Policy & Resources warned that committees’ overall cash limits would not be reduced without cutting services, as it presented a Budget which is set to increase day-to-day expenditure by inflation plus £8m. next year.
Deputies rejected an alternative plan to freeze spending at 2025 levels, which would have stripped £27m. out of the Budget proposed by P&R.
‘While we remain committed to driving improvement and efficiency in public services and seeking to contain costs, we must be realistic,’ said P&R treasury lead Gavin St Pier.
‘Our efforts may flatten the growth in public expenditure, but they will not reduce it. That will only be achieved by switching off services.’
Deputy St Pier said the cost of public services over the past decade had gone up by an average of about inflation plus 1% annually and some committees – including Education, Sport & Culture, and Environment & Infrastructure – had experienced real-terms budget cuts during that period.
But those reductions had been more than offset by unavoidable cost increases at Health & Social Care, averaging 2% in real terms annually – equating to inflation plus £4m. every year.
‘That increase had long been predicted and is largely as a result of us all living longer and consuming more health and care services,’ he said.
‘This States must remain committed to having an absolute focus on the future model of health and care services and making these sustainable in the longer term [and] it is very likely that P&R will recommend this as one of the top priorities for this term.’
The Assembly voted 13-25 against Scrutiny president Andy Sloan’s amendment to freeze spending at 2025 levels, which would have left HSC’s budget nearly £9m. smaller than P&R proposed and lowered Home Affairs’ cash limit by nearly £2.5m.
Deputy Sloan accused P&R of proposing ‘not prudence, but drift’ in response to its own 2026 estimates of a cash shortfall of £115m. and a structural deficit in public finances of nearly £80m.
‘We cannot, in good conscience, continue voting through higher expenditure while reserves drain away,’ he said.
‘Responsibility means making choices, not postponing them. Members have to collectively face facts and grow up.
‘The age of fiscal comfort is over. The age of fiscal honesty has to begin.’
P&R maintains the support of a majority of the Assembly to settle the island’s long-term tax and spending strategy next summer, after completing a review of the company tax system which is currently ongoing.
How States members voted on Deputy Andy Sloan’s amendment to take £27m. from the 2026 Budget and reallocate committee budgets
For (13): Deputies Blin, Camp, Curgenven, Dorrity, Helyar, Inder, Kay-Mouat, Laine, McKenna, Niles, Sloan, Van Katwyk, Vermeulen.
Against (25): Deputies Burford, Bury, Cameron, Collins, de Sausmarez, Falla, Gabriel, Gollop, Hansmann Rouxel, Humphreys, Kazantseva-Miller, Leadbeater, Malik, Matthews, Montague, Oswald, Ozanne, Parkinson, Rochester, Rylatt, St Pier, Strachan, Williams; Alderney representatives Hill and Snowdon.
Abstained: Deputy Goy.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.