OPINION: Casting stones

I RECENTLY had occasion to write to the Guernsey Press concerning comments made about me by Richard Digard in an article on 21 July 2023 about the States of Guernsey Accounts for 2021.

Deputy St Pier, who has a qualification as a barrister, but I do not think has ever practised as one, took the view that he, and I am quoting what he said on social media, was ‘struggling to find any suggestion of dishonesty or impropriety’.

Well I, as a lawyer who has practised for half a century, over 40 of those years as a Guernsey advocate, had no hesitation at all in concluding that the comments were defamatory of me, and indeed I believe of others. That aside, the Guernsey Press published an early apology.

The reason I mention that in particular is because it is now the case that it has been published in the media that Deputy St Pier has been the subject of complaints made against him to both the Code of Conduct Panel and otherwise. I am going to comment no further about those until they are fully in the public domain, which I very, very much hope they will be soon. It strikes me as incredible when complaints against other deputies are dealt with in a matter of weeks, that these matters are still apparently outstanding in some way or another a long time after having been made.

What would be interesting, and I invite him to make public, is whether he was legally represented and advised in relation to any of those proceedings; what the total cost of it was to him; and why he felt it necessary to engage lawyers when he is a lawyer himself, and feels able to opine on matters of law.

I comment just a little more about Deputy Parkinson. I referred yesterday to his, if I may say so, indifferent record with respect of attending briefings, and indeed his absences on occasions during the calendar year from States meetings without, as far as I am aware, any particular reason or cause. I may be wrong as to the reasons, or lack of them, that he has for not attending States meetings and briefings – in which case he may wish to set the record straight.

As I wrote previously, he wants a general election and has expressed that view on more than one occasion. I wonder why? Does he think it will help his electoral prospects that he was seen as a saviour, or a potential one, albeit not by a majority of his States colleagues, in respect of Guernsey’s financial concerns?

I now turn to Deputy Roffey. Deputy Roffey I have worked with during the lifetime of this States on a number of matters, and I have respect for him.

I know that he is a great supporter of Deputy St Pier. He has said publicly that he voted for him four times when there was the election between Deputy St Pier and I for the presidency of the Policy & Resources Committee in 2016. He proposed him for the presidency of the Policy & Resources Committee in October 2020. All of that is fair enough. He was entitled to make those choices.

He did make a statement in one of his articles, published on 25 July 2023, which said that he fears that the last 18 months of the current Assembly could well be taken up on navel-gazing, rather than devoting its real attention to tackling the travails of the community it serves.

I agree 100% with that comment, and we simply cannot afford to do that.

What causes me to mention him is the comment he made in that article where he wrote that he thinks the States has been poorly served by the leadership of the Policy & Resources Committee.

He agreed with and he was an honourable and diligent supporter of the packages that we brought to the States in January and February of 2023 concerning the review of taxation. He continues to express that view, both publicly and privately. He was a valued member of the working party which gave rise to those proposals.

His own leadership though of the Employment & Social Security Committee, of which he is president, was woefully ineffective on that crucial issue in respect of the political membership of that committee.

He was unable to persuade any of his deputy colleagues on that committee that the proposals brought were those that needed to be supported, despite what he accepted that those proposals would have benefited the majority of the population.

The Policy & Resources Committee also recently has had to make provision somewhat unexpectedly for a £6.2m. loss for Guernsey Ports for 2023, a body under the political control of the States’ Trading Supervisory Board, of which Deputy Roffey is president. This is an additional burden on revenue in times which are in any event strained to say the least.

Deputy Roffey, either directly or indirectly, has considerable influence in relation to such matters, and has failed to exercise the leadership that is necessary to be able to address this issue in any material way, other than to really say: ‘This is very difficult, and I am not sure what I should do.’

He does fairly refer to the support from what he terms the majority of the Policy & Resources Committee in connection with the affordable housing project. In fact I have been a key member of the working group of which he and I and Deputy de Sausmarez were members who fulsomely supported such projects. Deputy Roffey will remember that he and others were prepared to pay £250,000 more for the data park site than was the final purchase price, and it was at my intervention that the States managed to obtain a reduction in the purchase price.

The Policy & Resources Committee has, in fact, directly made available more than £30m. towards affordable housing projects and purchases.

I though do comment I am sorry that there are too many in one camp or the other in connection with housing, which is probably our greatest internal challenge. I said internal because I will be referring to external matters just shortly. It is the challenge above all we need to address as it affects so many people in so many ways.

You have what I regard as the ‘Deputy Roffey Camp’ which, despite protestations otherwise, almost exclusively wants all energies directed towards social/affordable housing and large-scale state intervention, and then you have others who almost exclusively believe it should leave housing to the private market.

Both are wrong. There is absolutely a great need for social housing and affordable housing, but it can only work as part and parcel of the overall strategy which needs to be far more radical than are the proposed current suggestions to address our housing problem. Those who support the private market alone as the solution are also wrong, because the private market has not produced enough homes in recent years, and no one can realistically continue to use GP11 as the only reason for our housing crisis, in the failure to provide the requisite number of properties that we need to provide decent housing for many more than we do at present.

So I ask Deputy Roffey to show real leadership. Let him not just simply be happy with having his picture in the paper recently for indeed the very welcome purchase of the Braye Lodge site.

Let him also say, rather than have a photograph of him, again in an earlier edition of the newspaper, staring wistfully over a farm fence at the hospital field at the Vauquiedor, that the field is indeed a suitable site for urgently needed nursing/key worker accommodation. He also hopefully will join in the condemnation by the many for the poor decision to list the Castel Hospital.

That would be good and positive leadership, and I look forward to him perhaps addressing all of what I have just written in his next column.

Tomorrow: Deputy Ferbrache defends his committee’s record and looks to the future