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Deputy Gavin St Pier revisits an extraordinary/ordinary week in the States:
Last week in the States was extraordinary in one sense – and yet very ordinary in another. Extraordinary given the revelation about key information apparently being hidden by the civil service from their political masters. Ordinary given the failure to focus time on the key issues of the moment.
An example of the latter is the Assembly devoting 6.5 hours to debating a Requete to limit an increase in mooring charges due to take effect on 1st April. It was an entirely legitimate issue of significance to a good number of islanders with moorings in the harbours. But the Assembly was actually re-debating a matter to which it had already devoted several hours in December, when debating an earlier motion to annul those increases. That was defeated by one vote. The matter had only come back because there were quite a few members absent in December and one, Deputy Lester Queripel, who having voted against it at that time, instantly said he regretted doing so. This gave hope to the Requerants that they could reverse the decision but given there were no new arguments on either side - and one glance at the names of those who had not voted in December - meant the defeat a second time around should not have been a huge surprise.
The debate was elongated by an amendment from three-fifths of P&R. A rule of thumb is if a committee cannot get all five members behind an amendment, it’s probably not got much chance. Indeed, it was pretty clear quite early on that it was doomed, but the debate dragged on anyway, demonstrating again a fondness of the States to misallocate its time.
More time was wasted debating not to have a debate about another Requete lodged for this meeting. This one was on waste management. The Requerants had, wisely, read the writing on the wall that they were unlikely to succeed and so moved a motion to withdraw it. Normally such motions go through on the nod. But those opposed to the Requete wanted to drive a stake through its heart by forcing it to be debated in order to defeat it. At least the States agreed to guillotine the debate not to debate, thereby avoiding another debate before an inevitable defeat. If you are thinking this doesn’t sound like the best use of time, you’d be right.
The only other major issue was the question and answers around the revelation that costs of Phase 2 of the Our Hospital Modernisation programme were running £30m higher than the more recent estimate of £120m. Whilst that information alone would ordinarily have been enough to raise blood pressures, the fact that the information had apparently been concealed for months by some officers from the political committee was a bombshell. The President, Al Brouard’s response in summary was: ‘I’m not very happy about this but these things happen, and at the end of the day, the hospital and medical services will cost what they cost.’ Needless to say, this approach did not fill Members with confidence but there is a reluctance in this States to say or do anything about it. Inaction this term has, it seems, become all pervasive.
