Real debate will begin when population policy hits home, by Nick Mann
TO SOME, a little bit of Guernsey was lost last week.
TO SOME, a little bit of Guernsey was lost last week.
Whatever it was, as Deputy Scott Ogier said, it went with a whimper.
Radical changes to how the island manages its population were passed and with so much time having already been invested behind the scenes in getting deputies on board, much of the sting had been taken out of debate.
The Policy Council guided through these reforms with barely a blow being landed on them – the one real success of the debate, oxymoron intended here, was in a failed bid to protect the first-time buyers market.
The amendment by Deputy Roger Perrot aimed at restricting homes someone working on an employment permit can buy may have been unsuccessful, but it may well be a case of losing the battle and winning the war here.
There was almost universal recognition that something needs to be done for first-time buyers – and done soon – by this States.
It was just a shame it was a motion which had remained mostly hidden from the debate until the day – those first-time buyers it was designed to help could have helped inform the whole process if they had known.
Back to population, because it is now that the hard work begins.
So far, the Policy Council has been successful in keeping thinking at the strategic level, but it is when that overarching policy collides with people's lives that the debate will really begin.
And there is no point the States arguing this has all been widely consulted on – it will need to keep selling its message throughout this process.
It is questionable whether people have really engaged at this point.
Has the fundamental shift in thinking on how long it will take their children to become a Guernsey resident really caught hold, up now to 14 years?
What does that mean for people's lives and ambitions?
There are big questions over the transitional arrangements, for example, for those workers already here on short-term licences.
How will the open market react, having shown all the signs of being frozen in fear since the process began?
What are the practicalities behind the permits, when and how will they need to be used? Small things, but small things that impact on everyday life.
Then there is the crux of all this – the population policy debate itself.
This is the numbers debate, the one that deputies were itching to get into but could not because they were stuck on the controlling mechanism for now.
There were seeds already being sown.
A somewhat bizarre argument went that the successful Roffey amendment to keep the population at 2007 levels was being met despite the continued growth because, well, the growth was only a few thousand and it was more of an aspiration than anything else.
Conventional wisdom, and one of the drivers for the management regime reform, is that the States did not have the tools to control the population in any significant way, so the policy was always tissue thin anyway.
But have the States really given themselves enough control now?
Speak to the likes of Deputy Mark Dorey and the answer would be no, because things like control of the open market has really concentrated on capping the numbers of houses with unrelated adults in, not the number of people.
A debate about population numbers is coming soon and it should be much more electrifying than the one just past.
Do you accept the need for growth because an ageing population will put increasing pressure on the proportionally fewer and fewer workers? Or do you enforce a cap because the island is so limited in size and resources?
There will be talk of a good old Guernsey compromise, no doubt amid horror stories about Jersey getting ready to bust 100,000 people.
Those behind the new population management regime know there are big challenges ahead.
And the answers will have to come quickly because it will all happen this term.
