States Meeting Transcript - 13/07/2011

STATES OF JERSEY OFFICIAL REPORT WEDNESDAY, 13th JULY 2011

PUBLIC BUSINESS - resumption................................................................4

1. Migration and Population Policy: Review (P.104/2011) - resumption..................4

1.1 Deputy D.J.A. Wimberley of St. Mary:..................................................4

1. Connétable P.F.M. Hanning of St. Saviour : ..............................................7
2. Senator S.C. Ferguson:..................................................................7
3. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: ................................................................8
4. Senator A. Breckon: ....................................................................11
5. Deputy R.C. Duhamel of St. Saviour:..................................................12
6. Deputy S. Power of St. Brelade : ........................................................14
7. Deputy J.A. Martin:....................................................................14
8. Senator P.F. Routier: ...................................................................17
9. Deputy T.M. Pitman of St. Helier:......................................................18
10. Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier:..................................................18
11. Deputy D.J. De Sousa: ..............................................................19
12. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:...........................................................19
13. Senator J.L. Perchard: ...............................................................20
14. Deputy A.K.F. Green of St. Helier : ..................................................21
15. Senator T.J. Le Main:................................................................22
16. Connétable L. Norman of St. Clement:..............................................23
17. Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade:....................................................23
18. Senator B.I. Le Marquand:..........................................................26
19. The Deputy of St. Mary:.............................................................28

2. Draft Companies (Amendment No. 6) (Jersey) Regulations 201- (P.82/2011).........35

2.1 Senator A.J.H. Maclean (The Minister for Economic Development):...................35

1. The Deputy of St. Mary:................................................................35
2. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:................................................................35

3. Draft Financial Services Commission (Amendment of Law) (Jersey) Regulations 201- (P.87/2011)...............................................................................36

3.1 Senator A.J.H. Maclean (The Minister for Economic Development):...................36

1. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier: ..............................................................37
2. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:................................................................38

4. Draft Shipping (Registration) (Amendment) (Jersey) Regulations 201- (P.91/2011) ..39

4.1 Senator A.J.H. Maclean (The Minister for Economic Development):...................39

1. Senator J.L. Perchard:..................................................................40
2. Connétable D.J. Murphy of Grouville :..................................................40
3. Deputy P.J. Rondel of St. John : ........................................................40
4. Deputy D.J. De Sousa:..................................................................40

5. Connétable M.K. Jackson of St. Brelade:...............................................40
6. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:................................................................40
7. Deputy R.C. Duhamel: .................................................................42
8. The Deputy of St. John:................................................................42
9. Senator S.C. Ferguson:.................................................................42
10. The Connétable of St. Brelade:......................................................42
11. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:.............................................................43

5. Request for amendments to U.K. Immigration and Asylum Acts in relation to the Civil Partnership (Jersey) Law 201- (P.92/2011).......................................45

5.1 Senator T.A. Le Sueur (The Chief Minister):...........................................45

6. Pensions: Survivor's Benefit - Review (P.105/2011) ....................................45

6.1 Senator F. du H. Le Gresley:............................................................46

1. Deputy I.J. Gorst of St. Clement (The Minister for Social Security):....................48
2. Deputy A.T. Dupre of St. Clement:.....................................................48
3. Deputy J.A. Martin:....................................................................48
4. Deputy A.E. Jeune of St. Brelade:......................................................49
5. Senator A. Breckon: ....................................................................49
6. The Deputy of Trinity :..................................................................49
7. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................50
8. Senator F. du H. Le Gresley:............................................................50

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT PROPOSED..................................................52

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT................................................................53

7. School Milk: restoration of funding (P.115/2011)......................................53

7.1 Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................54

1. Deputy K.C. Lewis of St. Saviour:......................................................58
2. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................58
3. The Connétable of St. Clement:........................................................59
4. The Deputy of Trinity :..................................................................60
5. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................60

8. Chief Minister: Vote of Censure (P.116/2011) ..........................................62

8.1 Deputy T.M. Pitman:...................................................................63

1. Senator T.A. Le Sueur (The Chief Minister):...........................................67
2. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: ...............................................................68
3. Senator P.F.C. Ozouf :..................................................................70
4. The Deputy of St. John:................................................................70
5. The Deputy of St. Martin:..............................................................70
6. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................71
7. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................73
8. Deputy S.Pitman:......................................................................75
9. Senator A. Breckon: ....................................................................75
10. The Deputy of St. Mary:.............................................................76
11. Deputy J.G. Reed of St. Ouen : ......................................................78
12. Deputy J.A. Martin: .................................................................79
13. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:...........................................................80
14. Deputy T.M.Pitman:................................................................81

9. Prison Board of Visitors: composition (P.84/2011).....................................85

9.1 Deputy M. Tadier - rapporteur:.........................................................85

1. Senator B.I. Le Marquand (The Minister for Home Affairs): ...........................87
2. Mr. H. Sharp, H.M. Solicitor General:..................................................88
3. Senator B.I. Le Marquand:..............................................................89
4. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier: ..............................................................89
5. The Solicitor General:..................................................................89
6. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier: ..............................................................90
7. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: ...............................................................90
8. The Deputy of St. Martin:..............................................................91
9. Deputy J.A. Martin:....................................................................91
10. Deputy T.M.Pitman:................................................................93
11. Connétable J.L.S. Gallichan of Trinity : ..............................................93
12. Deputy A.E. Jeune : ..................................................................94
13. Senator F. du H. Le Gresley:........................................................94
14. The Connétable of St. Saviour:......................................................95
15. Deputy J.A. Hilton of St. Helier : ....................................................95
16. The Connétable of St. Mary : ........................................................96
17. Deputy M. Tadier :...................................................................96

10. Jersey Consumer Council: establishment as a legal entity (P.89/2011)...............101

10.1 Senator A.J.H. Maclean (The Minister for Economic Development):..................101

10.1.1 Senator A. Breckon:................................................................102

ARRANGEMENT OF PUBLIC BUSINESS FOR FUTURE MEETINGS ..................104 ADJOURNMENT..............................................................................105

The Roll was called and the Dean led the Assembly in Prayer.

[09:00]

PUBLIC BUSINESS - resumption

1. Migration and Population Policy: Review (P.104/2011) - resumption

The Deputy Bailiff :

We therefore return to P.104 and the Deputy of St. Mary who has 10 minutes left to speak, I am told.

Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire of St. Helier :

Before the Deputy begins his 10 minutes, through the Chair, may I just notify people that I will be attending a hospital appointment this morning and may be gone for a small duration of this morning.

1.1 Deputy D.J.A. Wimberley of St. Mary :

I just want to advise Members that there will be arriving on their desk shortly a brief single sheet with details of house price inflation, but I am going to touch on that later. I was dealing with the problems caused by this never-ending increase in population and I mentioned the treadmill, I mentioned the list on the back of my proposition of a huge number of developments that were set in train from 1999 onwards, large developments, small developments, and I asked the question: "Where do we go next? Where do we build the next 4,000 units? Then when we have reached the end of this Island Plan, where do we go after that?" I pointed out that the figures on house bills and waiting lists just marched in step. The more houses we built the waiting list simply did not go down and I pointed out the spiralling house prices and spiralling rents that result from these policies which get paid for either by individuals or do not get paid for because they simply cannot afford them, or by the States as it picks up the tab. I mentioned the town versus country divide which is cemented by this constant pressure and also the ageing population, which does not get solved by increasing the population. It will have to be solved in other ways. I want to touch on 2 more things, one is the pace of change and with respect to this I just want to remind Members about the large-scale changes. We received on the Town Park Support Group a timeline from an officer in T.T.S. (Transport and Technical Services) and I think it is going to be part of the opening celebrations. I was very struck by one of the items in that timeline: "1861 Population 60,000." It leapt out of the page because as we know in 1961 the population was 60,000. So, over all that period no doubt there were ups and downs, especially during the war obviously with people going and then coming back, but nevertheless the population stayed steady and then from 1961 to 2010 we saw an increase of half. Half the population again and this gave rise to the comment of one of my parishioners sadly saying that he no longer knew people in the parish. We can shrug, or we can say: "Well, what does that matter?" but I think the issue that raises is the pace of change. We can all manage a certain amount of change in our lives. It is probably a good thing, but there is a difference between novelty and challenge and a sense of loss that simply carries on because change is too fast and cannot be managed. There is another issue which is about the stress of living at high densities and of course we have heard in the Island Plan that the intention is to increase those densities and as the paperwork has not quite reached us I will move on to paragraphs (b) and (c) of the proposition and then possibly come back to the point I wanted to make about inflation. So, if Members want to turn to the paragraph (b). I will read it out because it was some time ago: "I want to request the Council of Ministers to commission an independent review into why the population policy of the last Strategic Plan, 2006 to 2010, was not adhered to, how the mechanisms for controlling the population failed, and the implications of that failure to comply with the decision of the States and to report the findings to the States." Now, why is this so important? Why do we need to look at this failure? For anyone who doubts the failure they just have to look at my appendix 2 where we see that the increase in the workforce I think is targeted at 1 per cent. The

increase in the workforce in the year before June 2006 was 1.18 per cent, June 2007 2.23 per cent, over double the target, and in the year up to June 2008 2.72 per cent, nearly 3 times the target. Now, the Chief Minister has said in questions that that is all right because it averaged out in the end, but frankly the Ministers were saved by the biggest recession the world has seen since 1929, otherwise where would those figures have gone? 1.18 per cent, 2 something per cent, 2.72 per cent, and on and on. They completely missed the target of 1 per cent. Completely missed the target of 1 per cent for 3 years running and that is what we need to look at. I would refer Members to my page 9 where I quote from the Strategic Plan 2006: "Inward migration matched to the Island's needs" this was a goal: "indicated by" and there are 3 bullet points: "minimal number of unemployed local people, net growth in the working population of less than 1 per cent per annum, and net migration contained within limits that can be accommodated within existing projections for housing need and the release of land for development." I would just like to comment on that first bullet: "Minimal number of unemployed  local people" and I  wonder  if this  is the reason why the targets  get systematically missed. We do not want a close match between the numbers in the workforce and the numbers of jobs available. I wonder if that is the reason. We all know that if there is a certain number of unemployed, if there is a larger pool than just the normal pool that is always in a modern economy waiting to be re-employed, or reallocated, if you like, the labour. However, we are now well above that and one has to ask whether the reason for having more people than we need, if you like, is to put downward pressure on wages. I will just leave that thought with Members. Why is it that we miss the target so much? The second bullet point I think I have covered: the net growth in the working population, the staggering missing of the target, and I have the actual numbers if Members want them. So, the policy was not carried out and the question then is, what is to stop it failing again? What is to stop the population spiralling? Whatever policy we have, whatever policy, whether it does 150 or my no population growth, what went wrong? I point out that the level of population is not trivial and we need to find out. Are we prepared to nod and grin, or are we going to look at this? Was the failure operational? Was it because the mechanisms do not work, as I know some people in this House believe, that we simply do not have the tools, that the tap for controlling inward migration is so leaky that it cannot work? Or was the failure political, as I have just hinted at? Were the Ministers distracted? Do they just tear up the policy of this House when someone waves enough pound notes? Or are there other factors which led to the political failure, if there was one? What are the implications of this Assembly setting a target brought to them by the Council of Ministers as part of their Strategic Plan of 1 per cent increase in the

workforce and then missing it by over 100 per cent for 3 years? What are the implications of that? [09:15]

I think that if we are not to regard ourselves totally as a toothless tiger then we have to have this review to find out whether it is the tools that are simply totally inadequate, or whether it is a political failure. Paragraph (c) I think is non-controversial. It requests the Council of Ministers to lodge its 3-yearly revision of the policy on population for States debate. They have to review the population policy in 2012 and what I am saying is that that has to come to the House for debate because otherwise it will be possibly a simple exercise of blowing off the dust, saying: "We will carry on as before" and simply not doing any proper work on this topic. We know the possible failings that we have in this area. We have the astonishing omission of thinking about births over deaths when we are thinking about population policy. We cannot do that again. The Council of Ministers has to come up with a properly-thought-out policy with the implications and bringing it to the House with proper data, without airbrushing out 2,600 people as they did in 2009. So, to quote the Corporate Scrutiny Panel in S.R.3 2009 when they were talking about population and they did a report on population: "What we need is the elements of the policy package clearly researched and analysed by Ministers." Well, Amen to that. So, going back to paragraph (a), and I would refer Members to the sheet that is now being distributed, to make the final point about problems caused by increasing population. I was trying to research the level of inflation in house

prices going back .. we know the recent inflation 40 per cent to 50 per cent, I think, in the last 8 years or so, but I wanted to go further back than that and I found this table. I always look at the source first, and the source underneath the table: "Jersey House Price Index Statistics Unit for England, South East, South West and U.K. (United Kingdom) average. Nationwide Building Society weighted national average and regional indices." So, I think these are reasonable data. If you look at the left-hand column: "Jersey" with an index 100 at 1985 in the following 17 years house prices went up by over 5 times: 5 times in 17 years. The corresponding index for England was 3.25 in that same period. House price inflation was running at an annual average of 25 per cent basically because of a policy of boom economy and population outstripping the supply of housing. The point to make about that is not just that house inflation running at 25 per cent a year (which of course has an impact on all other industries in the Island because somehow people have to be housed in that environment of massive inflation) it is not only that, but it is also the impact on every other aspect of our society. That inflation in house prices will creep through and become a factor in the cost of living and then you come to the fact, as Deputy Martin pointed out yesterday, that we have the highest economic activity rate for women in Europe, I think maybe in the world, but certainly in Europe. We have 2 breadwinners in each family, in a family with 2 parents, and whether that has social consequences I would leave with Members, but I would remind them that we have the highest incidence of alcohol problems, we have the highest suicide rate, and we have severe problems of, if you like, children who are not looked after adequately and I would bring Members back to this hyperinflation in the housing market and wonder whether some of those social issues do not come back to this issue of incredible inflation in housing.

Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier of St. Saviour :

Sir, just on a matter of clarification, the speaker is suggesting cause and effect, has he found any research studies which link those social problems to the housing inflation situation?

The Deputy of St. Mary :

I have a note in my notes in response to Deputy Le Hérissier which says that pressure breaks some people. No, I do not have any, and how would one research the connection between the house price index and social stress in the home? But clearly hyperinflation at that level, and it is hyperinflation, it is an astonishing rate of increase, will put pressure on families trying to meet those bills and that pressure will work out with social consequences. Fine, if Deputy Le Hérissier wants to do some research or try to find that research, but I think it is evident that inflation at that level is going to have consequences for the whole economy and for individuals within the economy. So, I believe we should go to a policy of a steady population and I believe that the consequences of this are and I will just run through the pluses because it is nice to have a bit of positivity around this debate. We could at last solve our housing problems, instead of chasing, chasing, chasing something that is running away from us we could solve the issues. Our dear Minister for Housing over there could find spaces for people with different needs; he would not be, as I say, chasing afterwards. We could look at clearly usable sites, build enough housing, build the downsized units and so on and solve our problems. Land values would fall back and the inflation has been so great that I do not think a fall-back of land values and land prices and house prices would not be unacceptable. We would have to manage that but the fact is that with a rate of increase like that people have to accept that the bubble (rather than bursting) should be slowly let down. The pressure we have in our Island on every aspect of policy would ease, we would not have this mad-cap: "We have to solve this, we have to solve that, we have to solve the other" and it is running away from us all the time. So, that is basically why we should steady up and have a policy that I am advocating and the other side is as follows: "Why wait until the Island is damaged beyond repair, field by field, headland by headland, each loss contributing to the overall sad decline of what is still one of the most beautiful places in the world?"

The Deputy Bailiff :

Deputy , in the course of your speech you suggested that the numbers of those coming into the Island had gone up if: "Enough pound notes" were waved at Ministers. Can I just ask you to clarify what you meant?

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Yes, Sir. What I mean by that is that if for example, a new bank wishes to set up, they wish to have a licence for 30 or whatever .. I do not mean that the Ministers will pocket the said money, what I mean is that those pound notes they think: "Growth, economy, wonderful" and so they lose track, or I am suggesting that possibly one of the reasons for failing to hit the targets is that they regard the growth of the economy as more important than all the other factors I have mentioned.

The Deputy Bailiff : Thank you very much.

1. Connétable P.F.M. Hanning of St. Saviour :

I know the proposer is very passionate about this and he has spoken about field 528 in St. Saviour. I feel I must inform Members that while I am more than happy for the parish to provide the good Deputy with moments of inspiration I must correct his statement. What was being suggested for the field was a community centre, a park and allotments. The Deputy is right that the parishioners gave a very strong and very clear decision that they did not want any development in that field, very clear decision on that. There was never, I repeat never, any suggestions of housing. Not one house was  being proposed for that field. This had absolutely nothing to do with population increase. I am afraid if this is the defining moment for the Deputy it is based on error.

Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier :

Sir, did you ask for the proposition to be seconded, or did I miss that?

The Deputy Bailiff :

Deputy , you are absolutely right.

Deputy J.A. Martin:

I will very kindly second it. [Seconded]

2. Senator S.C. Ferguson:

Too many early mornings for all of us, obviously. Sadly, I think the Deputy has missed the point of last week's debate. He has read the first report of the panel (as one would expect since he was on the panel) but not apparently the second. As my panel pointed out the problem is there is no mechanism for pulling up the drawbridge. We missed the target because there is no barrier to people just getting on a boat and coming here. The only barriers are the 5-year wait for benefits and under the new law the limit on employment which does imply that we need to strengthen the mechanism. We have heard a lot about how we have to look at why population is growing and so on, but it is quite simple, people can just get on a boat and come here. I think we need to look at the Guernsey thinking because they are, as I understand it, proposing permits for manpower for lower-order skill shortages. I mean, the Minister for Housing has mentioned during hearings the totally unchecked number of unskilled and semi-skilled workers coming into the Island and even under the new law we do not have a genuine mechanism to stem the flow. We do not want to cut it off entirely, but we do have to filter it. This influx is what is making a housing treadmill. We have J-cats, which do have some degree of control and will do under the new law, but we have a totally uncontrolled influx of semi and unskilled workers and it is this cadre who put the pressure on social security, social housing and low priced private housing in the future. All desirable small islands have this problem. Guernsey have the same one, they are going through exactly the same process and we do not need a big expensive review, we need to manage opening into the Island and we

need to speak to the other islands and see how they are managing it. We said last week that there needs to be some more work on the Control of Housing and Work Law. I happen to prefer Guernsey's approach of calling it the Management of Population Law, or the Proposed Management of Population Law, which I think is rather less sort of 1984-ish. But we all have the same problem. If you live in a nice place, a super place, an absolutely fantastic island with plenty of work, and our unemployment rate is I think only 2 per cent to 3 per cent, even in America you are talking about 10 per cent, so it is very attractive but there are problems. It reaches a point where you have to look at the mechanisms and I think this is the answer to the Deputy 's proposition and it is very simple and very direct and I do not think we need a very big, expensive review.

3. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire:

I have tried that position once before and I am not going back, Sir; voluntary as well as otherwise. It is obviously a difficult proposition because we all know the fragile state of the economy and I will try not to make too long a speech because I do have to go, but in (a) I do not think there is any chance at all that the Deputy is going to win this because the economic desires and needs of the Island outweigh any kind of idea that we can freeze the policy.

[09:30]

It is a bad idea in any event because we need to maintain a certain amount of fluidity. We have 10,300 people more at the end of the Island Plan period of 10 years that will be over the age of 55. So we have a very clear demographic shift which has been brought about by an ingress of people in the 1970s. We had 2 waves: we had the baby boomers and then we had the babies of the baby boomers and then during the 1970s we also had a large swathe of people that came as a result in the increases in the tourism industry and also the beginnings of the finance industry which were led by people like Senator Le Marquand at the time. So, those have caused us to have a very large and growing proportion of our population that are elderly. In order to be able to manage that the

Deputy has put forward some good statistics about what difference there will be in any event if we do or do not allow people in, what difference that will make to the elderly, so we are talking about communal living, et cetera. I was criticised by somebody in a letter recently. I have been criticised by a lot of people recently, but I have been criticised in particular by one person who said: "How dare you suggest that we can let 750 people into the Island a year, do you not know how bad things are, how cramped things are, how overburdened we are, the traffic congestion?" The lady was understandably upset and I do not fault her for writing to me in that vein, but the reality is that my comments were taken out of context. What I was saying, and that harkens back to web streaming so we can have things said in context. What I was saying was I do not mind if the Island needs are such that we need to grow the population because of demographic shift and a financial squeeze. I do not mind if we need to do that to provide the social services, the nurses, the doctors, the school teachers, the firemen, the policemen. I do not mind if we need to do that to provide for our community, but what I was saying was if we are going to do that we need to provide the infrastructure for those people to live decent lives and I am sorry to say the previous Minister for Planning and Environment, who I have great respect for, did take into account a lot of things as he made his mind up about the Island Plan based upon new information, but one thing that was thoroughly overlooked was the fact that the plan was worked up, as I have said before, on a head of household number of 150. So, we were basically providing the houses and the infrastructure through all the policies in the Island Plan for 150 heads of households while we were experiencing

and it had been published, in the Statistics Unit, the Deputy circulated some of his own statistics and I am going to leave him this little book so he can refer to it later, our own statistics published by the Statistics Unit, independent professional and objective. I cannot remember the last one that the Chief Minister said. Independent people that published statistics told us quite clearly that the numbers of people that were coming into the Island over the last 4 years were 725 people every year for the last 4 years. Now, those 725 people equate to 325 heads of households, heads of

households being the family leaders, and you get the numbers of the people by timesing heads of households by 2.2; the same methodology which is used by the Housing Department in placing numbers on their waiting list. For example, at the moment they have 461 families waiting; that is not people, that is 461 heads of households. Those households may be either one person, or 5 people but they count as heads of households. We took, during the Island Plan debate, an Island Plan through this Assembly which is woefully inadequate to provide for the needs of the people that were coming in. At the same time we conducted a Scrutiny review and I was very pleased and I was not pushing it personally, that the outcome of the Scrutiny review from Senator Ferguson and the other Members, Deputy De Sousa and the Deputy of Grouville , and Deputy Maçon and myself, were quite clearly, having taken evidence on board, that the new system was going to do nothing to address controls and it also recognised that further work (and the President stated this in her statements ahead of the housing debate) needed to be undertaken by Scrutiny on an ongoing basis and we had to look again very hard at work permits. Now, just taking on board what is happening in this proposition in paragraph (b) the Deputy is asking us to request the Council of Ministers to commission an independent inquiry. While I think that is notionally a good idea, I think from practice I would rather stay away from the Council of Ministers setting up anything to assess whether or not they are doing something in one way or another because I do not think that will be objective, and I think that the States Assembly needs to recognise the fact that there is nothing stopping us as Back-Bench elected Members setting up our own group to monitor these things. Now, the Deputy of St. Mary has done an extremely good body of work in his report. He has pulled together the facts and the figures and he has analysed them in an academic way, in a much better way and a much greater way than I could do, but he has recognised the issue. He is able to break down the numbers and if you listen carefully he is able to put across the message about what is happening. Unfortunately, that information was just totally walked over, or smoothed over, during the Island Plan debate. So, I would say to that lady that I am as concerned about overpopulation as anybody but what I am concerned about more than overpopulation is the inability for us to be able to clothe, feed and look after our children and our elderly people and provide the services and the jobs that sustain this Island. It is in extremely uncertain circumstances at this stage of global economics that we are now being asked as an Assembly to introduce a zero-growth policy, it is possibly the worst timing that we could ever think about doing such a thing. Members are aware of what is going on. We have Greece in a position where it could default; we then have issues with the euro, France and Germany holding the bonds underwritten by America. America is about to go into another section of quantitative easing; in 2 or 3 years they are probably going to default on their currency. We have all kinds of economic problems coming down the tracks and, while we are trying to introduce a growth strategy that will help us manage our finance industry into the future from this wreckage, the last thing we need to be saying is we are going to grow our economy by introducing a freeze on migration, you just cannot do it. So, we have to get real. We have to start to diversify and we have to support the finance industry. Now, how do we do all of these things and still achieve the same outcome for people, which is basically job security, the ability to be able to afford your own home, and the ability to have a good income so you can have a decent type of life? Now, I have already gone on too long so I will not go into the density paper that I was going to go into. I will just say to the Deputy of St. Mary the density in town under the new Island Plan is going to increase massively. The new Minister for Planning and Environment is going to introduce supplementary planning guidelines to outline what those new densities are going to be. We are going to see a change in standards, we are hopefully going to see a greater standard of living and a standard of accommodation, but we are not going to be able to magic out of the air, out of the ether, more amenities space; the Island is only so big and there is only so much amenities space to go around. So, I think we have a real job of work to do. I would like to offer my support for the Deputy of St. Mary. I may not be here for the vote, and I apologise for that, but I would be

willing to support him in looking at these things on an ongoing basis. I think Scrutiny needs to take it up, which has been spoken of, and the previous Scrutiny report has been tabled and we need to keep a watching eye on these facts. I will pass this book as I leave to the Deputy of St. Mary. He

has it and he has read it but just in case somebody starts rubbishing his statistics on house price inflation, this is the States of Jersey Statistics Unit's booklet issued to all States Members and the public and it is online, Jersey in Figures 2010. On pages 44 and 45 it talks about house price inflation. On page 45 it says: "The most recent change, the overall average price of property sold in 2010 being 2 per cent below that of 2009 represents the first decrease in property prices on a calendar year basis in Jersey since 1993", and if you track back on page 44 one can see, and I have spoken to the Head of Statistics, that property prices in Jersey never lost and it only went down marginally there by 2 per cent, just for that quarter. It is the first time that there has been a real drop in property prices for over 30 years. For 30 years property has been growing in price and the bottom rung on the ladder has been rising well beyond the reasonable accessible means of any ordinary people. In finishing, the Council of Ministers in (c) is going to do their work anywhere. They are not going to be told or advised by us about what they are going to do regardless. There is some information in the Deputy 's report about the projections from the Housing Department and it is interesting because those projections have proven to be pretty accurate. In the document it said the projections for 2011 midterm were going to be 456. We are at 461 right now. So we are above the mid-term projections and even at their best-case scenario, at the end of the Island Plan we have 1,488 families on that list, but the worst-case scenario we have 1,852 families on that list. As I evidenced before the last time I could find those sorts of numbers the average waiting period was something like 3.5 to 4.5 years. At this time the transfer waiting period within housing is 33 months in some instances. So, we have a lot of people that are going to experience a lot of hardship, increased hardship in this Island over the next 10 years and I do not think it is right for us to abdicate our responsibility to an independent group. We should be doing this as Back-Bench Members and we should be bringing the evidence forwards for debate. We should be introducing again, and I will be doing this, another debate on work permits. I was astounded the first time that I introduced my proposition for work permits that it was put across that work permits were illegal, they were against the Convention of Human Rights. What was put across was the Law Officers' recommendations at the time. Now, obviously Law Officers' advice changes and I am not going to go into what the advice was, but suffice to say the Law Officers' advice came on 4 pages. What was transferred over to the media and to the politicians sitting in this Assembly, and to myself, were elements of those 4 pages with the page numbers removed and the conclusions removed, and when one saw those 4 pages in full there was no problem at all with work permits. Indeed, how could there have been problems with work permits when we employed them so readily with the Europeans, especially the Polish in most recent years, when we wanted to do that? So, then we had no opportunity to debate them fairly, in my view, because I was thwarted by somebody cutting up the Law Officers' advice and misrepresenting it, in my view, and I have stuck by that, and I will stand by that; so much so that I went to see the former Bailiff about it. The second time I introduced them I was told, and so was the Assembly: "We do not need work permits because the new laws are coming." Well, now we have had the new laws and it is fairer for everybody that is coming but it is not necessarily fairer for those who are already here. What we were told when I had my second work permit proposition was: "We do not need this work permit thing again, Paul, because we have the new laws coming." Then what did we hear from the rapporteur, Senator Routier, when he made the proposition? In response to the in principle speeches, and it will be on Hansard, he said: "We did not look very deeply at work permits because the States had decided on 2 previous occasions that they did not want them." I would remind Members, and it is going to come up in the next session, currently we are using work permits for every other country that is not within the Commonwealth or the British Islands. We have about 400 people on work permits at the last count and their families are also with them and they can also work. Now, I am asking the Minister for Home Affairs in questions coming up, and we will see those at the next session, how is it at a time of unprecedented unemployment, that we are able to run this dual system? We have access now to European markets of millions of people where there are high levels of unemployment, highly skilled people, and yet we are still having a submarine service, a silent service of work permits being employed to stock this employment market when there is

unprecedented levels of high unemployment and also unprecedented levels of long-term unemployed? Long term unemployed is a key indicator of trouble and the Minister for Social Security is nodding his head. He knows this as well as I do because he is clever. I am not, I was told this by the Head of Statistics.

[09:45]

One of the key indicators of trouble is long-term unemployed and it has doubled. Long-term unemployed people have doubled and through no fault of their own they are going to become dependent upon society. They are going to be harder to get back into work, they are going to feel less valuable, their lives are going to become stuck in a rut, through no fault of their own. So, I would say to the Deputy of St. Mary, he has weathered my speech. I am sorry I am not going to be here for the votes but I think whatever he decides to do, if he is going to go through with this and if he loses it I would say this to him: "Let us get together as Back-Bench Members and start working on this in the round." Let us try and put together some strong workable propositions, like work permits, let us bring some true analysis to the table and let us debate it in a fair way" because at this time, and up until this time, it has only been me. I have been getting thrown down on the floor quite heavily by people who are unwilling to address the issues and I am sorry to say everybody thinks that we can build housing on States sites. We only have so many States sites and the population is going to continue to grow. After the States sites have been used we are going to go back to the fields. That is inevitable. The only other way we can do it, and we have decided not to do that, and it is a preference of the Minister for Planning and Environment, the only other way we can get around it is if we build a massive skyscraper and put everybody in there. Now, if Jersey wants that then let Jersey elect politicians that want that, I do not want that. I would rather have a work permit system that said: "You can come for a set period of time, provide the work, have access to all the facilities and the services that you need, and when the work dries up and when our own resident population has no work then your work permit will not be continued."

The Deputy Bailiff :

May I say to Members who are listening to this debate in the precincts that the States currently has 27 Members so we are quorate, but it would be helpful to enable Members to come and go for comfort breaks, or for any other reason, if other Members were to return to the Assembly Chamber.

4. Senator A. Breckon:

This is an old problem and it is a very, very real issue but of course others have examples and I am thinking in particular something I had information about 3 or 4 weeks ago is the island of Ireland and how the ebb and flow of people there does have some effect on the economy and what they do. Of course we have issues that should be addressed (and indeed could be addressed) but then the question is, does this proposition do it? Well, maybe it does in part but then I have a problem with some of the wording of it because it talks about suspending the present policy. If you asked anybody what the present policy is it is a bit like knitting fog, I would suggest. I do not know what it is and the thing is it also talks in the Deputy 's proposition about the mechanisms for controlling the population have failed. What are they? I do not think there are any. It was said in reports from many years ago there were the Housing Law and Regulations and the Regulation of Undertakings. Has that done that? The answer must be no, but then what were we trying to achieve? I am not sure anybody knows that either. We talked about economic growth which comes with population growth, which comes with quality of life issues and things like that. But then what we are trying to do now is gather the information but then act upon it and we need to do that, we need to be nosey, we need to have the information for reasons of health, housing, education, parking, drains, dealing with rubbish, all sorts of things; the things that people are going to need and generate and that we will have to deal with. So, it is about the quality of life issues. Not that many years ago we were having a similar debate about whether the population should remain at 80,000 and that was in a

strategic policy debate. I think it was in 1994-1995 and there were amendments done at that time to do that. The other thing the Deputy says in his proposition in paragraph (a) is to aim for zero population growth. We already know that we have an increase of births over deaths so I am not quite sure how we would deal with that and in fact we cannot deal with that. So, therefore what we have been asked to do again in this proposition and I am not sure in its entirety how it is worded, we can do that. The other thing in paragraph (b) it talks about commissioning an independent review. Straightaway Members may think that this is going to cost £250,000; that need not be the case if we are going to review something. There are many very able and interested local young people, especially students, who are very keen to get involved in some of this work and indeed would, and I would suggest to the House that some of them would do it for fun to be part of it, to research what we are, so we need not have somebody with 3 names and lots of experts. We can do things like this and we should do that, whatever the outcome of this debate. The other thing is Senator Ferguson mentioned Guernsey. Guernsey have had a Right to Live and a Right to Work Law since about 1990. Now, Members may well remember they had a policy where the C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation Department) used to stand waiting for the mail boat coming in. If somebody got off there with a haversack or a rucksack they would say to them: "Any connections with the Island, sonny? Any relatives? Are you returning here?" If not, whether it was human- rights compliant or anything else, they used to put them back on the boat and say: "Go to Jersey" and it was, from Guernsey's point of view, very effective. Now, it probably does not comply with all sorts of rules and regulations and whatever else now, but that is what they did. That was it. So, regarding controls about regulation that probably was not written down anywhere, but it was done and from their point of view it probably achieved, along with the right to live and right to work law .. the other thing when it was suggested many years ago doing something similar here they said: "Oh, you need a number of civil servants and people to administer this then we cannot do it." But the fact is by not doing it there is probably a cost the other side which the Deputy of St. Mary has demonstrated, certainly in housing availability and inflationary costs. The other thing is, and we have just spent days and weeks discussing the Island Plan and I asked the question in the summing up of that: "How many people is the Island Plan for?" Nobody answered the question because we are putting in place a 10-year plan so okay, that is what we must do now, but where are we in 2 years' time? We have talked about that we can do extra things, but where is the economy at that stage? For me some of this stuff has not been linked up. I appreciate the sentiments of what the Deputy of St. Mary is trying to do, but I am not sure that this policy as worded sends out the right message about aiming for zero population growth and doing various things. So, I have a great deal

of sympathy with it but I am not sure I can support it as it stands.

5. Deputy R.C. Duhamel of St. Saviour :

There is no doubt in my mind, and indeed I suppose among other States Members, that there is a natural requirement that comes up over fixed periods of time to discuss population and migration and indeed the proper place for doing this is at the beginning of an Assembly through the Strategic Plan. We decided a number of years ago on what our Strategic Plan was going to be for this particular period and I consider that (a) is a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that we are going to be considering next time around. The 150 households policy was introduced in 2009 in response to what happened during the period where the Strategic Plan was based from 2006 to 2011. There was a response if people cast their minds back in terms of the population growth and over the figures, the missing 2,600 or whatever the number was, and the extent to which in the absence of a census that was going to be undertaken. A number of Members wanted it to be done around that time, but it did not happen, whether or not we needed to change our population and migration policies and indeed in 2009 that is exactly what we did and we brought in this new policy to limit the net growth to the numbers that have been mentioned. So, I think (a), the way it is worded, is something that we cannot do very easily. We are going to suspend our policies and we have already heard from Senator Breckon that we do not really know how they are being applied, which is probably an overreaction, but we are being recommended to suspend the policies at this point in

time before we have the census figures which are about to be released, before we are going to engage in our new strategic policy for the next 3 or 4-year period, and to stop everything in its tracks, issue a new set of rules and regulations to the officers who are carrying out the policies that we agreed a number of years ago and just put everything on hold. What for? It has been put on hold to have a debate. Now, we are stuck in a period where there is no time to have a debate between now and the election, so when will this debate take place? Well, the debate I think will take place after the election when we consider the new Strategic Plan. As I have said earlier the new Strategic Plan will in essence have to embody the arguments as to what we are going to do with population and migration, or otherwise there will not be a very satisfactory plan put forward by the new Council of Ministers and, indeed, I would suspect in fact as a betting man, and I am not, but I would put good money to suggest that this House, which does have a say in how the Strategic Plan is agreed to or not, would kick out any proposals in a strategic plan which did not, to all of our satisfaction, address the migration and population issues in the way that we all agree they should be looked at. So, this debate is going to take place, so I think (a) does not really make sense at the moment. It is a knee jerk reaction, which is unfortunate, because I think the Deputy of St. Mary's heart and head is probably in the right place, but this does not really add up to much at the moment. Coming to (b), I think is an ideal subject for a Scrutiny review and I am not really sure why the Deputy is suggesting that we request the Council of Ministers to commission an independent review when it is something that could take place within the mechanisms and bodies that we have to review policies. I look back to why we changed policies from 2006 to 2009. I think it could be done by Scrutiny. I am not really sure why we are suggesting that it should be the Council of Ministers to commission independent reviews when indeed, as I said, we have the mechanisms to do this in-house. That brings me to the final point, (c). That is to request the Council of Ministers to lodge its 3-yearly revision of the policy on population, as stipulated in the current Strategic Plan in 2012. We are going to do this, so if we are going to do this I, again, would suspect if I am a Member of any Council of Ministers at the time, as others might be, I would want to have the policies coming to this House to get the endorsement of the House because that is the way we have set up our Standing Orders and our States of Jersey Law to give the assurances that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet in terms of overall strategic policy. So, (c) is going to happen. I think it is merely underlining a thing that is going to happen, I suspect, anyway. So, it seems to be a little bit superfluous. It will be done and it will be done after the census results have been released, so we will all be supposedly, if we have read the reports, having at least some prior knowledge as to what it is we are talking about and I am hoping that the debate, which I am looking forward to, will be able to be a very good one that does address the problems in a way that they will need to be addressed in order to go further into the future to the whole of the Island's benefit. So, that leaves me with just one other point and that is in making presentations by any States Member on reports and drawing rabbits out of the hat. I think it is unfair to give snippets of information and the information that has been sent around by the Deputy of St. Mary in relation to the indices for house price inflation, it mentioned that the source is Jersey House Price s Index, so presumably the figures have been taken from our own sources. It also has that it has been attributed to the Nationwide Building Society, so presumably they have been playing with them or they have just taken their figures and put them in and maybe done something, but it does cite, which is

misleading, that the Jersey annual average change in percentage terms is 25 per cent over the period from 1985 to 2002, whereas for southeast England and west England, and the U.K. in general, it is around about the 13 per cent or 14 per cent mark. Those figures are not the normal practice in terms of quoting statistics.

[10:00]

It is usual to give a figure for compounded growth and the compounded growth for Jersey would be around the 10 per cent mark year on year. Likewise, for the English figures it would work out at around about 7 per cent. Now, if you have 10 per cent for Jersey and 7 per cent for England, those figures do not seem to me to be as alarming as Jersey 25 percentage points, if you take the total increase and divide by 17, as opposed to 13 if you do it for the U.K. The other thing that is missing from this particular schedule is that it only goes as far as 2002. It is usual practice to, if you are quoting a past figure (which is 1985) to at least bring it up-to-date and that has not been done. So as Deputy Le Claire referred to in the current statistical digest (Jersey Economic Trends 2010) there have been decreases in prices which might be of relevance. The third point is that again, in quoting house price inflation, it would be entirely useful to show in a similar chart, or alongside, the increases in the same terms of the wages that are paid to people. Because I think if we put the 2 together, we will find that as part of the economic success (as some people have quoted) of the Island over the period one of the things is that the amount of money that we pay to people has gone up substantially from 1985 to 2011 and, indeed, if I cast my mind back when I first left university and started work, I was earning I think my first wage was round about £1,800 a year, so there we go, and £1,800, I certainly could not have afforded a house in terms of £450,000, so we can see what has happened. Wages have gone up - people have got wealthier, perhaps there is an argument to be looked at - but in trying to make the point that these things need to be looked at, it would be helpful if all the figures relevant to the case are presented for Members to look into and analyse rather than just taking snippets which appear to prove a point but, in the wider analysis, perhaps might suggest something different.

6. Deputy S. Power of St. Brelade :

Much of what I was going to say has been said, so I can speak very briefly. I am not going to support the Deputy of St. Mary, although his intentions are good. I think next year we will have a new Assembly, we will have a new Council of Ministers and we will know the results of the census and from that we will be able to extrapolate further as to what we need to do in terms of controlling population. One of the issues we have and one of the reasons we are where we are is that, in spite of all the soothsayers of doom and gloom, this is a very nice place to live, it is a very good place to live and it is up to this Assembly and the next Assembly to make sure it stays that way and it is beholden on all of us and our successors to do that. One of the problems I had last week was in the debate on P.37, the Control of Work and Housing, I felt that there should be one man, one woman, a Minister who had responsibility for population, and I tried to explain that in a number of ways and I felt it was a mistake last week, with all due respect to our Chief Minister and the Chief Minister's Department, to move control of population into the Chief Minister's Department. I feel that at some time in the future this Assembly is going to have to address how we control access to housing, access to work and I do not believe it can be done the way we approved it last week, however, I respect the decision of this Assembly right now but I think my words will be prophetic and I think we will be revisiting that at some time in the future. There needs to be a department, a Minister, a Ministeress, a man, a woman, who takes charge of population and migration. We have proven since 1971/1972 that the Regulation of Undertakings Law was utterly ineffective in controlling anything, it was a waste of time, and I believe now that where we are today the new Control of Work and Housing, by merging Control of Work and Control of Housing together, simply will not work. You cannot control immigration, you cannot control migration in any department of the States that is an economic driver, you simply cannot do it. It is a bit like statistics, it is a bit like data protection, they have got to be controlled separately and I believe that the correlation and the mixing of the new panel that will control housing and work simply will not work. That is all I need to say.

7. Deputy J.A. Martin:

The last Deputy who spoke said that we are a very nice and a very good Island where we can all live, my question is: for whom? The same Deputy is always speaking about the many people he knows who are in terrible hardship and that the best way to help them is to go for schemes where they part-buy and, at the same time, probably not rezone green land or even old glassfield sites. Again, the Deputy behind me, Deputy Duhamel, and Senator Breckon all spoke about the Deputy

of St. Mary 's timing (and if Deputy Fox spoke he would probably say this is piecemeal) and I think it was also Deputy Duhamel who said: "And next year when we have the Strategic Plan, if the migration is not what we want, we will kick it out." I am very sorry, this is at least the third debate I have had. Deputy Southern tried to amend it, bring down the heads of population in 2005 when we were Shadow Scrutiny, there was another debate and then, as the Deputy of St. Mary said, in the 2000 Strategic Plan and he was supported by I think 10 or 12 people (and I will pass round, I have photocopies of who voted against the Deputy of St. Mary). I do understand, and it has always been a total fudge, and there is only one thing that me and Senator Routier do agree about, the new Right to Work policies and the Name and Address Register - that is exactly what it is - up until it was brought in it was called a "migration control" policy, and it is not. But what I think the Deputy is asking today is and this definitely goes back, I cannot stand hypocrites; you either decide and you be honest (and as I said the only honest speech I got yesterday for the candidate for Planning was Senator Le Gresley) and say: "We have these people here, we will need to build on these fields, and we are going to have to do it" or we work around a way that we have to work within the population. If you did listen to the Deputy of St. Mary when he said we have approximately and it is not him, it is in the statistics (you know, we have all got our little book, like Deputy Le Claire) it is around 2,500 in and 2,500 out. Strangely enough, Senator Breckon mentioned births over deaths but in the last 10 years the whole school population has only increased by 405 but, funnily enough, primary schools have only increased at much less than secondary schools - primary schools is 563 and 968 in secondary schools - so where are all these people being born? A lot of them are leaving because their families cannot get a decent home. They are going somewhere in the U.K. or abroad, so you are losing those sort of people. The whole fundamental 150 heads of households, as Deputy Le Claire says, is double it and add on point 000 for a child. But we do not get immigrants coming in with that amount of children, they have more children and then they go on to have more

children and our policy has always been "do not shut the door", the economics do not stack up. Deputy Le Claire voted in favour of the Deputy of St. Mary 's proposition last time. The Council of Ministers say that: "A sudden shift to zero population" and it is not zero, it has been about 2,500 people leave, we have got the selection now, have we not? We have control over the licences, what people work, so that extra 500 if you want to have 500 coming in, we select, let alone that we have got in this same book in February in 2011 we had locally 1,480 registered unemployed. Now, in our great system of education, surely some of these and many of them are school leavers or between 16 and 20-year-olds, why are they not being given a chance in the local workforce? Why are they not being mentored? [Approbation] Absolutely ridiculous. We have done it for years and years and years, and I ask the question, we are now looking in Health, are we not? Who is going to maintain the elderly population over the next so many years? Now, the statistics go, we have at the moment working population supporting non-working, and I think it is around - this is top-of-my-head figures - 3.2 or 3.7 maybe 3.1, and it goes down to when we have all these elderly people, to 1.8 working population. So my question was quite simple to all the experts: if the 1.8 working population have got to be bringing in the taxes to pay for the people who we are looking after, who are the people going to be looking after the elderly people? Nobody had the answer, because this is not the answer. Unfortunately, it is going to have to go back the old way. You cannot stick your elderly people in a nursing home, the money will not be there. But it will go back to where the family were looked after, and I am sorry to say it that is the only way, unless you keep bringing in and bringing in and bringing in and in the end it still does not solve the problem. The Deputy of St. Mary has concentrated on housing and I think I am not trying to make a friend out of Senator Le Gresley, but I felt his frustration yesterday because him working through the Citizens Advice Bureau, myself many years before being in the States working through STAG(States Tenants' Action Group), were dragged into talking shops and saying: "We have never

planned 10 years ahead for housing, we are always running behind 10 years" and we are still there. The same people who voted against the Deputy of St. Mary 's amendment in the Strategic Plan were told: "Oh, no, the world will end, finance will go away and we must have these people" we do not know who they are, we have set a figure, some bring their families, 5 years people live in a room - I

mean, different cultures and horses for courses - youngsters will live in a room. After 5 years they benefit from anything, they can work anywhere, for some people it is not a hardship. I totally agree with Senator Ferguson, the mechanism is not there so I agree when people say: "Let us examine what went wrong with the mechanism" I have always said we do not have one, I have always been told we do, and we do not, and let us be honest. I really think that today is the day that we stand up and say we know we are heading I am all right, I am a town Deputy and I was just looking at the statistics of land mass, and the biggest is St. Ouen and then St. Brelade, and we go down to St. Helier , we are right in the middle, our density in St. Helier : the schools, the children and everything that comes with it Deputy Le Hérissier asked: "Do we have any evidence to say that because we have many working families, it affects our children?", well, I know we have children with severe problems, latch-key kids from all different sorts of families, low-end workers to high-end, does that create a problem? Well, for head of population, our so-called you know: "We have a very good economy and it is a great place to live" for these kids, no, it is not. He asks for evidence; well, you just see how many of the silly crimes, petty crimes are dealt by youths, because they are bored, they have got no family, there is no one to go home to at night.

[10:15]

They are not children of an age that need to be looking after, because I think by law it is up to about 11 or 12 if there is a law, which would probably surprise me there is not, and it is not 14, there is no law in Jersey that says you have to be looked after at 14, it is all mythical, you can leave your children as long as you feel they are okay. Many people, for the cost and for other reasons, do do this and they have to work, and it is not 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. anymore, the pressure out there on working families like us here today, we are families, I have not seen my children all week, and we have to shop, we have to do everything else. They put up with it very well, I am not saying they have not suffered for it, they probably have, and I have suffered a lot as well because I have missed a lot of them growing up, but that is what you do when you are trying to work and support yourself. So really, I think today I have heard all the: "This is the not the right time, the Deputy of St. Mary has got it wrong" well, the Deputy of St. Mary, in my eyes, did not get it wrong in the Strategic Plan, he got 12 or maybe more, maybe 14, I think oh, 16 sorry, yes it is at the top. The usher will bring this round because I have had 60 copied and a copy each for the media, because it would be very clear to see that the people who said: "No, no, no, let us keep increasing the population" were the same people who voted against building on Samarès, field 1248, field la la la, "let us protect our greenfields, but let us carry on shoving and shoving and shoving into St. Helier ." Thank you. I am just thanking the usher, if you would just read just to remind people where they were on population. We do have a big problem, I have been promised for 11 years that we have an immigration policy, the late - I nearly said "great", I do not mean "late" in late - ex-Senator Pierre Horsfall told me: "We do and you must wait and we are going to have this debate and we will stop people coming in" I am now 11 years down the line and I am frustrated but I am more frustrated with the hypocrisy. You cannot have it both ways, if you want to carry on increasing, I will go with you, I will go along with it, but you provide the houses in Trinity , St. Ouen, St. John

I have probably missed somebody

Female Speaker: St. Clement .

Deputy J.A. Martin:

No, these are the biggest land masses with the smallest population, absolutely biggest, so do not laugh at me, I know that St. Helier is the centre and: "Let us all come to the centre" no, let us all move out, let us move all these people - and just finally, I will finish - let us wait for the census. I had no faith in the census in 2001, I had no faith we found, in 2009, 3,000 more people nearly, through the Statistics Unit. Now, the census, and I have spoken to lots of people who live in, let us say, the unqualified sector, they do not know whether they were included, they never signed it, they do not know if, when they were living in someone's back room, were they put on it? I have no faith in the census. In principle, I want this whole thing looked at, I now know what Senator Routier has brought in is not immigration control, I think it was all quite clear, the only time I probably well, I do agree with Senator Ferguson sometimes, but she is spot on, we do not have a mechanism but do we want to carry on growing and growing our population? I quite easily support the Deputy of St. Mary because I have always said: unless you get real and get honest and be honest about the 10-year plan - and it will not be 1,000, it should be nearer, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 homes we need probably now - I cannot go along with "keep the growing the economy." As I say, be selective, get the right people in, just get your head round it, somebody do some work and make sure that we are not the fall-off of Guernsey and: "Oh, go back to Jersey" that is exactly what we are, we are turning into I really do not know what, we are just absolutely failing many, many people on this Island, and I will not say it is a good place for all to live; it is a great place for some to live, but a very bad place for lots of people to live.

The Deputy Bailiff :

Does any other Member wish to speak? Senator Routier.

8. Senator P.F. Routier:

Very briefly. The Deputy of St. Mary in his opening comments yesterday said that this was not a debate about the mechanism that we have to control our population and it was more about the numbers and I have to say I agree with him, because that is what he is proposing. There have been a number of comments made about the current mechanisms that are available to the Migration Advisory Group and also the new legislation which we passed last week. I think, to put any doubt out of people's minds I hope I can because I know, sitting on the Migration Advisory Group and those people who sit with me and those who have sat on it in the past, we refuse people coming to this Island. We do it on a regular basis. The applications that come into us to well, I think Senator Ferguson is probably making the point we do not refuse them coming to the Island, there are no jobs being allowed to be created to warrant them coming to the Island is probably the correct way of saying it, so licences are refused on a very regular basis and people do not come to the Island because those jobs are not available to them, and that is a fact of the matter and we have evidence of that, certainly. Senator Breckon made the comment that Guernsey used to just push people off to Jersey and that was the way that they would not let them into Guernsey and they would come to Jersey. Well, another myth, that Guernsey have managed to control their population. Their population has grown exactly the same as Jersey's, it is exactly the same. They have a smaller Island than us and their density is far greater than Jersey's and so I think to hold up Guernsey as having a good system of trying to control their population is probably not a brilliant one to put forward as a suggestion. The Deputy of St. Mary in his opening comments talked about that we had completely missed the target that was set in the Strategic Plan and we had been fortunate, we had been saved by the recession. Fair enough, that is a point which can be made that recession has probably made for less applications for people to come to the Island but, as I said earlier, the Migration Advisory Group during the recession have had applications which have been refused and they have been refused consistently. We have allowed some jobs to be established and people have come to the Island but on a regular basis we have refused applications for new jobs because of the current situation with regard to unemployment within the Island. It would be interesting to know how the Deputy would deal with an application if, for instance, a renewable energy company wanted to start up in Jersey and wanted to bring a number of migrant people to set up a renewable energy industry, I think he would have a challenge in his own mind to how he would deal with that, because I believe he would be very supportive of having a renewable energy company established in Jersey. So those are the sorts of challenges which are there before the Migration Advisory Group that have to deal with these matters. The final point I would like to just pick up on is that the Deputy has furnished us with a table of house price inflation - well, I think it has already been identified that it is 9 years out of date - but I think it would have been useful also to have had the Guernsey equivalent figure as well because they also have had price inflation at a similar sort of level to Jersey and, in fact, I think in the last couple of years they have outstripped our price inflation. So I think figures can be used in all sorts of ways but, to use those figures as supporting his argument, I think they do not do that effectively. I will leave it there, other than to say that what is being suggested by the Deputy is, to my mind, unworkable. I think that after the census - I know that Deputy Martin does not have much faith in the census, but that is what we have - we do have the census and we know there is a certain amount of error recognised, the census figure does go out and there is a margin of error in that and that is statistically acceptable for the Unit. We have a lot of faith in our Statistics Unit and I think we should continue to have that faith in them because they do do a very good job and they give us information which helps us make decisions. So we will have that information from the census and I think it will be down to the Council of Ministers of the future to come forward with a population target which is appropriate. I think this proposition is too early and I think that we should enable our information to be gathered clearly and satisfactorily so that proper decisions can be made.

9. Deputy T.M. Pitman of St. Helier :

I am scribbling away - 4 or 5 pages, I have - but I have to say that I think Deputy Martin's speech was brilliant and well done oh, she has gone. She could not take the praise, but it was an excellent speech and really she said so much, I think she has hit so many nails on the head, I am probably not even going to use my speech. I would like to know when she comes back which parish in the Island Plan "field la la la" was because I must have missed that one; it has probably got houses on it already. But all I would conclude, and I am going to support the Deputy , is to say that really I think that the real nub of this is that we do not have a plan on population. This growth and the way we look at things it is part of the Achilles heel of free market capitalism and as any true economist would point out, the Achilles heel is that ultimately our never-ending growth is unsustainable and sometimes it is going to have to be faced up to (and it is probably going to be the next government now who is going to do that) and, until we do so, we are never going to have an answer. I just think we cannot keep putting things off and criticising people like the Deputy for bringing this. I think fair play to him, it is a proposition well worthy of support and I am going to do so.

10. Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier :

I always enjoy it so much when the Assistant Minister for Treasury and Resources, I think he is, or Assistant to the Chief Minister, Senator Routier, stands up saying that he is going to make things clear because, invariably, he singularly fails to do so. It is a bit like knitting with fog, finding his words. His evidence he said that the Deputy of St. Mary is wrong was that we have refused on a regular basis some permits for people to come here, he did not say how many, he did not say how consistently, he did not say over what time period and he did not use any evidence to say: "And the end result is we met our targets." Why did he not say that last statement? Because we singularly have not met our targets. We have it from the Statistics Unit in very clear terms that the Strategic Plan was to restrain the net migration to 150 heads of household. Over the 3-year period 2007 to 2009 - part of which was already in the recession, jobs were hard to come by - we had a net migration of 325 heads of household, we absolutely failed to meet our targets. But the Assistant Minister could not demonstrate that because his figures belie the sentiment that he was coming out with that it is all right. He then went on to a completely spurious argument about: "And if an alternative energy company were to try and set up in the Island, we would have a problem." We might well have a problem, except an alternative energy company is already in existence, it is part of J.E.C. (Jersey Electric Company), and they are working on things and they have a lot of engineering skill and they have the expertise to develop initiatives in this particular area already.