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Policy & Resources want to delay a decision on reintroducing a standalone housing committee until after the 2025 budget has been approved, with the idea also receiving the scorn of other committees.
Deputies Lyndon Trott and Heidi Soulsby, who hold the top two positions in Policy & Resources, will ask the States next week to postpone the debate until the final government sitting of the year in December.
The move is being backed by all members of the Committee, which says while housing is the top priority for the States there are unidentified costs associated with the proposal including the creation of a new infrastructure team to deliver it.
The budget is always considered in a special sitting in early November, which will allow the Assembly to have “the full picture of the extensive challenges and choices ahead through an affordability lens”, P&R said.
Several deputies are seeking States backing to launch the new committee next summer, which will pull responsibility for housing policy out of the mandate of three other committees – Policy & Resources, Environment & Infrastructure, and Employment & Social Security.
The group, led by Deputy Sasha Kazantseva Miller, wants £155,000 from next year’s budget to pull it off, as well as diverting housing budgets from the other committees into it, which they think will lead to faster housebuilding and clearer accountability.
The committees which currently oversee housing and planning policies have also expressed concerns with the idea in official letters of comment published ahead of the debate, however.
Environment & Infrastructure has placed its own amendment asking for an additional £430,000 per year instead, to recruit six new policy officers to deliver on housing. It says that could be cheaper and more effective than setting up a new committee.
Pictured: Deputy Sasha Kazantseva-Miller will lead arguments to set up the Committee for Housing next week.
P&R have noted that committees have already made a request for more officers to deliver housing policies as part of the budget submissions, which they say will deliver housing options to deputies sooner.
“The financial pressures on the public service have been broadly outlined to all Committees during the preparation of the 2025 Budget,” it said. “Nevertheless, it is already facing very challenging decisions as it prepares recommendations for the States and there are many choices that the States must make before it can reasonably in good faith consider the affordability of the proposals presented in the Requête.”
“Our system of government recognises that strategic housing policy is a form of infrastructure, and it is currently considered alongside the development of all strategic land use policy including national infrastructure, transport management and strategic planning of the natural and built environment.
“There is considerable benefit in more fully understanding the volume of infrastructure planning and construction ahead, and assessing the impact of political and operational separation, before determining that housing and infrastructure committees deliberating in isolation best serves the community.
It also warned that big decisions are coming up on infrastructure investment at the harbours which will suck up a large amount of planning time within the civil service.
P&R said the delay would have no effect on the Requête if it was to succeed, as it seeks to set up the Committee for Housing on 1 July 2025 when the next States will have been elected.
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