New amendments are not usually allowed when adjourned debates resume, in line with the Assembly’s rules, but officials have indicated they will apply a different interpretation which would effectively reopen the period for submitting amendments until 22 September.
A total of 22 amendments were submitted before last week’s debate, with attempts to suspend the rules to allow others to be laid during the meeting, and it now seems certain that a further tranche will be presented, in particular by deputies campaigning against the introduction of a goods and services tax, including Garry Collins.
‘I have been invited to lay further amendments... and that is exactly what I plan to do, including measures to cut costs and reduce expenditure,’ said Deputy Collins over the weekend.
Listen: Matt Fallaize joins Tony Curr to round-up last week’s tax debate
‘This extra time is valuable. We can really put on the table the reforms that are needed and not introduce GST right now. We are in a housing crisis, not a financial crisis. We need to build flats, bedsits and homes for our young islanders, who will stay on the island and pay taxes, filling any possible holes – not that I’m sure we have one.’
The Assembly last week rejected a delaying motion and all the amendments which P&R opposed in debate, which means the senior committee’s package remains as originally presented, including a 3% GST, new taxes on motoring and some companies, and reductions in income tax and social security contributions, which it estimates will improve States finances by about £40m. a year without increasing costs overall for lower- and middle-income households.
Deputies close to a public campaign against P&R’s package have estimated that hundreds of people have sent emails asking States members to vote against it, and two of them, Robert Curgenven and Simon Vermeulen, said they hoped the senior committee would carry out more consultation during the summer and present alternative proposals to the Assembly in September.
‘If they come back and place the same old thing again and expect to bulldoze it through, a vote of no confidence will have a lot more chance than it has today,’ said Deputy Curgenven.
However, P&R had been confident of winning a majority had the States voted last week, and looks highly unlikely to make major changes to its package before the debate resumes.
Attempts to reject or overturn P&R’s package may not be over even if the Assembly votes for it in the autumn. Asked whether he would then give up the fight against GST, Deputy Vermuelen said: ‘No, I can’t say I would. I’m vehemently against GST. It has been passed once before, and possibly they might get it through this time, but it’s been thrown out more times than it’s been accepted.’
Deputy Collins said he would try to convince the States that it did not yet have enough evidence to make long-term decisions about tax and spending and that the evidence it did have indicated that major tax rises were unnecessary for the time being.
‘Our reserves increased by £154m. last year alone, to over £4bn., and we have over £1bn. in pension and long-term care funds, a staff pension fund nearly 100% covered in the latest actuarial valuation, high employment, and hundreds to thousands of job vacancies,’ he said.
‘The answer has always been growing the economy, and taxes will just flood in. It might mean higher population while we deal with the increase in pensioners, but the alternative is really unthinkable.’
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