not.“Bermuda needs the full engagement of its elected representatives in this Budget debate. The commitment to openness and transparency is an excellent way to achieve this.”