As this week’s meeting in Wales closed yesterday lunchtime Guernsey was announced as the next host. The island has hosted such summits previously but the Prime Minister has never attended, replaced instead by other senior politicians. Tony Blair attended a session in Jersey when he was Prime Minister.
Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez, who was attending the summit as the head of Guernsey’s administration for the first time, said she was looking forward to hosting and had been pleased to hear other leaders talk positively of the island.
‘It’s been really gratifying the number of heads of administration who have been to Guernsey in the past,’ she said.
‘I was talking to the Taoiseach of Ireland and he had fond memories of being here for a summit, and Lyndon Farnham [Chief Minister of Jersey], his first one, 20 years ago, was in Guernsey.’
The British-Irish Council was established under the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement to promote good, practical, positive, and mutually beneficial relations between the peoples of Guernsey, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. The event in the Vale of Glamorgan was the 44th summit meeting.
‘I was really encouraged to see that Keir Starmer attended in person,’ she said.
‘It is a strong indication of how seriously he takes this process, and there was a lot of serious discussion about issues affecting all of the communities around the table. I was lucky enough to be sitting next to the Prime Minister, and did manage to have conversations with him and each and every other head of the administrations. Not just as part of the formal plenary process, but informally in building relationships too.’
She said that there had been discussions on ‘matters of real substance’.
‘For example, with the UK Prime Minister and Darren Jones [Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister], discussions were about Guernsey’s participation in the relevant parts of the UK-EU reset.’
The focus of this summit was the creative industries, a sector of particular interest for Deputy de Sausmarez.
‘That is my professional background,’ she said.
‘Since I’ve been in government, I’ve always championed them. I think it’s particularly important to Guernsey, where we have a particularly dominant single sector in the form of finance, it’s so important to have sectors like the creative industries that provide more breadth and resilience to our economy, and also provide a good range of opportunities for people.
‘It’s a really exciting area and I know that it’s one that Economic Development as a committee are looking at how they can support it in a more focused way.’
She added that the sector was worth an estimated £83m. a year to Guernsey and was growing faster than other sectors in the island. The main focus of discussions was the ‘screen sector’.
‘We have got some amazing talent in this island, we’ve got film production companies which produce really high quality output which involves a lot of local talent, and also draw on the experience and expertise from heavy-hitters beyond our shores.’
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