Anthony Longrigg, Governor of Montserrat - Taped Interview with Herman Sergeant on Radio ZJB - October 5, 2001

HS: Good day, welcome to his Excellency, Governor Anthony Longrigg, to this interview. Governor, welcome to ZJB.
AL: Thank you very much. I am very happy to be here.
HS: It’s always nice to get to interview the governor. It is not often that we get the chance to do so but we always look forward to it when we do get the chance.
And we’re here today to talk about some issues that are real important for the public to know about and the first one we are going to tackle, really, is the British Overseas Territories Bill.
Now, what is the latest on that? The last time we spoke about that you did mention that you hoped that the bill would be passed by this autumn.
Well, the autumn is still on but what is the latest word on that?
AL: Thank you for that. The latest word I have heard is the report of what foreign office minister, Baroness Amos, told the Overseas Territories Consultative Committee of Chief Ministers which just met last week in London including, of course, the Chief Minister from Montserrat.
And she said at that point that they hoped the bill would have royal assent by the end of this year or early next year.
I haven’t heard why there has been a delay but I think it’s fairly obvious if anybody knows about the events of the past few weeks that a lot of things are going to get behind schedule.
But the statement was that it would be ready for royal assent by the end of the year or early next year and I take that at face value.
HS: So, being ready for royal assent, it means that it has passed through the commons and is now in the House of Lords?
AL: No this one has been done in the House of Lords first and is yet to go to the House of Commons.
Baroness Amos herself has been taking it through the House of Lords.
HS: All right. Now I notice that in this month’s edition of The Montserrat Newsletter there are some questions and answers on the Overseas Territories Bill.
Clearly, you see the need for some additional publicity.
AL: Yes, well, since we last spoke about this when I attempted then to explain basically what the bill contained and what its effects would be.
I see there’s still a continuing debate going on and that’s in may ways a good thing but I saw that there were also one or two complaints that people hadn’t received enough information, hadn’t seen exactly what the bill contained.
And I think it’s very important that all our listeners understand that there is no attempt to do anything shifty or secretive.
Everything that’s happening is absolutely up front and clear and transparent so this time we have not only published some more questions and answers in The Montserrat Newsletter, we’ve actually also distributed 2000 copies of the bill as it stands at the moment, which you can get either with The Montserrat Newsletter or from the governor’s office or the public library or I see you have a pile in your office too upstairs.
Anybody is welcome to get a copy of this bill and see what it contains.
HS: Now, concerning the bill itself and it obviously is being done in the British parliament but there are one or two voices including politicians who are saying, well, this bill is likely to affect Montserrat forever, to change our nationality forever but yet there is no input from Montserrat. What is the response to that?
AL: Before this bill was introduced there was a long period of consultation after the publication of the White Paper on overseas territories.
There was a lot of gathering of opinion from the various overseas territories as to what they would like done.
The bill is based on taking the views of the overseas territories as how they would best like to tackle this question of nationality.
In the process of drafting the bill and since it’s being drafted and while it’s being going through the House of Lords, there have, of course, being various consultative groups here.
There was a team here in March just before I came who talked to a lot of people about the bill and its possible effects and got Montserratian views.
There was also the visit of a senior home office official just after I arrived, I think, in June who also talked to various people here and explained and discussed with them how the bill might operate in practice.
And, I mean, just last week in the Overseas Territories Consultative Council, they had a good session, a very good discussion, as I understand although I haven’t seen a full record but all the chief ministers of the overseas territories had a clear discussion with the minister and let them know her views, their views about the bill and its implications and how it would affect them.
I think it’s wrong to say that there hasn’t really been any proper discussion.
What the bill doesn’t actually do, I think their sort of feelings come from their view that this bill has all sorts of things in it that people don’t know about and that’s the main thing I’m trying to dispel.
The bill actually has only two provisions.
One is renaming dependent territories citizenship, overseas territories citizenship, which is just a way of catching up with a terminological change that took place two or three years ago.
And the second is to amend various nationalities acts so that when the bill comes into effect, anybody who is a British dependent territories citizen will immediately acquire the right to become a British citizen.
And that’s basically all there is too it. I mean there are various things that flow on from that, which I discussed last time, I can go through again.
But that is essentially all that is in the bill. It is only two pages long.
HS: Well, governor, we know that there are Montserratians who moved to the UK and are living there now as a result of the volcanic crisis.
They have certain rights. We know that to this point, Montserratians landing there are granted certain rights because of the evacuation.
What would happen to these rights? Would they cease immediately? I am talking about housing, education, etc.
AL: Yes, well, of course Montserrat is in a slightly different position than most of the overseas territories in the sense that since the volcanic eruption Montserratians have had rights in the UK that other dependent, overseas territories citizens haven’t had.
What is going to happen to those rights is at the moment under consideration.
I mean the main thing is that you will have a British passport.
You will go through the same immigration channels as British citizens.
You will have a passport that looks just like mine now.
You will be able to travel freely in the EU and have all the same rights as regards working in the EU that the British citizen has and various other points like that.
You will also, as of residence, acquire all the rights that British residents have because you will, in fact, become British residents, for practical purposes as regards health, education, voting and so on.
There are some special, as you say, some special measures which were taken in the fallout from the volcano for Montserratians who were evacuated to the UK because of the crisis.
At the moment, it is being looked at what should be done with those.
I mean I personally shall be arguing very strongly that they should be kept and I think the foreign office shall be arguing very strongly that they should be kept but this is something, quite frankly, I think that hasn’t been dealt with in detail yet because it comes along with those large numbers of issues, which is as I think I’ve said before are going to be decided after the bill actually gets assent because they are administrative matters, not legal matters.
And for example, the housing assistance and other forms of welfare assistance depend each on the ministry concerned and responsible for giving out the money.
It’s not a legal question. So it’s likely a question of when will I be likely to get my passport?
Where will I have to go to get it? What exactly will it look like? All those sort of issues are being decided or will be decided after the bill has got through parliament and got royal assent.
HS: It has to do though with residency, doesn’t it? If I stay down here and I want to see a doctor or get an operation in the UK, can I just leave and go the UK and access the health services there or do I have to be in the UK for a period of time to get access?
AL: These are complicated issues and I’m not going to pronounce authority on them. Often, it depends on the circumstances.
At the moment, Montserrat I think has a right to refer certain cases to the National Health Service in the UK.
There are also all sorts of rules about tourists’ entitlement to emergency treatment when they happen to be in the UK if they fall ill and all those sorts of things but, of course, basically the right to have full health service treatment, as far as I understand it, depends on residency requirements, which vary, the same with education, for example.
I mean these residency requirements aren’t set down absolutely. They vary from one region in the country to another in some cases or from one ministry to another.
HS: Now, let us look at the issue of the passport itself. Many persons say, sure, I would love to have the British passport because it would mean that perhaps I would not need a visa to enter the U.S. or I can, you know, go anywhere in the EU, the European Union, I wish. Are they correct in saying that?
AL: As regards the EU, yes. I mean as I say, your passport, as I understand it will look just the same as mine. But you don’t have to acquire a British passport or you can keep two passports.
You can keep your overseas or dependent territories citizenship passport too.
The British government has no objection to that. But if you went to the UK with a British passport, you will be entitled to travel all around the EU freely and have the same rights in the European Union as British citizens do.
As regards the US, that is a matter that still the US has to decide on and I haven’t yet heard what the outcome of that is.
Well, obviously, I like as overseas territories citizens hope that we can arrange to have a sensible arrangement for visa-free access to the US but I think as you understand, that in following recent events, these issues become even more complicated.
But that issue is being discussed, but as I say it’s not for the British government to decide, it’s for the American government.
HS: Well, I think that we have perhaps covered as much as we perhaps want to on this area so we can move on to some other points and the next one I would like to mention is the constitutional commission. It has been mentioned several times that this would be announced officially but nothing officially has been said as yet apart from one or two news reports.
AL: Well, I think that’s not quite correct. There was… the membership of the commission is now known.
I think there was, I think, the government of Montserrat announced who would be on the commission.
The terms of reference haven’t yet been formally published but we, I mean I will do that any minute because I have now issued the letters of appointment to members of the commission and I think Sir Howard Fergus is the chairman and is planning the first meeting of the commission later this month.
But I will issue a press release, which will give the terms of reference but they again are very simple and short.
I mean, the commission is charged with taking the widest sounding of views about the ways in which the constitution might be modernized to reflect the aspirations of Montserratians today.
HS: You know, HE, a question was raised in the ongoing discussion about the constitution commission as to why a woman is not on the commission.
AL: Yes, I’ve had that raised with me several times. First of all, I have to say that this was not a deliberate omission.
The way the commission was selected or perhaps I will explain the way the commission was selected. My predecessor, governor Abbott, agreed with the government of Montserrat this commission would be set up and he said that it was agreed that the governor would select the chairman, that the government would select a representative, that the opposition would select a representative, and that there will be a legal representative for obvious reasons and that there would be a representative for Montserratians overseas and that’s what happened.
But, of course, the opposition didn’t consult the government about who they were going to have and it was only when we got everybody’s names in that we realized that there was no woman.
It was not a deliberate exclusion. It was just something that happened.
I ought also to say that there is a slight misapprehension in some of the comments that are made about this. I mean, the members of the commission are not there to represent particular constituencies apart from the representative, for example, of the overseas communities who have certain duties as regards representing their interests.
But generally the idea is that the commission as a whole should be a sounding board.
Their job is to consult with Montserratians, all groups of society and to get their views and reflect their views in their report and their recommendations for modernizing the constitution.
Therefore, it isn’t actually essential to have every particular group represented. I mean, one could say there should be a woman on the commission representing female opinion, but that would be… that’s not the way it’s seen.
You could argue too that there should be various groups representing youth, representing religious groups, representing racial groups, but this isn’t how it works.
Each member of the commission has as his constituency all Montserratians, not a particular group of them and the commission’s job is to listen to everybody’s views and to talk with everybody, special interest groups or any group that wants to tell them their views.
So I don’t think that it will make, in practice, much difference.
I mean, personally, I think it would have been nice if there had been a woman on the commission because after all I quite agree women do play an important role in Montserratian society.
But I don’t think… but it’s just an accidental, superficial sort of omission.
I don’t think it’s going to make any difference to the way in which women’s role or stop women’s opinion being reflected in the conclusions of the commission.
HS: Any reason why there are only five members on the commission?
AL: Well, I mean there are five members. One reason is each member you add on will add to the cost.
You know, the cost is being borne, I hope largely by the British government but there will be travel, there will be meetings, there will be people to do various secretarial backup work, support work for the commission and each member you have on it increases the cost.
It also, there is always in these groups a sort of optimum number that can work together effectively.
As we know, if you have meetings with twenty-five people around a table, they often do less work than meetings with five or six people around the table.
And I think, this is really partly a matter for the chairman, Sir Howard Fergus, but I mean, I think he has got what I would consider a comfortable number.
HS: Is this likely to be a lengthy process? When are they due to report back?
AL: The letter of appointment asks, tells the commissioners that I would hope that they would have their report ready by July, August next year.
It would be a good achievement if they managed to do it by then. I think the experience with the other overseas territories shows it actually takes rather longer but I’m sure we have a very efficient chairman and a very efficient group of people on the commission and I’m sure they will work with utmost dispatch and efficiency.
HS: Is there any truth to reports that there were some concerns and some disagreements as to who the members of the commission should be?
AL: Well, as I explained how they were selected and I think people accepted the selection process accepted the results of it.
HS: One final question on this matter. Overseas Montserratians, Montserratians living overseas, would the commission be going around to the different countries to take their thoughts in account as well?
AL: Well, this will be a matter for the chairman and his commission members to decide. I think probably one of the first things they will think about when they sit down as a group is where they want to travel and when and what their budget will need to be.
And, of course, I’ve asked the chairman to submit a budget to me for what he thinks it will cost and then we will try and work it out.
I mean I think t it’s fairly clear that some arrangement will have to be made to canvas the opinion of Montserratians in the UK, whether a large number many of whom will have views on the constitution and in Antigua.
Now they have a representative on the commission, as you know, who lives in the United States and he will be able to represent the views of Montserratians there.
How much more traveling? I don’t know.
It will be up for, to Sir Howard and his fellow members to decide. He will put recommendations to me and if it’s acceptable financially, we’ll go ahead but in the first instance, it’s up to the chairman.
HS: The airport: there has been what I term some confusion as to who made the decision to put the airport at Geralds, when the decision was made.
You know, people, different people are saying different things and in the end, the public would be rather confused.
We’ve heard from the Chief Minister. We’ve heard from the minister responsible for Communications & Works.
We’ve heard from other parliamentarians and we’ve heard from the public and maybe you yourself have heard comments on this as well.
What we want to know is in the end, will an airport be built at Geralds and maybe you can tell us who actually made the decision to put an airport at Geralds.
AL: I have carefully refrained from saying very much about the airport debate for a long time because I don’t think it is right that I should publicly make my views known about a matter which was for the government of Montserrat to decide.
And the answer about who decided where the airport should be, it is the government. Precisely how and who that made it, I think it is for them to tell you rather than me.
As far as I am concerned, it is my clear belief that there is a very clear decision has been taken by the government of Montserrat that the new airport will be at Geralds and on the basis of the fact that they have now made their decision, I feel able to say that in my view that I am absolutely confident that they have made the right decision.
HS: This government made the decision?
AL: Yes.
HS: So that is absolutely clear?
AL: Well I mean whom else is it suggested made the decision?
HS: It was suggested by the Minister of Communications & Works that this decision may have been made, in his words, “at the highest levels of the British government’s cabinet.”
AL: I think that’s probably based on some misunderstanding.
There’s the issue of finance and there’s a certain amount of funding available from the EU and from the British government for this airport.
I think the British government always made clear that it would not be prepared to find extra money to fund a much more expensive airport somewhere else.
If that is taken the decision, okay you can say, in that sense, the British government had an influence on it. But in practice, it’s a government of Montserrat decision.
It was up to them that if they can find the money elsewhere that they could build an airport elsewhere that’s their decision.
It was also their decision also that they wanted to take up the EU’s offer of funding, which I think was only for Geralds.
HS: A lot have been said about Geralds, about its lack of expansion capabilities. There is no room for development and there again there is the safety factor. Does that bother you?
AL: Well I think there’s some… Well, I have to say that I don’t always understand some of the arguments that are made.
There are, are far as I am concerned, three good reasons why the government of Montserrat was right to choose Geralds.
There was the question of timing, the question of cost and the question of need. The question of timing, at the moment, the government of Montserrat needs to be looking for ways in which it can find new revenue earning potential for economy apart from DFID funds coming in.
I mean this is to state the obvious. Almost wherever you look, as to what their sources of these might be, in the private sector or tourism or other forms of business, you find that getting an airport on stream, getting proper air communications with the rest of the world is a key part of it.
Having an airport at Geralds enables an airport to open-we hope by, I think the contract terms, at the end of December 2003.
I think the ICAO people when they came here thought it could be done even more quickly and if so, that would be wonderful. If one’s going to decide to build an airport somewhere else on one or two sites that kept being mentioned, there would be a much longer time frame.
And secondly, the question of cost. Nobody that I know ever produced a realistic budget for any other site except for the one that was quoted by Gibbs, the consultant, I think in 1997 or 98, long before my time anyway.
There was a lot of talk but there was never a firm budget of this is how much something will cost taking into account the total cost of an airport, not just the building of a runway.
It was clear, however, to everybody that it would cost a lot more than Geralds and it was never clear to me from where this money was going to come or why, when there are so many other priorities that this island has for urgent resolution like social welfare, housing problems, problems with the health service and so on, why somebody would decide they need a very large airport.
If you look now at the number of tourists. I mean I’m talking about serious tourists from the US, from Europe, there is a handful coming here at the moment.
I mean most of the hotels are empty most of the times except for official visitors. What we need now is not just to argue about whether we need planes that can carry 40 passengers at a time or 20, we need to think how we are even going to get 15 genuine tourists coming twice a day to this island to stay as proper tourists, staying in hotels.
I’m not talking about day tourists from Antigua. I mean this is why also the question of need comes up.
I don’t see the need at the moment for Montserrat to have a large airport capable of carrying larger planes, maybe in the future, maybe when the economy has taken off, maybe when you have a thriving tourist industry, which we all hope happens one day in the future. Maybe then there will be a need.
At the moment, if one has three flights a day or two flights a day, whatever it might be, I have no idea, and gets even 20 or 30 tourists a day coming in, I mean that would make a huge difference to Montserrat.
We need to set our sights at some realistic objectives and not talk about some mythical numbers of tourists we could want in the future.
HS: Now the CRM, you have met with the CRM, members of the CRM, Citizens for the Redevelopment of Montserrat, and they have made some arguments and have been quite vocal on the radio those and they see no development really as far as industry, tourism is concerned without an airport with a longer airstrip that can accommodate a much longer aircraft.
And they also feel that once the British government spends this amount of money, which is in the region of $40 million I think, well, that’s it.
We’re probably going to have that airport for the next 40 to 50 years and they see no further development for Montserrat with an airport that size.
AL: Well, take the first thing first. The question of… Well, really the question is how temporary is temporary?
Well I think the answer is, once there is a demonstrated need and a source of funding for a larger airport than the one at Geralds, it will happen.
That is the normal commercial process. I fail to see the real arguments as to why you need this very large or a larger capacity airport.
Basically, as I said, the aim should be to get something going based on Geralds.
At the moment, we have practically nothing. I think it’s wrong to start saying because we can’t have a huge amount, we might as well stay with absolutely, with virtually no business for the future.
Develop the airport at Geralds, see how it works and if there is a real demonstrated need, then the funding will be available. But I’m sure from the number of years-and I’m not going to guess how many years-there won’t be a need for it.
As regards safety, this is another thing that’s been brought up several times, particular mention is made of the fact that there haven’t been one or two studies taken.
The fact that the studies haven’t been done doesn’t mean to say that the studies are going to prove that the airport is unsuitable.
As far as I know now, and this is something that is not in my hands, but it’s my understanding, at the moment, that one or two studies of air turbulence and others that are recommended by the ICAO will be done in parallel with basic project work on the airport.
HS: So work, to my understanding, has already started on the airport?
AL: Planning it, I think has started to a certain extent but again this is a matter for the Minister of… for the government and the Minister of Public Works & Communications.
HS: Okay. Well HE thanks so much for speaking with us. You’ve shed some light on the various issues, which I’m that the public really appreciates and welcomes.
Any other matters that you would perhaps like to raise?
AL: May I just raise one matter, which is the amnesty which is in force at the moment for unlicensed weapons. As everybody knows, about a month or so ago there was a case where two people were arrested and charged and subjected to mandatory prison sentences and I eventually-for reasons which I made public at the time-adjusted the sentences.
But it is really important now that you do realize that the Firearms Act is still in effect and they have this amnesty and really I would tell anybody who knows of neighbors or friends who may have weapons which are not licensed to please, would they get them to go and take them to tell the police station about it.
HS: Do you think that the penalty is too stiff?
AL: I am not going to comment on that. That is a matter for the government.
HS: But there is a move to bring to parliament some amendments to this Firearm Bill?
AL: There is a move to adjust the mandatory nature of the 2-year minimum sentence for a first offence, to give the judge discretion.
Now it may be that as a result of this amendment, assuming it is accepted by the executive council that-and this adjustment will be made-that there may be one or two offences, very minor cases, where the judge will consider that the prison sentence is not appropriate but the law still provides in many cases for a prison sentence to be applied and the judge may well consider that all firearms offences are serious and that is why I consider it of vital importance that everybody does take advantage of this amnesty.
HS: So you would agree with a bill, a law that would give the judge some discretion?
AL: I will accept what LEGCO wish on that. I mean I cannot put myself as commenting on that at the moment, it’s under discussion in the legislative council.
HS: Thank you so much his excellency, governor Anthony Longrigg. Sir, it has been a pleasure speaking with you.
AL: Likewise.

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