Home making the island more hospitable

If changes to the population policy are a blueprint for how the new ‘States of Action’ intends to go about its business then it augurs well.

Credit to Home Affairs for getting into gear so quickly. Not for them a period of adjustment and assessment, getting to know all the staff and tours of the offices.

The hospitality sector needs as much help as it can get now, not when the committee has learned the ropes.

Best of all, the decision to allow guest workers to stay beyond the nine-month or five-year limits costs nothing.

Even before the pandemic, hotels and restaurants were struggling to find staff. The uncertainties of Brexit and the falling value of the pound has taken the shine off island employment.

The high churn of employees was damaging the quality of the service for little discernible benefit. Guernsey was unlikely to be flooded by off-island waiters and chefs even before the world entered lockdown and travel became nigh on impossible.

There may even be a public health benefit to enabling guest staff to remain for longer. An exodus of existing employees is only going to be followed by an influx in the spring. The fewer people going off and on island the better at present.

Some will argue that the steps taken by Home Affairs should be just the first of many. The population policy was a project long in the making yet within a few years of its introduction it already looks at odds with a post-Brexit, post-Covid world.

Home is determined to show that it can use the flexibility of the law to play tunes with the island’s economy and help struggling industries.

That may soon include construction. Should Revive and Thrive (or its successor) encourage substantial investment in infrastructure the local job market may not be enough to meet demand.

As the world emerges from shutdown Guernsey needs to attract workers with quality job opportunities, stability and standard of living. That is no time to have in place artificial hurdles such as an overly restrictive population policy.