States Meeting Transcript - 22nd May 2014

STATES OF JERSEY OFFICIAL REPORT THURSDAY, 22nd MAY 2014

PUBLIC BUSINESS – resumption ...............................................................5

1. Residential rental property: minimum standards and a register of landlords (P.42/2014) – as amended- resumption...................................................5

1.1 Senator A. Breckon: .....................................................................5

1. Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier:......................................................6
2. Deputy G.C.L. Baudains of St. Clement : ................................................7
3. Deputy J.G. Reed of St. Ouen:...........................................................8
4. Senator F. du H. Le Gresley:.............................................................9
5. Deputy A.K.F. Green of St. Helier:.....................................................10
6. Deputy J.H Young of St. Brelade:......................................................12
7. Senator P.F. Routier: ...................................................................14
8. Deputy S.Y. Mézec of St. Helier:.......................................................14
9. Deputy S. Power of St. Brelade : ........................................................15
10. Senator P.F.C. Ozouf : ...............................................................17
11. Deputy A.E. Pryke of Trinity : .......................................................18
12. Deputy S.G. Luce of St. Martin:.....................................................19
13. The Connétable of Grouville :........................................................19
14. Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade:....................................................20

2. Snow Hill Car Park: parking for States Members, Jurats and Law Officers (P.43/2014)...............................................................................25

2.1 Deputy E.J. Noel of St. Lawrence:......................................................25 Senator L.J. Farnham :........................................................................26

1. Deputy G.C.L. Baudains:...............................................................26
2. Connétable P.J. Rondel of St. John : ....................................................27
3. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................28
4. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier: ..............................................................29
5. Deputy J.H. Young:....................................................................29
6. Senator P.F. Routier: ...................................................................29
7. Senator F. du H. Le Gresley:............................................................29
8. Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré:..............................................................29
9. Senator P.F.C. Ozouf :..................................................................30 Deputy M.R. Higgins of St. Helier:...........................................................31
10. Senator B.I. Le Marquand:..........................................................31
11. Deputy M. Tadier :...................................................................32
12. Deputy K.C. Lewis of St. Saviour:..................................................33
13. The Deputy of St. Ouen:.............................................................34
14. Deputy J.A. Martin: .................................................................34

15. Deputy S.Y. Mézec :.................................................................34
16. Deputy J.M. Maçon of St. Saviour : ..................................................34
17. Deputy S. Pinel of St. Clement:......................................................35
18. Senator L.J. Farnham : ...............................................................35
19. Deputy E.J. Noel:....................................................................35

3. Energy Plan for Jersey: Pathway 2050' (P.38/2014)...................................37

3.1 Deputy R.C. Duhamel of St. Saviour (The Minister for Planning and Environment):...37

1. Deputy K.C. Lewis :....................................................................40
2. Deputy J.H. Young:....................................................................40

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT PROPOSED..................................................44 LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT................................................................44

3. Senator L.J. Farnham :..................................................................44
4. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................45
5. Deputy G.C.L. Baudains:...............................................................45
6. Deputy J.M. Le Bailly of St. Mary:.....................................................48
7. Connétable J. Gallichan of St. Mary : ...................................................49
8. Deputy S.Y. Mézec :....................................................................49
9. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................50
10. Deputy M. Tadier :...................................................................51
11. The Connétable of St. John : .........................................................52
12. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:...........................................................54
13. Deputy R.G. Bryans of St. Helier:...................................................55
14. The Deputy of St. Ouen:.............................................................56
15. Connétable M.J. Paddock of St. Ouen : ..............................................57
16. The Connétable of Trinity :..........................................................57
17. The Deputy of St. Martin : ...........................................................57
18. Deputy R.C. Duhamel:..............................................................59

4. Public Employees Contributory Retirement Scheme: appointment of Chairman (P.48/2014)...............................................................................70

4.1 Deputy E.J. Noel (Assistant Minister for Treasury and Resources - rapporteur):........71

5. Draft Amendment (No. 23) of the Standing Orders of the States of Jersey (P.49/2014) ...........................................................................................72

1. Deputy J.M. Maçon (Chairman, Privileges and Procedures Committee): ...............73

1. Senator B.I. Le Marquand:..............................................................73
2. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier: ..............................................................73
3. Deputy J.H. Young:....................................................................74
4. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................74

2. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................75

1. Senator A. Breckon: ....................................................................75
2. The Deputy of St. Ouen:................................................................75
3. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................75
4. Deputy J.H. Young:....................................................................75
5. Senator B.I. Le Marquand:..............................................................75
6. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................76

3. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................76

4. Draft Amendment (No. 23) of the Standing Orders of the States of Jersey (P.49/2014): amendment (P.49/2014 Amd.)...........................................................77

1. Deputy G.C.L. Baudains:...............................................................77
2. Deputy T.A. Vallois of St. Saviour:....................................................78
3. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................78
4. The Connétable of St. John:............................................................78
5. Deputy M.R.Higgins:..................................................................78
6. Deputy J.H. Young:....................................................................79
7. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................79

8. Deputy G.C.L. Baudains:...............................................................79

5. Draft Amendment (No. 23) of the Standing Orders of the States of Jersey (P.49/2014)

– as amended............................................................................80

1. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................80
2. The Deputy of St. Ouen:................................................................81
3. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................81
4. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier: ..............................................................81
5. Senator P.F. Routier: ...................................................................81
6. Deputy T.A. Vallois: ...................................................................81
7. The Connétable of St. John:............................................................82
8. Senator B.I. Le Marquand:..............................................................82
9. Senator I.J. Gorst :......................................................................82
10. Deputy M. Tadier :...................................................................82
11. The Connétable of St. Mary : ........................................................83
12. Deputy G.C.L. Baudains: ............................................................84
13. Deputy J.M. Maçon:.................................................................84

6. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................85

1. The Deputy of St. Martin:..............................................................86
2. The Connétable of St. Mary:............................................................86
3. Senator A. Breckon: ....................................................................86
4. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................86
5. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................87
6. Senator P.F. Routier: ...................................................................88
7. The Connétable of St. John:............................................................88
8. Deputy M.R.Higgins:..................................................................89

9. Deputy J.H. Young:....................................................................89
10. Deputy J.M. Maçon:.................................................................89

7. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................90

1. The Deputy of St. Martin:..............................................................91
2. Deputy J.H. Young:....................................................................91
3. The Connétable of St. John:............................................................91
4. Senator B.I. Le Marquand:..............................................................92
5. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................92
6. Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier: ..............................................................92
7. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................93

ARRANGEMENT OF PUBLIC BUSINESS FOR FUTURE MEETINGS ....................94

6. Deputy J.M. Maçon (Chairman, Privileges and Procedures Committee): ...............94

1. Deputy R.C. Duhamel: .................................................................94
2. Senator I.J. Gorst :......................................................................95

1. The Deputy of St. Ouen:................................................................95
2. Deputy A.K.F. Green:..................................................................95
3. The Deputy of St. Ouen:................................................................96
4. Deputy A.K.F. Green:..................................................................96
5. Senator I.J. Gorst :......................................................................96

3. Senator A. Breckon: ....................................................................97

ADJOURNMENT................................................................................98

[9:32]

The Roll was called and the Greffier of the States led the Assembly in Prayer. PUBLIC BUSINESS – resumption

1. Residential rental property: minimum standards and a register of landlords (P.42/2014)

– as amended- resumption

Connétable J.L.S. Gallichan of Trinity :

Sir, I was not here at the beginning of this debate. Could I just declare an interest as being a landlord?

The Bailiff :

Yes, if you wish.

Connétable J.E. Le Maistre of Grouville :

Sir, like the Constable of Trinity , I was not here at the beginning of the debate but I would also like to declare an interest.

The Bailiff :

Very well. Thank you.

Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré of St. Lawrence :

I had better declare the same then, Sir.

The Bailiff :

Very well.

Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier :

Could I just inform Members that I will be attending a funeral this morning. Thank you. The Bailiff :

The Greffier has advised me that yesterday, as one would expect, people were declaring their interest as landlords but not withdrawing. In other words, it is not a direct financial interest. Very well, so we return to the debate on P.42/2014 as amended. Does any Member wish to speak?

1.1 Senator A. Breckon:

Just a few words. I think the idea of establishing an inspection process is a good one. It has certainly improved the lodging house area, where it used to come years ago under Tourism and has moved there and it has certainly improved things a little bit. I heard what the Constable of St. Peter said yesterday and I have also, sadly, witnessed some of these places where there might be 20 rooms really, they are not much more than that. They are not very far from where we are now. They are in and around the town, many of them, St. Helier into St. Saviour. If you drive past you do not realise what is actually behind there. Some are fairly basic, never had much money spent on them for years, but the other thing, which is important, is that millions of pounds in cash is changing hands in these places every Friday night. Sometimes there are 20 rooms within an old town house and it is fairly basic. People are sharing some facilities. Having said that, there are some that are much better quality and that is why I remember when it came under Health and Social Services they had a presentation at the Town Hall about looking at things, but it is not about this. It is about making sure that heating appliances are not sending out fumes, there are dangerous staircases and general facilities, so it is a general improvement. I think at the time there was some scaremongering about this being too invasive but it is not about that at all. It is about raising the

bar and raising the standards. The other thing that is mentioned in there is the Rent Control Tribunal. Well, there may be some misunderstanding about where the tribunal can go. What it cannot do is it cannot take into consideration the level of average earnings or how much the pension is. At the moment it is constrained. I know there was a legal challenge to a decision of the Rent Control Tribunal many years ago and it was because it was considered they had strayed away from where they should have been, which was comparing with others. I think it could be looked at in the round because affordability and quality are issues for many people, so I think it could play a role, but what has happened in many leases now is that the actual ability to take something to the Rent Control Tribunal is excluded. There used to be quite regular sittings of that, mostly on behalf of groups of tenants in a particular block of flats. I know over the years I have been involved with a few of these and it is hard to compare sometimes if you have 60 flats somewhere with one or 2 somewhere else, so there were some arguments from experts about what the rent should be, but in general terms the tribunal was members drawn from members of the public who had some experience of this who were giving an opinion. It was a useful forum. I know that was something that Senator Le Gresley in a former life sometimes referred people to as a way of getting remedy to their dispute. It was useful at the time, but it is perhaps time to revisit that and reinvigorate that. The reason I say that is because in many instances people in these situations have got nowhere to go because they do not have and they have not had that many rights of tenancy. If they are seen to be stirring things up a bit they could be evicted and then they have no case because they do not live there anymore. I have direct experience of seeing that happen. The other thing is, coming back to some of the accommodation, there were a number of agencies and people who were hangers-on, as it were, to the system. They would charge people arrangement fees and things like that and sometimes they just used to sit outside in a car and give people a key and say: "Go and have a look at that" and charge them £100 for the privilege. So there are all sorts of sharp practices there that need to be looked at in the round. Sometimes these are people who have not been in the Island very long and they get drawn into this: "Well, do I have to do that? I have got nowhere to live" and whatever. We have done something but I think we could do more. The other thing is I was interested when we have been talking about category (a) office space and how it is a good idea to

have competition and be doing that, but what happens about people looking for residential accommodation, about them looking for that and them going on some waiting list and applying for these sort of things? I think we could do more because people are willing to pay a fair price for a decent lease for good quality accommodation but at the moment many people are probably being asked to pay too much. Again, as some of us may know, it is a question of sustainability; how long will it be before this bubble really does burst? It may be not too far away if things are heating up again. I think what Deputy Tadier is proposing are sensible proposals and I am pleased that the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Health and Social Services have adopted a can-do approach to it to say: "Okay, if we alter that a little bit" rather than just say: "We oppose it." I think this has to be welcomed and I hope Members will support this as amended because I think it is worth doing. It is a step forward and it is a step forward for many people who perhaps cannot speak for themselves or stand up for themselves or feel ignored and unprotected and being taken for a lot of money without much recourse to anything at all. Anything that puts something in place that will assist that is welcome. Organisations like Citizens Advice would certainly point people in the right direction, so that if something was in place it would be well used. That is the reason I will be supporting this.

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

I just wonder if the Minister for Housing will take this opportunity to address the question I posed yesterday, which he did not do in the addressing the amendment.

[9:45]

How will the Minister, in the absence of some form of rental control, control social rent levels since they are now set at 90 per cent to the private sector, free market rent levels? So, in a free market for rental that we are attached to in terms of social rental, how do you get any control whatsoever? You just go with the market and if we get a sudden surge in rental levels, as we have seen in previous years, for example rents going up by a quarter in the private sector over a 3-year period, so a sudden boom, how will that be affecting the social rental levels in the absence of control? The third element of this particular amendment to investigate control I believe is absolutely essential.

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

I was intrigued yesterday by I think it was the opening comments of the Minister for Housing about there being properties that did not have the full facilities, a toilet at the end of the garden and all that. I know he lives in a part of the Island that has barely been touched by civilisation but I did not realise that there were still properties like that in existence. I joined the Housing Committee in 1998 and Senator Ozouf , then Deputy , joined it in 1999 and he will be able to confirm that we visited many properties. There were some serious problems in those days and I must admit I never came across that type of housing. As Senator Breckon has just alluded to, there were lodging houses in those days, and some of them left rather a lot to be desired, but they were already regulated by Housing. So I am wondering if we are suggesting that what is being proposed does not work and yet we are going to widen it to all rented property. Having listened to the Constable of St. Peter yesterday, I know he has highly polished shoes but apparently he needed different shoes when entering some of these properties. All I can say is he should have been on the Housing Committee when I was when you did not need shoes. You needed a shovel because some of the properties were up to your knees in rubbish and excrement and last year's pizza and all that sort of thing. Some of the properties were absolutely unbelievable. We would go into Housing properties and find there is no kitchen. It has been taken out and sold at Glencoe. The floorboards have been ripped up. In one case, there was a large hole knocked in a wall because the tenant found it easier to go that way to next door rather than round through the passage. What I am trying to say is that I think we are losing the balance of the argument here because we are saying we have got big bad landlords. Yes, the landlord is responsible if the property is not properly insulated or there is inadequate lighting or inadequate facilities, but when you go into a property that is full of filth and totally neglected, that is the tenant's fault. It is not the landlord's fault. It is certainly not as much of a problem as it used to be because tenants now have the ability to vote with their feet. Supply and demand has changed. Back when I was on the Housing Committee in 1998, 1999, 2000 there really was not any choice because the demand exceeded the supply, so you took what was available. Now, as I think possibly the Minister for Planning would agree, there are quite a number

of building permits not being used at the present time because the developers find it is not the right time to do so because supply and demand has gone the other way. There is little demand for these properties and they are not building them. I know of several properties for rent where the landlord cannot find a tenant. They are not slums. In fact, I offered to buy one of them it was that nice. It is not always the landlord's fault. It is my view that if we want to keep prices down and availability up we do need some protection for the landlords as well because landlords can have serious problems with their property being seriously damaged. We have discussed this previously in this Assembly. The idea that you can get recompense from the deposit or something rarely works. If the tenant does not pay the rent for the last month or 2 or 3 then the deposit has automatically been absorbed into that and then how do you repair £20,000 worth of damage? I appreciate that these proposals are well intentioned but I do think in some ways they miss the point. I think it is coming at it from a slightly different angle. As I said, there are fewer problems than there used to be because the ratio of supply and demand has changed and tenants do now have the ability, especially with the benefit of income support, to choose. There is no need for them to live in an inadequate property and if their property remains empty the landlord had better do something about it because otherwise he will have the property on his hands unlet and be a liability. There is a problem. It is not as bad as it used to be but I am not sure this will do a great deal towards solving it.

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

On a point of clarification, there is a danger that the Deputy 's remarks have besmirched a whole group of people. Could he tell us what percentage, from his experience on the Housing Committee, were those people he cited? Secondly, could he give further evidence on how supply and demand has changed? I am quite surprised it is now so favourable. That is not the evidence.

The Bailiff :

I think that is a point for you to make when you come to your speech, Deputy Le Hérissier. It is not really clarification. It is asking..

Deputy G.C.L. Baudains:

To clarify the first part of the Deputy 's question, when I was on the Housing Committee I would say our agenda was a fairly heavy one most times, almost equal to our present planning applications agenda every fortnight, and half, if not two-thirds, of it was dealing with this sort of problem. Having visited properties, we found that, as I say, a lot of properties, especially Housing properties, were severely damaged by tenants. We obviously had other problems with people wishing to get their qualifications early, because in those days there was a 20-year limit and people needed to move out of the unqualified, especially the lodging houses which in some cases were not adequate.

3. Deputy J.G. Reed of St. Ouen :

Members will already realise that I have significant concerns in general regarding this particular proposition, but I really do stand to make a number of comments regarding the amended proposition. First of all, I do take offence when certain Members suggest that my comments are promoting the view of the landlords simply because I happen to be one and I would hope that the Members who know me would realise that I am far more principled than that. I equally agree that the ideas and the thoughts behind this proposition are generally very sound. However, I feel that States Members seem to have forgotten about the decisions that have already been taken in this House with regard to the individual that is supposed to be responsible for all housing matters, and that is the Minister for Housing. Yet it seems we have heard the Minister for Housing pass some of the responsibility on to the Minister for Health who has far more significant matters that need to be dealt with, that we have already supported and agreed, rather than start looking at this and bringing forward for approval minimum standards for all categories of residential rental properties and a framework for the inspection and regulation of such properties. I equally struggle to understand that, when we have freed up the Minister for Housing to concentrate on all housing matters by creating the Housing Association, he seems to still not wish to grasp the nettle and deal with the matters that really are important. Yes, there may be a role for the Minister for Health in creating some form of framework for the inspection and regulation of such properties, but let us not forget that the Minister did not promote the involvement of the Minister for Health when it came to

meeting and regulating the housing standards within our social stock. I believe he wanted to pass it to somebody else, a regulator in this case. So I really am, as I say, struggling with this matter. The Minister is currently, until an alternative decision is made, responsible for all housing matters and heads up the Strategic Housing Unit, albeit that it is still fudged because the Strategic Housing Unit somehow still sits in the Chief Minister's Department, even though we have said that the Minister for Housing is the man responsible and not the Chief Minister. Where they are placed does not necessarily matter. The important matter is what they are doing, how they are doing it and how effective they are. By suggesting that the Minister for Housing and the Strategic Housing Unit obviously want to still co-ordinate and deal with certain matters, but not what some may regard as basic issues regarding the standards of residential rental properties, still leaves me at a loss. But

currently as amended this is what the States have now agreed to, that the Minister for Housing can pass some of that responsibility to the Minister for Health. With regard to the creation of a register of landlords, one comment I would like to make is that in some respects some form of register, or at least information, is available because all landlords with property that is let are required to pay 20 per cent tax and the Tax Department is well aware of all landlords and their financial commitments relating to paying rental tax. So there is a way, perhaps a relatively easy way, if the States decide to create some form of register based on information that is already provided and captured within the Income Tax Department. Finally, I really have to restate the issue about the timing. It is fine for the States Assembly to wish to deal with these matters but we have to recognise that when we commit to doing pieces of work within certain lengths of time we raise expectations. I challenge anyone in this Assembly to commit to doing all of this work and, I will restate, bringing forward for approval all of these matters by 31st December especially as all Members are up for election in October. We are all aware from the activities of the current Chief Minister and the Council of Ministers that they will determine, or at least the new Council of Ministers will determine, exactly what strategic priorities and issues they will plan to deal with in a new Strategic Plan that will be agreed by the new States. Setting timescales that we cannot meet when we have already got significant matters that have been left, delayed, not dealt with I think is foolish in the extreme and I would much prefer this Assembly to say to people that this is a matter that needs to be done but it cannot be done in the timescale allowed and it needs to be dealt with appropriately by the individual that we have put in charge to deal with it, namely the Minister for Housing. Therefore, I cannot support this amended proposition.

The Bailiff :

Before calling the next Member, can I draw Members' attention to some distinguished visitors who have just come to the gallery. They are the members of the Fiscal Policy Panel, which as you know plays an important role for Jersey. There is the Chairman, Mr. Dixon, and Mr. Christopher Allsopp CBE. They are existing members and they have been reappointed recently, but there are 2 new members coming to see the States for the first time: Ms. Tera Allas, the former Director General of Strategic Advice at the U.K.'s (United Kingdom) Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Ms. Kate Barker CBE, who is a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. I am sure Members will wish to welcome them. [Approbation]

[10:00]

4. Senator F. du H. Le Gresley:

I was going to talk about economists but I am very wary of the reaction I might receive. [Laughter] We are talking about rent control and I did some research on rent control a few years ago. It seems a long time ago but it was in 2010, and Deputy Tadier has made reference to some questions I asked of the then Minister for Housing, Deputy Power. Economists are divided on the merits of rent control and some of the reasons why rent control is opposed is because it reduces supply and it prevents investment in existing stock. If we think about what I just said there, it reduces supply and prevents investment in existing stock. The biggest landlord on the Island has had rent control for years now, and that is the States of Jersey. We have had rent control in our portfolio because the rents have been restricted up until very recently to the maximum rents set by income support for the accommodation component. We have removed that. Why have we removed it? Because we have been told, and I am sure it is absolutely true, that we need to make an investment of £200 million, as the biggest landlord in the Island, in improving our stock to decent home standard and also to provide another £50 million for new housing units, new social housing. So we have to be careful what we say sometimes. We want rent control for the private sector but as a Government body we decided that rent control in social housing that we provide is not working. I am not advocating for either side, I should stress, because I have leanings towards

the need for rent control in the private sector but there are issues that need to be considered in the round. One of my responsibilities at Social Security is income support and, as Members know, we recently agreed that in line with the White Paper for Housing we would change the method by which we decide on the level of rents for tenants in the private sector. We have invested another £750,000 this year and further monies going forward to assist tenants in the private sector. What we have done is we have decided to set the maximum rents in the private sector at 95 per cent of the average equivalent rent in the social sector, so we are tying ourselves to social sector rentals, particularly those in what will be the new housing company. The issue there is that when we receive a new application from an income support household who are living in the private sector, whether that is a brand new income support claim or whether it is an existing claim but they are moving property, we have no ability to assess whether the actual rent that they are being charged is fair and reasonable because we have to say: "What you are telling us, your lease shows that the rent is above the new figures that we are now allowing. You have to use some of your own personal income or certainly have some of the other components that we award if you wish to stay in that property and afford that rent." What we would like to do, I suppose, in reality is to say to the prospective income support claimant or the existing claimant: "We would like your property that you wish to go and rent inspected to see whether the rent is fair. Is it fair in relation to the quality of accommodation that the States is paying for?" In some cases, particularly somebody who is unemployed, we could be paying the whole of the rent, and more, and therefore it is only reasonable I think that income support, and the Government if you like, would wish to know that it is a fair rent that they are paying for and that the accommodation meets decent home standards or is at least reasonable. We cannot do that at the moment and I think what Deputy Tadier is proposing is a step towards that because we would be able to request perhaps an inspection by the Environmental Protection Department or something similar, with the permission of the perspective tenant. So I think we are moving in the right direction with this proposal from Deputy Tadier . I am willing to support it, but I go back to the caveat around rent control. I am not sure that it works. I sort of feel deep in my heart that it could work in Jersey but the evidence from the U.K. and other

places, and America I believe, is that it does not actually work in many communities.

5. Deputy A.K.F. Green of St. Helier :

I have to say I am not quite sure where to start because I am amazed at some of the comments that have been made, particularly from my good friend the Deputy of St. Ouen. I think where I would like to start is with Deputy Baudains and his description of some of my tenants and I want to totally disassociate myself from those comments. [Approbation] 99 per cent of tenants are hardworking, pay their rent, make their contribution to society. They just sometimes do not have the capability to earn sufficient funds to house themselves, and that is why we have social housing. It upsets me when I hear comments like that, which may have been relevant, very relevant perhaps, in the dim and distant past but they are not relevant today. I would also like to say to the Deputy that he waxes lyrical about the quality of housing in Jersey. I have an email that came in 10 minutes ago from the head of Environmental Protection: "We found a property in St. Peter last week without any toilet facilities." They exist; I do not imagine them. I have seen some of them and I am embarrassed to be a part of that, and we can do something about it. Now I am going to tackle some issues raised by my good friend the Deputy of St. Ouen , my Deputy currently. Unfortunately I will not have the opportunity to support him next time. But seriously, I am absolutely amazed at some of the comments he made. He is suggesting that I, as Minister for Housing, should set up a brand new department to set the minimum standards, to inspect them, to have statutory rights, when the standards could be set by S.H.U. (Strategic Housing Unit) through the Minister for Health. All of this exists now. We have a department that is ready to go, that it is part of their brief throughout the U.K., not just in Jersey. The brief of the members of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health throughout the whole of the U.K., not just in Jersey, is health from housing to food hygiene

and anything else in between. Now we are saying: "Let us set up a new department to do the same thing, to duplicate that work." I am absolutely amazed and I am sure if I brought forward a proposition to do that the Deputy of St. Ouen would be telling me I am wasting public money and I should be looking around to use existing facilities and resources that are already there. My gast is flabbered, it really is. I really just cannot believe some of the things. I am not passing the buck. I am quite happy to stand here and take responsibility for housing in Jersey. Until recently the Minister for Housing might have had the title but only really had influence over social housing. I am prepared to take on the portfolio, and in fact I think the States have said they want me to take on the portfolio for housing in Jersey, but I am not going to do that in isolation. I am going to work with the Minister for Planning and Environment. I am going to work with the Minister for Health, and that is what we should be doing. The Minister for Treasury supports me as well. We have set up a Strategic Housing Unit with some advisory oversight from officers and from appropriate Ministers. Why would we want to reinvent the wheel? I would like to pick up now on a couple of points from the excellent speech from the Minister for Social Security. I agree with him that I have the same doubts - questions may be better - over rent control. Everything I have read tells me that rent control does not work and the best thing we can do is to increase supply. It is an interesting point that the Minister made when he said that we had rent control in social housing and it did not work. The way that we tackled the problem in social housing before was to create another problem. We tackled social housing rents by not doing the maintenance and therefore not having to put up the rents to the level that they should be and then we end up with £80 million worth of outstanding maintenance, a 20-year plan to put it right and £207 million of investment. Many tenants need support. They should not get that support by lowering the standards of their housing. They should get that support, as they do get that support now, through the rent component through social security and the Housing Department should get the proper rent in order to be able to invest in maintenance and in building new homes. We must learn from the mistakes of the past. Deputy Tadier 's proposition is well intentioned and I think he is pushing, as far as I am concerned, at an open door. I promised to bring in regulation for social housing and, as I said in question time before, it has become very evident to me that regulation in social housing is required but regulation in all rental housing is also required. It has worked to some degree. The lodging house regulations have significantly improved the conditions in the lodging houses but we can do better and we must do better. One of this Council of Ministers' strategic aims was to house our community.

Everybody has a basic right to be housed properly. The rent that Deputy Southern keeps referring to, I do not think we are ever going to agree on this. You must have the right amount of rent coming in to do the maintenance and to invest and you must support, through the housing component at Social Security, those that need help to access it to the appropriate level for them. That is why, of course, as the rents have gone up we have seen the money allocated to Social Security to help to do that. The best thing we can do - and it is back to it and I say it time and time again - for our community is we must increase supply, supply of affordable housing, supply of rental housing that is affordable but also supply of affordable housing for our young couples or not just young couples, for our community to purchase, houses that they can afford to purchase, be that through deferred payment schemes, shared equity. One of the things that I favour is rent-to-buy whereby a couple perhaps are struggling to get a deposit together but they could rent the unit for a number of years and that becomes their deposit and then they get a mortgage to buy the rest. We need these imaginative schemes and that is part of our plan. I do not know what the Deputy of St. Ouen thinks I do; sit in my office and twiddle my thumbs? We are doing so much work and I am getting so much support. I could not have had more support from my colleagues in the Council of Ministers and I am very grateful for that in moving this forward. To sum up, I think I have covered most of the points. There is a point there about landlords. When the Residential Tenancy (Jersey) Law is fully established with condition reports, deposit protection and everything else that we have, that puts the relationship - and there are good tenants and bad tenants, there are good landlords and

bad landlords, like that one in St. Peter that I have just referred to - on a fair footing for both, a clear understanding of what is expected from both sides. This might be one step too far for some people but I wonder, working with the Minister for Social Security, whether we could look at certain private landlords who reach a level that we are happy with, decent home standard or whatever, and they could become approved social housing providers as well and take people off the gateway to help with the waiting list. These are just things that we need to investigate, things that we need to do. One of the things that we have got to do, we have an ideal opportunity now - and I know we have had this debate and we will have further debates in a couple of weeks' time - is get on with the work now, get on and build those homes. At the moment the construction industry is beginning to find work and still needing work. We can get out there and get our homes much cheaper than we will do if we leave it very much longer.

[10:15]

So there is a lot going on but it is about increasing supply as far as I am concerned. A register of landlords I am prepared to look at. We may well have that information in a different format for a different reason, fine, but we will look at it. The rent control, as I said, even though I have my doubts about it, I will be open minded. I need to take advice but I may well commission somebody like Professor Christine Whitehead to look at it, somebody that could bring a lot of other experience. So I will support this. I urge Members to support it. It is well meaning and not only well meaning, because we sometimes say that and then vote against it, it is well meaning and right and it is appropriate. We can get on and improve things for our community.

Deputy G.P. Southern :

Could I press the Minister? He has not addressed my fundamental question, which is what control will there be, if any, over social rentals when you have linked them to 90 per cent of the free market rentals?

Deputy A.K.F. Green:

The Deputy and I will never agree. I have answered it: increased supply that will maintain the price. We will not need controls.

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

I will begin by declaring an interest. I do have a property rented and so does my wife. I was not present for yesterday's amendment debate because I did not pick up on your ruling, Sir. I am fortunate enough to live in a very beautiful part of the Island, St. Brelade , and lucky to live in a nice home, but I do have some familiarity with bad housing conditions. In the early years when I first came to the Island, because I needed to I took part in a number of censuses in town areas and town districts and there I saw for myself and I was really quite shocked with some of the standards of multiple occupation homes I saw in town in which people were living. It reminded me of my days of my upbringing in inner London in the 1960s when I was a student public health inspector in the King's Cross area of London when London was full of slums and they were recovering in post-war conditions. They had a policy about what they called housing improvement areas with programmes of government intervention, providing grants to landowners, the property owners, to get them improved and compulsory purchase orders forcing that to be done by compulsion and so on. I remember visiting underground homes, areas they were called in London which were below ground rooms. It reminded me, it came back to me, of some of the conditions of damp, wet, horrible conditions. I had forgotten about those and it brought them back to me. With that background, I have always been strongly supportive of improvements to our housing conditions for those least able to economically ensure that their own housing conditions were as best as they could be. Therefore, I am aware in Jersey there are number of measures that we introduced. We set lodging house standards for registered accommodation and also we introduced new building bylaws to ensure that a lot of the temporary accommodation on farms, temporary buildings, Portacabins and so on, where there were some very dreadful conditions, were required to be replaced with bylaw- compliant residential accommodation, common standards. I have to confess life has moved on for me. I am now in a very nice part of the Island. I am not aware myself closely of how well those measures have worked, but I am not naïve and when we had the information coming from the Minister for Health that some of these problems were still prevalent, I think we do need to know whether those measures have been successful. So I think Deputy Tadier has performed a useful purpose in setting this agenda and I am very pleased that the Minister for Housing has embraced it and so has the Minister for Health. We need to know those answers but, of course, I do hope that if it does move into a regulatory system that it does not include such things as how much water people use and whether they turn the light bulbs on and so on but direct it to the housing standards. Moving to the issue of registration, I was reminded why have registration, and I totally agree. When I first saw it I thought: "What is the point?" I think the amendment that has been adopted is clear. We need to understand why we are doing it and that is the point of the investigation that is the substantive proposition. What clues do we have for why we need to do it? In the U.K., of course, they have had registration of social landlords. Why? Because those landlords were receiving government subsidies to help meet housing for those unable to pay open market values. There is a close parallel with what the Minister for Social Security just told us, that we do not have registered social landlords but we have a subsidy system. It is just dished out through another system, which is the social security system of supporting rents up to 90 per cent of open market value. I do think we need some controls on that, absolutely so. I think that is something that the investigation should look at. I also think we will need a registration for deposits because if there is to be the intervention in controlling deposits, in order to make that happen at least as a minimum a list or some sort of registration will be required. Listening to Deputy Baudains, an idea came to me. We do have to recognise that some landlords suffer damage to their property by tenants. There is no question; that is fact. There is nothing that landlords can do, effectively. Deposits in those cases may well be inadequate to meet that damage. There is no point in putting somebody

through Petty Debts to try and recover it, although they have got the power to do it. It is a one- sided arrangement. I wondered, if we are to have a register why not have a register of tenants? If there are bad records about what goes on on properties then landlords would know that this tenant has a record of damage to properties. I just put that there. If we are going to have an investigation, I think we should be able to look out of the box as well. Moving now to rent control, I am absolutely with what the Minister for Housing has said. There is one way of controlling rents and it is supply, supply, supply. There is no question in Jersey, through our planning processes collectively, it has resulted in a situation where we wait until a backlog of demand occurs before we do anything about supply. Just look back at the figures decade after decade after decade. We do not plan for anticipated demand. We wait until demand is hitting us in the face and it is backlogged, and that is where we are now. It can be hardly surprising with house prices where they are, the economy as it is, that the pressure is on rent levels, particularly we have now enhanced, correctly, the social security benefit to support those rentals. All that is only going to drive one way and so increasing supply in my view is the proper way to do it. Of course we have the inbuilt population increase, which is absolutely another driver for it. So all those factors point one way. What do we know about price control? I remember when I first came to Jersey I thought it was very amusing and very charming that the Housing Committee used to drive round in a van, having a look at properties when they were sold. We had 2 vans going round. We had the Planning Committee, which I think for a period I sat on and enjoyed many days out in the countryside - I cannot remember whether it was Tuesdays or Wednesdays - and I have to say so did the members. It was jolly enjoyable, although as chief officer I often used to get the grumbles afterwards. Sorry, I digress. But the Housing van went round to look at people's properties and say: "How much is this property worth? Should we allow you to sell it?" I think as a result of that all sorts of

distortions happened. People selling houses stripped out all sorts of fittings and so on. There were houses being built with no heating and no kitchens in order to be able to drive houses down to a price, so the first thing people had to do was to make them habitable. Thankfully those days have gone, but I think there might be an issue, and this is related to rent control, that we do have to look at what is going to come from the property tax proposal that the Minister for Treasury has promised us. I cannot remember if it is 4 per cent or 7 per cent of homes in the Island are empty and it is constantly said what disincentives are there to landlords leaving properties empty. Yes, people pay double rates. In effect, the owners pay both the foncier rate and they pay the occupier's rate, so they do pay double, but those rates are pretty modest. I do think there is a case for looking again at whether there is any financial disadvantages on properties being left vacant, recognising the fact that there is a cost to society if we do not do it. I am supportive of this proposition. Had it not been amended, I would not have supported price control, for all the reasons that I have said. I do not think it is the right way, but I think as it is now amended the proposition, if I understand it correctly, says that the Minister for Housing will be investigating these areas. With that, I am going to support it.

7. Senator P.F. Routier:

Yesterday and today we have heard some Members' experiences of visiting properties. I too was on the Housing Committee many years ago and visited properties, but unfortunately the experiences that have been relayed to us over yesterday and today is that some Members have been trying to outdo each other and say they have seen a worse property than the previous one, which I think unfortunately gives a wrong impression of what is out there in our Island. I would have hoped they could have been a bit more measured in what they were saying. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a need to have a minimum standard but by far the majority of tenants and landlords are responsible. I think some of the speeches that we have heard in the last 2 days may hit the headlines as being that is the way all the tenants are living in that sort of accommodation but that is not what is the situation. I would hope that Members would be more measured in what they were saying. We cannot get away from the fact that there is a need to improve accommodation and we will always need to ensure that those who are letting or leasing poor accommodation are supported to improve their conditions. I will leave it at that, but I just hope that Members will be measured in what they say, because there are some very good tenants and there are some very good landlords. I will be supporting this amended proposition.

8. Deputy S.Y. Mézec of St. Helier :

I will not speak for terribly long on this. It was a commitment in my manifesto that I would support anything to improve housing standards so I am very glad to be able to support this initiative for what I think is a basic social democratic principle. Jersey is behind other jurisdictions in terms of things like this, along with a deposit protection scheme, so I am glad that with this and with the upcoming deposit protection scheme that we are taking some important steps forward. I think the Constable of St. Peter in his speech yesterday made some excellent points that are well worth repeating, in particular that good landlords do not have anything to worry about with this. It is simply the bad ones that we need to worry about. I do not think there is anything wrong with targeting bad landlords and this is what that will do. I have had some really good meetings and conversations with the Minister for Housing and some of the officers in his department to talk about my experience of things like the deposit protection scheme and housing standards when I was a tenant in the U.K. In the 4 years I lived in the U.K. I lived somewhere different every year. The first 2 of those years were in private student halls and the last 2 years were with 2 different private landlords. I know very well that there are definitely good landlords and definitely bad landlords, but in either of those circumstances what is important is having statutory rights and standards that you know apply regardless of what sort of landlord you have so you have some apparatus you can appeal to if you are in a property that is substandard.

[10:30]

In the first property that I rented in the U.K. we arrived and we had plug sockets with wires sticking out in the walls and things like that, and when we pressed our landlord to give us copies of the gas safety certificate and the electricity safety certificate, they obviously would not give us those because they just did not have them. So we spoke to somebody at the council who came round and inspected our flat and saw that it was quite clearly not in line with the standards that properties had to reach. He did what was a very convenient random check at the letting agent of their properties and it just so happened that it was our property that they were allowed to do a check of and the landlord was eventually kicked into line. We took them to court over the deposit, which they had not protected, and we ended up in a flat that had to be done up. It had to have certain things painted, it had to have the plugs sorted and what have you. The second landlord I had was a very good landlord who knew exactly what was what and was always very helpful. We had one occasion where a pipe in the sink burst at 2.00 a.m. and we had to call an emergency plumber to come in and fix it. That cost us £200 and the landlord was absolutely fine to give us the money back for that and was always on call in case something happened in future because he knew that it was his responsibility, not just morally but under law as well, that he had to make sure that our property was habitable. So that was something that was really helpful to have. With the first landlord that we ended up taking to court, it was quite lucky for me and my friends who I lived with that they happened to be living with somebody who was studying law, which was myself, and another one of my friend's dad was a barrister. They were lucky that they had 2 people who were able to do the research into what the law was, what the standards were, what the appeal processes were so that we could get something done. I worry about other people who do not know about that, who do not know what the apparatus is that they have to go to and do not know what their rights are. With housing standards and the deposit protection scheme I think one of the most important things that we need to bear in mind is that the communication of these standards to tenants is very important. I think it would be worth having some sort of document that goes into detail about what these standards are, what tenants legally do not have to put up with, that is given to every person upon taking up a tenancy, an official document from the Housing Department or from wherever that has to be given by a letting agent or by a landlord when they take on someone, that has that information. Without that information being known by tenants, lots of them will just put up with things that they do not have to put up with, damp or running water that is not working properly and all that sort of thing. I am really glad to be supporting this. I hope the Minister for Housing will bear those comments in mind in terms of communication of those standards when they do come in,

and I hope Members will support this.

9. Deputy S. Power of St. Brelade :

Senator Le Gresley referred to some experiences that I had at Housing. I think to a large extent where Deputy Tadier is trying to get to with this report and proposition as amended is that there is a problem with the standards of accommodation in Jersey, and Jersey is no different to anywhere else. My own perception and my own experience is that the problems exist at the entry level more than any other sector of the housing rental market. When I refer to the entry level, I refer to the accommodation that is available or may be available to those who come to Jersey to work for the first time. That is where to a large extent the problem exists. It does not exist in newly completed flats in Gloucester Street or on the waterfront or in any of those other places that I would care to refer to. It largely refers to the entry level accommodation that is only available to those who arrive and who end up working for a short period of time or an interim period of time on minimum wage or those areas of minimum wage just above. In my experience with my colleagues on the Planning

Applications Panel and my previous experience at Housing, I have seen some accommodation that defies the loose word of the phrase "habitation for humans". It was not suitable. As Senator Routier has said, that is very much the vast minority of accommodation that exists on this Island. Agricultural accommodation for a long time was exempted and there are some standards of agricultural accommodation which did not meet anything like remote decent home standards. There are current members of the Planning Panel who have seen agricultural accommodation right across most of the Parishes, I would say at this stage in my 5 or 6 years, that one would be ashamed to own and to house anyone in. Getting back to what has already been said this morning, the vast majority of landlords in Jersey are good landlords. The vast majority of tenants in Jersey are good tenants but, as the Minister for Housing said, there are a minority of tenants, in both the private sector and in the Housing Department, who are on the radar all the time. These are people who for whatever reason cause the enforcement teams at Housing to visit them time and time again, but they represent an absolute small minority of users of the States Housing Department property. The other situation with private landlords is that there are a minority of private landlords who are not good landlords. There are properties that I have seen at both Housing and Planning which really should not be open for rental accommodation. One of the problems I have at Housing and on the Planning Panel is that we need the inspectors at the Population Office and Housing to work with Planning and Environment and Health. I do not know how you would do it because I was told that retrospectively the Planning and Environment Department cannot go into a building on Midvale Road or Rouge Bouillon or Val Plaisant that has not been refitted in 40 years, if it has minimum standards of wiring, 1970 standards of ventilation design, tiny room sizes. In one case I remember, and I do not want to go into this, a shower curtain between a cooking area and a bath area. I remember another where when you went up into the roof space it was impossible to hang a picture or to hang clothes because of the apex of the roof, so it froze in the winter and was awful in the summer. So we still have that out there and I think if any one of us thinks that it does not exist, it does exist, but Jersey is no different to Dublin or Birmingham or parts of London, as Deputy Young said. We have good and bad. Fortunately, the vast majority is good but there is bad, bad landlords and bad accommodation. I referred to the Minister for Health, the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Planning getting together and trying to see what the mechanism is that we can design so that stuff that does not meet anything like Deputy Green's standards nowadays and minimum decent home standard for the next 20 years .. how do we get into the attics and the flats and the room sizes to make them better? What we have to have is a mechanism to get in there so we can do that, and that might involve talking to the Minister for Treasury over there and saying:

"This landlord has not spent a cent on this building in 35 years. He has passed it on to his son. There is still a mortgage on or it needs £150,000 to reduce it from 7 flats to 4 flats so that the minimum room sizes can now be decent size", and do it that way. It might need some sort of tax break for these guys to be able to do that. At the moment we have the Housing Department working and doing a very good job, Health and Social Services looking at standards of health and hygiene, the Planning and Environment Department looking at new stuff but not looking retrospectively at the bad stuff that is out there. Then perhaps there is room for the Minister for Treasury to say there should be perhaps a tax break on how reinvestment can take place in stuff in the inner ring road of St. Helier. So there is an issue out there and it can be solved but it has to be with a light touch because if we suddenly come in with draconian measures on the rental market in inner St. Helier what we will effectively do is close it. That is why I am very nervous about rent control in this area because, as Senator Le Gresley said and it is now amended, it has to be timely and it has to be proportionate to the application and what is the problem. Somebody else said, I cannot remember who it was, that supply will solve the problem. Supply will solve some of the problem but it will not solve all of the problem because I have identified the stock that is out there at the moment that is not good. Some colleagues might say that new supply will replace the existing bad supply. I am not quite sure if that will work because you will always have this entry

level tenant, this entry level client who comes to Jersey not knowing his or her way around the Island and will go by contact, will go by information and will end up in a bad or minimum standard of accommodation. I do not pick out St. Helier. I have seen stuff in other Parishes as well. There is an issue and I think this minimum standard for the residential property is not .. and I say it to Deputy Tadier and I say it to you, Sir, the problem is not just the housing inspection process. The problem is planning, the problem is linking retrospective incentive to get this stuff fixed, and I think that is the important thing. When I hear about rent control, I caution Members that that is a simple solution to what is a very complex problem out there. I hope that Deputy Tadier takes that in in his summing up. One thing that really struck and irritated me, and still does, is the resale of electricity. When a supply of electricity goes into a building and then that is distributed to 5, 6 or 7 bedsits at a price higher than the price that it comes into the building at is an issue. I tried to do something about it 3 years ago and I failed and it is something that we need to do. When I say that there are issues out there, it is a multi-faceted thing, it is quite complex. This is a start and I say to Deputy Tadier : "So far so good but there are issues out there." I am certainly someone who as a States Member for coming up to 9 years now, having had Housing experience and Planning experience, the only way to deal with this is a multi-departmental approach to tackle the stuff that needs to be upgraded. It is simply wrong to say it will upgrade itself in time or they will never be able to rent it. It is simply not true. The entry level stuff needs to be tackled but it needs to be tackled with a soft touch, with some sort of incentive, and we will get there. I caution Members about rent control, but in all other respects I think this is logical, it is appropriate and it is putting Jersey in the right direction to deal with the stuff that needs to be dealt with.

Deputy A.K.F. Green:

Can I just ask the Deputy if he was aware that we brought in an order last year that controlled the sale of utilities? Utilities now have to be sold on at the same price as they were paid for.

Deputy S. Power:

I am. I am just unsure of the enforcement. [10:45]

10. Senator P.F.C. Ozouf :

The public in the last 7 days have heard us talking about ourselves a great deal and they wonder why we are not tackling the issues of public importance. Perhaps because our deliberations at the Council of Ministers or the deliberations between the Minister for Housing, the Minister for Planning and Minister for Treasury are not aired on medium wave on radio, the public and the media get the impression that there is not a great deal of focus on issues of massive public importance, and indeed there is. I am not going to speak for very long. We have got other important business today and we clearly have very important business in relation to the next sitting of the incorporation of Andium which is realising a lot of the underlying fundamental issues and fixing those issues. We will be talking about housing again in 2 weeks' time. I do want to just say today that this is an incredibly relevant and important debate. It is relevant for 4 reasons. If I may comment, I was very pleased that when the F.P.P. (Fiscal Policy Panel) were here that we had the Minister for Housing on his feet and the Minister for Social Security on his feet speaking to eminent economists about housing. I have sent Members an email report, and this is relevant and I urge Members to read it. One of the new members of the F.P.P. is Kate Barker CBE, one of the leading and most highly respected economists who has dealt with housing. From her report that I have circulated to Members I will quote just a couple of lines. In her introduction she says: "Dear Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister. Housing is a basic human need which is fundamental to our economic and social wellbeing, yet housing provision is often controversial and provokes strong reactions. My review of housing supply highlights the tensions that surface when seeking to

promote an adequate housing supply and a more responsive provision. A weak housing supply contributes to macroeconomic instability. The U.K. should have a more flexible housing market. For many people housing has become increasingly unaffordable over time. The aspiration for home ownership is as strong as ever but the reality for many is the aspiration will remain unfulfilled. Homes are more than a shelter. They provide a range of services to communities. They provide an asset in household planning. They indicate preferences. Increasing housing supplies raise concerns about environment loss and open space." In its conclusion, and I do urge Members to read this report, the report also says that the Britain is an island, and Jersey is an island obviously, but all the Members that have spoken about the importance of supply and the linkage and the well-judged comments of the Minister for Housing are absolutely correct. I commend the Kate Barker review which if the U.K. Government would have implemented it in 2004, we would not be seeing the problems in the U.K. housing market today. It is supply and it is proper supply, and regulation is only required when the market fails. There has been market failure in Jersey for many years and there is market failure in the U.K., but we are fixing that and we are trying to fix that. The second relevance of this debate today is the fact that we are also seeing the house price index survey. That survey is indicating more affordability, with prices stable and indeed coming down. We are seeing rising prices in the U.K. We expect the Jersey economy to recover. When the economy recovers we must not have the problems of the U.K. and not have that supply. There is an early warning system. There is the early warning that economic growth in Jersey always lags the U.K. We are picking up that we must put the supply in and we must give people the confidence that they do not have to buy now because prices are going to go up. The only way of dealing with that is by this Assembly .. I would go further than Deputy Tadier . I do not like monopolies and he does not have the monopoly, as I know he does not think he has, on housing matters. Housing matters for virtually every single Member of this Assembly, and it is supply and it is going further. I want tougher targets in relation to housing supply. I would be grateful in summing up that when he says that we should have a minimum standard for rental properties I hope he means all rental properties, not only tenant properties but lodging houses and others, because that is unclear, but I do not know whether that was clear from his report. Very briefly 2 final issues. The other relevance today is the bond issue. We are now going out and getting the mortgage to provide the social rented unit an affordability and we are kick-starting that process today. That will be settled and I hope very much to be able to report to the Assembly in around 3 weeks' time of the success of that bond issue. Securing long-term money at low interest rates for investment in our housing stock is a game changer and something that this Assembly has never done before. Yesterday and today is when we start that process, and I am grateful for Members' support. The other relevance is that we have our ambassadors here and the reason why that is relevant is that investment in the economy is vital. We provide a conduit of investment into the U.K. from the Middle East and one of the investments that is being made by in this case the Qatar investment authority is purchasing the Olympic village, a range of affordable homes across all tenures, and it is all about supply. We need to send the message out that we are open to investment: "Yes, we would like that bond subscribed and, yes, we want long term and a cracking interest rate if we can get it, but we want investment", and investment is required. You need a co-ordinated response. I commend Deputy

Tadier for bringing this proposition. It is good to have this debate. It is shared by many Members, but I would go even further in relation to fixing the problem that this Assembly inherited. We have done a great deal and we should be proud that we will leave this administration with a housing market that is better understood, better invested and better planned. I will be supporting the proposition.

11. Deputy A.E. Pryke of Trinity :

I wanted to reassure Members that the officers from Housing, Environment and Planning and Environmental Health do work well together and will continue to work well together to ensure that all property, whether it is social or private sector, will meet minimum standards. That is why the proposed law, which I know the Deputy on my right has a problem with, will in some ways reach that. I am coming here purely from the Health angle.

The Bailiff :

I am sorry, Deputy , we have become inquorate by 2. Greffier, could you bring back Members? Very well, Deputy .

The Deputy of Trinity :

I think I have lost my train but I will try and get it back again. That is why the proposed law and what Deputy Tadier is trying to achieve is so important. In my department, Environmental Health are regulators and enforcers and they do go into properties if they are requested to and they work with the tenant and the landlord, but their hands are tied to only providing wind and watertight and in this day and age that is not sufficient. We have heard from other Members who have seen firsthand some of the conditions of some rental property, and that is not right. I have seen it firsthand too when I worked as a nurse with hospice in the community. In some cases I was extremely appalled by the state that people were living in. The proposed new law, when it does come and it will meet the timelines as an amendment to come back at the end of this year, will include all rental, whether it is social or private, and it will include lodging houses and staff accommodation as well. Deputy Power mentioned about poor quality in the non-qualified sector. It is across the board. It is not particularly in one sector and the H.N.S. (Housing Needs Survey) in 2012 mentioned that 10 to 15 per cent of tenants in the qualified rental sector and social rental sector were not satisfied with their accommodation, so it is right across the board. As I said, my officers work with landlords and with tenants. If they find that tenants are at fault, they will work with tenants and enforce that the tenants need to improve the conditions that they are living in. It is working with but, as I said, their hands are tied and the law does need to come and hopefully we will meet the timeline set.

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

Could I start by concurring with the Minister for Treasury in saying that it is a breath of fresh air to be debating something that is important and relevant to the people of Jersey this morning. [Approbation] I think we have had a really good debate with some excellent contributions and there are 3 that I would like to mention in particular. There is a saying that you do not miss something until it has gone but when I listen to Senator Le Gresley, increasingly I am missing him already. Whether I am going to be here or I am going to be outside of the House I cannot but be impressed by the way he informs us on a level-headed basis. I would like to concur with his views on rent control because I think that we need to improve standards and some landlords can only do that by receiving greater rent. I would like to talk briefly about the Minister for Housing. How can you not share his enthusiasm for the subject? The fact that he is working together with the Treasury, with Health, with Social Security; I have huge confidence in him. I agree with him that supply is the key and the more we can supply the more we can control everything else. Finally, can I just say a few words about Deputy Young who also made a good contribution and I would like to echo some words of his, which is that there are 2 sides to every coin. It is not only landlords that sometimes are a little bit naughty but it is tenants as well, so there are 2 sides to everything. But I will be supporting this. I would like to thank Deputy Tadier as well for bringing this to the Assembly. There is lots of work, but if we can get together on this I am sure we will improve standards which will be to the benefit of all of us.

13. The Connétable of Grouville :

I would just very briefly like to take issue with Deputy Power and his criticism of the accommodation within the agricultural industry. There is a lot of Portacabin accommodation which maybe does not look that good from the outside but the facilities inside are more than adequate. There is also a tremendous amount of permanent accommodation that has been built, mostly within the last 20 years, which is absolutely excellent. I think if there is some poor accommodation there cannot be very much out there because I do not know of it. The point I would like to make is that all these improvements have been done without legislation. They have been done by encouragement and the industry has responded, and I would say that the accommodation now is excellent.