GREAT BAY--Parliament’s 2025-2026 Annual Report represents one of the more detailed efforts to give the public a measurable look at the work of the legislature, providing information on attendance, written questions, legislation, amendments, motions, committee activity and other parliamentary business.
For the record, however, a closer examination shows that the figures should not necessarily be read as a complete scorecard of everything that occurred during the parliamentary year or everything individual MPs did. Some statistics stop before the parliamentary year ended, while the way attendance is recorded does not always distinguish between different types of parliamentary work.
The clearest indication is contained in the report itself. Its three-year comparison of motions states that the 2025-2026 figures have an end date of August 5, 2026, although parliamentary activity continued beyond that date. The report records six motions submitted and three passed up to that cutoff.
That becomes particularly important when reviewing amendments. The report lists only three amendments submitted and three passed during 2025-2026, one by MP Sarah Wescot-Williams and two by MP Ardwell Irion. Unlike the motions table, however, the amendments table does not carry an August 5 cutoff note.
Parliament subsequently considered 10 additional amendments to the 2026 national budget on August 27, still during Parliamentary Year 2025-2026. Nine were adopted. Those amendments were submitted by Viren Kotai, Veronica Jansen-Webster, Sjamira Roseburg, Dimar Labega, Francisco Lacroes, Franklin Meyers, Raeyhon Peterson and Ardwell Irion.
The 2026 Budget itself was registered as Parliamentary Year 2025-2026-192, confirming that the late-August debate remained part of the parliamentary year covered by the report. The Annual Report nevertheless lists only the three earlier amendments in its annual statistics.
This does not make the Annual Report inaccurate. It does mean that parts of it are better understood as a snapshot compiled at a particular point in time, rather than a final accounting of every action taken before the parliamentary year closed.
Attendance figures also require some context.
The report provides separate attendance percentages for public meetings, Central Committee meetings and individual permanent and ad hoc committees. Parliament itself explains that it has 17 permanent and ad hoc committees, and that every MP has the right to participate in committee meetings, although only formal members of the particular committee have the right to vote. Not every MP is formally assigned to (or personally selects) the same number of committees.
According to the committee directory, Viren Kotai and Lyndon Lewis are each members of all 17 committees, Francisco Lacroes is listed on 16, Sarah Wescot-Williams on 15 and Sjamira Roseburg on 14. At the other end, Franklin Meyers is formally listed on five committees, while Ardwell Irion and Darryl York are each on six.
That difference is important when attempting to use committee attendance as a measure of overall participation. An MP assigned to five committees can theoretically achieve a very high committee attendance percentage while being required to attend far fewer committee meetings than an MP assigned to 15 or 17. The report presents attendance within each committee, but does not produce a weighted overall figure that takes different committee workloads into account.
Additionally, an MP can attend a committee meeting without being a formal member of that committee, since Parliament’s Rules of Order allow all MPs to participate. However, the attendance tables for individual committees list the formal committee members. As a result, participation by a non-member may not appear in that committee’s published attendance percentage.
Faction Leaders meetings are even more specific. The Annual Report states that, under Article 12 of Parliament’s Rules of Order, the Faction Leaders meeting consists of the President of Parliament and the faction leaders. Two such meetings were recorded during 2025-2026.
The Committee of Kingdom Affairs and Interparliamentary Relations, CKAIR, is also a good example of why the tables require careful reading. Seven MPs are formally listed as members of that committee, and the attendance table measures those seven. Other MPs may participate in CKAIR work or attend as substitutes, but that participation is not necessarily captured in the formal committee attendance table.
The report itself provides an even clearer example of why an absence should not automatically be interpreted as an MP not working.
From June 21 to 24, 2026, Parliament President Sarah Wescot-Williams and MP Ardwell Irion were officially representing Parliament at the Caribbean Artificial Intelligence Workshop for Members of Parliament in Anguilla. A Central Committee meeting was held in St. Maarten on June 23, and both MPs are recorded as absent in the attendance table for that meeting.
A similar situation occurred in December 2025. Wescot-Williams was participating in EuroLat meetings at the European Parliament in Brussels from December 1 to 4. Parliament held a Central Committee continuation on December 2, and she was recorded absent from that meeting.
In other words, the published attendance percentage does not necessarily distinguish between an MP who simply did not attend and an MP who was absent because he or she was elsewhere carrying out an official parliamentary assignment.
The report uses the codes P, AN and ANN throughout its attendance tables, but does not provide a clear definition in the Annual Report of the distinction between AN and ANN. It states that the attendance codes and percentages were reproduced from the underlying source tables. For that reason, conclusions about the precise reason behind every recorded absence should be made cautiously.
A calculation of the raw attendance numbers contained in the report also produces a different perspective from percentages alone. When recorded attendance at public meetings, Central Committee meetings and formal committee meetings is added together, Veronica Jansen-Webster and Francisco Lacroes emerge with the highest number of recorded meeting attendances, at approximately 100 each, followed by Lyndon Lewis, Sarah Wescot-Williams, Dimar Labega and Sjamira Roseburg.
Those totals are not an official Parliament ranking and should not be presented as one. They do not capture every faction meeting, Presidium meeting, foreign parliamentary mission, work visit, conference, training session or committee meeting attended by an MP who was not a formal member.
That, ultimately, is the important context.
The 2025-2026 Annual Report is a significant transparency tool and gives the public far more information with which to assess Parliament than a simple list of meetings or speeches could provide. But its own cutoff dates, the uneven distribution of committee memberships, the treatment of official parliamentary travel and the limits of committee attendance tables demonstrate that no single attendance percentage or activity table should be treated as a complete measure of an MP’s work.
The report tells the public a great deal about Parliament’s year. A closer look at the underlying record shows that it does not, and perhaps cannot, tell everything.
