Question time is a critical part of Assembly life

The establishment of ‘Presidents’ Question Time’ has been one of the best developments in the business of States meetings over recent years. Sometimes lively, sometimes confrontational, it has enlivened States meetings and been a good move for the Assembly and Guernsey politics as a whole.

The set piece routine can fall flat. As our parliamentary sketch writer Richard Graham said of last month’s Policy & Resources update from Deputy Ferbrache, ‘there was no news in it’. Most of P&R’s actions were already in the public domain.

What ‘meat’ there might be in proceedings comes in the way of questions from deputy colleagues.

And this suggestion comes at a time when there are concerns about ‘Stepford politics’ and a lack of desire from new members of the States to ‘rock the boat’. Deputy Gollop calls the States Chamber ‘a debate-free universe’.

So would reducing questions asked and scrutiny of policy development and day-to-day activity by committees help anyone, bar the over-pressed president(s)?

Does government really want to shut down some of its public openness and transparency by dropping a prepared speech and maximum 15 minutes of follow-up questions due to 'workload'?

P&R and six senior committees are currently required to proffer themselves for scrutiny twice a year. Once every six months. But apparently that’s too much. Now once a year is being proposed.

The States Assembly and Constitution Committee doesn’t agree. But it has not condemned the approach, which now looks likely to come via some kind of private proposition.

Some will remember senior committee presidents, who were always on top of their brief while also holding down full-time jobs. They rarely required civil servant assistance to know what their committees were up to.

Are our senior presidents not up to this task? Or is this another hint of what some are perceiving as a lack of commitment to the debating Chamber?