Under the Act all of the functions previously performed by the Monarch and their Governor-General were transferred to the president.

(b) to provide for related matters.Barbados became an independent nation state on 30 November 1966, having previously been a British colony.

In September 2020, the Barbados Labour Party government of Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced in its Throne Speech that Barbados would become a republic by November 2021.

[5][6] The Barbados Labour Party held a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Barbadian Parliament (including all but one lower house seat), enough to approve a constitutional amendment.

Then Opposition senator Caswell Franklyn, while supportive of the transition to a republic, criticized the bill stating that a new constitution "should be drawn up" to facilitate the transition instead of an amendment to the Barbados Independence Act 1966, further adding that the process was "rushed".