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With only ten meetings left of this States’ term, prior terms would have seen the quantity of business ramping up by this stage.
Yet last week’s meeting was done in a day.
Given regular committee statements and question time normally take up most of the first morning of any States' sitting, the volume of substantive business was really very low.
The most significant in terms of its long-term impact on the community was the final approval of new Domestic Abuse legislation.
In our parliamentary system, far more parliamentary time is spent considering, debating, and amending policy when committees bring forward policy letters for approval. Far less time is spent considering legislation.
There is normally zero line-by-line scrutiny of draft law on the floor of the Assembly, other than on the rare occasion that an amendment to the legislation is moved by a member for debate.
Legislative scrutiny is left to the little known and low-profile Legislation Review Panel, which is part of the Scrutiny Management Committee. The 108 pages of domestic abuse legislation did not buck the trend and was nodded through, with only a short, generic debate that did not delve into the legislative detail.
To be fair and give credit where it is due, the Committee for Home Affairs during this term of government, have done well to move sexual violence and domestic abuse up the agenda with responses involving policy, legislation, and resources. The few speeches that there were, rightly acknowledged this work from the committee.
The law creates new offences of domestic abuse, including abusive behaviour, child cruelty and causing or allowing death or serious physical harm, as well as threatening to disclose private sexual images. Domestic abuse protection notices and orders, non-molestation orders and restraining orders are all added to the panoply of responses available to help protect victims and the vulnerable.
The annual uprating report of social security contributions and related contributory benefits, the most important of which is the States' Pension, also got pretty short shrift.
'Uprating' refers to the increase in benefits to take account of the movement in prices and earnings over the previous year. Given those changes are a matter of fact, there is normally little controversy over the Committee for Employment & Social Security's recommended increase, and this year was no different.
The onward march upwards of social security contributions to ensure that the insurance funds have resources available to meet their obligations also barely caused a ripple.
These funds are nowhere near sufficient to meet the commitments they are supposed to be underwriting, so they are more in the nature of a buffer fund to avoid the entire liability in any year falling on that year's taxpayers, which is model that the UK (and many others) operate. The size of that buffer is a subjective judgement call rather than a scientific calculation. The Committee's boil-a-frog approach to small but regular increases in contribution rates has worked in taking all the controversy out of the increases.
The longest debate was reserved for the recommendation that I be formally reprimanded for breaching the Code of Conduct in naming a paediatrician, Dr Sandie Bohin, in the States in April 2022.
In my 12 years in the States, there had been two prior such recommendations. Unsurprisingly, members of the Assembly, whether they consider a recommendation right, wrong, too soft, or too harsh are inclined to accept the work of those who have been independently tasked with looking at a complaint.
The most substantial ground of my appeal had been that it was implicitly never intended that a member be subject to the Code twice in respect of the same conduct, given a complaint had already been considered (and rejected) in relation to a suggestion that I had abused parliamentary privilege, which is the right of elected representatives to speak freely in parliament without fear of repercussion.
Although the rules have been changed to ensure that no other member will ever be subject to a similar claim in the future, the appeal was rejected. I accepted the formal reprimand as the outcome of the process, which was what it was.
The debate was an opportunity lost to acknowledge that at the heart of the case are a large number of families whose experience of their interaction with the island's health services had been traumatising. Safeguarding, the Code of Conduct and formal reprimands are side shows for them.
For them it was concerns about the quality of their families' clinical care which drove them to complain, seek second opinions or off island treatment. Listening with respect and empathy to those concerns and experiences from their perspective, taking them seriously, and treating each as an opportunity to learn that something may be done a little differently next time, is all most are looking for.
Reprimanded though I am, I will continue to push for the changes in culture and systems that would better enable those outcomes.
