States Meeting Transcript - 1st May 2014

STATES OF JERSEY OFFICIAL REPORT THURSDAY, 1st MAY 2014

PUBLIC BUSINESS -resumption................................................................3

1. Interim Population Policy: 2014 – 2015 (P.10/2014) - amendment (P.10/2014 Amd.) - resumption................................................................................3

1. Deputy G.C.L. Baudains of St. Clement : ................................................3

1. Deputy J.M. Maçon of St. Saviour:......................................................4
2. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:.................................................................5
3. Deputy R.C. Duhamel of St. Saviour:....................................................8
4. Deputy S.G. Luce of St. Martin : ........................................................10
5. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier of St. Saviour:...............................................10
6. Deputy M.R. Higgins of St. Helier:.....................................................11
7. Deputy J.H. Young of St. Brelade:......................................................12
8. Deputy S.Power:.......................................................................14 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf :........................................................................15 Mr. H. Sharp Q.C., H.M. Solicitor General:..................................................15

Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:....................................................................15 Senator L.J. Farnham :........................................................................16 Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade:.............................................................16

9. Senator I.J. Gorst :......................................................................16
10. Senator L.J. Farnham : ...............................................................18
11. Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier:..................................................19

2. Interim Population Policy: 2014 - 2015 (P.10/2014) - second amendment (P.10/2014 Amd.(2))..................................................................................23

1. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier: ..............................................................23
2. Senator P.F. Routier: ...................................................................28
3. Deputy S. Pinel of St. Clement : ........................................................29
4. Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier:.......................................................31
5. Senator A. Breckon: ....................................................................32
6. Deputy J.G. Reed of St. Ouen:..........................................................33
7. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................34
8. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:................................................................36
9. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................38
10. Deputy A.K.F. Green of St. Helier : ..................................................38

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT PROPOSED..................................................39 LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT................................................................39

11. Deputy N.B. Le Cornu of St. Helier : ................................................40
12. Deputy J.H. Young: .................................................................40

13. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:...........................................................41

3. Interim Population Policy: 2014 – 2015 (P.10/2014) – resumption ....................47

1. The Deputy of St. Martin:..............................................................47
2. Deputy R.G. Bryans of St. Helier:......................................................48
3. Deputy T.A. Vallois of St. Saviour:....................................................49
4. Senator A. Breckon: ....................................................................51
5. Senator S.C. Ferguson:.................................................................54
6. Senator B.I. Le Marquand:..............................................................56
7. Deputy S.Power:.......................................................................58
8. Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré of St. Lawrence : .............................................62
9. Deputy J.P.G. Baker of St. Helier : ......................................................64
10. Deputy G.P. Southern : ..............................................................68
11. The Deputy of St. John:..............................................................69
12. The Deputy of St. Ouen:.............................................................72 Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:....................................................................74
13. Deputy J.A. Martin: .................................................................74
14. Senator L.J. Farnham : ...............................................................75
15. Deputy G.C.L. Baudains: ............................................................75
16. Connétable J. Gallichan of St. Mary:................................................76
17. Senator P.F.C. Ozouf : ...............................................................77 Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:....................................................................82
18. Senator I.J. Gorst : ...................................................................83

2. Draft Referendum (Amendment) (Jersey) Law 201- (P.26/2014)......................87

2.1 Deputy J.M. Macon (Chairman, Privileges and Procedures Committee): ...............87

ARRANGEMENT OF PUBLIC BUSINESS FOR FUTURE MEETINGS ....................88

3. Deputy J.M. Macon (Chairman, Privileges and Procedures Committee): ...............88

ADJOURNMENT................................................................................88

[9:30]

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

PUBLIC BUSINESS -resumption

1. Interim Population Policy: 2014 – 2015 (P.10/2014) - amendment (P.10/2014 Amd.) - resumption

The Bailiff :

May I begin by proffering Members an apology? I understand that when we adjourned last night, I misspoke and referred to 9.15 a.m. instead of 9.30 a.m. and some loyal Members were duly here at 9.15 a.m., although others completely ignored what I said and came at 9.30 a.m. [Laughter]  So I apologise for those who came here unnecessarily early and I trust they found time to have a cup of coffee. Very well, we now reconvene on the debate on the amendment lodged by Deputy Southern . Does any other Member wish to speak? Yes, Deputy Baudains.

1. Deputy G.C.L. Baudains of St. Clement :

I would like to combine the comments that I was going to make also basically to cover the other amendment and the main proposition itself, because my position at the moment is that I am not happy about the main proposition, but I may just support it, provided the amendments are successful. If they are not, I am pretty certain I will not. I am disappointed with the main proposition, because I am not convinced that the new mechanism for controlling who is coming into the Island is any better than the previous Regulation of Undertaking, so I have little confidence that anybody is going to be able to hold the numbers suggested anyway, never mind the one suggested by Deputy Southern . We have people coming into the Island, and as Deputy Power has alluded to previously, they drift into the grey economy and they come to light when they come to the attention of the authorities. I am not quite sure how we deal for that, but my concern is why do the numbers have to keep increasing? Does industry really need more and more workers each year, because when I look around businesses, some of them are virtually empty? They have certainly got a lot less staff than they had before, so why is it we do need more all the time? The idea we need more people coming in year on year to pay for an ageing population does not stack up for 2 reasons either: first of all, they are not benefiting the economy. I recall some years ago Senator Ozouf was telling us that we needed to bring in people, and they would be higher earners to assist the economy, but then we subsequently found out that virtually all the people that had come were low wage earners, probably paying no tax at all. At the time, I remember I did a rough calculation of the cost of running the Island by the number of people in work and I figured out that anybody coming to the Island would need to create a tax liability either for themselves or the employer of £3,000 a year or we were going backwards. Of course, that is exactly what happened. There is no doubt that we need new skilled people coming into Jersey, but in my view, it should be on a revolving door basis, one in, one out, which is essentially net zero immigration, which brings me to my second point, the idea we can address an ageing population by having more workers coming in is basically philosophically bankrupt. When those extra workers reach retirement, we will need yet more, and so it goes on. It is basically a Ponzi scheme, and the trouble with those schemes, the longer you put off dealing with the problem, which has to be faced one day, the more difficult and painful it will be. There will come a day, maybe a decade away, maybe a lot longer, when we or our successors will have to deal with this problem. Basically, it will mean the Island infrastructure can take no more, never mind the erosion of quality of life, and immigration will then have to stop permanently. Unless provision is made now, it means it is going to be a disaster. The economy will collapse. That is not an if, it is a when, so what I am saying is we should really start now and we should stop kicking the can down the road, because as I said, the longer you put off the inevitable, the worse it will be. Of course, it is also an environmental issue, and Members will know, as an engineer I work on facts, not theories, and I am not signed up to any global warming scam. However, there is no doubt that resources are finite, they will not last for ever and so we must conserve as much as possible, but what is the point of cutting energy consumption by, say, 20 per cent if then you are going to have a 25 per cent increase in population? You are going backwards. How many more green fields are we going to concrete over before we grasp the nettle and realise this Island is practically full up already? I am tired of short-term measures that politicians take, because it would be politically unpopular, perhaps, or difficult to tackle the problem head on. It is not leadership or Statesman-like behaviour. It is a weakness, for which the public ultimately pay the price. I am no longer prepared to accept this inaction, and I shall be supporting Deputy Southern . As I said when I started out, if these amendments are successful, I may just support the main proposition. If they are not, I certainly will not be.

1. Deputy J.M. Maçon of St. Saviour :

As we all know, the population debate is one of the most important debates which is happening on the Island. It is certainly something which people will talk to you when you are on the doorstep. Turning to this particular amendment - and a lot has been said - I just want to say that again when you talk about the population debate, it is very much about the facilities that we have here and being able to look after the people that are already here and having provision to look after the people that are coming into the Island. Now, we know in the Whitehead Report of some years ago, it suggested that if we do not do anything and carry on as we are, 40 per cent of people on the Island will never be able to afford their own home. Looking at the last document looking at housing affordability from the Statistics Unit, that suggests for young people, 33 per cent will never be able to afford their own home. I know the Assembly has always seen it more as a supply problem, that we do not have enough buildings, enough homes for people in order to meet that, but I have always seen it as also on the other side of the equation is there is a demand issue. Again, if we keep ramping up the population, accepting that there is a time lag before people qualify to buy housing, but within all of that, again, if we keep adding people into this equation, that problem is never going to solve itself. What is going to happen, as we see with the amendments that the Minister for Planning is bringing, it just brings more pressure on to greenfield sites and agricultural land. Again, we are really looking at a rounded policy which is going to meet the needs of the Island and protect one of the main things within the Strategic Plan, which is protecting Jersey's beauty, Jersey's agricultural land and all those types of things. Of course, it links heavily into the population debate. Therefore, I think perhaps the policies that we have been following, although we were informed yesterday by the Solicitor General that they no longer apply, certainly are causing issues with the residents on the Island. Again, in my own particular district, a big issue is traffic, being a gateway Parish to St. Helier . It is something which the residents more and more comment about and I would imagine the other St. Saviour Deputies will be aware of that, possibly I would imagine the representatives from St. Lawrence as well.

[9:45]

But I think, as came out in the Scrutiny report, certainly what it illustrated is regardless of the targets which this Assembly sets beforehand, they have been grossly overshot every single time. A problem with that has always been - and I know some Members will jump up and disagree with me

- but certainly there is a perception out there that part of the problem for that has been the giving out of confetti of the unqualified licences, and that has really added to the whole issue. So is the new mechanism that we have put in place going to change anything? Not really, because all we have done is relabelled it. The fundamental problem of giving out the licences and the mechanism, although it has been given a different name, is still there. I know the members of H.A.W.A.G. (Housing and Work Advisory Group) will say: "Yes, but we put them under much more scrutiny now and we have managed to remove some" but again, it is still there, nothing has really changed.

I wonder, looking at this amendment by Deputy Southern , perhaps if we do set the lower limit, which we know is going to be overshot, maybe we will get the 325, which is what we want, rather than setting at 325 and knowing that it is going to be overshot. I do think that, regrettably, this population policy is not as robust as it needs to be. I do not think it is going to assist the other problems that we have within the Island, but certainly I know from going around to my district, on the doorsteps, the constituents that I meet, the ordinary members of the public, there is a feeling that perhaps we are not able to keep up with and be able to look after and have the proper infrastructure to keep up with the population size that we currently have. Again, in my own district, we are having to have extensions on to Plat Douet School, because all of a sudden we found a significant number of children which have just arrived in the Island that the Education Department was not aware of. Again, I just wonder whether the notional target, which we know we cannot be guaranteed to stick to, which is recommended by the Council of Ministers, is too much, and I certainly think that my constituents would feel that it is too much, and certainly the rate at which it is going is too high. Therefore I will be supporting Deputy Southern 's amendment, but I will still consider independently the final vote when we get there.

2. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:

I was expecting a few people to perhaps speak on this important issue. I understand the sensitivities around population, as I am sure all Members do. Listening to constituents, it is clear within the Island there is a great concern about the population and immigration numbers, and it has been a long-running issue over many, many years. What I can say, which Members will appreciate

- and members of the public, for that matter - is that this is not an issue that is unique to Jersey; it is one that many other countries also face. It is perhaps more relevant to an Island community such as ours, due to the constraints on land and resources, and that focuses the sensitivities to a far greater extent. It is an extremely difficult matter to reach the right balance, and I think that was a term that the Constable of St. John used yesterday, and I thoroughly agree with him. It is about trying to reach a balance, balancing up the various issues that we have to deal with in terms of managing our population in a sustainable way in the future. I was interested, incidentally, in the speech the Constable of St. John made. He commented on the fact that he was acting effectively as an ambassador in Jersey, trying to sell the Island to somebody he was speaking to at a recent visit, 12 months or so ago, and the message that he got back at that stage was that Jersey is closed. This is something when we are seeking to sell the Island, when we are seeking to drive inward investment

- and we should not underestimate the importance of inward investment to the Island's economy - bringing high-value business, which is the target, into Jersey creates job opportunities for local people. It also drives economic growth, which is clearly important for the Island so that we can raise the revenues to pay for the high quality of services that we enjoy here. That is, of course, one of the biggest problems we have in terms of getting that balance right. But the message that the Constable of St. John received is one that we get on a fairly regular basis when talking to gatekeepers in London, people who introduce business to institutions within Jersey or professional services, quite often they direct that business elsewhere on the impression that it is difficult to do business here, that there are constraints in ensuring they get the right staffing, the cost of operations here and so on. It is an uphill battle that we are continually fighting, and a decision taken back in the early 1990s to effectively close the door to immigration in Jersey was a matter, long after that policy was removed, that had an impact on the ability to attract quality business here and create job opportunities. It is a situation that I am absolutely confident will have a similar devastating effect on the economy in the Island if we allow such messages. It is much to do with perception. Deputy Maçon mentioned a moment ago, and I know Deputy Martin also yesterday was suggesting, we have had a target for recent years and we have not managed to hit that target. We have been almost double, 500 or so, 575 instead of 325, over the recent years. Both Deputy Maçon and Deputy Martin - and I am sure it is a seductive view - is that we could perhaps aim to a lower target, a

Deputy Southern amendment that we are debating now, and therefore overshooting that much lower figure would leave us in a much better place. But what I can say, and I think is important to emphasise, is that business needs confidence, business needs continuity, and to set targets that low, it is, without any shadow of doubt, going to have a significant impact on the ability for businesses to operate effectively in the Island and for our chance and ability to attract inward investment that is so important, as I have just laid out, not only for the reasons of creating local employment, but also something this Assembly agreed when we agreed the economic growth and diversification strategy, and that was the diversification element of that strategy. Inward investment is how you drive diversification. You see with inward investment the types of businesses that we are bringing to Jersey in high-tech digital sectors, some of the other ones, scientific research, specialist insurance companies, high-value businesses that are coming to Jersey but need to have the right expertise and create jobs locally within the Island. I do understand how Members will find this difficult, and going to Deputy Southern 's queries, he focused a lot about the finance industry. The finance industry account, as Members will probably be more than aware, to a significant proportion of the employment in the Island, 22 per cent of all employees are in finance; there are just over 12,400 in finance. But the point here is that the finance industry has by far and away the largest percentage of local employees. There is a very small minority of employees, high value generally in finance, because that is the way that business has gone. They have driven out the back office work, a lot of that has gone to other places, and what we have done is sought to ensure that there is a focus with finance on the high-end, high-value employees. That is exactly the business model that Jersey is seeking to deploy in other sectors. Improving productivity, again mentioned many times by me and others, is key to ensuring that other sectors which were described and have been described as the lower value, it does not mean they are less important at all. They add significantly in terms of the social fabric of the Island, having a vibrant tourism and hospitality sector, agricultural sector and others. These are largely the small businesses, the small and medium-size enterprises that the Island relies upon. It is the heart blood of any economy, and Jersey is certainly no different. It is

these businesses that struggle more than any others to get employees. It is a matter that a great deal of investment has gone into. I see the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture is not here. He talked yesterday about skills and the skills strategy and the importance of having the right skills deployed at an early age to make sure our young people seek to get not just into the high-value industries we are developing, like the digital sector, the finance industry, but also ensure that they are properly skilled for more traditional industries. But it is not just about skills, it is about culture as well. It is a whole package of measures that are required, which will take time. We cannot flick a switch and hope to solve the problem - or problems, because it is not one single problem - around immigration and population. It has to be a strategy which is a long-term strategy and the purposes of the interim policy that is put in place, which is a target that has been pointed out, is there to bridge the gap in order to allow the longer-term vision to be properly developed. We have this challenge with H.A.W.A.G., the Housing and Works Group, at which I sit, together with Deputy Green and Senator Routier; Senator Routier chairs it. We see businesses, we see them on a regular basis appealing against applications that they have made with regard to their licences and the difficulties they have in trying to find the right staff with the right skills with the right attitude for their particular sectors. They are largely small businesses, small and medium-sized businesses, but to have the impression that we are being light, and applying a light touch to this situation is not the case at all. I know that Senator Routier yesterday touched on the numbers of refusals. He mentioned a figure, and indeed, I believe it needed clarification, that in 2013, that was a 9-month period up to the end of March 2014, where 831 licence applications were refused. The question was asked: "How many were approved?" In that same period, 214 were approved. That gives Members an indication that we are moving far more in line with the current target now under the new law than was the case previously. I will repeat those figures, for clarity, and it is a 9-month period up to the end of March 2014, there were 831 refusals and there were 214 approvals, so that

does give some indication as to how we have been dealing with the applications that have come. I can assure Members, dealing with businesses, specifically small businesses who are wishing to get staff for their enterprise when there is perhaps only 2 or 3 in the business, they do not have time, they do not have the resource to be going through the processes that we are demanding of them. We are not making it easy for business by applying the law in the way we are. We are being tough and we have to get the balance right about not being too tough that we starve these businesses out and we see them go out of business and the individuals running them end up in Social Security and become a cost on the States, and that is difficult. I would also like to add, and it is not just I who stand here and make these comments about the difficulty of the balance of this. There are Members in this Assembly who appreciate how difficult it is for H.A.W.A.G. when we are considering how we manage difficult applications that come forward. In fact, I was interested in the comments yesterday. The Deputy of St. Ouen I know has supported an application; he was talking about the challenges of immigration and population. He sat before our committee supporting an applicant who wanted to come and wanted a non-locally qualified person in a small business. He understands how difficult it is making these decisions when you are facing the individuals, when you are dealing with real live businesses that after all we want and we need to succeed to employ more people, to become more successful, to pay greater taxes. There is a difficult balance there. Deputy Southern , the proposer of this particular amendment, he himself has come before our panel with a non-locally qualified person in a small business supporting their case. Deputy Southern understands that this is difficult and I know there are other Members as well that appreciate the challenge we face, but I cannot underestimate the issue around perception and how important the message that we send out today, not just in relation to this amendment, but in relation to the overall debate on population and immigration. The message we need to send out, the message we need to act upon, is that we are taking the matter seriously, that we wish to put in place a long-term plan to deal on a long-term basis with the challenges around population and immigration. There needs to be a degree of honesty with the matter as to what can be achieved, what indeed our resources within

the Island can cope with on a medium to longer-term basis, but there has to be a degree of realism. [10:00]

If we send out the negative message - and I would suggest accepting the proposition of Deputy Southern 's, however seductive it may seem at face value, to reduce the number to 200 - that message and impact on our economy at a very fragile time in the economic cycle will cause immeasurable damage. We must resist that. The balance that the Council of Ministers has sought with the target that has been put in place - and I emphasise the word "target" - and I hope the figures that I have given to Members indicate that the new Housing and Work (Jersey) Law and the way it is being applied is beginning to deliver some benefits. We are seeing the numbers drop. There have been a high level of refusals, but we are also seeking to be realistic and get the balance right. I would ask Members to have some further trust in the system that is in place at the moment. It is new, it still needs time to further evolve, there is still much more work to do, but we must continue to give confidence to our business community if we want to see our economy recover and return to growth, and more importantly, to get our unemployment levels down and create more job opportunities of a higher value for the local community. I hope Members will reject this proposition, and bear in mind one final point: that we are living in, at this moment, an incredibly competitive world. We are seeing, from an inward investment perspective - I mentioned already that we seek through inward investment to drive high-value business to Jersey - we are fighting against other jurisdictions around the world that are putting together compelling incentive packages. There was recently an advertisement in Toronto Airport which simply said: "Inward investment" and the quote was: "Where are you going to take your next big idea?" and underneath it listed what Toronto were offering to aspiring entrepreneurs, inward investors. They were offering discounted grade A office space - that is a whole different debate, of course, we have about

a finance centre - they are offering relocation costs, they were offering reducing staff costs, they are offering tax breaks, they are offering a whole raft of inducements to bring the businesses in. Effectively, it is a loss leader for those jurisdictions, because they realise these types of high-value businesses, these entrepreneurs, these wealth creators, they drive significant long-term benefit. So the short-term view is they take a hit, it is an incentive, they realise there is an upfront cost to it, but they do appreciate the long-term benefits that inward investment drives. Part of the package of course is lighter levels of regulation that need to be applied, a light-touch government approach. That is what we are fighting against here in Jersey. We do not want large numbers of people coming to this Island. What we do want is high value across a spectrum of businesses, and that is where the investment focus has been, and I might add, it is beginning to bear fruit, but we cannot afford a negative message to go out around this amendment in particular. I urge Members to reject this well-meaning, misplaced amendment.

Senator S.C. Ferguson:

Can I ask for a point of clarification, Sir? The Minister said that something in the order of 200 and something licences were issued this year. How does the H.A.W.A.G. group, if that is what it is called, link that with the concept of 325 or 150 heads of household? I cannot quite see where the connection is.

Senator A.J.H. Maclean:

First of all, it was not a year. That was a 9-month period, to be clear, to the end of March 2014. There was not a link. I was simply responding to a question yesterday in light of Senator Routier, who said 831 licences have been refused. A question was raised by a Member - I cannot remember who it was, my apologies - "How many were approved?" and I was simply saying that in our statistics 214 were approved, based on 831 being refused, just to give Members some quantum of the numbers.

Deputy G.C.L. Baudains:

I did not want to stop the Minister when he was in full flow, but further clarification of the 214 licences that were approved, did that take any account of any licences that may have been revoked, expired or whatever? In other words, was it a net increase or was it otherwise?

Senator A.J.H. Maclean:

The 831 certainly took some capacity out, if that is what the Deputy was asking. I think that was his question.

Deputy G.C.L. Baudains:

I was wondering whether the 214 was a net increase or whether maybe it was offset by .. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:

No, it is not a net increase.

Senator B.I. Le Marquand:

Could the défauts be raised on Senators Ozouf and Farnham ?

The Bailiff :

Yes. Does the Assembly agree to raise the défauts on Senators Ozouf and Farnham ? The défauts are raised. Deputy Duhamel.

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

Yesterday we had the interesting debating phenomenon whereby certain States Members decided to bring forward amendments to the original proposition, and then sought to vote against the main proposition. I think we are in a similar situation potentially today. Despite all of the good intentions of Deputy Southern in coming forward with a different number, albeit a lower number, which seductively suggests that perhaps in adopting 200 rather than the other number, then all will be light and good, I do not think that even if we do accept Deputy Southern 's amendment that any difference will be realistically made by the Council of Ministers in solving the bigger problem. I have been one of the Members on the Council of Ministers who argued from early days when we set up the new Government that long-term planning was absolutely vital to the Island, and in some respects we have made a small measure of progress in at least putting that item on to the agenda. But what we have here today I feel is a recognition of a potential gaping wound in our lifestyle and economy and culture and all we are attempting to do is to widen that wound or come forward with small plasters in order to try and tell everybody that our health service is solving the problem. It is not, it will not do and I think there is an element of obfuscation, if you like, in the arguments that are being put forward. If we really do mean to live within our means, the notion of rampant growth has to be nailed once and for all. Now, I am not that naïve - or at least I hope States Members do not believe that I am in the comments that I going to make - that some element of growth is not necessary in order to regenerate societies and to improve them, and speaking as a mature economy, that is really where our future I think lies. We have heard previous arguments to the extent that diversification is what is called for. Diversification is not a new way of proposing rampant growth, I feel. It  is a more  selective and qualitative  measure in order to encourage those sectors of employment which are not contributing to the overall economy in the way that we think should happen to be amended and changed so that people can be re-educated through the new skills strategy into new areas of working in order to contribute more to the Treasury to pay for the services that we all want. So really, it is living within our means that is the growth policy, not necessarily coming forward with another 200 jobs or another 325 jobs and then arguing, somewhat perfunctorily, that all of them - or as many of them as possible - have to be the high-value ones, and then completely ignoring the fact that high-value workers in the economy, albeit they may well be able to afford our expensive property, so a whole load of houses will come off the market, so you have growth in the housing sector, but what about our own? In order to achieve this balance that

has been loosely spoken about, we have to consider what the implications of this policy are. Inevitably, it means that we have to be telling everybody, loudly and clearly - and I think they really know in those industries that are not necessarily the high contributors to the income tax take - that their days are numbered. If their days are not numbered, then the message that should be going out is that we cannot have our cake and eat it. I think it is an extremely difficult problem for any government or any society to try to solve. We have made an effort, as I mentioned earlier, to set out a mechanism whereby we can begin to solve it, but I feel that both the amendment to the main proposition and the main proposition, which I will speak about later, merely scratch the surface and inevitably will not do the very things that we want it to do. I think that poses a big problem, because this House still has powers to direct individual Ministers to act in a particular fashion, I think, and if it does not, I am sure why we are here discussing the issues if the outcome cannot be to send a strong direction to the Council of Ministers to act in a particular fashion. But that is what we did a number of years ago when we set our thoughts on population, when we said that we would accept 325 as the net migration figure, but based on the number of heads of household. When we mentioned the heads of household figures it was ostensibly based on the fact that we thought that the heads of household would be the working members, not necessarily all of the numbers, and there is a subtlety that is creeping into the argument, I feel, to indicate that the numbers that we are talking about might represent new potential households of the order of 325 and not the 150 or slightly smaller that has been spoken about. On a fairness principle, is it right that we should be discouraging people to come to our Island and to participate in whatever services we collectively

collect for? That is a separate issue, but we really need to get to grips with this idea of quality rather than quantity. As I say, when we looked at our policies previously, it was supposed to be on a 5-year rolling basis for averages. The idea of the policy at the time was that the policy will be reviewed every 3 years, or indeed more frequently than that. We have broken our average figures on a 5-year rolling basis every single year, so what should have happened was that if we had 1,100 people coming in in one year, obviously your 1,100 means that you have to have an equivalent number, or even larger, of people leaving the Island in following years in order to achieve your 5- year rolling average at the level that was suggested. It has been clear: whether it has been too difficult for us to do under the regulatory mechanisms that we employ, I do not know, but having decided collectively in this Chamber that we were going to follow a particular set of policies and not followed them, for whatever reason, I think is an indictment of the ineffectiveness of the Council of Ministers and our Government, in particular. I do not want to see that mistake carried on into the future and I think an interim policy now to bind the hands of a future House again has got certain things wrong with it. This is a big problem that everybody should be getting to grips with and I think I have always stated if we are going to deal with the problem and solve it, then let us solve it properly rather than just sticking kind of small plaster patches on and hoping for the best. I am in 2 minds whether it is worth supporting Deputy Southern , because as I mentioned earlier, his solution does not necessarily comprise a longer-term solution, and inevitably what we really need is the long-term Strategic Plan to nail the issues for a sensible long-term period of time, and that is the real issue that we should be discuss here today. Thank you.

Senator A.J.H. Maclean:

If I may, could I just correct something in the speech that I made? Not in the previous speech, I would not know where to start with that. I referred to H.A.W.A.G. and the members of H.A.W.A.G. when I spoke, and I particularly mentioned Deputy Green and Senator Routier, who chairs it. I omitted Deputy Pinel, who is a very valuable member of H.A.W.A.G. and she should be mentioned as well, because all of us have to deal with the challenges of businesses coming before us and she is an important member. Thank you.

Deputy S. Power of St. Brelade :

Can I raise the défaut on Deputy Baker? The Bailiff :

Yes. Does the Assembly agree to raise the défaut on Deputy Baker? The défaut is raised. Deputy of St. Martin .

4. Deputy S.G. Luce of St. Martin :

I am not going to give a speech, because I am going to save that for the main debate, but I would just like to concur wholeheartedly with the last 5 minutes of the Minister for Planning and Environment's address to us.

[10:15]

I personally do not think that what we have before us today is a proper policy and I do not see Deputy Southern 's amendment turning it into a proper policy. Both the proposition and the amendment give figures which we know we have no intention of keeping to. That to me is hypocrisy. [Approbation] That, to me is hypocrisy and I want no part of it.

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

First, I did not intend to speak, but we are running off into the main debate and I feel I have got to make a few statements before my own proposition is pre-empted. First of all, I think it must be torture for anybody to see the English language tortured on a body which presumes to call itself

H.A.W.A.G. and I just wish that it would stop. But back to the bigger issue, I am afraid Senator Maclean has made the - very elegantly, I might add - standard speech that has been made for years and years in this Assembly, and about which the public and myself, having had a slow moment of epiphany, have become utterly cynical and disillusioned. This will be the thrust if we do get to it, and quite frankly I hope Senator Routier, who is presumably guiding this debate now, will withdraw his proposition. [Approbation] The public have become utterly disillusioned and I find it very hard to believe that the main proposition is this policy which the Solicitor General said is needed to underpin the law. It is not a policy, it is a series of rather vague aspirational statements and I really think it has to be re-examined. As Deputy Luce of St. Martin quite rightly has said, they are not achievable. It is the deep disillusionment and cynicism, it is the fact that 10,000 people came in in the 2000s, when we were told: "No need for a Census. We have got it under control. There will be sampling along the way, no need for a Census" and all of a sudden, people were saying: "Things are running out of control." Deputy Duhamel is quite right, we see it on the panel, he sees it much more because he is at the apex of the system. We are rearranging the chairs on the Titanic. He is having to squeeze out more and more plots. Deputy Green is saying - he keeps nodding his head vigorously; well, maybe not for this, but for other reasons - "Give me 700 and it will all be okay." It will not. It will go on and on and on unless we are all squeezed into high-rises, which may be a solution, I do not know, but it will go on and on and on and his 700 will translate in a few years' time into another 700 and the Minister for Planning, against his very best judgment and that excellent speech he has made, will have to find yet another set of plots and he will have to fiddle around at the margins of the planning system to make black equal white, which is currently, quite bluntly, what he is having to do at the moment. I do implore Senator Routier to withdraw this proposition. Of course, it does not even meet the test of what is a policy, let alone a good policy. Thank you.

6. Deputy M.R. Higgins of St. Helier :

Again, I was not going to speak at this particular point, I was saving it for the main debate, but I happen to agree with the last 2 speakers - in fact, 3 speakers - in fact, I would even go further. I see this policy as nothing more than a confidence check, a confidence check on the population, because absolutely no one believes we are going to stick to these figures, not in this House and not outside. Ministers say this because there is an election coming forward, they have got to have a policy: "We have got to have something that we are going to say we are going to deliver" but the public do not believe it any more. All we have to do is simply look at some of the figures that we have bandied about already. We have had figures of 600 or even 900 for finance over the next few years. We are talking about the construction industry are going to require additional workers. Look at the figures: 1,730 unemployed in the statistics, 173 approximately, 10 per cent, are from the construction industry. Now, if we are going to build the Dandara complex, Ministers still are going to pursue the Esplanade Quarter, there is going to be all the housing we are going to have to do. Now, where are those construction workers going to come from? We do not them have in the Island, they are not unemployed - well, 173 are; they will be swallowed up pretty quickly - but where are the rest going to come from? The Minister for Education came up yesterday with a skills policy. I read it last night. As I was going through it, I thought: "Great. The only thing is it is far too late. We have not done what we should have done." There has not been the training of the construction workers and there has not been the construction of the digital workers, which is another 500 that we require. So we have got finance wanting 900 or whatever over the next 5 years, we have got the construction industry wanting people, we have got the digital industry and we do not even know where the economy is going in the future because we have a diversification policy, but nobody knows what the big winner is and we cannot pick them. They are going to evolve and then we are going to find we need people with new skills. Even with the figures that we are aware of at the moment, this policy is doomed to failure and it will not work and the people know it. Now, we say that we do not want to close the Island to new business. No, we do not, and the point is I come down to the view if we want to encourage people to come in, then we are going to have to have work permits and we allow people to come in and develop new industries, but again, those that work, fine, we will expand. Those that do not, I am sorry, the work permit comes to an end and the person goes or the industry goes. We have got to be smarter in what we do. When I come on to the main debate, I am going to be addressing things that the Ministers have not even looked at, which are going to have important implications for not only our economy but for the world economy. There are big changes afoot at the moment which could make the population policy totally redundant and we may have different problems going on in the future. But what I will say is - I will just finish on this particular one - I would rather go for the lower figure of Deputy Southern 's than this other figure. In fact, they are all imaginary anyway, because the Ministers will not keep to them, and I know darn well they know they are not going to keep to them. We had Ministers yesterday saying: "Oh, business require this, business require that." Well, fine, they do. What is going to happen is they are going to come to the Ministers and they are going to blow the policy. I would just like to reiterate what others have said too. We found the Island had 10,000 more people in the Island than Ministers were telling us beforehand, then we had the Census and the Census showed there were 10,000 in this Island more than they realised. That is because of the failure of the previous policy and, as I say for a final time, this policy is doomed to failure, it is a con trick which needs to be exposed. The Ministers should withdraw it and they should look at a decent policy and address the appropriate issues. Thank you.

7. Deputy J.H. Young of St. Brelade :

We have been presented with a choice of going with an amendment to what is an intuitive guess; the Council of Ministers' intuitive guess. Deputy Southern is saying: "Well, I think that guess should be lower and we should make it consistent with the policies that the States have had for a long, long time and the public expect this Island to deliver." I was not intending to speak, but what I have heard, I find it quite upsetting. We are told that if we go for this lower amendment, this lower more cautious figure, a lower guess, which we know we will not achieve anyway, because we do not know whether the tools that we have got to control population work, if we go for that, we are going to cause economic disaster. We are going to send a message to the world that is going to destroy our economy. While I listened to Senator Maclean, the Minister for Economic Affairs, I thought: "Right, I am going to look up some numbers here" so I looked up the statistics report on our G.V.A. (Gross Added Value). Here we are, 45 square miles. Our population rose from 94,000 in 2008 to 99,000 in 2012, according to that. We have a G.V.A. for 99,000 souls of £36,700 per year per capita for every resident. That compares pretty well with the City of London. London figures, highest in the U.K. (United Kingdom), £35,600 G.V.A. per person and of course it shows you there in the U.K. you have got a massive division, you have got areas of around about £10,000 per person in poorer parts of the U.K., in Wales and so on. Now, what is our problem? Our problem is, as Deputy Duhamel so excellently put in his speech, and I fully support everything he said, is first we are a mature economy and we need to diversify and change because it is correct that our income per capita is declining. It has declined significantly; it is hardly surprising, I suppose, in pure mathematics that if you increase the population and you do not commensurately increase the population with your income earnings that the amount of income we have got to share out each, it is going to be less. That is obvious. I think there is clearly a question of the structural problem of the economy, but is the solution to adopt an intuitive guess that we do not know whether the tools work? Because as we saw in the excellent Scrutiny report, we do not have a report, have we got the right tools, issues like work permits, all those questions that people ask every day? Does it work? Question: we have gone on a massive economic boost, we have convinced ourselves that we are going to pump money into States capital projects and we do need to. Traffic at gridlock, roads at absolute capacity we saw in town, no question. Sewers: £200 million. Okay, we have got £75 million, but in reality it is £200 million. Hospital: £400 million. Housing: is that the solution? Deputy Duhamel clearly told us, and we should remind ourselves, the link between population and our commitment to society, what we need to invest in it to sustain it is going to grow probably exponentially almost, so it is a crucial issue. I am asked to dismiss Deputy Southern because he has not got a point and go with an intuitive set of estimates. I really seriously struggle with that and I think Deputy Southern started off .. we are back to kind of where we were yesterday. Do we vote for an amendment knowing we are not happy with the main report? What a situation to be in. Frankly, I think again we are letting our public down, because I hope that when we do come to the main debate, if the Minister sustains it, that we do have a debate about the need to have a sustainable economy, the need to balance on the one hand our economic performance and our share of wealth, and on the other hand Jersey's special, precious environment. All of those debates over decades that have taken place with the public, which set the current policies, which we failed completely to meet, have all been based on the need to keep Jersey's environment special. Why? Because if we spoil it, we will destroy and remove the very special characteristics that attract people and businesses here in the first place, and so there are other words for that, sort of fouling your own nest and so on - no, maybe that is unparliamentary - but that is the risk, that is the issue and so I think nothing is more important, that we need to get that balance right and we have to accept that we need strategies to change the nature of our economy so we stop convincing ourselves that pumping in more and more and being dependent upon external immigration into the Island is the solution to our economic ills. I have massive problems with it. I do not know whether I am going to support the amendment, but I think I probably will, because it at least improves what is an already unsatisfactory position. It sticks with the current policy, because that is the question: if we are asked at the end of the day to accept a report, a number, which is, I think, called a planning assumption, I do not know what a planning assumption is. I think it means a number that we might .. it is an aim, it is a guess, it is not a target and I really struggle with an argument that says: "We cannot make decisions in H.A.W.A.G. group because we do not have the legal vires for it, because we do not have a policy." Is a planning assumption a policy? Do not think so. So I struggle, I am more persuaded that we have already got a policy, a policy founded on long public consultation, successive .. I do not know, Imagine Jersey and Jersey 2000, this argument has been going for decades and a huge amount of effort has been put, and the public, if they were here, would have that debate, preserving the Island environment against our need to earn our living. So I am not making an anti-economy .. I am arguing for a sustainable economy and trying to have a way forward and I am not persuaded that this interim situation is the right debate to have. I really want a proper debate on proper information and just wish we had had the situation where the recommendations of the Scrutiny Panel had been listened to. I think if the debate is maintained, I

am going to vote for the amendment and we will see what happens later. Senator P.F.C. Ozouf :

I think this is a point of order which I would be grateful for your guidance on, Sir. Deputy Young has just said that he believed that the policy under which the Work and Housing (Jersey) Law was already in existence was as a result of a number of other public consultations.

[10:30]

We heard yesterday from the Solicitor General about the specific narrow issue of whether or not the policy could be the Strategic Plan and he addressed the Assembly and he explained that it was unwise to have such a loose policy. Deputy Young has informed the Assembly that he believes that the policy is something else even further back from the Strategic Plan and the Assembly needs to be guided by what is required and what is not and what would be .. I hesitate to use the word "lawful" because if one was to accept what ..

The Bailiff :

Do you want the Solicitor General back? Senator P.F.C. Ozouf :

I just seek your guidance, Sir. We cannot have a debate on the basis of something that is not sustainable upon challenge.

The Bailiff :

I do not think it is a matter for the Chair, but if any Members want to ask the Solicitor General to clarify it in the light of Deputy Young's speech, then we will ask the Solicitor General to come back. Greffier, perhaps you can ask the Solicitor General to come back. Does any other Member wish to speak? Deputy Power.

8. Deputy S. Power:

Briefly, another Member who really did not want to speak on this amendment, but there have been some very good contributions by the Deputy of St. Martin, Deputy Duhamel and Deputy Le Hérissier. I co-authored 2 reports on population and migration in 2012 and 2013 and Scrutiny does all this work, Scrutiny goes to a lot of trouble, gets the evidence, puts it together in a report and then it is absolutely ignored. It is like playing blind man's buff down here in the Assembly, because people do not listen, and then we have this Interim Population Report coming out which does not pay any attention to what has been said in the last 3 population and migration reports, if we include the interim report, which says there is nothing new to be considered. I am going to just briefly read to Members what we said at the beginning of 2013. Deputy Rondel, myself, the Deputy of St. Mary and the Constable of St. Saviour: "The sub-panel concluded that in order that the Control of Housing and Work (Jersey) Law and the provisions to manage the effect of population and migration, the new control mechanisms must be applied and enforced. We also believe that the enforcement of the law will not be possible and will only fail if the current proposals and manning resources are not significantly improved. A change of culture has got to happen at the Population Office and the proposal to have 1.5 full-time employees carrying out this role, possibly increasing to 2.5 in the future, will simply be utterly inadequate." The report said that we have got to have a change of culture at the Population Office, more enforcement officers will have to be recruited with a greater degree of compliance and a greater degree of high visibility. That includes standing at car ferry ramps to see who is coming in with a work van; likewise, officers will have to randomly enter construction and building sites, restaurant kitchens, retail shops, hotels and stores to establish bona fides. I do not see any evidence in the last year and a half that any of that is happening. There may be one or 2 inspections that have been carried out at the port, but nothing else has happened. I would ask the Assistant Chief Minister to confirm what he has done to contribute. There are other issues as well, and I will just read one more piece: "The whole issue of under-utilised, non-qualified licences is also part of the problem" and let me come to the vexed question of political responsibility: "Three Ministers and their departments continue to have a say in Jersey's migration policy, the Chief Minister, the Minister for Economic Development, the Minister for Housing as presently constituted. The Chief Minister will decide who will get a licence. It has been our consistent view over 4 years that one Minister must take 100 per cent control of population and migration policy and that any Minister has political responsibility for population and migration must not have any direct or indirect say in economic development or expansion as a serious tension and conflict exists. That has not changed. These unhealthy departmental overlaps exist and at such time need to be avoided." I am not going to say any more. I will keep to my main speech when we get to the main debate, but we have a fundamental political problem with population and migration control, we have fundamental

conflicts and until such time as we deal with these conflicts, we are playing blind man's bluff. The Bailiff :

The Solicitor General is back in the Chamber. Senator Ozouf , do you wish to pose your question to him?

Senator P.F.C. Ozouf :

I wish in no way to involve the Solicitor General in politics. A number of Members are remonstrating. This is a very serious issue which we have to be guided upon facts.

The Bailiff :

No speech, just to the question to .. Senator P.F.C. Ozouf :

Thank you. So the question is: is it correct that Deputy Young can assert and that we could effectively say that a policy exists because of the outcome of previous public consultations which have apparently dealt with the issue of population, because Deputy Young asserted that we did not need this policy and that we had other policies in place and I do not, having discharged some of these functions under the previous law, believe that that is a tenable argument and Members cannot make a decision on this proposition on an incorrect basis that simply would not stand up on challenge. Am I correct?

Deputy J.H. Young:

I thought this point was arising under a point of clarification, and it is all very well to say I said something and the Minister for Treasury stands up and says he wants a legal opinion before I am allowed to clarify what I am being asked to clarify. I did not assert .. what I said, I found it difficult to believe what we were being told because we know the history of policies is long- standing. I referred to 2000 Beyond, I referred to Imagine Jersey, but of course I am aware there is still a plan for 2014 which is dated April 2009. I do not know whether I have been in dreamland, but I believed that this Island had a policy of controlling its population. I use the word "believe." I did not assert, and obviously it is useful, yes, I welcome the opportunity for clarification, but please, I do not want it to be on the record that I asserted something that was not true. I believed it, and that is the point I made. I hope that clears up the ..

The Bailiff :

Very well. If the Solicitor General can make a clear legal question out of that .. Mr. H. Sharp Q.C., H.M. Solicitor General:

The position is this: there is a Strategic Plan, which is a very high-level document, and there is a section in it which says in terms: "Things to do" and one of the things to do is to introduce a population policy. When you introduce a new law, as has happened in this case, my view that I expressed yesterday was that it would be hugely beneficial, to say the very least, if a policy was introduced to reflect how that new law would be put into practice. The fact that there may be an old law that has been overtaken and an old policy to go with that old law does not assist in introducing a new law and a new policy to go with it.

Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:

I wonder if I could ask, rather naughtily, the Solicitor General, if he were to see a policy, what characteristics would form part of that policy?

The Solicitor General:

No doubt it would be a very helpful document. [Laughter] One would expect to see a document that would enable an applicant for a licence to understand the relevant criteria that would be applied in a particular decision-making process, applying the law.

Senator L.J. Farnham :

Could I just ask that the proposition being presented by this, does it fit that bill? Does it fit that remit?

The Bailiff :

I think you are probably asking the Solicitor General strange political matters, but anyway. The Solicitor General:

I think you do have to read on. Within the proposition, there are clearly a number of areas where it talks about the circumstances in which a licence may or may not be refused, so clearly the proposition at the front is not the entire policy. It looks like Members are being entitled to agree a figure, a numerical figure to aim for, but I see the word "assumption" is used, which obviously gives the policy or the Minister the ability to .. it is not a binding figure and the entire proposition, if one reads through it, gives different circumstances in which a licence may or may not be granted.

Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade :

May I ask a question? Would the Solicitor General also say that there is a reasonable expectation for a population policy to deal with the issue of population and therefore to give certainty not so much only to employers, who want to know who they can and cannot be expected to take on, but to the public as to what they can expect the population policy to be?

The Solicitor General:

No, I do not see it like that, because one needs to look at the policy in its context. The context is the Control of Housing and Work (Jersey) Law, so the purpose of the policy, as I have already explained, is that the Minister will be taking a number of decisions in respect of different applications from various individuals in the community and those individuals, whatever their particular circumstances, need to understand the process that the Minister will go through in considering their application and what criteria will be applied in determining the outcome of that process.

The Bailiff :

Very well. Does any other Member wish to speak on the amendment? For understandable reasons, Members have strayed a little bit into the main debate, but nevertheless this is a debate on the amendment. Yes, Chief Minister.

9. Senator I.J. Gorst :

I just wanted to pick up briefly .. sorry, Sir, could I raise the défaut on the Connétable of Trinity first, please?

The Bailiff :

Yes. Does the Assembly agree to raise the défaut on the Connétable of Trinity ? The défaut is raised.

Senator I.J. Gorst :

Also Senator Bailhache , please. The Bailiff :

Senator Bailhache . Does the Assembly agree to raise the défaut on Senator Bailhache ? The défaut is raised.

Senator I.J. Gorst :

I just wanted to address a couple of points that Deputy Power raised and if I can address the first one, it is who leads the policy. The Deputy knows that in the past I have supported amendments to deal with population through the Social Security office. It was this Assembly that said it did not wish to have that one department dealing with population matters, and I think the Deputy himself has brought amendments to population policies and certainly the Control of Work and Housing (Jersey) Law, suggesting that the Housing Department and Minister should deal with these issues. Again, this Assembly said to both of those amendments, one of which I supported - of course, I was then the Minister for Social Security - but the Assembly did not support either. The Assembly said no, they accepted that there needed to be almost an independent chairman of the deciding body, and that is now the Assistant Chief Minister, Senator Routier, and yet at the same time there had to be the balance between the economic growth, so the important, important representation of business; there had to be the balance of housing, to make sure that was being considered, and of course there had to be the equally important balance of Social Security, and currently the Assistant Minister for Social Security does that, so that we are balancing the needs of all those 3 departments, as I believe the community and the public would ask us to do. While I accept what the Deputy is saying, it is this Assembly that has set up the process and the body and therefore it was not right for the Council of Ministers to come forward and change it, even though I accept what he is saying, that previous Scrutiny Panels had suggested that and I supported previous Scrutiny Panels on that proposal, but the Assembly decided against it. The other issue that he raised, which I know is of concern to Members of this Assembly and is of concern to the public, and that is the reviews that might be taking place at ports of entry and particularly something we refer to as the "white van man". I am not sure why we use the term "man" but we do. The Deputy challenged, during that population Scrutiny review, that we were not putting enough resource into that particular monitoring and ensuring that people were not arriving on our shores without the appropriate licences, having paid the appropriate fees.

[10:45]

It is one of those situations that because of the sometimes delicate nature of some of the white van individuals, we do not make great publicity of it, but that work is being undertaken and those vans are being turned back at the harbours, and the department is working with harbours officials and Customs and Immigration and they are being turned back, but it is a delicate issue. We do not publicise it, but we are acting upon what the Scrutiny Panel suggested we should do. Only yesterday, a Member of this Assembly showed the Assistant Minister a photograph of a van with a non-Jersey registration plate and that van was appropriate, they had paid the licence fee, they knew the individuals who were coming to do work, what they were coming to do, how long they were going to be here for and when they needed to depart. So that work is being undertaken, as Scrutiny suggested that we should do. I always knew, as I said at the start, when we brought forward this policy that there would be some that were uncomfortable with having a planning assumption number - and I will come on to that in the main debate, because I think that is a very important point - who do not want a number at all, just want a policy without the number, and they probably would be satisfied with what we have got before us if we did not have a planning assumption number in there, and there are others that, with the best will in the world, do not accept the arguments that we want inward investment, that we need to be open for business, that migration is a positive thing for our community, because it can bring jobs, it can bring economic benefit and it can bring benefit for all of our community, providing it is done in a balance and managed way. There are some that do not accept that argument, and I have to accept that. But I would just say to those Members with regard to this amendment that do not want a number, if they this morning accept this amendment, then that is not going any way whatsoever to meeting what their aims of a policy is. In actual fact, it is just going, I would suggest, completely against what they want to see and that is by reducing a number. Although I was unfortunately not able to be in the Assembly this morning, I

understand that there have been one or 2 speeches talking about the importance of continuing to send out the message that we are open for business, that we want inward investment and that economic growth can benefit all. I contend that by accepting this amendment, the reverse message will be relayed out to our community and out to the world beyond these shores. I would say that even those that do not want a number, that is not a message that they want to send this morning and I ask them to think carefully before they vote for this amendment. In actual fact, I ask that they do not support this amendment and then we will have a debate about the number in the policy when we move to the main proposition. Thank you.

Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:

The Senator, the Chief Minister, has, I feel, maligned people who are holding views that they believe, for example, it is quite possible to have tighter controls like work permits found in many states of the Caribbean and the Crown Dependencies and welcome economic growth. Would he accept that view?

The Bailiff :

I do not think that is a point of clarification, that is a second speech. Senator I.J. Gorst :

I wonder if it is a point of clarification, because it is this Assembly that agreed the Control of Work and Housing (Jersey) Law and the Ministers in the Council of Ministers are working to deliver a policy which will deliver the constraints within the Work and Housing (Jersey) Law. The Deputy knows that there is an ability within the Work and Housing (Jersey) Law to name individuals on licences granted to business. We are working to the law that this Assembly has agreed and therefore trying to suggest that we should not have this policy because we should have a different law, I am not sure that it is relevant to the debate we are having today.

10. Senator L.J. Farnham :

I have taken the opportunity, like Deputy Young, to reacquaint myself with some of the statistics from this useful booklet that we get, and while it is clear that Jersey has been victim to the worldwide recession, do not forget, we have weathered the storm exceptionally well, and before we blame decreases in G.V.A. per capita and so on and so forth on population, we must bear in mind there have been other extremely devastating worldwide economic circumstances that have contributed to that. But I just wanted to say while I fully agree that we need to move on to a proper policy, and I thought Deputy Vallois' speech yesterday was particularly useful, insofar as looking at a wider policy and not focusing or being held to numbers that are unrealistic, but what I want to say here to Members is that I feel that this amendment has been brought in the spirit, the genuine spirit, of trying to get a holding position, to draw a line and say: "Look, this is something we are going to work towards. We have got a line in the sand, if you like, now to work towards while we all struggle and debate what the next move is going to be." It seems that most Members have said the figures in the interim policy as proposed are unrealistic, which they might be, I do not know, none of us really know, but they are something to work to, so just a word of caution, if those figures are unrealistic, then I think Deputy Southern - and I respect Deputy Southern for all the work he does, his propositions are nearly always faultless in terms of research that has gone into them; I said nearly always, not completely - but I think it would be dangerous to support a lower number when most Members think the number in the interim policy is not right anyway and we could be making the problem even worse.

The Bailiff :

Does any other Member wish to speak? Then I call upon Deputy Southern to reply.

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

I am quite surprised at the depth and extent of the debate we have had, especially following on from yesterday's debacle. I want to start with a clear statement that this is a debate not about economic policy but about migration and population policy, because it seems to me that the Ministers - Minister after Minister, in fact - have been somewhat confused and have talked non-stop about economic growth and not about population policy. Despite the signals coming from the Minister for Economic Development, who does not feel he has said enough, I could not agree more with him that it is about balance. He used that word 4 times in his speech, and it is indeed about balance and I believe he has got the balance wrong. That is the fundamental issue. Before we go any further, can I just say that this is not a vote to close Jersey for business. This will not happen. What it is saying is: "Come to Jersey, open businesses, start up businesses, employ locals first. That is where we should be: employ, train up the 1,730 unemployed, train up, use the best part of 1,000 students now in Highlands, use the 640 school leavers every year that stay on the Island. By all means, start business, make your businesses, make them boom, but use local labour." Back in 2005, I had reservations about what has come forward and is finalised in the Control of Housing and Work (Jersey) Law and its use, and in particular the political will attached to its use to control migration and thereby population, and I said all those years ago, the panel believes: "Here is a clear risk that the drive for economic growth and the expansion of the financial service will be allowed to determine the development of all other strategic policies, including migration and housing." That was the reservation all those years ago. That reservation still exists and is still manifest today in the fact that Minister after Minister has concentrated on economic growth, economic growth, economic growth and seems to disregard migration and population. It is being driven by economy considerations primarily and I am saying that has to stop, that has to stop. As I was looking and I was listening to the Minister for Economic Development as he was talking, I happened to come across the population policy under which we are operating. There is a policy. It is there, it is dated

April 2009, and I read the bit about productivity growth when he was talking about productivity, and I thought he was reading from the same list that he had got here, the same bullet points that he got here back in 2009, identical speech, same words, no change. Yet what happened after 2009, did the drive for economic growth overwhelm the need to control population? Well, the evidence is that it did, because the population policy was a proposed policy of plus 150 heads of household which is around 325 people. That was in place in 2009. It is the policy we are talking about now as interim; it is exactly the same policy, and yet what happened? Did we get 325 net? No. 2009 we got 500; 2010, 700; 2011, 600; 2012, another 500. So we completely blew the target because there was no political will to do what they said they were going to do and attempt to limit population growth to 325 inward migration, so completely failed. We are told, and some of the Members today said: "I do not want to vote for any of this. It is just not good enough. I am tempted to vote against it, against the lot. Throw it all out." Will that change the political will? Will that change the targets? Will it change what happens? No, it will not. When you go and knock on doors later in this year and say: "I had a chance to put a shot across the bows of the Chief Minister, of the Minister for Population" and say: "Do what you said you would do for the last 10 years and put a tighter target on them" and say: "Meet it" and if you do not meet it, tell us about it, but put a shot across there. Say: "We have had enough." The statement: "We have had enough" is not: "Vote the lot out." The statement: "We have had enough" is: "Here is the tighter target. Now do it." Do you have the political bottle, do you have the political will to do it? That is the reality and you have the opportunity today. Do not duck that opportunity, please. Referring back to some of the implications of 325; why 325? It might be good for the economy. It is certainly not good for the resource. The consequences in appendix B of the population policy, 325 people, it goes through the list: "Overall, Social Security spending would rise significantly due to increased numbers of pensioners" and I pointed out yesterday that nowhere in this population policy, interim though it is, do we look at what the dependency ratio is. Senator Routier said he would identify it and find it and tell us where it is in this document. I have had another look and I cannot find it.

Senator P.F. Routier:

In response to that, Deputy Le Hérissier asked about the comparison between 325 and 200 and it was in the comments which are associated with your own proposition.

[11:00]

Deputy G.P. Southern :

Okay. It is in the comments attached to my proposition. It is not in the Interim Population Policy because why? I would suggest because increasing plus 325 does very little for the worsening of the dependency ratio. As I said yesterday, it ends up at around 74 per cent or 77 per cent in 2065, a minor difference. As Deputy Baudains usefully pointed out, the attempt to solve the demographic problems, the ageing of the population by importing more is a Ponzi scheme, it just means that eventually when it busts, it is even worse, you cannot keep up with that, so that excuse for 325 is not valid. It then goes on: "Infrastructure: increased energy demand could be accommodated until the early 2030s, when additional capacity, around £55 million, would be needed." So this is resource demand. Here we go, it is what I concentrated on in my document: "Housing: approximately 6,150 additional homes would be needed from the start of 2009." So housing especially. When you come to the promises not to build on greenfields in the countryside, please note again 325 leads to a demand, long-term, for an additional 6,000 houses. Where are they going to go? They will not all fit on the brownfield sites, they will not all fit, no matter how high we build in St. Helier , so beware. 325 sounds like the comfortable compromise figure. It is not. It has got a heavy, heavy resource demand over the long term. Yesterday I specifically addressed the Minister for Education and he came forward. I have found the document since. He said it has been sent to me and now I have read it relatively quickly last night, but his document Skills for Success does contain 41 pages of very useful aspirations, but it is very much a long-term document. There are no direct implications, no direct actions now taking place as a result of this which can deal with what is put forward in a 2-year Interim Population Policy. There are not any answers in this. But I opened it at page 18 and I found some very useful statements, again much too long term. The first one I would like to point out is: "Secure the additional resources necessary to meet demographic growth to 2019 in education" i.e. the more people we let in, the more migrants we have, the greater the demand on education, and it is simple: let us make sure we have the resources until 2019 to cover that. We have already seen, what was it, 14 new classrooms in primary schools as a result of the failure to apply the population policy properly for the last few years, an extra 1,000, an extra 500 people a year with their associated demand for schooling: "Work with key stakeholders to create a 21st century vision for education that provides every learner with the opportunities to develop the key skills for learning, personal development and employability." What a laudable aim, but a vision for the future; it does not do anything for somebody tomorrow or the next 2 years. While I am on that, I would just point out that: "Providing opportunities to develop the key skills for learning, personal development and employability" as we look at the migration picture that we see over the past decade, and I looked in the Jersey numbers 2013, and we have got the net migration figures for 2001 to 2011 by place of birth. Interesting to see what is happening for those people in our schools, born here and educated here. Over that decade, we saw 4,000 E.U. (European Union) and new entrants to E.U. enlargement arrive over that period, 3,500 from the British Isles, almost 2,000 from Portugal and Madeira, 1,400 from elsewhere. Net emigration, to balance that, of 4,000 plus Jersey-born residents. So in the to and fro of these migration figures, when we talk about 325, the inward is from Poland, British Isles, Portugal and other places; the exit overall is from Jersey-born people. Why is that? Are these Jersey-born people, educated in our system, well-educated, cannot find a job or cannot afford to live here, cannot afford the rent, cannot afford the mortgage? I suspect it is. That is the net effect of the policy we have been applying or failing to apply - because this is about migration and population - over the past decade. Now is the time to say: "Apply that political will to this problem and do not ignore it any more." I return to the statement from Imagine Jersey 2015, which said: "The least acceptable solution to the problem of the ageing society was allowing more people to live and work in Jersey" the least acceptable, and yet that is what we have been doing. That is what we will continue to because it is here in the report attached to the policy and I say the policy, the current policy, is little different from those that have failed in immigration control in the past. The new high economic value policy is described on page 26 thus: "Where a business has high economic value, permissions for staff would usually follow." Permissions for imported staff would usually follow. High value, you can still stay open to migrant workers, and that is the key. It has been clearly said today, the key is we are only going to do that for the high-value businesses, because that means our coffers do not drain and that is the motivator. It cannot be the sole motivator. The balance between economic growth and population has to shift. What is proposed in this document is the wrong balance. The evidence is there. It has been for the past 10 years. Please do not continue with it and say: "It is okay, we forgive you really" pat on the head: "Go away and do some more of the same." We cannot allow that. We cannot allow that. I will just turn finally and briefly to the policy itself and the 6 bullet points that the Council of Ministers wants to ensure: "Maintain the level of the working age population in the Island; ensure the total population does not exceed 100,000." That will be broken next year, 2015 that will be broken. We will fail even in that one, the 100,000. That is the one that most people out there can identify with and if you asked would say: "That has got to be the limit. Not 116,000, not 130,000, 100,000. Make sure you do it." "Ensure populations do not increase continuously in the longer term." When you run the longer term through on plus 325, you end up with 111,000 people and rising. It does not peak, whereas plus around 100 does peak, it does not rise for ever. It still goes over 100,000, but not by as much and does peak. "Protect the countryside and greenfields." If we end up with the extra 6,150 houses that we need on plus 325, where are those greenfields going? Where are those promises? What is the value of those promises? There is not any value in it. "Maintain inward migration within a range between 150 to 200 heads of household per annum in the long term" and now, in the short term: "In the short term, allow maximum inward migration at a rolling 5-year average of no more than 150 heads of household." A rolling 5-year is far greater than that. It is around 750, far greater, it is gone. "An overall increase of around 325 per annum. This would be reviewed and reset every 3 years." Well, that