From parental accountability to parole reform– PM unveils 2026 legislative agenda

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 leg­isla­tive agen­da in­cludes a pro­posed law to hold par­ents legal­ly ac­count­able for their chil­dren’s in­volve­ment in bul­ly­ing, vi­o­lence, and re­lat­ed mis­con­duct, es­pe­cial­ly in schools. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stat­ed last week, on pre­sent­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive agen­da in Par­lia­ment for 2026, that “it is part of the broad­er pol­i­cy of this Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress ris­ing con­cerns about school vi­o­lence, gang in­flu­ence, and the lack of ef­fec­tive de­ter­rents. Par­ents must be more en­gaged in their chil­dren’s be­hav­iour, es­pe­cial­ly when schools alone can­not man­age es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence. The threat of le­gal con­se­quences may push par­ents to in­ter­vene ear­li­er in cas­es of bul­ly­ing. Un­der this bill, par­ents could face fines or penal­ties if their child is re­peat­ed­ly in­volved in bul­ly­ing or vi­o­lent acts.”

Pro­posed laws al­so seek to es­tab­lish a pa­role sys­tem, ex­pand the cri­te­ria for Firearm User’s Li­cence (FUL) ap­pli­ca­tions, fa­cil­i­tate equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for dis­abled peo­ple in the labour mar­ket—and strength­en “var­i­ous ar­eas” of the min­i­mum wage law.

The Prime Min­is­ter ini­tial­ly de­tailed mea­sures, in­clud­ing im­prov­ing the work of the Ju­di­cia­ry as well as for a Chan­cel­lor of the Ju­di­cia­ry; a law on the de­struc­tion of seized/ob­so­lete/sur­ren­dered arms and am­mu­ni­tion; a law to reg­u­late the pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty in­dus­try; fi­nan­cial and bail law to com­ply with in­ter­na­tion­al rec­om­men­da­tions; To­ba­go au­ton­o­my law; im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Cari­com ar­rest war­rant; tweak­ing the fire­works bill, the law on noise pol­lu­tion and oth­ers to in­crease the age lim­it to use mar­i­jua­na and al­co­hol and for gam­bling.

She al­so spoke about the Spe­cial Zones bill and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Amend­ment Bill, which the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed last Fri­day.

Her ad­dress, which was lat­er cir­cu­lat­ed to the me­dia by her min­istry, list­ed more bills to be pre­sent­ed in 2026. Some were in the works since 2025

Among these was the Parental Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty Bill, 2025.
Al­so list­ed is the Min­i­mum Wages Act Chap­ter 88:04 for the set­ting of the min­i­mum wage and terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment. “Var­i­ous ar­eas” have been iden­ti­fied for the strength­en­ing of this act, the speech stat­ed.

The Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties Bill (2024) will seek to pro­mote and pro­tect the hu­man rights and dig­ni­ty of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties by en­sur­ing they have ac­cess to the phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment, trans­for­ma­tion, in­for­ma­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, ed­u­ca­tion at all lev­els and health ser­vices and pro­grammes.

“The bill would pro­mote the right of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties to work, there­by en­sur­ing equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for them in the labour mar­ket. It would al­so en­cour­age the par­tic­i­pa­tion of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties in po­lit­i­cal and pub­lic life,” the speech stat­ed.

The Pa­role Bill, 2026, is pro­posed to pro­vide the le­gal frame­work through which peo­ple who are con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to a term of im­pris­on­ment of 10-plus years may be grant­ed ei­ther par­tial or full pa­role.
It will es­tab­lish a Pa­role Board.

The court, on sen­tenc­ing a per­son to a term of 10-plus years’ im­pris­on­ment, can make an or­der for pa­role el­i­gi­bil­i­ty. The Pa­role Board would be re­quired to con­sid­er the suit­abil­i­ty of the of­fend­er to be re­leased on pa­role and make ap­pro­pri­ate rec­om­men­da­tions to or­der the re­lease of the of­fend­er on pa­role.

The Firearms (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, will ex­pand the cri­te­ria for per­sons who may qual­i­fy to ap­ply for/be grant­ed a Firearm User’s Li­cence (FUL), while al­so im­pos­ing stricter re­quire­ments (in­clud­ing com­pe­tence cer­tifi­cates and ap­pro­pri­ate psy­cho­me­t­ric test­ing) to man­age the large num­ber of ap­pli­ca­tions.

Al­so list­ed is a Fish­eries Man­age­ment Bill, 2025, reg­u­lat­ing fish­ing and re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties in T&T’s wa­ters and ar­eas be­yond T&T’s ju­ris­dic­tion.

Mean­while, pen­sion­ers have been ex­press­ing con­cern about the pro­posed pri­vate pen­sions bill. The Fi­nance Min­is­ter’s 2026 Bud­get stat­ed pri­vate pen­sions would be tax-free from Jan­u­ary 1, but no law has been passed for this.

The bill wasn’t among the items men­tioned in the Prime Min­is­ter’s leg­isla­tive agen­da.

Re­cent­ly, pen­sion­ers, not­ing the Feb­ru­ary 1 dead­line for them to no­ti­fy the BIR on de­duct­ing tax from their pen­sions, queried whether the Gov­ern­ment had bro­ken its promise on mak­ing pri­vate pen­sions tax-free.

Gov­ern­ment sources last week said the bill was be­ing fi­nalised for sub­mis­sion to Cab­i­net, thence to Par­lia­ment.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s What­sApp query on if the pri­vate pen­sions mat­ter will still be brought up. There was no word from Fi­nance Min­istry of­fi­cials.

The Sen­ate meets at 1.30 pm to­day on the bills passed in the House last Fri­day—the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Zones Bill, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Amend­ment Bill and the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles Amend­ment Bill. The House be­gan de­bat­ing the bills af­ter 3 pm last Fri­day, end­ing at 3.37 am last Sat­ur­day. The Sen­ate is ex­pect­ed to sit un­til late al­so.