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SACC plans to stick to its guns over plans to increase campaign expenditure limits for the next election with fears electioneering could be centralised, despite vocal opposition and attempts to decrease it in the last States meeting.
But the political members of the States Assembly & Constitution Committee are predicting a pushback from other States members when it re-presents its election plans for approval later this year.
SACC President Deputy Carl Meerveld said the committee should fight for the original limits they proposed last month, but acknowledged they needed a “very strong argument” to win backing.
In 2020, individual spending was capped at £6,000, while parties could spend up to £9,000. But SACC proposed increasing the cap by £1,500 and £6,000 for people and parties respectively. However, when it was put to the States, it faced opposition with amendments seeking to keep the caps at 2020 levels or halve them.
The States ultimately directed SACC to come back with proposals after exploring lower limits than originally proposed.
SACC member Deputy Simon Fairclough feared the wider States wanted to arbitrarily reduce the expenditure limit through a “finger in the air, gut feeling” approach and said despite presenting research pointing to do the opposite and amendment was likely offering a series of lower spending caps.
He said they needed to “defend the principle that if you want to mailshot everyone you should be able to".
Meanwhile, Deputy Yvonne Burford said the States “should not limit election materials to the central state” and that “two committees have come to the same conclusion for the same reason.
“There is a huge problem with the fact that there is an inequity that some candidates can afford to do this, and a great many can’t.”
Pictured: The next general election will take place on 18 June 2025.
Another issue she raised was that incumbents were placing the goalposts for the next election, running the risk of “penalising people” who are “trying to make a name for themselves” since they lack the name-recognition of being an active politician.
Deputy Burford also said these issues were a flaw of the electoral system – island wide voting – introduced via a referendum and first used in the 2020 poll.
Deputy Meerveld, one of the architects of the voting system, which was known as Option A in the referendum, disagreed, saying “it’s a challenge”. But he agreed that candidates “must be allowed to choose” how to market themselves during campaigns.
But the pair were in strong agreement that candidates should be marketing themselves, with the job not left solely to central government.
“If the States decide on a £3,000 limit then we’ll have to live it, but we need to fight for what we believe in,” Deputy Burford said.
SACC officials also broke down fixed and variable costs for election candidates in other jurisdictions, but Deputy Burford said significant items like envelopes, manifestos and postage weren't included which would be needed for around 18,000 households if a candidate decided to go that route.
“And we can’t just consider that to be the be all and end all,” she said, as SACC requested more detailed costings to be provided in a future policy letter to set out the reasoning behind increasing the spending cap.
Even if a Jersey campaign spending estimate was adjusted for inflation it would effectively be the same as what the committee originally proposed to the States, Deputy Meerveld noted.
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