Avalanche of action is now due
THIS is the fifth ordinary meeting of the States since October’s General Election and, despite two billets totalling 277 pages, there remains very little of substance up for debate.
Although this is entirely normal for this stage of any previous new administration, this one has promised to be different – it’s promised to be a government of ‘action’. And so it should be about to get very interesting, especially as on 4 November Deputy Ferbrache in the Policy & Resources Committee’s first quarterly statement promised a very great deal within three months. ‘We can say with absolute conviction that we will get on with things and meet deadlines. We will suffer no procrastination.’
I will return to this later. First, let’s look at what we do know is on the agenda.
We will have the first routine statements in this Assembly from the presidents of the Scrutiny Management Committee and the States’ Assembly & Constitution Committee. Hopefully this will give us an insight into these committees’ priorities during this term.
The provision in the rules of procedure requiring all committees by rota to provide periodic statements on their work is a relatively recent development. But the questions that follow – together with the separate question time for any questions submitted to committees – have become one of the livelier parts of any States’ meeting and can be quite an effective route by which deputies can hold their peers to account. How a president responds, particularly to the questions on which they have no prior notice, is as revealing as what they say. Tone and body language, openness and humour – or otherwise – can provide pheromone-like signals of whether the individual is defensive or on top of their brief, or whether there are divisions on an issue within or between committees.
There is a mountain of legislation, particularly ordinances and regulations – much of it Covid or Brexit-related – which will be nodded through (technically it is merely ‘laid’ before the Assembly and no votes are required) as the time for motions to annul has now passed. There are four pieces of legislation for debate and approval – all legacy inheritances from the previous States – including making the formal change of the name of the ‘old age pension’ to ‘States pension’.
The most significant piece of legislation is that which closes Social Security’s contribution-funded Guernsey Health Service Fund and transfers the balance to a new Guernsey Health Service Reserve under Policy & Resources’ mandate. Unlike the change in the name of the pension, this is far more than a cosmetic change. It was intended to be the first stage in a programme of health funding reform, which started by having health policy and resources controlled by the Committee for Health & Social Care and Policy & Resources, without the Committee for Employment & Social Security third-wheeling in the relationship. The next stage of reform may (or may not) emerge as Deputy Helyar and his colleagues grapple with the problem of how to fund the exponential growth in the island’s health and care costs as we all grow older.
The Development & Planning Authority have a short policy letter which essentially allows ‘winter let’ rules on self-catering to apply through another summer. Given that sector will essentially be experiencing their fourth back-to-back winter season, this seems an entirely pragmatic and appropriate response to the pandemic shutting down the visitor economy.
The billets’ appendices contain two lengthy five-yearly actuarial reviews up to December 2019 of Social Security’s Guernsey Insurance Fund and the Guernsey Long-term Care Insurance Fund. These will not be debated unless a motion is moved to do so. As with all actuarial reviews, they are not an accurate forecast of the value of the funds but merely a projection based on certain key assumptions around net migration, earnings growth, inflation and investment return. If you tweak the assumptions, the forecasts change. But, broadly, they contain no surprises and tell us what we already know and have known for a number of years: because of increasing demands on them, the funds will run down (and eventually run out completely) unless we ‘do something’.
Unless the tax review being led by Deputy Helyar comes up with a magic money tree, that ‘something’ means higher social security contributions. The only questions to be resolved are ‘When?’ and ‘By how much?’
So those are the billets. But back to what Deputy Ferbrache promised on 4 November we could expect within three months. We were told to expect five statements: one from each of the members of the Policy & Resources Committee.
l Deputy Ferbrache said he’d be leading and reporting back on an air and sea connectivity strategy, an urgent review of the Population Management Law, as well as the problem of ‘too many unused hotels that are never going to return to the industry’ on which ‘we need practical action’.
l Deputy Helyar ‘will take control’ and bring ‘concrete proposals’ on our ‘inadequate and old-fashioned’ insolvency and bankruptcy laws; he will also be ‘reverting to the States in the first quarter’ – so a little longer available yet – on the work of a new ‘broadband working group’.
l Deputy Le Tocq is due to update us on medical tourism.
l Deputy Mahoney is leading on States’ property and is also due to give his first statement on public sector employment terms and conditions.
l Deputy Soulsby is due to update us on civil service reform and transformation and the douzaines. She is also leading on ‘a review of Guernsey’s structure of government’ and ‘she will report back promptly’.
Other actions – albeit not clearly allocated to individual members of Policy & Resources – include: an intention ‘again in three months, [to] draw up a list of practical capital projects that could be advanced in early course’; and periodic reports on synergies and opportunities to work with Jersey and the Isle of Man. One deadline has already slid by unnoticed in relation to Guernsey Finance, which was to ‘report back in January with proposals as to how we can assist it in attracting business to this island’.
From my viewpoint on the backbenches, this is a one-way bet – it’s going to be interesting either way. If Deputy Ferbrache is true to his word, there is going to be an almost unprecedented avalanche of new policy positions to scrutinise; and if he’s not, a raft of questions will follow, including ‘why has Policy & Resources failed to deliver against its own clear commitments freely offered?’ and ‘is this really a new-style “government of action” or, four months in, is it learning that it’s far easier to promise action than to deliver it?’
It’s just getting interesting.
