Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan has described House of Keys speaker Juan Watterson as the ’Isle of Man’s John Bercow’ after he was the only member of Tynwald to vote against the Budget.

Rushen member Mr Watterson claims the Budget is the least democratic part of Tynwald.

House of Keys members voted by 22 votes to one in favour of the Budget. And members of the Legislative Council voted with nine votes in favour and none against after four and a half hours of debate in the chamber.

Mr Watterson made clear he believes members and their constituents don’t feel part of the process and called for an auditor general to be appointed. He said the position is needed to counter some of the figures coming from Treasury which he described as ’spin’.

An auditor general is generally a senior civil servant charged with improving government accountability by auditing and reporting on the government’s operations.

In the Tynwald debate Mr Watterson appeared to make a jibe at the Treasury Minister for calling it the Budget of Focus and added: ’Perhaps he should have gone to Specsavers’. Mr Watterson had also written a full page comment article in last week’s Isle of Man Examiner in which he criticised the way the Budget is handled every year.

Yesterday (Wednesday) Mr Cannan defended the Budget system in an interview with the Manx Independent.

Speaking after the annual business breakfast organised by the Isle of Man Business Network at the Palace Hotel, Douglas, he said: ’It’s not right to think that this is a dictatorship as portrayed by Juan Watterson. That is completely incorrect. Yes ultimately somebody has to make a final decision and invariably that responsibility falls to me and my Treasury colleagues.’

Asked if Mr Watterson’s comments created tension between some members and the Speaker, Mr Cannan said: ’He is the Isle of Man’s John Bercow. He’s got no impartiality left anyway. His role is effectively null and void and he’ll limp through for the next 18 months in his job.’

John Bercow was the Speaker of the UK House of Commons from 2009 to 2019 and gained some notoriety for allegedly siding with Remainer backbenchers among other things.

Asked about the Specsavers comment he said: ’It’s just another inconsequential remark. I’ve got no reaction to that, I’m not going to get into a personal fight with the Speaker, I’ve got much bigger issues to deal with.’

Mr Cannan said he had not seen an effective business case coming from Tynwald for an auditor general in the island.

’We don’t want to commit another million pounds into the Tynwald coffers if we can’t see what the benefits are.

’There are audit checks within government and we have our own internal audit department. I agree there are improvements we can make in the management of certain projects but I entirely question whether an auditor general is going to produce such significant savings to justify spending a million pounds.’

In the Tynwald debate, Treasury political member Bill Shimmins MHK warned there was the risk of creating ’paralysis by analysis’ and warned that Tynwald would be faced with ’fudge and indecision aplenty.’