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WQ.253/2023
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE CHIEF MINISTER BY DEPUTY S.G. LUCE OF GROUVILLE AND ST. MARTIN QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 5th JUNE 2023 ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 12th JUNE 2023
Question
“Will the Chief Minister –
- state the total number of Roll-on/Roll-Off (RoRo) and Lift-on/Lift-Off (LoLo) shipping arrivals from the UK that operated more than three hours later than scheduled in the last 12 months;
- explain whether an independent risk assessment of Jersey’s maritime supply chain has been undertaken by Government in the last year, and if not, why not; and
- advise whether the Government has, in the last year, asked retailers and wholesalers to hold increased contingency stocks of food and other essential items (liquid fuel and medical supplies, in particular) on Island as at other times in recent decades, and if not, why not?”
Answer
- Government does not hold data in the terms presented in the question. The JCRA website carries publicly available information on the performance of passenger ferry services - Publications | JCRA and Ports of Jersey Limited report on punctuality of sailings - https://www.ports.je/reportsstatistics/qosreports/
Load-on / Load-off (LoLo) vessel movements do not sail on a commercially established timetable, as passenger-inclusive services do. Therefore, calculating delays against variable times of expected departure and arrival would not generally be standard maritime practice.
The Channel Islands’ main ferry operator is subject to quarterly oversight from an Officer group made up of members from the Governments and Harbours authorities of both Jersey and Guernsey. Schedule performance and customer satisfaction are the principal metrics that the operator is required to report on.
- No, an independent risk assessment of Jersey’s maritime supply chain has not been undertaken in the last year. Government does not consider there to have been an appropriate level of disruption or issues within the maritime supply chain to warrant undertaking a risk assessment.
- No. The Government does not intervene in the island’s commercial supply chain. The market has shown itself to be able and capable of regulating itself and responding to demand. Retailers operate a Just-In-Time system which in recent years has proven to be resilient against events such as Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war.
Government retains powers to regulate retailers and wholesalers under emergency laws should it be required to do so. Interventions by Government of the type described have not been required to date and Government has not identified any events or thresholds that would make using emergency powers either necessary or desirable.
Government has increased its funding and support of the Rural Initiative Scheme and a revised Rural Credits system of support was deployed in January this year which has resulted in an increase of 20 additional growers on the scheme bringing the number to 60 for 2023 with the intention to increase this to 80 growers in 2024 with an emphasis on locally grown food for the local market. Work is continuing with the Marine sector in 2023 to establish a similar scheme for seafood.