Community Minister Wayne Scott prevented debate on his Ministry’s spending plans yesterday, by delivering a statement lasting four hours to the House of Assembly.But Government later denied suggestions that it was trying to stifle debate, saying that an agreement had been made with the Opposition that Mr Scott would speak for the entire time allotted to the Ministry.And in a following four-hour debate on the Ministry of Home Affairs budget, Minister Michael Dunkley sat down after spending just two hours outlining that department’s finances — allowing the Opposition two hours to respond with questions and debate.New Minister Mr Scott spoke from a prepared 134-page, 26,000-word text from 10.15am until the 12.30pm lunch break and then from 2pm until 3.45pm, when the debate ended and his Ministry’s $86.4 million budget was approved without objection.That left Shadow Minister Michael Weeks no time at all to comment and ask questions on the 2013/14 budget for the departments of Youth, Sport and Recreation; Child and Family Services; Community and Cultural Affairs; Financial Assistance; and Human Affairs.Towards the end of his speech, the Minister told MPs: “As there is less than five minutes left, I will point out, before I get cut off, that in discussion with my Shadow Minister, we agreed that these social programmes are too important to play politics with.“Our aim is to work together and deal with the issues surrounding this. If we fail in this area, the way that our previous Government dealt with the Budget of this country, we all fail. We can’t afford to do that with these social programmes.”Mr Weeks stood up moments later to make a point of order. He said: “I would like to register that I would like to have participated. I will hold the Minister to his statement. I was expecting to have some time to talk.”Mr Scott replied: “I give commitment to my Shadow and to this House and to the people of Bermuda that I will work closely with my Shadow to conduct the people’s business and put the people of Bermuda first.”After the debate had wrapped up, Mr Weeks told The Royal Gazette he was disappointed not to have been given the opportunity to speak. “It’s his prerogative to speak for the whole four hours. For healthy debate, he should have given me at least an hour.”But Government whip Cole Simons later backed up Mr Scott’s side of the story, and added that the Opposition will be given “adequate time” to debate each Ministry.“Please note that in the OBA’s effort to ensure full transparency and candid dialogue, we have agreed to provide the Opposition with opportunity and time to respond to the information provided by the Minister for his or her respective Ministry heads,” Mr Simons said.“On the issue of the Ministry of Community and Cultural Development, the Minister confirmed that he spoke with [the] Shadow Minister about how he was going to handle his Ministry during last week’s economic debate.“The Minister indicated to his Shadow that given Bermuda’s current economic situation, and the fact that we have many struggling families, four hours was not enough time for him to roll out, and speak to all of the initiatives that are and will be made available to those people who are in need.”Mr Simons added that Mr Scott and Mr Weeks “are working and will work collaboratively” and plan to meet on a regular basis “to provide the best outcome for our people who are in need”.“As said before, each ministry will have a full examination, and the opposition will be given adequate time for their presentation and questions,” Mr Simons said.“To support this endeavour, the Acting Minister of Home Affairs has just given the Opposition 50 percent of the four hour allotted time to respond to his Ministry’s presentation.”The Budget debates in the House take place — in theory — to allow scrutiny of Government’s spending estimates for the forthcoming fiscal year.The Opposition gets to choose the amount of time allocated for debate on each Ministry, with the Progressive Labour Party scheduling a total of four hours for Community and Cultural Development this year.But it has long been the practice of governing parties to use up the majority of the allotted debate time with long-winded, overly detailed accounts of their Ministry’s day-to-day activities and lengthy thanks to staff members — giving their counterparts across the floor just a few minutes to respond.In 2010, then-Opposition leader Kim Swan said it was a “sad day” for democracy when Premier Ewart Brown did just that, allowing only 30 seconds of debate on Cabinet Office spending.Mr Swan accused Dr Brown of being “rather immature” for spinning out his speech, while Patricia Gordon-Pamplin, who is now Health Minister, said the Premier had delivered a monologue.Yesterday’s debate was the first of the parliamentary sessions scheduled for scrutiny of the 2013/14 Budget. There will be 56 hours of debate in total, including six hours on Finance on Friday, March 15.Useful website: www.parliament.bm