Before patronising new candidates as ‘rookies’ understand our policies

WE UNFORTUNATELY feel it necessary to correct some errors and misrepresentation of our policies in Deputy Soulsby’s letter of 1 September.

The first point is that the States has not already ‘debated and approved’ enduring powers of attorney, the States has merely passed a projet for drafting legislation. The next Assembly can amend, refuse or withdraw what is drafted. If we are elected our policy is to support such legislation, if it is fit for purpose and provides value for money.

Our policy on health scanning aims to ensure the best possible data is obtained and analysed in a proactive, integrated way across a range of disciplines to detect disease early, it is not simply about buying new equipment, as was wrongly implied. We believe the sharing, pooling and intelligent use of data across the whole of the States, including health, is a key issue for managing Guernsey’s future.

Our primary health objective is for the next Assembly to work hard to unlock the pay dispute and pay our nurses a fair wage, something we note the last administration consistently failed to achieve.

The invitation to work together constructively if elected is of course warmly accepted and reciprocated.

However, we would observe that senior members of a government that overspent the budget by £9m. last year, £29m. the year before and failed to invest £291m. of the public’s hard-earned money have hardly set a very high benchmark from which to seek to patronise new candidates as ‘rookies’. We believe the public wants new, competent and experienced candidates like us, not more of the same.

We encourage the exploration of common policy objectives amongst all candidates and parties so that our island can make rapid progress in the next term, not correspondence like this. The public expects and deserves better of us all. #getguernseygoing.

MARK HELYAR, RICK LOWE, SIMON VERMEULEN,

NICK MOAKES, TORY RUSSELL, BOB MURRAY, JOHN DYKE,

CLIVE MCMINN

(THE GUERNSEY PARTY)