Be informed by reading the reports, not Google

And this is a trait that should not be ignored, because it seeps through into the day-to-day decision making and operations of the committees, ultimately that will be bad for the public service and bad for taxpayers.

You saw it in the meddling of committees in operational issues, you hear about it with what low-level tasks the presidents are asking senior staff to do.

It was apparent in the debate last week.

Sometimes it is the little things.

The number of members missing when roll call was taken at the start of Thursday’s meeting, ambling in later as the day went on.

If school children did it they would be in detention, if you did it at work you’ll be called in for a talking to.

Then you see it in debate.

Speeches that ramble and meander off the point.

Now some would say it has always been so, but that does not justify it, and it shows muddled thinking on behalf of the speakers, unable to dissect and zero in on salient points.

Just imagine what committee meetings are like.

As this States enters its final year, we have the divisions and personality clashes firmly set in – the very thing that all politicians campaign on avoiding when they stand in an election.

That is evident in the behaviour when being asked to give way during a speech, some members choosing only to let people they know are on side intervene. It can be a useful political tactic in setting a narrative.

You have the Assembly sleepwalking into the air and sea links debates last week.

That sudden realisation on the morning of the debate that it might, after all, be a good idea to debate the overarching strategy first before giving the green light for Aurigny to buy their new ATRs.

The agenda for the following meeting is always set and agreed at the end of the previous one, such turnarounds illustrating that no one is really paying attention at that point, or is just getting around to reading reports released months in advance to realise what is in them.

It leads to wasted time and rules being suspended.

Sometimes deputies are trying to make political capital for themselves rather than helping good decision-making.

This is why the president of the States’ Trading and Supervisory Board was rightly taking one of his members, Deputy Jan Kuttelwascher, to task for waiting until the debate to raise a series of points about the ATR report when he had access to all the staff to get them answered accurately beforehand.

What you want is debate based on accurate evidence – and with all the pre-briefings offered it’s amazing some of the questions that get asked live on the day – not supposition and guess work, if you get to a different conclusion from that so be it, but base it on solid foundations that has been tried and tested.

Then you have the deputies taking to Google, a tremendous source of information admittedly, but it is the quality and validity of that information that is the problem when they are doing it the night before – or even while – a major decision is being made.

A quick word on deputies arguing that they don’t believe in experts – this is the default position when you do not like the proposition but don’t have the evidence to argue a different case.

This was uttered as Deputy Lester Queripel closed one of his speeches which had touched on the sinking of the Titanic and suicides after the financial crisis: ‘I don’t need to hear the views of experts either in favour of an issue or opposed to it, because I’m quite capable of working things out for myself.’

Quite. But just how is a deputy working things out? And might it just be that their views have simply been shaped by different experts?

There is nothing wrong with that, but a debating point has to go beyond ‘I don’t agree’ into explaining what that is based on.

Policy & Resources, who should be setting the tone, did not come out of last week unscathed either.

It should have presented its air and sea infrastructure report to the Assembly, but instead that is not being promised in the first quarter of next year.

That means debate is happening in a vacuum – and remember the difficulty P&R had pushing its Aurigny report to a conclusion, and its fudge on fuel duty in the Budget when it failed to deliver an answer.

Its vice president, Lyndon Trott, stood to tell members that the committee would not be recommending spending money on investigating a runway extension based on the findings of the PwC report, which has been part of the work. It would not be a game changer.

Economic Development, who has also seen that report, have come to the opposite conclusion.

Members of STSB have also had sight of it.

Everyone else is in the dark, reliant on assurances that nothing being decided last week clashed with its findings.

After their Christmas break the States will embark on its usual mountain of proposals as the term moves to its conclusion – with the Brexit impact thrown into the mix.

It is time to work quickly and efficiently, but the temptation for grandstanding will only now heighten as the island-wide voting general election looms.