Tina Bury: Don’t blame diversity

Diversity is not a dirty word (and if you can smell something burning, don’t panic, that’s probably Horace Camp’s fuse that I’ve just lit). Despite the narrative currently being peddled by the president across the pond, diversity is not to blame for all the world’s woes. It’s not a bad thing and I’ll explain why.

When I stood for election in 2020, I was compelled to do so primarily due to what I saw as a lack of diversity in our States members. By its very nature, diversity comes in many forms, so what did I feel I brought to the diversity table? Among other things, and first things first, I’m a woman, second I’m younger than the average deputy, and third, possibly most importantly, I’m way further down the economic scale than most of my colleagues.

‘Why does this matter? How well you do the job is the important thing,’ the diversity naysayers will be shouting at their newspapers and screens. Well, of course how you do the job is an important thing. No one is saying that isn’t the case. But so is what you bring to the table in terms of life experience.

Our role as deputies, while not clearly and formally defined anywhere, is to represent all the people of Guernsey in government decision-making. Guernsey is diverse, it’s made up of all kinds of different people doing all sorts of different things. We’re a modern-day finance centre running with the global big wigs, combined with a wonderful history and heritage of horticulture, granite, fishing and tourism, as well as having a thriving charity sector, and that’s not even to mention our abundance of sports and arts. This list is not exhaustive but begins very quickly to show our diversity.

So, if we are such a diverse place, why does our government look like it does? What do I mean by that? Well, if I need to be blunt, it’s predominantly fairly well-off middle-aged businessmen making up our States members. Now I’m not for one minute saying that those middle-aged businessmen are all the same. Of course they aren’t. But they’re definitely not Mrs Le Page. Mrs Le Page gets a lot of mentions in the States (sorry to the real Mrs Le Page, who I know has asked us to stop, but you’re a fixture now, I’m afraid) but I don’t see her represented. In my mind, Mrs Le Page is perhaps in her 80s, a hard-working Guernsey gal who is now, hopefully, enjoying her retirement. But who in our States has her life experience? No one. We have so few women, most of those few are in their 40s, and our eldest has only just turned 65.

Then to the opposite end of the scale – young people. Over the course of the political term, I have attended various events with students from a variety of our schools, colleges and sixth form. They often tell me that I am one of the few States members they feel they can identify with and, while this is an absolute privilege and there’s certainly not a chance I’d want to forego interacting with them, I do find it a bit sad on their behalf that the closest they’ve got to identification is me, a nearly 42-year-old. Thankfully, I do have a teenager who is keeping me somewhat in touch with what’s going on for our young people, so perhaps that helps.

We know, as an island, that we have young people leaving us hand over fist and that we need them to stay, but are we really listening to what they have to say? Do we take them seriously or do we just pay lip service? I fear it’s the latter and this could well be why they aren’t staying. Lousy housing prospects combined with a lack of progressive thinking is not exactly the young person’s dream. That in mind, I’ll be intrigued to see in this election how many younger candidates stand and get voted in, or how many essentially get told by the electorate that they need more life experience. Their life experience is being shaped by the now. If we want them to stick around, we need to listen to them, now. And if young candidates know they don’t stand a chance, then they probably won’t bother standing, and if they don’t bother standing then who have the younger generations got to vote for to represent them? Perhaps this is why there are so few younger people registered to vote. They don’t see anyone that is going to represent them and so the negative circle goes on.

So, no older women and no young people, but we’ve got plenty of advocates, financiers and accountants. Quite frankly, we’ve got business acumen coming out of our ears, but does that actually help us make progress and does that represent you? Maybe it does, but if it does then I’ll tell you who else is missing out – all the critical people we relied on so heavily during Covid. Health workers, cleaners, teachers, retail staff, blue light services, manual workers, delivery drivers – the list goes on. All the roles that are the foundations of our community and who, while most of us were safely tucked up at home, were the people making sure we had what we needed and were safe.

And how well do these people get paid comparatively? Not well at all. And that brings me to the final section of society missing from our States, and I’m not going to mince my words here – I’m not known for doing so – the poor people. Most deputies are at least comfortable, but they generally are middle class and a handful are very, very wealthy.

If you are a low earner and became a deputy by definition you would be catapulted out of the ‘poor’ category, as the standard deputy salary is very close to average earnings in Guernsey. You’d become middle of the road, as it were. But that aside, if you had come from a less well-off background, like me, then you’re bringing something different to the Assembly, a different perspective on a policy, an alternative viewpoint on how some people might be affected. That is invaluable as we have to be able to consider policies from all viewpoints, particularly from those of our most vulnerable, whether that vulnerability is financial or otherwise.