Difficult decisions

The Funding and Investment Plan put forward by P&R offers deputies a choice of three scenarios, the committee’s favoured option involving GST, along with £350m. of borrowing.

Since failing to win the necessary backing for its proposals back in February, the committee has been working hard to convince colleagues that the financial position of the States requires urgent attention and that what they are offering is the best way to resolve that.

However, adding hundreds of millions of pounds of debt into the mix has done nothing to sweeten the bitter pill of a controversial new tax (necessary or not). Some opposition was, therefore, pretty much inevitable.

A total of nine amendments have been submitted, suggesting a variety of possible approaches, from a simple 2-3% income tax rise to what the ‘Fairer Alternative’ group describe as ‘a pragmatic, realistic and politically deliverable package of measures’.

Bids are also being made to ensure completion of the hospital modernisation programme, and to derail plans to move the sixth-form centre from Les Varendes to Les Ozouets.

Plenty for our politicians to ponder on. Possibly too much, in fact.

It is well known that an over-abundance of options, especially those that are hard to compare, can lead to analysis paralysis.

When the States last debated the tax proposals, we were left with what many people considered to be the worst of all worlds – no decision.

Is there a danger of the same thing happening again?