ANALYSIS: Does the P&R President still think the States are failing?

Tuesday 06 September 2022

Welcome to EYE ON POLITICS from Express. We dig deeper behind the headlines to help you make sense of the goings-on in Guernsey politics. Including taking a closer look at the agenda for meetings of the States’ Assembly.

Here’s your EYE ON POLITICS digest for this week's States’ meeting...

As if a third change of Prime Minister in six years is not enough excitement for political watchers in their first week back after the holidays, they also have the treat of the States’ Assembly returning tomorrow for its opening meeting of the 2022/23 season.

Before looking ahead, it’s worth clearing up something about August en passant. It most definitely is holiday month for most politicians most of the time. The entire political calendar is based around working like billy-o for about 10 months a year with a sharp decline in work for five or six weeks in the summer and two to three weeks over Christmas and New Year.

Any deputy who claims to be working as hard as normal every August and is telling the truth almost certainly isn’t putting in the hours he or she should be for the rest of the year.

Pictured: Deputies' summer break will soon be a distant memory as they tackle the challenges of the current States' third and arguably most difficult autumn and winter in office.  

They will now be back into the full swing of Committee meetings, briefings, casework and media enquiries. But the Assembly’s agenda this week remains light ahead of an autumn likely to be dominated by debates about tax, budgets and pensions.

After the Bailiff has paid tribute to the lives of former Deputies Nick Le Poidevin and Barry Paint, two Presidents – Deputy Peter Ferbrache for Policy & Resources and Deputy Neil Inder for Economic Development – will provide update statements on the work of their Committees.

These statements may be the most interesting part of the meeting.

The last time Deputy Ferbrache had to make such a statement, he made the headline-grabbing claim that the States he leads had so far “woefully failed to meet the concerns of the bedrock of our community” and that “good, hard-working people have not been looked after by the States for years and years and years”.

Pictured: Deputy Peter Ferbrache admitted to serious failings in States' policies when he last provided an update statement to the Assembly.

That was nearly six months ago. Tomorrow, Deputy Ferbrache will doubtless want to set out the actions taken and changes made since then to take the States’ focus away from what he called “fringe groups that we put our hands up and give happy-clappy to” and more towards what he called “ordinary people… those who work, do not have a bank of mum and dad, and who want to advance themselves and improve the lives of their families”.

In particular, he may want to set out exactly what the States are doing about housing and the cost of living, bearing in mind that in May the Policy & Resources Committee said that "the island's housing needs and the increasing cost of living are the two most pressing and immediate domestic pressures which the States must tackle".

Tax is another issue to listen out for in Deputy Ferbrache's statement.

His Committee has already twice deferred its flagship tax reform package - once in October last year until July this year and a second time until the fourth quarter of this year.

And as recently as July, amid growing rumours among deputies that the Committee was nowhere near as prepared as it would need to be to submit a policy letter in the next few weeks, the Committee refused to answer questions from Express about whether it was still on course to take its proposals - including GST - to the States' Assembly this year.

Pictured: Deputy Neil Inder, the President of the Committee for Economic Development, will also provide an update statement tomorrow, during which he may provide more information about when the States will debate a report on whether to extend Guernsey's runway, which has already been delayed by several months.  

After statements, there will be two sets of questions to committee presidents.

Deputy Gavin St. Pier has submitted a question to the President of the Committee for Health & Social Care, Deputy Al Brouard.

And Deputy John Gollop will return to one of his favourite subjects - public transport - to ask several questions of the President of the Committee for the Environment & Infrastructure, Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez, including: "...would it not be sensible and wise to examine the case for States’ nationalisation of the public bus services, thus ensuring drivers would merit key worker status and public sector contractual pay and conditions of service, encouraging staff recruitment and retention?"

Pictured: Deputy John Gollop will use tomorrow's States' meeting to raise the possibility of the States taking over the island's bus service. 

The Committee for Home Affairs will lead a policy letter which was deferred at a States' meeting before the summer adjournment. It wants the Assembly's backing to raise the profile of efforts to counter sexual violence.

First, by incorporating them into the island's domestic abuse strategy following a States' direction which its predecessor Committee was meant to have dealt with by 2018. Second, by expediting a pilot Sexual Assault Referral Centre. Both proposals are expected to sail through the Assembly. 

One proposal which is likely to encounter more opposition is an attempt by Deputies Gavin St. Pier and Victoria Oliver to defer increases in waste charges and cap future increases at less than recommended by the States' Trading Supervisory Board for the remaining life of the current States' Assembly.

Pictured: Deputies Gavin St. Pier and Victoria Oliver want to see smaller increases in waste charges than those currently planned and will try to secure States' backing this week. 

Deputy St. Pier may not necessarily expect his proposals to succeed, but he wanted to pursue them as what he calls "a revealing test" of how seriously the States are committed to alleviating the worst of the cost of living pressures now facing many thousands of islanders.

During that debate, the President of the Board, Deputy Peter Roffey, will have the task of defending present and future inflation-busting hikes in waste charges.

However, wearing one of his other hats - as President of the Committee for Employment & Social Security - he will later propose emergency increases in income support rates, which he and his Committee argue are necessary "to ensure that we do what we can, as soon as we can, for islanders on the lowest incomes, who are already feeling the impact of the increasing cost of food, fuel and many other essentials".