Anton Tabone, Speaker of the House of Representatives, will be attending the 19th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth to be held in London between tomorrow and Sunday.

The conference, set up in 1969, brings together the Speakers and Presiding Officers of the national parliaments of the independent sovereign states of the Commonwealth. It is an independent group and operates on a two-year cycle holding a conference of the full membership every two years.

The conference objectives are to maintain, foster and encourage impartiality and fairness on the part of Speakers and Presiding Officers of parliaments; promote knowledge and understanding of parliamentary democracy in its various forms; and develop parliamentary institutions.

Among the topics on the 2008 conference agenda, there are: privilege and the right of reply; keeping order and fostering decorum; standards and ethics for parliamentarians and parliament’s relations with the public.