Gavin St Pier: ‘It is time to move Guernsey forward’

Since the launch of Future Guernsey as a political movement last November and the publication of its manifesto at the end of last month, there has been one persistent question: ‘Where is the party?’

Last week a group of five individuals came together to launch a new political party, Forward Guernsey. It has been necessary to form a separate party for one simple reason: Future Guernsey is not permitted by its constitution or electoral law to endorse and support candidates. Consequently, I resigned my role as political adviser to Future Guernsey.

Four of us will be standing together in the general election on 18 June. The centre plank of each of our personal manifestos will be 'Our Plan For Guernsey: 2025-29 and Beyond', Future Guernsey’s manifesto. We are adopting it in its entirety because it is a bold vision, with a well-developed plan, written by Guernsey people, joining up policies to meet Guernsey’s needs, covering the community’s six core priorities: housing, economic growth, balancing the books, health, education, and climate transition, wrapped around an overarching delivery plan.

There are some truly innovative policy proposals in the manifesto. A tax-efficient Guernsey Property Savings Account to better help first-time buyers save for a deposit. Using sticks and carrots to tilt the playing field in favour of developers building more first-time buyer properties. A new intermediate category of affordable housing development that would lock in by planning covenant a 30% discount to market value, opening up the chance to own a home to many for the first time. An additional earned allowance allowing all those over 16 to earn £100,000 tax-free before the age of 30, saving up to £20,000 in tax towards their housing or pensions, better enabling a whole generation to stay rather than leave the island.

Wholesale tax reform that doesn’t just tinker but makes the whole system fairer, reducing the reliance on the taxation of personal income, and easing the tax burden on low- and middle-income earners.

Improving early years’ assistance for parents and resources for other working carers. Reducing baseline spending by £25m. a year by 2029. Accelerating the economic and revenue opportunities from enabling the development of an offshore wind farm. Clinically led, not management consultant led, reform of healthcare and a whole lot more.

We have come together as a party because it is the only way to provide clear choice and accountability to the electorate. We hope that other candidates will join us, not simply as one route to being elected, but because they see our route as offering the opportunity to deliver more effective government the other side of the election.

Our approach is highly professional and organised. Potential candidates will need to apply, providing a police check and details of their background, as well as declaring their interests and prior criminal convictions. This is information that the electorate is entitled to expect, and it will be published in respect of our candidates. Short-listed candidates will be interviewed by an independent panel who will decide whether or not to recommend to the party that they be accepted as candidates. This is to ensure that all candidates’ values and key policy positions are aligned. It is a robust and testing process, which is entirely appropriate given the role we are asking the voters to elect us to do.

If elected, our deputies will be subject to the party’s code of conduct. The candidate approval process is designed to ensure that candidates are committed to the manifesto. However, the public has a right to expect that those elected will uphold their campaign promises. Independent candidates, in contrast, have historically made bold or unrealistic commitments but then failed to deliver or reneged on their promises. With us, the electorate will know what they are getting in terms of policy, and accountability will be assured as part of Forward Guernsey’s architecture, ensuring voters get what they were promised. On matters outside the manifesto dealing with the core priorities, our deputies will be unfettered in how they vote.

Any of us could have stood as independent candidates but we have come together because we all passionately believe that working together as a team with a single, clear policy programme is the best chance for the public to ensure better government in Guernsey. Before and, if elected, after the election, by working together as a team, we can better use each individual’s strengths as well as support each other. This will not only ease the burden on each of us individually but also enable us to be more effective in our role. That is, after all, how all team sports and every other organisation works. The Assembly that governs us really should not be any different.

Electoral reform of the unmanageable island-wide vote may be inevitable. Reform of government, whether to reduce the number of deputies or introduce some form of executive government, might also be desirable. But none of these things are going to happen either before the election in June or even immediately after it. Any such reforms will take a considerable time to agree and longer to implement. The pressing challenges faced by individuals, families and the community cannot wait for any such reforms. Action is needed from the moment the new Assembly convenes. Electoral reform or demands for some unspecified form of executive government are not a plan for the next term and are no substitute for policy.

Nothing like this or as comprehensive as this has ever been tried before in Guernsey. It is a direct response to the endemic inertia and indecision which inevitably comes from having 38 individual deputies with 38 individual agendas. This produces an Assembly which may comprise individuals who all mean well but are collectively and systemically dysfunctional.

We cannot afford another four years like the last four. If, as a community, we do not embrace a different approach, we should not expect the outcome of the election to be materially different from the last. It really is time to move Guernsey forward with Forward Guernsey.