States Meeting Transcript - 12th December 2023

STATES OF JERSEY OFFICIAL REPORT

TUESDAY, 12th DECEMBER 2023

COMMUNICATIONS BY THE PRESIDING OFFICER ........................................ 4

1.1 Welcome to His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor .................................... 4 PUBLIC BUSINESS - resumption .................................................................. 4

2. Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): twenty-fifth amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(25)) - amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(25).Amd) - Alcohol Duty - resumption ................................................................................... 4

Mr. M.H. Temple K.C., H.M. Attorney General: ................................................ 4 Deputy M.R. Scott : ............................................................................... 4

1. Deputy H. Miles of St. Brelade :............................................................ 5

1. Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade :.......................................................... 6
2. Connétable M.K. Jackson of St. Brelade : .................................................. 8
3. Deputy L.J. Farnham of St. Mary , St. Ouen and St. Peter : ................................ 9
4. Deputy M.R. Ferey of St. Saviour : ....................................................... 11
5. Deputy J. Renouf of St. Brelade : ......................................................... 11
6. Deputy R.J. Ward of St. Helier Central : .................................................. 13
7. Deputy K. Wilson of St. Clement : ........................................................ 15
8. Connétable K.C. Lewis of St. Saviour : ................................................... 16
9. Deputy L.M.C. Doublet : .................................................................. 17
10. Deputy I.J. Gorst : ...................................................................... 17

2. Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): twenty-fifth amendment (P.72/2023 Amd (25)) - Alcohol Duty - as amended ..................................... 22

1. Deputy M. Tadier : ........................................................................ 22
2. Deputy L.J. Farnham : .................................................................... 22
3. Deputy P.F.C. Ozouf of St. Saviour : ..................................................... 23
4. Deputy S.Y. Mézec of St. Helier South : .................................................. 23
5. Deputy R.S. Kovacs of St. Saviour:...................................................... 23
6. Deputy R.J. Ward :........................................................................ 24
7. Deputy M.R. Scott : ....................................................................... 24

3. Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): fourteenth amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(14)) - waste charges ................................................................. 27

1. Deputy S.Y. Mézec : ...................................................................... 27
2. Deputy T. Binet of St. Saviour : .......................................................... 28
3. Deputy L.J. Farnham : .................................................................... 29
4. Deputy J. Renouf : ........................................................................ 30
5. The Connétable of St. Helier : ............................................................ 31
6. Deputy K.F. Morel : ....................................................................... 32

7. Deputy H. Jeune of St. John , St. Lawrence and Trinity : ................................. 32
8. Connétable D. Johnson of St. Mary : ...................................................... 32
9. Deputy P.F.C. Ozouf :..................................................................... 33
10. Deputy M. Tadier : ..................................................................... 34
11. Connétable A.N. Jehan of St. John : ................................................... 35
12. The Connétable of St. Brelade : ........................................................ 36
13. Deputy R.J. Ward : ..................................................................... 36
14. Deputy E. Millar of St. John , St. Lawrence and Trinity : ............................. 38
15. Deputy S.G. Luce of Grouville and St. Martin : ....................................... 38
16. Deputy I.J. Gorst : ...................................................................... 39
17. Deputy S.Y. Mézec : ................................................................... 39

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT PROPOSED ................................................... 42 LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT .................................................................. 42

4. Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.) - Social Security grant funding ............................................................. 42

1. Deputy P.M. Bailhache of St. Clement : .................................................. 42
2. Deputy E. Millar : ......................................................................... 44
3. Deputy B. Ward : .......................................................................... 45
4. Deputy P.F.C. Ozouf :..................................................................... 46
5. Deputy M.R. Scott : ....................................................................... 48
6. Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier Central : .............................................. 49
7. Deputy M. Tadier : ........................................................................ 49
8. Deputy S.G. Luce :........................................................................ 50
9. Deputy M.R. Le Hegarat of St. Helier North :............................................ 51
10. Connétable M. Labey of Grouville : ................................................... 51
11. Deputy A. Howell : .................................................................... 51
12. Deputy I.J. Gorst : ...................................................................... 52
13. The Connétable of St. John : ........................................................... 53
14. Deputy J. Renouf : ...................................................................... 54
15. Deputy P.M. Bailhache : ............................................................... 54

5. Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): eighteenth amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(18)) - Free G.P. visits for all full-time students ................................... 56

1. Deputy C.S. Alves of St. Helier Central : ................................................. 56
2. Deputy E. Millar : ......................................................................... 57
3. Deputy M. Tadier : ........................................................................ 58
4. Deputy R. Ward : .......................................................................... 59
5. Deputy M.R. Ferey : ...................................................................... 60
6. Deputy G.P. Southern : .................................................................... 60
7. Deputy K. Wilson : ........................................................................ 61
8. Deputy S.Y. Mézec : ...................................................................... 61
9. Deputy K.L. Moore : ...................................................................... 62
10. Deputy L.V. Feltham of St. Helier Central : ........................................... 63
11. Deputy A. Curtis of St. Clement : ...................................................... 63
12. Deputy L.J. Farnham : .................................................................. 64
13. The Connétable of St. John : ........................................................... 64
14. Deputy C.S. Alves : .................................................................... 64

6. Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): thirty-third Amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(33)) - Increase revenue expenditure for agriculture and fisheries .. 66

2.6.1 Deputy I.J. Gorst (The Minister for Treasury and Resources - rapporteur): ............. 67

7. Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): thirty-third amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(33)) - amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(33).Amd) - Increase revenue expenditure for agriculture and fisheries ................................................ 67

1. Deputy S.Y. Mézec : ...................................................................... 67
2. Deputy I.J. Gorst : ......................................................................... 69
3. Deputy C.D . Curtis of St. Helier Central : ................................................ 71
4. Deputy J. Renouf : ........................................................................ 71
5. Deputy K.F. Morel : ....................................................................... 72
6. Deputy R.J. Ward :........................................................................ 72
7. Deputy M.R. Scott : ....................................................................... 73
8. Deputy S.Y. Mézec : ...................................................................... 74

8. Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): thirty-third Amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(33)) - Increase revenue expenditure for agriculture and fisheries - resumption .................................................................................. 76

2.8.1 Deputy K.F. Morel : ....................................................................... 76

ADJOURNMENT .................................................................................. 77

The Roll was called and the Dean led the Assembly in Prayer. COMMUNICATIONS BY THE PRESIDING OFFICER

The Deputy Bailiff :

1.1  Welcome to His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor

On behalf of all Members, I would like to welcome His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor to the Chamber this morning. [Approbation]

PUBLIC BUSINESS - resumption

2.  Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): twenty-fifth amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(25)) - amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(25).Amd) - Alcohol Duty - resumption

The Bailiff :

We now return to amendments to the Government Plan, and the Assembly is currently debating the amendment to the twenty-fifth amendment, and I invite the next Member to speak on this amendment.

Deputy M.R. Scott of St. Brelade :

Sir, just to say that at the end of the debate yesterday, I asked the Attorney General a question, and he was going to give the answer in the States sitting this morning.

The Deputy Bailiff :

Yes, thank you. Mr. Attorney.

Mr. M.H. Temple K.C., H.M. Attorney General:

Deputy Scott asked me if the Minister had powers to adjust transfers in a proposed Government Plan. There are powers of the Minister to reallocate in relation to an approved Government Plan and the primary powers in Article 18 of the Public Finance Law, and the Minister may direct that an amount appropriated under a Government Plan for one head of expenditure can be allocated to another head of expenditure, subject to provisos. There are 2 provisos: that other heads of expenditure must be set out in the Government Plan, or be a new head of expenditure relating to a major project in the Government Plan. There are controls over those powers in that the Minister must give the States at least 4 weeks' notice of a proposal to give a direction under this Article, and the Minister must also consult with any Minister that may be affected by that proposed transfer; so there are 2 controls over that power. In addition, there is a wider accountability provision in the Public Finance Law in that under Article 23 the Minister must give a written statement setting out each function undertaken, which would include a transfer under Article 18 to the States Assembly on a semi-annual basis; so twice a year. Those are the 2 controls.

Deputy M.R. Scott :

Thank you. Just a follow-up question, please. Just following on, the Department for Economy's estimated expenditure in the Government Plan being £35.5 million, out of which it estimates giving grants and subsidies of over £25 million. If, after performing its delayed value-for-money review of all the arm's length organisations to whom it gives grant funding, the department is able to save £324,000 out of this £35.5 million, which is the amount of its budget that the Economics and International Affairs Panel proposes should be reduced, equating to less than 1 per cent of its budget, can the department invest this sum into growing the economy in line with the Common Strategic Policy or does it have to hand the money over to the Treasury?

The Deputy Bailiff :

Can you answer that question, Mr. Attorney?

The Attorney General:

Deputy Scott did give me notice this morning of the question so I have given it some thought. My view is that if a department has achieved efficiency savings and that is accounted for in a Government Plan that is approved by the States Assembly, that simply means that that department has less budget for the year to spend.

[9:45]

It does not mean that it is free to use the amounts saved on other areas of expenditure, effectively increasing its budget, in the way that the Deputy suggested. So, my answer is no, the department would not be free to do that.

Deputy M.R. Scott :

Does that mean that the amount saved therefore goes back to the Treasury for reallocation? The Attorney General:

No, I think the amount saved is simply that the department has less budget for the year. It is not an amount that goes back to the Treasury. It is simply the department has less budget to spend for that particular year.

Deputy M.R. Scott :

Thank you.

1. Deputy H. Miles of St. Brelade :

The Health and Social Services Minister will speak about health-related concerns but, at the risk of sounding like the fun police again, I just wanted to remind Members why, as Minister for Justice and Home Affairs, I do not support the freeze on alcohol duty. Once again, I deferred to Ministerial colleagues to support a 4.5 per cent increase, but I would prefer a reversion to the policy of an above R.P.I. (retail price index) increase to constrain consumption and to compensate services. The negative effects of alcohol cost the emergency services tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds every year; police time wasted dealing with drunken behaviour, ambulance callouts to alcohol-related incidents, fire service to fires where people have fallen asleep after a good night out and left the cooker on. There is a cost to the courts, the Probation Service and the prison who pick up the pieces of lives broken by alcohol-related offending, either as a victim or an offender. This Island is awash with alcohol. We are second only to Lithuania in the league table of per capita alcohol consumption. Alcohol consumption in Jersey was 12 litres of pure alcohol per adult. That is really not a statistic to be proud of. Alcohol was a contributory factor in nearly 20 per cent of all crimes recorded in Jersey in 2022. That does not include the process offences such as drunk and incapable, which are dealt with at Parish Hall . The true level of alcohol-related offending is likely much, much higher. Alcohol was a factor in nearly a third of recorded assaults and nearly a quarter of nighttime economy offences committed in St. Helier. The impact of alcohol and domestic abuse is also well-documented, and women and girls are disproportionately negatively affected. The impact on children and families where disposable income is directed towards wine and beer rather than school shoes and after school clubs is also well-documented. Members who are familiar with the N.S.P.C.C. (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) and the work that Brighter Futures do will know all about that. The international evidence is robust and compelling. The link between increased price and lower consumption is proven time and time again. When faced with such strong evidence base about other subjects, people believe it; how to reduce disease, how to improve educational standards, et cetera. But it is really curious that when it comes to alcohol reduction and also obesity, people do not tend to believe it. They consider the evidence in relation to their own experience and not at a population level. Yesterday, we heard that the policies in place we have in Jersey to reduce consumption are flawed. We are only different to other communities in that we are nearly at the top of the leaderboard.

As I said previously, that is not something to be proud of. Knocking Lithuania off the top spot should not be our aim. We are no different to other communities. The international evidence applies to us equally. The good news is that the percentage of crimes in Jersey involving alcohol has trended downward from 23 per cent in 2016 to 15 per cent in 2022, which tends to suggest that pricing above R.P.I. has had some positive effect. Increasing the price of alcohol does work to reduce consumption and therefore reduces alcohol-related crime and disorder. We heard a lot yesterday about duty rates and how that is going to affect the hospitality industry, and how a freeze is necessary to support this sector. I am a bit confused by this. Other jurisdictions are markedly more expensive. They have adapted to deliver a vibrant hospitality offer. If anybody has been to Iceland, alcohol is fiendishly expensive; £15 for a glass of wine, £20 for a pint. Downtown Reykjavik is buzzing. It has a thriving hospitality industry. Increasing the price of alcohol does work to reduce consumption. This Island has an unhealthy obsession with alcohol that needs to be addressed. Like it or not, all the evidence suggests that increased price and reduced consumption leads to a more peaceful and law-abiding society.

1. Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade :

In these kind of debates it can be tempting to take a polarised stance and say: "I am absolutely in favour and I want to support hospitality." "I think the Government is bad and they are using this stealth and indirect tax, a consumption tax." I will say some of that, do not worry, I have not completely lost the plot. On the other hand, say an argument maybe like alcohol is bad, we need to tax it out, we need to stop drinking and we need to be a society of teetotallers. I think the reality is somewhere in the middle of that. I think the first thing I am going to do is ask for a call for honesty and looking not just at alcohol but of the issues that may be partially being conflated here. What we are saying is that alcohol duty directly will affect the viability of the hospitality industry. I think there are lots of problems that need to be unravelled in that statement, if that is the basis on which the alcohol freeze and even the compromise which we are talking about now of course - I will speak to the amendment - from Government. The Government is basically in this very strange position where they are not backing the Minister for Justice and Home and they are not backing the Minister for Health and Social Services. So that last speech is largely irrelevant because Government has already said: "No, we are not doing that now. We are having a below inflation increase." It is about 4 or 5 per cent. I do not know why the Minister is shaking his head because that is the case. There has been a conversation that has taken place at Council of Ministers, and let us say half of the Council of Ministers have said: "We cannot support this. We will vote against Government and possibly defeat you on the alcohol freeze if you do not come forward with this." That is politics. I am not criticising anyone. Therefore we have got this amendment. The problem is it does not do either thing now. The argument to say we need to decrease alcohol duty for this vision of an alcohol-free society where everyone lives longer and people are not going out and getting whatever, getting into trouble. The first thing I would say, though, to the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs is it is not alcohol per se that is causing an increased need for resources in the blue light emergency services. It is bad behaviour. You can go out and stab somebody, punch somebody without drinking alcohol, and you can go out and drink alcohol and behave perfectly exemplary, if you want to. Lots of people do that so we cannot simply say .. and we often hear in court - Sir, you will hear it all the time - about mitigation. The person was not in their right state of mind. They could be drinking alcohol or they could have been taking illegal drugs. I do ask the question: what do we do about illegal drugs? Is Government going to increase the duty on illegal drugs? Because illegal drugs put a burden on our society. Illegal drugs break up families and we see the consequences of that. But, at the moment, Government does not even tax one penny of those illegal drugs. I think Government needs to get its head around the wider problems of addiction, about people needing to find outlets. Let us get back to this idea that by decreasing alcohol duty it will automatically help hospitality. I do not think anyone is saying that outright, because that would probably be a slightly naïve position to take. I think the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development has already touched on this, is that there

will be really difficult times for the hospitality industry - like many industries in Jersey - over the next year and 2 years, due to a variety of factors because of behavioural changes. Because let us face it, people have got less money in their pockets and if you have not got any money and you are spending all your money on higher rents you are in a really difficult situation. If you live in the centre of St. Helier in a cramped apartment, which you are paying perhaps a third or a half of your income, your disposable income on, and then you cannot even have the ability to go out for a drink or 2 to a pub. You may even be somebody who does not drink alcohol because there are people in our society, for whatever reason, young people are turning away from alcohol in their droves. Right? So this idea that we need to tax people out of drinking is not automatically true. Young people have taken the education advice that they get. They have seen that it is better to be fit than to drink lots of alcohol and to get fat or a fatty liver. They like to go to the gym. They like to go out on walks, on runs. So we have a much healthier generation than even my generation or ones that came before. The idea that we can simply tax them out of drinking and that we need that as the stick does not follow because they are already doing it without the tax. They may be young people who are earning perfectly good salaries in Jersey as well. So I think we need to scotch that. What I would say, though, is that there is a shared problem between Government and hospitality, in the sense that Government is also addicted to alcohol duty. So they predicate every budget on an automatic cost-of-living increase on duty. Then there is an argument about whether they should increase it above the rate of inflation for health and law and order reasons; that is basically wearing thin. The other point I wanted to make at this juncture is the fact that there is a valid debate to have around alcohol policy. Scotland, for example, had a debate a few years ago - I think in the last couple of years - and they decided to introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol. Jersey never had that debate. Does anyone remember having a debate about minimum unit pricing in Jersey? I have been here 15 years. I have never had that debate but it has been introduced. How did it get introduced in Jersey when we have never decided that that should be the policy? It got imposed on us by non-politicians. I do not know the exact word but it is effectively the Licensing Bench, is it not? The judiciary in Jersey, and I mean no disrespect to them because the law gives them the right to do that, as I know they also have to deal with the consequences of excess alcohol consumption. But in the absence of politicians having a mechanism or the desire to bring forward a debate on happy hours and on minimum unit pricing and perhaps other mechanisms that we should be looking at, who should sell alcohol? Should it be that you can buy alcohol? When the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs mentioned that alcohol in Iceland is very expensive, I was thinking: "You should go to Morrisons." [Laughter] Because the discrepancy that you get .. and this is the other issue, is it not, the discrepancy you get from supermarket to supermarket in Jersey not just for alcohol but for food? It can almost be double. This is a wider issue. Should it be that your petrol station should not necessarily be able to sell you alcohol because your supermarket does not .. it does sell your petrol, does it not? We need to have that debate about where alcohol is available and when it is available. I have said this before, is that alcohol is probably dangerous whenever you drink it in excess, right? If you go into a shop, you cannot buy alcohol at 11 o'clock in the evening, which is very strange, is it not? Because you might have finished your shift at 10 o'clock, you might want to go into your local corner shop, which is still open, because they are selling petrol and M&Ms and other things which are potentially bad for you, but we have not taxed them yet, and you are thinking: "I would really love to just get a bottle of Tiscaz or a can of Carlsberg or a bottle of Jersey cider and have it so that I can watch some TV before I go to sleep, about 2 o'clock in the morning, because I do not have to get up until 11:00 for my next day. My next shift starts at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. But we are telling people they are not allowed to do that. But you can go and buy alcohol from 7:00 a.m. in the morning and that is okay. As soon as the shops open you can go and get your bottle of Buckfast, let us say for want of a better word, and you can go and sit in the park with your brown paper bag next to the Don statue and you can admire the Don statue. It is great. It is done by a Frenchman, ironically, celebrating a British general and governor in Jersey. You can drink your bottle of alcohol all day, but you cannot go and get a can of alcohol at 11 o'clock at night if you have just finished work and you only want one can. This is

the very strange system that we have. If you do that, you have to pay a minimum unit price in Jersey as well. The first thing I ask is that Government gets its house in order. It is not a unique problem that has faced this Government only. Other Governments have not got their head around this. But I know that this Government is very keen to not let the judiciary make decisions that politicians should be making. I think they would welcome that probably as well. Now let us get back more directly because I think you have probably given me a bit of latitude, but I think it is important to contextualise these debates.

[10:00]

But the point is that hospitality itself is not homogenous either. I would ask the hospitality industry why they are predicating in their gift, if you like, as an industry on the sale of alcohol. If you go to a Muslim country, for example, they do not need to do that. You can still go out and have fun. You can have a cup of tea, a cup of coffee. You can go to the theatre in a Muslim country, and I am just using that as an example, or a country where it is not in their culture to automatically drink, and you can still have fun. I think that is valid. But we have to also accept that we are in a different place as an Island and as a European and a British dependency. The mindset is still shifting. Let us get back to the point as to maybe why I do not support this Government freeze. First of all, I think it is a dog's dinner. I think Government should have had the courage to either say: "No, we are not accepting this amendment. We want at least an R.P.I. increase or above R.P.I." because that has been their rationale all the way through. Having a middle way does not solve anything. I think the point is here that Government needs to have that wider debate about alcohol strategy and alcohol policy, whether it is to do with Economic Development, to do with Home Affairs or to do with Health and Social Services before it puts any form of increase forward on alcohol duty. I think I will leave it at that.

2. Connétable M.K. Jackson of St. Brelade :

In common with several other colleagues, I have experienced these debates many times over the years, and the arguments do not seem to change a lot. There are a couple of points I would like to draw Members' attention to. This is one that I persistently mentioned and it has come up in correspondence, is the difference in A.B.V. (alcohol by volume) or the alcohol content of a particular drink and, taking it down to the points that the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs has made, the effects of that on different people. My view is that the higher the alcohol content is the higher the tax should be on that particular drink. The basic effect of what is being proposed, whether it is 4.5 per cent or higher, is that it will shift the drinking habits from on-licence to off-licence. That point was emphasised only this morning, when I interviewed a manager for an off-licence premises, and when I asked him to comment on the proposals we would be debating this morning, he said: "That will be better for us because it will move people from the pubs to the shop", which is actually a true point. So are we gaining anything by pushing the price up? I suspect not. I think that sadly it just will stimulate people to drink more at home without the supervision that they would get in an on- licence position. Finally, I would like to comment on the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development's remarks yesterday, and I did rather feel at the time he did protest too much because realistically we have been going back for many years talking about revisiting reviewing the licensing law and, while not personally so, his department have been lax in dealing with it. I think we have got to the point in order for us to be able to make a valid judgment in this sitting, or in any sitting, we need to have a reasonable licensing law we can deal with. At the moment, I think it is fair to say it is all over the place. We get applications for various categories at Parish Hall level. We had only one a couple of weeks ago where a club wanted a first category licence. So you get a club licence, which restricts its membership, but they want to invite everybody in, so become a pub. So is it a club or a pub? That remains to be seen when it goes to the Licensing Bench in due course. But it is messy and I do hope these comments are taken on board by the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development. Perhaps during his term, he can attack this once again and come up with a rather more balanced licensing law than we have already.

3. Deputy L.J. Farnham of St. Mary , St. Ouen and St. Peter :

I think we need to remember the state of the economy. We need to remember where we are at the moment, the pressures on businesses on the back of the COVID pandemic, which actually wiped out the reserves of most businesses, especially hospitality; arguably the worst hit. But retail and other businesses as well. We are still recovering from that. We are going to be recovering from that for many years to come. On top of that, we are still insisting on clawing back all of the social security payments and G.S.T. (goods and services tax) payments and other payments that businesses were not able to make during the pandemic because they were shut and they were not taking any business. Ironically, a lot of business who kept their staff on paid their staff throughout the pandemic and, as a result of that, incurred social security and other payments and have to repay it back where other jurisdictions have taken a more lenient approach. I am not saying we should or we should not, but we have to remember by following the path we have taken we are keeping these businesses under a lot of pressure for many more years to come. This is not an ordinary everyday budget debate on duty increases, where some of the points made might be more appropriate than they are today. We have short memories when we fail to remember that we have had years of excessive duty on increases on alcohol and fuel. Fuel, well, that is for another debate. But that also has a major impact on the cost of living. In the Government Plan or this amendment or any proposition or amendment, to increase the cost of increased duty has no reference to the impact on the R.P.I., the cost-of-living index, and I know the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development chairs that board. But one of the recommendations from the previous group, that when there was a proposition to increase a price or commodity or something, and I know there are limited levers on the actions we can take, the impact should be noted. We do not know whether these duty increases and all the prices going up are going to have a 0.01 per cent or 1 per cent, we do not know what impact they are going to have on the already beleaguered and under pressure cost of living. But they will have an impact and that impact will be going in the wrong direction, no matter how large or small it is. Our economy remains under enormous pressure, bearing in mind that something like 70 per cent of businesses are small businesses. Those are the businesses that are being impacted by this. Larger businesses are still being impacted, but they are more able to deal with high cost of living, high inflation, costs of commodities rising, even if we do freeze duty rates, which I strongly believe we should, there are still going to be immense price pressure on the industry. Price s will not stay the same, just to counter some of the arguments made in the connection to health and the importance of price increases to health, which I think has been overplayed from time to time. Price s will rise because manufacturers will have to put prices up. Distribution costs will be going up. We have heard that Condor ferries are putting their freight costs up by 19 per cent. That is all going to be pushed through to the front line with zero duty increases. There are going to be increases and more pressures on margins for businesses. The fact is, however sanctimonious we might be about the rights and wrongs of this, small businesses, especially in hospitality, are not going to be able to survive because of massive increases in costs of running their business and enormous squeezes on their profit margins, which are reducing. If you look at hospitality businesses particularly, you will see that the payroll percentage of their turnover has increased significantly and the gross profit margins they are achieving are reducing. That is something that is not sustainable. I do not know how the Government can start off by saying we are going to go with the cost-of-living increase of whatever it was at the time - 10.1 per cent, something like that - and then said: "Actually, we will do a deal and we will find a compromise at 4 per cent." The difference in income between the 10 per cent and the 4 per cent they have soaked up but that last bit of cost, the 4 per cent to zero, is suddenly a big problem. I know from the heads of expenditure that the Sustainable Economic Development Department's budget has increased over 2023 by £3 million. I know my good friend, Deputy Morel ,. the Minister, is probably not going to be happy with me for saying that, but I would like to be in his position with an extra £3 million, and I am sure, given time or the right of reply, he could account for every penny of that. But unlike other departments who have been taking into account inflation, such as Home Affairs, and I will come on

to the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs' speech in just a minute, it looks like his department is rightly called "sustainable" because his budget is ..

Deputy K.F. Morel of St. St. John , St. Lawrence and Trinity : Point of clarification ..

Deputy L.J. Farnham :

I am not going to give way just at this point. It is going to be very sustainable because they have got such a good increase in their budget. The Minister for Justice and Home Affairs, I am afraid I do not like to make light of the health issue because it is a very important issue, but she did trot out the same old lines that we have had time and time again from Minister for Health, scripted lines written by officers about the dangers of alcohol. I do not take that lightly at all but, of course, the only way to remove that altogether is to have some prohibition. Maybe we should do that for a year or 2 and see what that does to the crime rate. But of course we know .. and I am sorry, I do have enormous respect for the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs, but while saying that a zero increase in duty is going to give the police a lot more work on Friday and Saturday night, and this from a Minister who has presented a budget to the States that is going to put enormous pressure on front line policing. I am sorry, that does not wash with me. I would rather it were the other way around. I just urge Members to think about the economic circumstances we find ourselves in, think about the challenges many small businesses, not just hospitality, are facing. This year, let us go with a zero increase in duty, bearing in mind that costs are still likely to rise regrettably at the point of sale for alcoholic drinks because of the massive raises in inflation we have seen. What I am trying to say is that, to try and alleviate the health concerns, prices will not stay the same with a zero increase, they will still increase slightly. If we put any duty on they are going to increase even more than that, which is something that is not sustainable at this moment in time.

Deputy K.F. Morel :

Sir, if you do not mind, I would not like Deputy Farnham to be in a position of having inadvertently misled the Assembly so could I have a point of clarification, please?

The Deputy Bailiff :

Only if he agrees to deal with it. Deputy L.J. Farnham :

Yes, Sir, I do.

Deputy K.F. Morel :

The Deputy said that the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development's budget had risen by £3 million; he might want to clarify that it has not. The Department of the Economy's, which includes financial services, budget has risen by £3 million. He might want to clarify that. The Minister for Sustainable Economic Development's budget has not increased by that amount. It is much less than that.

Deputy L.J. Farnham :

I was just looking at the copy of the heads of expenditure from the Government Plan and under the heading Economic Development, Tourism, Sport and Culture they showed an approved budget for 2023 of £32.526 million and for 2024, £35.537 million. Now, it does not provide a breakdown in there. In fact below it has financial services, which goes from £7.7 million to £11 million. That is about a £7 million increase between them. I am sure if they get their heads together they can find a bit of change for this.

Deputy K.F. Morel :

I stand corrected then.

[10:15]

4. Deputy M.R. Ferey of St. Saviour:

I am probably one of a handful of States Members who is completely teetotal. We went out for an excellent States lunch last Friday and I was sat close to the Dean and the Connétable of St. Helier ..

Connétable A.S. Crowcroft of St. Helier : I am not sure where this is going.

Deputy M.R. Ferey :

who are not teetotal. The conversation got on to whiskey, of which I know the Dean is rather partial to, and during the conversation I was able to impart my knowledge of whiskey, the regions, the tasting notes, even getting on to subjects such as the angel's share. The Connétable of St. Helier remarked that for someone who was a complete teetotal, I have an extensive knowledge of whiskey. Thinking about it overnight, it was because, of course, I used to be a connoisseur. Now other people may have a different word for that but I was a connoisseur. I have seen the dark side of alcohol. This is not to scare anyone but both in my professional life and my personal life I have seen the very dark side of alcohol and that is why I am grateful for the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs' comments in relation to that. But, equally, I am not puritan. I understand that hospitality needs support and I also understand that loneliness can be a killer. For some people getting to the pub, socialising with friends, is the only outlet that they have from the 4 walls that surround them. That is an important part of the equation as well. Equally, too high prices lead to people pre-drinking, at whatever age, loading up on alcohol too early and getting into problems elsewhere. I believe that this amendment to the amendment offers the correct balance because it offers a modest increase while taking account of the current economic circumstances that we currently find ourselves in. In that regard, I will be supporting the amendment to the amendment.

5. Deputy J. Renouf of St. Brelade :

I would like to deal with a couple of points first that have arisen during the debate. Deputy Tadier asked why I was shaking my head when he said the Government was split because Deputy Miles had expressed support for a higher rate of tax. Actually, I can confirm that Deputy Miles is supporting the Government position, which is a compromise. Deputy Farnham , I think also offered a rather low blow against the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs on saying that her speech was written by officers. I know that the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs needs no one to write her speeches for her on the question of alcohol. It is a subject on which she feels exceptionally passionate. I think that was a totally unnecessary comment. I would like to start by noting, as one or 2 other speakers have, that we have a schizophrenic attitude to alcohol as a society but also as a Government, in a way, and as politicians. We have a very high level of alcohol consumption in Jersey, which we generally agree we want to reduce on public health grounds, yet whenever we try to reduce alcohol consumption we come up against the established economic interests, particularly hospitality in the context of this Island, that genuinely do depend on alcohol sales. There is a danger that what the hospitality industry is saying is that it needs to be able sell at least as much alcohol as it is now in order to sustain itself. Personally, as Deputy Tadier said, I would like to see the hospitality industry show greater interest in reducing its apparent dependence on alcohol sales. But, nevertheless, it is without doubt the case that the hospitality industry is under pressure on many fronts. The 2 positions that we have, that we want to reduce alcohol consumption but we also want to support the hospitality industry that depends on alcohol consumption, are ultimately not compatible. Sooner or later we have to tackle this contradiction. I accept we are where we are, which is why I am supporting the reduced increase in duty, which is smaller than what was originally proposed, in other words, the

amendment to the amendment. In general, I do support increasing the price of alcohol but I accept that at the moment we have a cost-of-living crisis so the middle way proposed in the amendment to the amendment seems to be right. No increase in duty, in my view, would be the wrong signal to send. I think it is worth remembering why we increase taxes on alcohol because we often end up focusing on particular aspects of this issue rather than the whole picture. Understanding the reasons for taxing alcohol and why taxing alcohol does have population level effects is very important. One of the reasons that taxes on alcohol are justified is that they reflect the health harm that alcohol consumption causes and the costs that fall on the public through increased health costs. That is an important point that applies for all alcohol sales, whether it is in hospitality or off-licence. We tax alcohol because it causes harm that we all pay for. Second, raising taxes will, in general and in aggregate, reduce consumption. Anyone who doubts this should consider the alternative proposition. What effect will cutting the price of alcohol have? It will increase consumption, of course, therefore the converse must be true. Raising the price of alcohol cuts consumption on average. That does not mean to say that everybody makes an immediate decision but on average, across a population, some people will reflect on the cost and make a decision to either reduce or cut alcohol entirely. There are other points about this. Raising the price of alcohol in a fairly consistent way also sends a message about our attitude to alcohol, particularly, for example, to young people. Earlier, it was referenced that young people are giving up alcohol in greater numbers and we could potentially draw the conclusion that young people have seen what society is telling them about alcohol. One of the ways we send that message is through pricing. The third reason, of course, is because it also raises money for the Exchequer, which is necessary to fund all the things that Members of this Assembly want us to fund. So what about the argument that this disproportionately affects hospitality? Again, I think the issue here is about seeing the whole picture, the population level effects. Some people, it is argued, will opt for off-licence sales to offset the increase in prices in pubs or restaurants. Well, they may, but others who are currently buying from off-licences may cut back their expenditure in off- licences, the net effect being a potential reduction. It is quite hard to see those population level effects because we look at it from a personal point of view and we tend to think: "Well, 4.5 per cent increase in alcohol, probably not going to affect my consumption, therefore, it does not work." But it does work and I can give one example from when I was working in London. One day I noticed that my lunch costs at work had considerably risen and it was costing more than £5 every day to buy lunch. I did some sums and realised that that was £25 a week or £100 a month or £1,000 a year and I thought: "Hang on a minute, perhaps I could find better uses for that £1,000 than spending it on lunches from Tesco or whatever." So I started making my own sandwiches. Now not everybody responds in that way but some people do and that is the point about the effect of price rises. Deputy Farnham says that prices will increase anyway. Well, to an extent, but the facts are - and this is from the Jersey alcohol survey - a direct quote: "Between 2020 and 2022 the price of alcohol in Jersey increased." Yes, it did. "But inflation of alcohol price was lower than that of other household expenditure." Of course in 2023 we froze the duty completely. So there may have been some increases but they have not been excessive. Deputy Tadier argued again on the individual points that there are people who will act badly without alcohol in their bloodstream. Of course that is true but that is irrelevant. On average, over time, people who drink cause more crime and have worse health issues. Well- established. It is also argued that people with low incomes will no longer be able to have a drink. Well, yes, they will, just perhaps one drink fewer a week will mean they will have saved the money caused by the 4.5 per cent increase in alcohol duty. That, of course, on average, across the population, would be a good thing because that is what we are aiming to do. But there is another point about low-income people that needs to be borne in mind. Again, it is seeing the whole picture. People on low incomes are by far more likely to suffer harm caused by alcohol. In Scotland, where it has already been pointed out a lot of work was done in this area, they found that rates of alcohol-related deaths were 5 times more likely in low-income groups. Five times more likely. I will close by just hammering home the link between pricing and consumption. A study in the U.K. (United Kingdom), a Government study, comprehensive review: "The evidence reviewed tends to suggest that increasing

alcohol price reduces heavy drinking and some studies also suggest that heavy drinkers may be more affected by price increases than responsible moderate or occasional drinkers. On balance, the evidence shows that increases in alcohol prices are linked to decreases in harms related to alcohol consumption." The World Health Organisation, I think this report has been referenced by some people but this is a direct quote: "Decades of research and country experiences from all over the world have shown that increasing the price of alcoholic beverages through taxation is one of the most cost-effective policies used to lower drinking levels and alcohol-attributable harm. This has been recognised as a "best buy" intervention by the World Health Organisation delivering greater health impacts in reducing illness, disability and premature death than other policy options. However, alcohol taxation remains one of the least implemented measures largely due to opposition from economic operators and because price increases are generally unpopular with the public." I think that is a pretty fair summary of where we find ourselves in this Island. My view is that after one year of a duty freeze, the second year of a freeze would send the wrong signal. It is well-established that the longer a freeze goes on, the harder it is to reinstitute it in the future. This amendment to an amendment establishes a compromise. It maintains the principle that there should be some continuing increase alcohol prices, although in this case well below both inflation and average earnings. Deputy Tadier calls it a dog's dinner, I call it a compromise. At the same time, we have committed to a thorough examination of alcohol duties and I support the idea that we should look at seeing whether we can, over time, flex the tax regimes relative to the off-licence and on-licence trade. To conclude, I would say that the amendment to the amendment that we have put forward strikes the best balance we can that bears in mind our public health responsibilities, our need to raise money to pay for the health harms that alcohol causes while acknowledging the stress that the hospitality industry is under.

Deputy I.J. Gorst of St. Mary , St. Ouen and St. Peter :

Sir, I wonder if I could just beg your indulgence and ask how many speakers there are still to go? The Deputy Bailiff :

Only Deputy Rob Ward on my list at the moment, then there is Deputy Wilson and the Connétable of St. Saviour and Deputy Gardiner .

Deputy I. Gardiner of St. Helier North :

No, I would like to raise the défaut on Deputy Doublet . She was online and her vote of present was not registered.

The Deputy Bailiff :

Is the Assembly content to raise the défaut on Deputy Doublet ? The défaut is raised. Yes, sorry, I had Deputy Wilson and the Connétable of St. Saviour , was it? So it is just 3 Members.

6. Deputy R.J. Ward of St. Helier Central :

I was not sure how to explain my position and I would like to thank the Minister, he helped out a little. There are some strange analogies being made in this debate. One of them about the cost of sandwiches and make your own sandwiches. Now I will note that what the Minister did not do is give up eating sandwiches, he just made his own.

[10:30]

I do not think the suggestion is to make your own alcohol. I mean, we have all tried it. I remember when I was a student we brewed some alcohol. It was actually called wizard killer, it was totally unpalatable. I have no idea what the alcohol content was because I never quite mastered that part of it, probably because we consumed the wizard killer while trying to actually work it out. But there is a really serious point to that. We talk so often in this Assembly about unintended consequences and we also talk about our very specific economy and the specificity - and I got that word out, I am very

pleased with myself - of Jersey as a place and of its industries. There are huge pressures on the hospitality industry from COVID, which was a horrendous experience for everybody on this Island and for businesses and those who tried to make a living. My colleague mentioned, for example, something that is close to my heart, the music industry on the Island and events. That has been seriously affected by people just not attending venues and we have seen venues closing down partly because of the price of getting a drink. You might want to go out and have a pint and watch a band play; there is nothing better for your health than watching live music. I really genuinely believe that it is good for us. What we need to be very careful of is thinking of the obstacles that we may put in the way of that. Now, in the past, I would have absolutely supported - and I do support I understand and I see the health issues but I think what we have here is a very convoluted argument, which was mentioned before. What is happening, and this happens with young people in particular, I think, or they are not even actually I think that is a stereotype and it is unfair. I think we see more and more what is called pre-drinking or pres. They go to someone's house for pres, that is what it is apparently called. What happens there is you consume as much alcohol as you possibly can that will get you through the rest of the night without having to go to one of the nightclubs and buy more than one drink because they are so expensive. Remember, we have a large amount of the duty on our alcohol already. That is not going to go away with this decision. That amount of duty is already there. However, not if you buy duty free. If you travel a lot and I am not going to make any aspersions on travel but if you travel a lot you can come back with duty free. If you have a lot of air miles, you may also have a well-stocked drinks cabinet because you do not pay duty on that. I think we have some real clear points that we have to make on this argument. Also, I would say if there is a huge health benefit, there needs to be some decisions made. I am going to say this and might not catch anybody's eye on the Assembly - I will look up as I used to do if I did not want to catch anyone's eye - I wonder whether when we have black tie dinners or when we have social events organised, if we are going to be puritanical about the effects of alcohol, which is probably correct, then we should not be serving alcohol at those events, because we do. This is the extension of these arguments if you take them to the fullest extension. Somebody mentioned about prohibition. Well, yes, perhaps we need to try that but you know what would happen, as happens now, if you can travel a lot you can get duty free and there would just be private clubs where people can drink, and I am sure we would change the laws accordingly. One of the things that made me speak here is this notion

there was a mention made that among less well-off households the effect of alcohol is greater. There were more effects of alcohol on those people. Yes, absolutely but that is because there are other variables. The largest variable there is poverty and inequality. That inequality is exasperated by regressive taxes, which is the middle name of this Government; a regressive tax. The better regressive way tax conservative liberal coalition that will take your money where it can. I have said it. It is probably unfair but I have said it now anyway. I think one of the things we need to be very careful of this year, in particular post-COVID, given where we are with hospitality venues closing down, is the message that we send. I will finish with this bit because this is the bit that really got me thinking. People have mentioned the messages getting to young people. The messages getting to young people at the moment on this Island are it is unaffordable to live here, we are going to make everything as difficult as we can, like going and having a night out. We are going to make travel expensive for you, we are going to make owning anything expensive, rent is expensive and we are going to push you for just about everything that we can. Then when you make an intelligent decision

which actually I understand because I am an intelligent individual myself who has gone through an education system and benefited from that hugely valuable education system. I am going to make an intelligent decision to say I am going to drink less and I am going to get fitter because it is better for my health long term. I feel better about it, it is better for my mood, I am more aware of mental health and I will make that decision. Then what we say, when those decisions are made, is the metrics are you are only doing that because we sent the message we are going to tax alcohol more. You have the metrics wrong. The metrics of this increase in alcohol duty of 4.5 per cent, which is a midway compromise and meaningless in many ways, is we are going to carry on taxing regardless of the

situations we are now. For once, I think we have to say: "No, not this time, the compromise does not work either." We need to vote against this amendment and I will be supportive of a freeze this year for the very specific reasons that I give, because I think it will send the right metrics and it will say to people: "We are going to support an industry where we can. We are going to support your intelligent decisions. We do not want you to do massive pre-drinking before you go out. We want a music industry. We want live music. We want people to be able to go out and have a good time. The other issues of inequality and poverty and mental health, we will address through other areas of our policies such as a fairer taxation system, a fairer rent system and all of those issues that we talk about so often in this Assembly." That is not convoluted and I would urge Members not to support this amendment.

7. Deputy K. Wilson of St. Clement :

I find myself in an uncomfortable position speaking on this issue. As the Minister responsible for health in the Island, my preference would have been to see a much bigger increase in alcohol duties in order to reverse Jersey's position as the second highest ranking country among O.E. C.D . (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) member states for alcohol consumption; something we should all be concerned about. The health-related evidence on the effects and the impact of alcohol is overwhelming and you have only to read the Public Health intelligence report, as many Members have referred to this morning, on Jersey's alcohol profile to gain further understanding of this and listen further to the recent podcast from the chief executive at Silkworth Lodge, who recounted the impact excessive consumption has on the lives of people within our community. Freezing alcohol duties is not something I support but taking a proportionate approach to this complex issue would hopefully avoid criticism of important public health initiatives which are being caricatured as the enemy of economic development in the Island. The thing we have to consider is what balance must be achieved. We do not want to be killjoys and we do not want to harm business but, on the other hand, we cannot ignore the economic costs associated with alcohol consumption and the harms caused by it. I just want to give some indication of the scale of the harm. One in 5 adults drink in excess in Jersey, 33 per cent of people report binge drinking at a frequency of monthly. The rate of harmful drinking is higher in men with one in 3 men and one in 6 women. Heavier drinkers have higher rates of sickness leave and are more likely to be unemployed resulting in a loss of economic activity. In 2021, there were 725 hospital admissions specifically related to alcohol, two-thirds of which were males. Twenty-three per cent of offences in the St. Helier nighttime economy involve alcohol. I do not want to repeat some of the statistics that my colleague, the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs, referred to earlier. It is too easy to say that alcohol leads to illnesses. Let me just remind Members what they look like. Liver disease, cancer, stroke, foetal alcohol syndrome in children, infertility, depression, dementia and further consequences that involve family breakup, divorce, unemployment, suicide, homelessness, financial problems and road traffic accidents. Denying these harms and not investing in services to address them does put our economy at risk. If we can reduce harm by placing a duty on the cost of alcohol, which is a proven technique, we get more for the taxpayer to prevent these harms and reduce all of the health conditions associated with alcohol consumption which then need treating at the expense of the taxpayer. Research conducted by the Institute of Alcohol Studies at the University of Strathclyde highlighted the potential for a double dividend of a simultaneous improvement in health and a stimulus to the economy when alcohol duties are increased. So we must, through this debate, arrive as a place where the complex set of circumstances relating to duties on alcohol can be addressed proportionately. The reason I am supporting the amendment to the amendment is for this reason. We have to bring alcohol consumption down but we also have to work with hospitality industry to help us to do that. This has been achieved in other countries so why can we not do this here? The Minister for Justice and Home Affairs referred to Lithuania, and I can expand on their approach. They took a very hard-line approach by increasing the price of alcohol drastically and rapidly for alcoholic beverages which were the cheapest. This was followed by increases in beverages with a higher alcohol content,

alcohol advertising was banned, the age you could buy and consume alcohol was increased from 18 to 20 and alcohol selling hours were introduced and resulted in a decrease in consumption, alcohol- related incidents and alcohol-related deaths. Now I am not suggesting that we should go to that extreme here in Jersey but I do believe that we should look at some of the other examples of where there are interesting ways to tackle some of the issues. In August this year, the U.K. introduced a new duty system, after listening to feedback from industry, economists, public health groups and many business owners, which is based on the founding principle of taxing alcoholic products by strength. It is believed that applying the newer lower rate of duty on drinks, less than 3.5 per cent alcohol by volume per litre of alcohol, will help to encourage and innovate new lower strength drinks to support responsible drinking in the U.K. They took the approach to work across all industries but we find ourselves locked into a scenario where public health initiatives designed to tackle harms are at times considered an enemy to the industry and used as the reason to explain why the hospitality industry is struggling. So far the evidence suggests that the approach we have taken to raising duties on alcohol is working. As we have heard, the number of 16 to 34 year olds consuming alcohol is reducing and the number of people teetotal has doubled between 2014 and 2022. This will have many economic benefits in our community for the longer term. There are signs in society that people are developing a new relationship with alcohol, it does not matter where or with whom you choose to access alcohol the way forward is managing the volume you consume and drinking responsibly. This is a controversial subject area and as Minister for Health and Social Services my job is to ensure we improve health outcomes. So while this level of duty is less than what was originally asked for, freezing alcohol duty will not assist in addressing harms related to alcohol consumption and places greater pressure on an already stretched health system to deal with such harm. I urge Members to reject a freeze on alcohol duties but to be more proportionate in their response and support the amendment to the amendment which strikes a balance between reducing alcohol-related harm, increasing income for Government to spend on essential services and supporting our local economy.

[10:45]

8. Connétable K.C. Lewis of St. Saviour :

I think I have to come out of the closet, as it were, straight away and announce I am one of the others that are completely teetotal. I do not have a past in that respect; I have never been a drinker. I would not know a single malt from a triple malt but there you go. I would not argue with the statistics from the Minister for Health and Social Services, except for one. When they work out how many units each individual has per year, I always think: "Well, who has had mine?" I know that there are people out there who do have problems with alcohol but is alcohol the problem or is alcohol a symptom of a deeper problem? The overwhelming majority of people work very hard and they would like to go out at night and have a drink; I do not have a problem with that. Good luck to them. Cheers, good health to you. I have absolutely zero tolerance for anyone who drinks and drives, which is possibly one reason why I am very popular at parties: "Oh, good old Kevin, he can drive us home." I used to get my leg pulled as a young man going to the pub with friends. "Oh, Kevin does not drink. Oh, go on, Kevin, have something else." "Okay, a bag of peanuts." People left me alone and I do not think I have suffered badly over the years by being teetotal. As has been said, we have had a discotheque closed down recently or a nightclub - giving my age away there - closed recently and there is possibly more to come. People have suffered very badly with the effects of COVID, many businesses have closed and I do not think this would necessarily cure the problem. The alcohol duty is going to go up because, as has been said, we are going to have up to 20 per cent increase on shipping that will put alcohol up anyway, so the job is done for the Government in that respect. I cannot read my own notes here. It is going to be one of those trials this year that we have to go through. I will be voting against the amendment and voting for the main proposition. People are sometimes doing 2 jobs and they just like to go out and unwind with friends. So with responsible drinking, I do not have a problem and wish them well.

Deputy L.M.C. Doublet of St. Saviour : Can I be heard in the Chamber now? The Deputy Bailiff :

Yes, we can hear you.

9. Deputy L.M.C. Doublet :

Excellent, thank you. Just to clarify for Members, I am at home today due to the school being closed, caring for my child while working. I want to talk about children because the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs have mentioned many different statistics. I wanted to add a few more and build on some of the things that they have mentioned and take a children's rights perspective to the issue that is before us today. Indeed, domestic abuse is very common during pregnancy, so even before a child is born they can be at risk from domestic abuse caused by alcohol. The World Health Organisation estimates that around 55 per cent of domestic abuse perpetrators were drinking alcohol prior to the assault and women who are abused are 15 times more likely to abuse alcohol. Another statistic is one in 6 abused women is first abused during pregnancy. In fact, this is so prevalent that our health services, the midwives, have a standard question that they ask women when they go for their first midwife appointment when they are first pregnant. They are asked whether they are being subjected to any abuse at home. It is that common during pregnancy. When a child is born 40 per cent of confirmed cases of child mistreatment involved alcohol or other drugs. Another issue that I wanted to raise with the Assembly, and it is one that has been largely invisible in Jersey, although when I was a teacher I was informally trained in how to spot the signs in children. Foetal alcohol syndrome is something that is very common in Jersey and I think we have yet to understand how common it actually is. I just wanted to note that there should not be a stigma around this condition because it is often caused by women drinking alcohol before they knew they were pregnant, so women are often blameless in this respect. I think our culture of drinking should be blamed rather than any individuals. It is this culture of alcohol consumption that this duty increase would go a long way towards tackling. Foetal alcohol syndrome has a massive impact on children. Some of the increased needs in our school of course, we do not know exactly the reasons behind the increased needs in our school, which we are putting a huge amount of money into tackling and supporting children with increased needs in our schools. It could be down to screen use, the impact of COVID, other social factors but I believe that, because prior to this Government there was not even a facility locally that could diagnose this syndrome in the Island, it is a really underestimated problem in our schools. The symptoms of this disease is alcohol use during pregnancy causes irreversible brain damage to the child and it causes poor co-ordination, hyperactive behaviour, difficulty with attention, poor memory, learning disabilities, speech and language delays, intellectual disabilities, poor reasoning and judgment skills, vision or hearing problems, problems with the heart, kidneys or bones. I could go on. So we do need to start taking our culture of alcohol consumption, excessive alcohol consumption, seriously and we need to start taking more of a children's rights approach to this because children are being actively harmed by the culture that we have in Jersey today. So I will be supporting duty increases and I hope that Members will, at the very least, support this amendment which will go some way towards addressing some of the problems.

The Deputy Bailiff :

Does any other Member wish to speak on the amendment to the amendment? I will call upon the Minister for Treasury and Resources to reply.

10. Deputy I.J. Gorst :

Not an easy debate to reply to because I understand those Members' positions who are - and the panel themselves in their amendment - calling for a freeze and the reasons that one might support a freeze.

Those arguments have been articulated. I did just want to comment on the speech of a seasoned operator, who stood up and rightly informed us that it is not a good thing in politics to be polarised and that the arguments on both sides are not simple nor straightforward but then went on to say because they were neither simple nor straightforward the middle ground was not the ground to occupy, rather we should pick an extreme. While, on the one hand, that makes for appealing and robust political speech-making, I would just like to explore whether the conclusion of an argument which is nuanced and balanced is to take an extreme position in either angle or on either side. For me, it is not. I think the difficulties have been well-articulated and I do find it somewhat frustrating that we, in common with lots of other Parliaments, start to cast out doubt on statistics produced either locally by the Health Department or international studies looking at the consumption of alcohol. I referred to that study which was across 112 countries in my opening comments. We cannot allow anecdote to override proper peer-reviewed studies into behaviour. That is not what this Assembly is renowned for and it is not appropriate. Nor can we simply, because people under stress circumstances might behave in a way which the law says is intolerable, dismiss the concerns that the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs rightly articulated. She and officers across her departments, if I can call them that - they are not departments, of course, but that is shorthand - experience on, I would like to say, a weekly basis. Unfortunately, I fear is becoming more common even than that. Therefore, there are truths in the detrimental health impacts of the excessive consumption of alcohol or even in the consumption of alcohol actually we are finding more and more. A challenge to me, as I know it would be to you. Nor can we simply ignore the public order effects of excessive consumption of alcohol as well. That is one side of the argument. I do not think either today we can ignore, nor are Ministers asking Members to ignore, the voices of the hospitality sector. The reason I say that we are not ignoring those voices is because when we had our initial discussion about duties on alcohol we very much were cognisant of the health and public order issues, and that is why we put forward not quite an inflationary rise, 8.9 rather than 10.9. But we have listened to the difficulties that the hospitality sector have rightly relayed to us. My officers at Treasury have come up with all sorts of potential weird and wonderful options that on balance I think we decided would be too complex and would not help in dealing with those concerns that the hospitality sector relayed to us. So we are seeking to balance those nuanced arguments with a rise because, of course, it is really important that we present a balanced budget. We are seeking, in this amendment, to recognise the arguments made by the panel, to recognise the arguments made by hospitality but at the same time to recognise the very real effects that alcohol consumption has in our community. Now, we know that hospitality sector suffered during COVID, as Deputy Farnham reminded us. They were supported with considerable support during that period, as he knows, and the relevant departments are taking a lenient we have seen some commentary recently suggesting that we are being too lenient with some of these businesses, but we are taking a lenient approach to helping them as they come through COVID and they have Social Security contributions or G.S.T. contributions. We remind ourselves, of course, that the hospitality sector is a zero tax-paying sector so it does not pay corporate tax. It just has either G.S.T. or I.T.I.S. (income tax instalment system) that it pays over on behalf of its staff and the element of Social Security. So we are taking a lenient approach there. The other issue about the balancing of budgets and I have to say that, again, I think Deputy Farnham was unfair to his former Assistant Minister, now the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development. As we heard the Assistant Chief Minister say, this proposal, if we do not go with the amendment, does take money out of both of those budgets: Cabinet office £700,000, Tourism, Sport and Culture £300,000. Members might say: "Well, they are only small amounts, they can deal with them."

[11:00]

I remind Members that in the amendment which will take money from bottom lines to support agriculture, the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development is taking a cut to his budget there of £1 million. The Cabinet Office, within which sits M. and D. (Modernisation and Digital), is also proposing to have a cut to their budget there of £1 million. So it is not just in isolation that we take

these changes, we take them in their whole round of the Government Plan. I know that the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development is concerned about the hospitality industry, about the renewal of modern fit-for-purpose jobs and we have seen, even during a period of a duty freeze, institutions closing. Some institutions might have taken out borrowings at times of low interest rates and invested heavily, and that has not worked out for all the reasons that we would understand. Economic circumstances have changed. Those businesses are operating in a very different environment. Others are simply not getting the paying customers or the footfall and that is a challenge because how does Government support those operators? That is difficult because each one of us knows that old phrase "use it or lose it" and that can be for local shops, to a nightclub, to our hospitality venues. We, as a community, have to show that we value them with our custom and with the spending of our own pounds. The Constable of St. Brelade spoke about the licensing law and I know that that is something, again, that the Minister for Sustainable Economic Development is pushing forward. What we are proposing to do in Treasury is separate from the licensing legislation. What we are proposing to do is to look at the duties across the range of alcohol, because we absolutely accept the argument that there needs to be, moving forward, a level playing field. That is a level playing field around where the duty lies in regard to strength. Again, there are no easy solutions here. We all know that wine has less duty per volume than beer. To be totally honest, there is a reason for that and that is because policymakers, on the whole when we look across the world, we see they are making policy decisions in their own interest and we need to address that and we are committed to addressing that in Treasury. Again, the same is with spirits. We also need to address

- although there is no model globally other than one which is quite bureaucratic, as I mentioned earlier

- the differential between on and off-licences and other countries use cashback methodology to reduce, in arrears, the duties that on-licences pay. That will be more bureaucracy because on-licences will need to be able to record their sales in a different way so that we can give that cashback. We remind ourselves at the point that we bring those forward in the next Government Plan it is not necessarily going to be any easier because off-licences will start making representations to Members as well. But we are committed to do that and we will do that. That needs to happen alongside the licensing work as well. I come back to Deputy Tadier 's point. These are nuanced, they are difficult arguments and that is why I believe that a balanced approach, which is a compromise - and there is nothing wrong with that, that is our system of Government that we work together to find solutions to problems and to issues - that is why I think that this is a reasonable, a sensible and a proportionate amendment and I ask Members to support it.

The Deputy Bailiff :

Thank you. Is the appel called for?

Deputy I.J. Gorst :

Yes, please, Sir.

Deputy M.R. Scott :

Will this be taken in parts?

Deputy I.J. Gorst :

Yes, I am happy to take 1 and 2 together and then 3 separate. Deputy M.R. Scott :

Thank you. Sorry, 1 and 2 relates to the duty not being frozen and having the compromised duty. Part 3 relates to the proposal that the Minister work with amending the way in which duty is levied?

The Deputy Bailiff :

There will be a review, yes. So 1 and 2 together and 3 separately, Minister, is what you are proposing?

Deputy I.J. Gorst :

Yes, I am happy to propose this. The Deputy Bailiff :

All right. So Members are invited to return to their seats. I invite the Greffier to open the voting in relation to the first 2 parts of the amendment. If all Members have had the opportunity of casting their votes, I ask the Greffier to close the voting. I can announce the amendment to the amendment has been adopted: 27 votes pour, 19 votes contre and one abstention.

The Greffier of the States:

Those voting contre: the Connétable s of St. Brelade , Trinity , St. Martin and St. Saviour ; Deputies Southern , Tadier , Le Hegarat , Rob Ward , Alves , Farnham , Mézec , Coles , Porée , Scott , Catherine Curtis , Feltham , Rose Binet , Howell and Kovacs . The Connétable of St. Clement abstained.

The Deputy Bailiff :

We will now move to vote on the third part of the amendment. I invite the Greffier to open the voting. If all Members have had the opportunity of casting their votes, I ask the Greffier to close the voting. I can announce part 3 of the amendment to the amendment has been adopted: 43 votes pour, 2 votes contre and 2 abstentions.

2. Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): twenty-fifth amendment (P.72/2023 Amd (25)) - Alcohol Duty - as amended

The Deputy Bailiff :

We now move back to the twenty-fifth amendment, as amended. Does any Member wish to speak on the amendment as amended?

1. Deputy M. Tadier :

I cannot resist being the little boy in the "Emperor's New Clothes" and maybe others will follow when I point out that the Government's position and their arguments have not been at all consistent here. It is very strange that we have the cost of living this year at 10 per cent, people's wages have gone up by about 7 per cent to 8 per cent, yet Government have not increased duty on alcohol by that amount, they have actually done it by 4.5 per cent. What the Government is saying loud and clear is that we are making alcohol cheaper for you, certainly in terms of the duty we are charging. But all of the arguments we have just heard in the last debate were about making alcohol more expensive for people. So I am not sure why we have ended up in this position. Pretty much every Member who spoke from Government, the Minister for Justice and Home Affairs, the Minister for Health and Social Services, we even had Deputy Doublet joining us from in the ether and talking to us about pregnant women who drink while they are pregnant and it has an effect on the child. I was thinking then well if a pregnant woman gets a bottle of vodka on Condor Ferries and brings it back to Jersey and drinks that she is not paying any duty at all. The Government strategy, the Education Department and young people are not dealing with that issue. So all of those issues that have been raised to justify this dog's dinner position that we are now in where the Chief Minister is not even supporting her own Ministers, I find very strange because they have effectively given up £1 million, and that is a £1 million that could have been spent on Health and Home Affairs. I am just calling it as it is. We have this very strange position where Government is actually reducing duty to 4.5 per cent and I am wondering whether we can support that position now or whether we should just have the full increase on duty. Very strange, is it not, that we find ourselves in that position?

2. Deputy L.J. Farnham :

I just wanted to say how disappointed I am that the Assembly has decided to impose this duty on an important sector of our economy at such challenging times, forcing many of us now to support an amended amendment that we do not actually support because the alternative is to go to an 8.9 per cent increase. I cannot even try to persuade Members to vote against the amended amendment, if that is clear. I think rather than pretend that if we do not support this, albeit smaller, increase, a smaller compromising duty, the Island's going to fall apart with drunkenness and further alcohol problems, you can drill down into the figures in a great detail. I think there needs to be a lot more emphasis, education and information shared with the public on initiatives that can address some of the issues we are having with, fortunately, a vast minority of people that do have a problem with alcohol. So please let us try and use that to help people to improve the health of Islanders. We should be spending double, treble, 5 times more on getting that message out there and looking at all the useful schemes and initiatives there are. Young people are leading the way, we have seen that. Young people are turning away from alcohol. I will align to back in the day when many of us were

younger and we had the anti-smoking. Most of us probably smoked at school. Well, not at school, not during lessons anyway. Although I had seen that happen when I did a stretch at Les Quennevais School back in the day. I joke, but then, of course, we all started to learn about the dangers of smoking. I see that repeating itself now with young people and alcohol, so that is good. So let us now focus on education rather than penalising an industry that is literally on its knees, given the circumstances we find ourselves in. I think this is a bad day for the Assembly. I think we have made the wrong decision, albeit democratically. We will, unfortunately, see more hospitality businesses closing in the months ahead because outside of the increases we have imposed on them today there is heat, light, water, energy. Just about everything businesses are dealing with are increasing. As a result of this decision, more businesses will fail.

[11:15]

3. Deputy P.F.C. Ozouf of St. Saviour :

Very briefly, from an external point of view, may I say that I have listened to the debate. Like Deputy Ferey , I am currently a teetotaller, although I do not need to be anymore apparently because I am better. But the world outside is in turmoil, the U.K. is in turmoil. Deputy Tadier said that there was an inconsistent line from Ministers. I would respectfully say that there is not. There is no binary solution, as Deputy Farnham would have us believe that simply the solution for hospitality is simply about alcohol duties. It is not. There are significant issues which are externalities which are affecting Jersey. In this debate, what we can do is we can take a pragmatic and proportionate approach, which is what the Council of Ministers have done. We can take the message generally, outside from this budget debate, that we are not an Island in turmoil, that we will not take binary solutions, we will take the right decisions because we are a rock of stability in a world of turmoil. This is about sending a confident message of an Island that has got good public finances, is not in turmoil and that there is an Assembly with a Council of Ministers that is focusing on the things that matter for our valued hospitality industry, which is not just about alcohol. It is about recruitment and many other issues which they do and I would strongly suggest that some of the business failures that we have spoken about - and Deputy Farnham has said we are going to see more failures in hospitality - I do not think it would be because of alcohol duties. It would be the other things that the Council of Ministers, like Ministers and Governments around the world must attend to, recruitment crises, cost-of-living issues and others. Those are the issues that we must tackle and the Council of Ministers, I think, is unified on tackling those issues. I urge Members to support the amendment.

4. Deputy S.Y. Mézec of St. Helier South:

Deputy Ozouf said he was speaking from an external point of view and it sounded like it was an external one to this realm of reality. How out of touch do you have to be to think that this will have a positive impact in any sense in our economy and wider society? I align myself entirely with what Deputy Farnham said about this and think that this is a sad outcome, although better than it otherwise could have been and so obviously has to be supported. I hope that the third part of the amendment to the amendment, having been accepted, will provide an opportunity for Government to treat seriously what it may be able to do to support hospitality. Otherwise, we will simply find ourselves in this exact same position next year with more businesses on the line, more places threatened with closure and the inflationary pressures from other aspects like housing and all the rest, which this Government has absolutely no proposals whatsoever to deal with, continuing to make that worse and businesses will be coming time and time again to a Government that claims to be pro-business but is nothing other than words rather than actions. We will simply find ourselves here again next year.

5. Deputy R.S. Kovacs of St. Saviour :

I intended last minute to speak on the amendment to amendment but I did not put my light on in time. Now we are at the outcome that we have to vote on the compromise solution but I just want to make some points. Nobody negates the impact of high alcohol consumption on both health and crimes or

violence but increasing taxes on it will solve the problem for addicts. An addiction is a health condition which cannot be addressed by taxes. They will always find more dangerous ways to find resources for it, like selling family goods or divert to drinking more at home in an uncontrolled environment. As the Constable of St. Saviour said, consumption of alcohol in excess is a symptom. An illness, I would say. Do we believe that we can treat an illness with tax? The former Connétable of St. Saviour said in a similar debate in 2018 - and she did not always speak a lot but when she did, she was always direct so I will just quote a very short phrase from that debate - "I have first-hand knowledge, as most of you will know, about alcoholism, and putting the price up will not solve any problems because they will find the money that they need for the drink regardless, and in the end it will be the family who will suffer because the family will not have money either for food or for any other bits and pieces because the alcoholic will have wanted the money for drink. Jewellery will be sold, anything of any value will go, and that is in the household; and then you get your domestic violence. Trust me, it does not work. I have been there nearly 25 years and it does not work putting the price up; it does not help." If we take the statement to tax alcohol to stop alcohol violence and crime, should we tax knives to stop knife crime or work on the root cause? Or if we froze fuel duty, does that mean we are supporting speeding? Deputy Renouf , if I recall it right, he gave some stats example of alcohol consumption reduction between 2020 and 2022. We should not forget that in that period we had the pandemic and socialising in a pub was very limited, so I am not sure how relevant that data is. He also said he would like to see hospitality not being dependent on selling alcohol to survive. Should we then close pubs altogether as it is their business activity? As the measured alcohol duty declines, will the Government increase more duty to make up for it? Where I am coming from with all of this is exactly what Deputy Farnham said. It is the wrong period to have this increase. It will badly affect the businesses that are already on the verge and are really needing this kind of support to survive. Now we have this compromised solution and I urge you to support it.

6. Deputy R.J. Ward :

I just wanted to be clear that where we are at the moment is we have to vote for something we do not really agree with otherwise the outcome is even worse. So we vote for the amendment, which is 4.5 per cent. If we do not vote for that there will be an 8.9 per cent - favourite figure of the Government

- increase in alcohol duty. We are all put in a difficult position. I think that needs to be made clear for the hospitality industry as the position we have been put into, because the metrics and the messages are very important. I do not know how much a full-page advert in the J.E.P. (Jersey Evening Post) costs but I know they can be used for other propaganda, perhaps they should be used to get this message across.

The Deputy Bailiff :

Does any other Member wish to speak on the amendment? I call upon Deputy Scott to reply.

7. Deputy M.R. Scott :

I thank Members for their contributions to the debate. I would like to assure pubs and restaurants and everyone in the hospitality industry of the panel's continued support. My late father, who died at the age of 94, would go to the pub for a pint every lunchtime and every evening. I do not wish to suggest it was the alcohol that made him live so long but he exercised a lot in his youth and he made the effort to go to the pub to socialise. The people in the pub generally kept an eye out for each other. Had they had enough to drink? Were they driving? Were they being civil to each other? If children were allowed in the pub, were they being looked after? I also had a family member who was an alcoholic. His lifestyle was very different. Economic productivity requires us all to work productively and there have been speeches by Members that have ignored the fact that prices are going to go up significantly in the hospitality industry, whether or not alcohol duty is added. Alcohol prices in Jersey already are higher than in the U.K., which has frozen alcohol duty. It was ironic to hear that crime rates were down last year when there was an alcohol freeze in place. I would have

liked to have heard more from the Ministers about their views on duty free alcohol outlets supported by Government. As for the Minister who referred to an attitude as schizophrenic, I would like the Minister for Health and Social Services to have a word with him about that condition. I nevertheless thank the Council for having shown support for the amended proposition, which is what we now have to vote upon. When agreeing to changes that can impact on the operations of any industry, it is important that consequences are considered. In this case, the Jersey Hospitality Association has referred to a tsunami of rising costs and described the proposal to increase alcohol duty as a compound recipe for disaster for hospitality as the industry is facing other significant costs this year, also commenting on the state of the industry, which is beleaguered by increased operating costs with customers themselves challenged by increased cost of housing and living, has said there may be no second chance. The well-being of Islanders is important to the panel as well as to the hospitality industry. More and more Islanders are finding challenges in being able to meet socially after a busy day of work as they try to make the Island more economically productive. Has Government even considered that if it raises duty, and it obviously has and it will be, 4 out of 5 people who are not excessive drinkers, what could be the negative impact on their well-being? Anyway, we are where we are. One submission basically said, and this was Institute of Directors: "While the I.o.D. (Institute of Directors) is comprised of industry leaders we are also hardworking individuals with families and we note that the alcohol duty has a knock-on effect on each Islander." So I do very much urge the Assembly  to  support  this  proposition.   The  Jersey  Hospitality  Association  has  expressed  its willingness to work with Government in their campaign - and I hope it is a continued campaign - that will be evolved to promote responsible drinking. Raising alcohol duty just is not enough. I can assure the Government of the panel's willingness to work with the Government in this respect too. Jersey traditionally has resisted the adoption of Guernsey's puritan traditions so I hope the spirit of sound judgment remains in this States Assembly. I very much urge Members to support this proposition, vote pour.

The Deputy Bailiff : Is the appel called for? Deputy M.R. Scott : Yes.

The Deputy Bailiff :

The appel has been called for. Members are invited to return to their seats and I ask the Greffier to open the voting on the twenty-fifth amendment, as amended. If all Members have had the opportunity of casting their votes, then I ask the Greffier to close the voting.

Deputy A. Howell of St. John , St. Lawrence and Trinity :

I am so sorry, Sir, I have accidentally touched Deputy Binet 's on the way through. I have pressed my button and his button. I am so sorry.

The Deputy Bailiff :

All right. Thank you for declaring that, we will take it into account. I invite the Greffier to close the voting. I can announce that the amendment has been adopted: 45 votes pour, no votes contre and one abstention.

The Greffier of the States: The Connétable of St. Clement .

3. Proposed Government Plan 2024-2027 (P.72/2023): fourteenth amendment (P.72/2023 Amd.(14)) - waste charges

The Deputy Bailiff :

We now move on to the fourteenth amendment proposed by Deputy Mézec and I invite the Greffier to read the fourteenth amendment.

The Greffier of the States:

Paragraph (b) - After the words "domestic liquid and solid waste" insert the words - ", but excluding the consideration of any charges that are aggressive and do not take into account the proportionality of payments to the income of the payee".

1. Deputy S.Y. Mézec :

In the Chief Minister's proposing speech for the Government Plan yesterday she talked about the amendments that have been lodged to this plan in their entirety and her views about the prudence of those proposed amendments. She referred to Jersey's tax principles in which she said: "We cannot undermine these principles and we do not want to raise taxes." Let there be absolutely no doubt that they do want to raise taxes, as is very clear in part (b) of the Government Plan proposition that that is precisely what they are planning to do. Also referred to in that proposition is the sustainable funding mechanism for health, which I am sure will be tax based, unless they can find some magic money tree to pay for it. Raising taxes is precisely what the Government is aiming to do but they are using language to try to avoid a proper debate on that.

[11:30]

The purpose of this amendment is to try to have an honest debate and give an indication to the Government about what we are and are not prepared to accept on that. In proposing a waste tax, the Government is seeking to tax us to provide a service that it already taxes us to provide for that service; that is what the waste tax will do. They will introduce some form of mechanism for extracting more money out of people and businesses who already pay into the pot, to provide for a service which we already get. They may say they need more funding for it to provide a more sustainable funding mechanism for it because of the investment that is needed in our waste system. I may be sympathetic to that argument because there does need to be investment into that system. But I do not want to see a new tax or charge introduced that has a regressive impact and harms those households and businesses in these tough economic times that we are facing. In proposing paragraph (b) of this Government Plan, the Government is asking for permission to be given to them so that they can dedicate resources into investigating a new waste tax or charge. They need to do that because a previous States Assembly explicitly forbade them from being able to even dedicate resources to investigating it when that was debated in a previous Budget. Sorry, Sir, I am just slightly distracted by the noise behind me. They need the States permission to lift that prohibition so that they can look at mechanisms for charging waste. The purposes of this amendment is to enable the Government to have that prohibition lifted but not lifted entirely if it involves dedicating Government time and resources to a particular kind of tax or charging mechanism that could end up being unpalatable to this Assembly because of who it targets and the distributional impact it has, where it may in the future come to this Assembly and be defeated, thus rendering all of that time and resource investigating it completely futile. I am asking the Assembly to agree that if the Government is to look at mechanisms for charging for waste, that that should not include mechanisms which are regressive. The definition of a regressive tax is a tax where the effective rate increases as the taxable base decreases or, to put that another way, it is to proportionately charge more to those who are least able to pay. According to my principles, I think that is an unfair way to tax and I think it is short-sighted because of the

economic harm that it does. It is much better to have progressive taxes, which is where the effective rate increases as the taxable base increases. It asks those with the broader shoulders to carry more of the burden. In giving the Government permission to investigate charging mechanisms for waste, by adopting this amendment we would be saying to them: "Go ahead and do that work but do not waste your time coming up with mechanisms that disproportionately charge those who are the least able to pay it." That is an issue of principle that I think we can decide on today, rather than sending the Government to do all of this work and come back later with something that we might find unpalatable. That is so important to do because of the tough economic times that we are facing  and the Government is talking about introducing a tax, be it stealth or otherwise, on households and businesses; that will have an impact on them. They will be paying something extra but receiving nothing for it; they will still be receiving the service that they are currently paying for. For households, asking those of already limited means to pay potentially more or even the same as those who have much more income and who, frankly, would not notice as much if they had to pay a little bit more as a household on a low income, we should say today that we do not want to see that kind of mechanism. To add on another cost of doing business for small businesses, most of those will be in hospitality and catering, who inevitably need to benefit from the waste disposal systems because of the nature of the business that they do, throw in another cost of doing business on top of that in exchange for nothing new and nothing extra and base that purely on the fact that they exist and operate and not charge it in relation to their profitability. To say to a business that is potentially raking it in and making loads of money that they pay more, whereas one that is struggling that we will not risk throwing another charge on top of them at a level that is going to see them go under because they cannot afford it. The Government asks us to reject this amendment in their comments paper because it would limit their ability to look at all sorts of mechanisms. Also, I say good, they should be limited in their ability to look at mechanisms which this Assembly might find unpalatable or which go against the basic principles that I would hope all Members would want to see about fair taxation and supporting our economy and supporting households that are struggling. To look at mechanisms that would harm those is to waste time and resources that ought to be more appropriately directed at mechanisms that are fair and more likely to command the support of this Assembly. In making this amendment I ask the Assembly to maintain that prohibition for that particular kind of charging mechanism, to say to the Government you are still forbidden for considering regressive charging mechanisms and instead focus your resources on either progressive measures or very least proportionate measures because those are substantially fairer and that is why I make the amendment.

The Deputy Bailiff :

Thank you, Deputy . Is the amendment seconded? [Seconded] Thank you. Does any Member wish to speak on this amendment?

2. Deputy T. Binet of St. Saviour :

I am surprised that nobody wanted to speak. I hope they might have something to say. But I think I would like to tackle first the issue about double tax, which has been made by Deputy Mézec . I have to say I very much understand that issue and I think it is fair to say that the plan here is not to introduce a tax that replaces the tax that people are paying. The essential idea here is to introduce a tax to bring in the amount of money that we need to cover the underinvestment that has been going on for some considerable time. I would also make the point that nobody in the Assembly has a monopoly on care for people on lower incomes or the worry about the place that businesses find themselves in at this particular point in time. There may or may not be further comment but I would just ask Members to remember that all we are looking to do here is simply undertake exploratory work; it is nothing more than that. We have already made a clear commitment to undertake impact assessments on the likely effects of any proposed charges; that is so that we can understand the potential impacts for the community and for businesses. Why on earth would the Assembly seek to restrict the way we undertake that work even before it starts? I have to say coming from Deputy Mézec it seems .. I do

not know if undemocratic is the way to describe it, but it is a strange approach to be prevented from even thinking about an issue properly before we can reach a conclusion. But I just think it is in the interest of fairness and transparency we should really be left to consider every combination. It might include increasing income support for people on low incomes. I do not think it is fair to tie our hands or put us in a straitjacket before we start the process. I think we are all acutely aware of the effects that this may have and I think we are all sensible enough to come back with some sensible propositions and that might even be a progressive tax. Who knows? I would just say when people come to vote on this, please leave the department to come together with some sensible suggestions for this and people can vote yes or no when we come back to the Assembly.

3. Deputy L.J. Farnham :

I urge caution to Members that when a Minister says this is just a bit of exploratory work. Because if it was a bit of exploratory work it does not need the Assembly's permission to do it.

The Deputy Bailiff :

If you want to speak, Deputy Gorst , then you can speak in due course. [Laughter] Deputy L.J. Farnham :

Yes, I will give way.

The Deputy Bailiff :

If you want to make a speech then it is not appropriate to interrupt another speaker. Deputy I.J. Gorst :

I apologise for that, Sir. But it is not correct what the Deputy has just said. Currently Ministers are not able to do exploratory work, as the Deputy knows, because of a previous decision by the Assembly. Ministers cannot even do exploratory work on this issue without a decision of the Assembly.

Deputy L.J. Farnham :

Since when have previous decisions of this Assembly interrupted what the Government want or do not want to do? But anyway I usually do not mind interjections from my good friend, Deputy Gorst , but in retaliation I am going to read just a short paragraph from Deputy Mézec 's report, which says: "In 2016 the Ian Gorst -led austerity Government considered multiple attempts to increase taxes, both directly and indirectly, on Islanders to fill the black hole they had created in public finances. These attempts were ill-conceived, badly explained and were proposed in direct contradiction to many of the election pledges made by Government Ministers to oppose raising taxes." I think there is a certain sense of déjà vu there because I participated in the elections in 2022, those promises came flying out of most Members. This waste disposal, liquid waste, solid waste, in my opinion, for what it is worth, should come out of general taxation and not be introduced by charges like this. The last Assembly sent the Government away with a flea in its ear about this and I am surprised that this Government has the audacity to bring it back. This is a general taxation issue and I ask Members to remember that. Having said that, according to Deputy Binet and Deputy Gorst , this is just probably a gentle attempt, they just want to have a look at it to see what it is like. But I guarantee hot on the acceptance of the Assembly with this particular amendment or proposal from them to look at it, it will shortly be followed or in the next Government Plan by a firm proposal to introduce these charges. But just on notice, I will be opposing this at every stage. It should be something that is taken account of in general taxation and perhaps it is time to look at our general taxation, rather than have a line of stealth charges. Before Reform Jersey get too excited, I am not proposing we increase it but just prioritise more carefully, give the right priority to these sort of things, to the infrastructure requirements that Islanders need, rather than £80 million on Cabinet offices and such forth.

4. Deputy J. Renouf :

I strongly urge Members to reject this amendment. To take up some of the points that have been raised, there is no skulduggery here, there is no hidden agendas. We are being completely upfront and honest about the need to have an honest conversation about how we raise money to pay for systematic underinvestment in vital resources. We have suggested that we do that by considering something which, until now, has been banned for us to consider. Deputy Farnham attempted to suggest that we are not constrained by that. I can absolutely tell this Assembly that we are constrained by the previous Assembly's decision. I have had briefings from officers to tell me what we can and cannot do. That has been hammered home to us. We cannot do certain things. We cannot even ask officers to consider various things. It seems to me that was the amendment by, I think, Senator Le Fondré, the Le Fondré amendment, as it is generally known in Government. Perhaps Deputy Mézec is after the Mézec amendment but it seems a strange form of political mortality to be searching for, to have amendments passed that attempt to stop people even considering ideas.

[11:45]

Why not general taxation? Why not general taxation? For lots of reasons but for one very good reason that is specific to this issue, the ability to impose charges allows us to consider how we might influence behaviour. In other words, it allows us to consider that we have a system with limited capacity and that we might want to incentivise behaviour that reduces the production of waste and reduces the impact of the consumption of water but that is, ultimately, what often generates a lot of waste. That would be a good thing; that would be a mature and sensible thing for us to be considering, given our constrained resources, but it is currently not allowed. I think we have adopted this approach, and Deputy Binet has been very strong in pointing out that we should not attempt to use charges to be additional, an attempt to substitute for taxation for the budget that is already used to pay for waste. This is additional money to pay for a known proven need. The Le Fondré amendment had at least one benefit, one improvement over the amendment that we are considering, and that is clarity. It said that we could not have any discussions about certain types of waste charges. The amendment that we are considering does not have the benefit of that clarity. It says that we should not discuss anything that is regressive. The problem is that regressive is a sliding scale. We need to think about how this would work in practice. Let us look at one of the things that was briefly touched upon in Deputy Binet 's speech; compensatory measures. A tax may appear or a charge may appear regressive but it might be compensated for by other measures somewhere else in the budget. Would that not be allowed? Because in fact it would not be allowed, I think, according to this but I do not know. How will officers and indeed Ministers know when they are crossing the regressive line? A regressive tax might be considered a flat-rate tax but we might have bandings. What if it was, let us say, 3 bands? That is not totally regressive but it is not as good as 5 bands or 10 bands. Which one would be allowed to consider? I imagine we might need to get on the phone to Deputy Mézec and ask him. Does this pass the regressive threshold or not? Of course Deputy Mézec may say, well, no. We would all trot back and try and come up with something that did pass the relevant threshold. The central point here is that really when we face a major issue like this we should not start off with a restraint, with a refusal to even consider something. We do not know what the precise definition of regressive is. There are multiple options which may partly have regressive elements, they may be compensated for elsewhere. There may be many different versions of these things. They may be designed to do things like manipulate or encourage various types of behaviours which would be beneficial. All of these things should be considered in the round and then they will be brought back to the Assembly for everyone's consideration. Deputy Mézec says we should not waste our time on items that are regressive. But it might be turned down even if they are not regressive; that is the nature of bringing propositions to the Assembly. You do the work, you present a case and it falls or stands. It would not be wasting time. We need to have a free hand to consider all the different possibilities when we look at waste charges. I am sure that this Assembly will take a balanced view when those decisions come back. If we have done something that is so blatantly unfair, that falls foul

of basic principles of fairness and equity, then this Assembly will make it very, very clear to us. But please do not waste our time, Deputy Mézec says. No, we will not do that though, will we? Because we are not entirely stupid, so we will bring forward proposals that are measured and proportionate. But if the Assembly takes a different view, then obviously we will need to reflect on that. We might even ask the Assembly Members' advice and have some discussions and some meetings and just talk about it with Scrutiny. Who knows? I urge Members to reject this amendment. Let us be free to consider all the options in  all their various permutations and let the Assembly decide at  the appropriate time when we have all the information in front of us.

5. The Connétable of St. Helier :

I think I have a pretty good track record of opposing waste charges because Members who were in the Assembly, as I know Deputy Mézec was, in 2016/2017 know that I and the Parish of St. Helier struggled to remind the States Assembly that a promise had been made to the Parish in the 1950s that parishioners would never have to pay for waste. That went as far as an appeal but was defeated, partly due to the excellent work of my good friend, the Attorney General. He may have been the Solicitor General of the day, I am not sure. Anyway, that was an expensive defeat for the Parish; we lost that argument. Since then I have been waiting really for Government to come back and say: "Right, now that we can charge for waste disposal, we need to start thinking about it." A lot has happened in that time. Obviously recently I have become a member of the Council of Ministers, which I am best pleased I was not back then. But also what has happened in that time, and I want to allude to our sister island in my speech in 2 different ways. First of all, Guernsey has taken an ambitious trailblazing step with waste disposal and almost without much resistance introduced an extraordinarily ambitious and tough new approach to recycling; introducing a whole suite of waste charges, payment per bag of waste and this kind of thing but with an exceptionally good recycling offer that goes right across the States of Guernsey. I have been able to see that in place when we were there for the Crown Dependencies network a couple of years ago. Guernsey, they are the trailblazers in terms of waste-charging and in terms of recycling. Their recycling rate is way up in the 70 per cent mark. Of course one of the principles about that is that everybody in Guernsey has to accept that they are going to pay for polluting. Polluter pays works in Guernsey. That applies to the less well-off as well as the well-off because everybody in Guernsey appears to accept with remarkable ease that they will have to play a part in tackling the problem they had, not having an incinerator, having voted, I think wisely, against building an incinerator. They had to accept that landfill was no longer an option, therefore, they were going to all together face the need to reduce their waste, and they are doing a great job and I commend them for it. Whether I commend our sister island so much for their recent debates about paying for things is another matter. What we have seen, as far as I can tell in the States of deliberation in Guernsey, is a refusal to accept that certain bills have to be paid and a refusal to look at any way of doing that, and that is perhaps why they are in the state they are at the moment. It is, I think, tomorrow that their vote of no confidence proceeds in the top committee there. It does seem to me that there is probably not much comparison to be made in that second example with our sister island. But I do take the point being made by Ministers that if they cannot consider waste-charging, if their hands are to be tied and they cannot consider allowing everybody to tackle this, then we are not going to get a good outcome .. we may not get a good outcome. We have already had assurance and it is obvious, I think, that any charges are not going to come in without a States debate anyway. Are we really saying to the Minister for Infrastructure: "Go away and look at waste-charging but do not look at certain things"? I think that is tying his hands. I would much rather let the department do the work. I urge them to look very carefully at what Guernsey have done because, as I say, I think they are a shining example of how a small island can cope with its waste problems. For that reason I will not be supporting the amendment and I will be supporting the Council of Ministers.

6. Deputy K.F. Morel :

I just wanted to refer to obviously the 2016 proposition, which I was not around for debating. But it is a very strange matter for the States Assembly to, effectively, despite all the democratic principles that we espouse to say you cannot, as a Government, whoever the Government is, look at a particular matter. I just find that incredibly anti-democratic. I find it a really strange position to take. The next step from there is Deputy Mézec 's amendment here is again saying you cannot look at these things. I know Deputy Mézec is a democrat, so I find it quite odd that he would prefer to stop work and to stop a Government doing any thinking. It is not even coming up with a proposal, just doing any thinking, rather than allowing that thinking in the normal democratic manner to take place, then various propositions to come forward and then have the argument about those propositions in the proper democratic manner here in the Assembly. Obviously, say, if any proposition that did come forward was deeply regressive I would absolutely expect Deputy Mézec to be pointing that out and to be arguing passionately about the regressive nature of that and trying to turn the Assembly against those propositions if that was the case. For me, this is not so much about waste charges in themselves, this is much more about democracy and what we are as an Assembly and what we allow ourselves to do, which I would like to think is think widely, think of what is best for the Island, regardless of what that may entail and then bring a proposition to this Assembly to be deliberated on here. Therefore, I do urge Members to reject Deputy Mézec 's amendment but in itself rejecting that amendment does not mean it does not tie Members' hands in any way to rejecting any future proposals that may come forward because they are regressive. That would be perfectly valid but that is the democratic way to do it. This, tying hands in advance, has nothing, in my view, to do with democracy.

7. Deputy H. Jeune of St. John , St. Lawrence and Trinity :

I just wanted to add for Members' understanding, we are talking about one side of waste-charging. There is of course the other side, which is trying to reduce as much waste that is being produced in the first place. As part of the Carbon Neutral Roadmap there will be work that will start and commence next year on the circular economy strategy, something that already we have been working on or officers been working on through eco active to try to educate Islanders about the waste hierarchy, as we call it, where the first point of waste hierarchy is to reduce your waste to begin with before starting to recycle and then dispose of, and so that is really important. At the moment this proposition of course is talking about charges but there is that other side where we will be looking at the circular economy strategy to try to help Islanders, as a whole, both businesses and individuals, to try to reduce the overall waste that will be produced on the Island, to be having that circular economy by reusing and recycling before disposing of, which will hopefully reduce those overall charges that may or may not happen with the exploratory work that will happen, which will hopefully happen as well. I wanted to give that other side as well. That is not just one side, there is a whole host of work that will be commencing next year as well on this issue.

8. Connétable D. Johnson of St. Mary :

Simply to say it is perhaps worth recording there was previously a proposition to introduce waste charges, which found that at the time of the debate I happened to be chair of the Environment Scrutiny Panel. It found that mainly because what was then the Minister for T.T.S. (Transport and Technical Services), having been given the authority in the M.T.F.P. (Medium Term Financial Plan) to introduce waste charges, felt there was no need to go out to consultation. It was that lack of consultation which prevented it going any further. I recall that we had started a debate and on the second morning it was withdrawn for that reason because the Council of Ministers realised their mistake.

[12:00]

It would, therefore, be odd if we got so far down the line with a further proposition that consultation was in fact stymied at the outset because, again, it would run the risk of not proceeding. I support the Council of Ministers in opposing this amendment for that reason.

9. Deputy P.F.C. Ozouf :

The charters of James I in 1627 and Charles II in 1688 confirmed rights and privileges on Jersey to levy our own rates of duty and taxes. But we have here a situation where we have those rights and privileges as an Assembly but the Government who serves this Assembly is not able to look at the wider issue of charges. I have been known to say if it quacks and it waddles it is a duck and some charges are taxes and some are really recovery of government expenses that are incurred by the Government in order to run those services. The Constable of St. Helier 's comments are absolutely correct in the issue of waste. I would correct, if I may say, Deputy Mézec who suggests that the Gorst Government was an austerity Government. No, it was not an austerity Government. Government spending rose. What happened is that it was money moved from areas that could be having savings and largely put into health services at the time, as I recall, but maybe the Minister for Treasury and Resources will correct me. The Government has a responsibility and this Assembly has a responsibility to set a range of duties and charges in a manner which is likely to be conducive towards economic growth, as well as looking after the interests of individual householders. It is not a binary matter. Deputy Farnham , in opposing the Council of Ministers' amendment, says we should look at general taxation. What does he mean by "general taxation"? Is it a consumption tax? Is it an income tax? Is it a business tax or is it something that looks like a tax? The Council of Ministers is quite right when Deputy Gorst said and the Constable of St. Mary said, the Council of Ministers is unable to look at recovery of monies that should be perhaps given consideration of being paid for by businesses who do enjoy a low level of taxation. Rates, for example, in the U.K. are 80 per cent of rent roll. Here they are about 4 per cent. We need to maybe talk to the Comité des Connétable s about business rates in future. We do need to have an issue. Where today we have some real issues in terms of problems with infrastructure. The Minister for Infrastructure is quite right, the Minister for the Environment was quite right. There are issues in terms of the management of liquid waste and solid waste, which needs a range of Government interventions. Some of which will be charges to avoid, for example, waste-risings that otherwise could be recycled. Other issues in terms of liquid waste are. Liquid waste is a service that is provided at the moment by general taxation but it cannot be invested in in any long-term way because of the way it is structured at the moment in terms of raising charges. There is a discussion to be had about how we fund long-term infrastructure costs through a range of taxation of the charges but the Council of Ministers cannot even have that discussion. We cannot even have a discussion about whether a charge could be brought in or not. It makes no sense in an Island that has the rights and privileges to set its taxation and duties. The rights of the Government should be also extended to having a range of other charges when there is a case to do so. There could be a case to do so but we cannot even have the discussion about it because of the Le Fondré amendment. When the facts change I change my mind and the facts are clear, that the Minister for Infrastructure needs investment in liquid waste because he needs to have that in order for the Minister for the Environment to consider with the planning responsibilities appropriate planning matters so that we can build houses in the right places. At the moment the Government has a situation from a result of the last Island Plan where you cannot have houses because we cannot have the waste connections because there is no waste water connections. That must say to Members there is something wrong. We need to find acceptable, proportionate and fair and - I will not say the word progressive, I am being encouraged to make an additional word - we must have a range of interventions, which means a range of taxes and charges that are sensible for today and the economy of the future. The economy of the future will always be, I would suggest respectfully to Members, an Island of low taxation because that has been one of the issues that we can advance in Jersey's interest and that is why we enjoy such a good trade in services business today and tomorrow. Taxation is complicated, it is not just general taxation - I say to Deputy Farnham - it is a range of

charges and duties and others. That discussion cannot be had at the moment because of the Le Fondré amendment, which this amendment seeks to overturn in order to have that conversation. But I would assure Members of one thing, that they have the ultimate say. They have the ultimate say because we have the privilege, as a States Assembly, of making our own taxation and charges decisions ourselves. But there is a problem that we cannot even have a bit of that conversation because of the underlying issue that this amendment seeks to achieve. I would hope Members are reasonable. I would hope that they are pragmatic and I hope that there is a sense that we have to find solutions which are proper. Yes, it is quite right to look at the issues of Guernsey and to reflect on I take no pleasure in looking at the issues in Guernsey but one of them may or may not be the fact that they did not consider a consumption tax and a G.S.T. I do not say it is a requirement of theirs but if you do not balance your books and you cannot balance your books, then you have political instability. We do not have political instability in Jersey. I think we have a pragmatic and proper Assembly that will consider the right decisions, that they need to be given those options by way of a proposition to a charge, which cannot really be done. That debate should be had and this amendment would allow that to happen and not to shackle the Council of Ministers that are here to serve the Assembly in a proper way and give Members options about the right things for the future. We need this underlying issue to be solved so that we can come back with proper proportionate arrangements that are fair to Islanders and will be conducive to economic growth and all those other important issues.

10. Deputy M. Tadier :

First of all, can I say welcome back to Deputy Ozouf in the fuller sense of the word because he is back, I think? We are getting the old school Deputy Ozouf who has even taken us back to the 1600s with the charter of King James I. Can I say I am a bit baffled as to what that has got to do with this particular debate, apart from the fact we know in Jersey they did not even have sewers until mid- 1800? Of course someone had to pay for that and, interestingly enough, it was the Constable of St. Helier , not the current one but Pierre Le Sueur , who introduced sewers to Jersey at a time when there was a cholera pandemic and he has quite fittingly got a needle or rather the obelisk at Broad Street in his memory. But the point is none of this debate here today about whether or not the future taxes or charges to do with liquid waste are regressive or not, takes away any of those charters that were conveyed and the privileges that were conveyed on the Island of Jersey. Indeed, Deputy Mézec is exercising his right to bring an amendment, effectively, through a budget and the Assembly is now exercising its right now to decide on whether any future taxes should be regressive or not. I am a bit surprised, I do not mind being called naïve, maybe it is a bit naïve of me to think that this should be in any way controversial. Why would we want to send the Government away to look at regressive charges? Certainly I would not want to do that and if I was a Minister I would welcome the steer from the Assembly to say that, yes, by all means go away and look at future charges, look at future taxes. We are not saying that they cannot be tax-neutral. We are not saying that they have to be progressive. We are just saying that they either have to be progressive or neutral and we just do not want them to be regressive. When I hear the Minister for the Environment, who is also good value, the Minister for Planning and the Environment is very erudite and he can turn his hand to any speech and any position that the Council of Ministers takes to defend or to promote. He does remind me a little bit of the Lewis Carroll character Humpty Dumpty, only in his words, not in his physique I hasten to add. When Humpty Dumpty says: "When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean, nothing more and nothing less." Of course he is saying regressive can mean different things to different people. I think I heard him right. I was outside the Assembly but listening on the old parlour phone downstairs. He is saying: "Why would you want to tie my hands? I need to bring something back and regressive can mean different things to different people." It does not, we know what regressive means, it means that it impacts those who are least able to pay the most; that is what regressive taxation is. It is not a new concept and anyone in the Assembly who is not familiar with that is probably in the wrong job, certainly if they are in Government. I do not see why this is so controversial. I understand maybe that there is a rational argument to say that there should be user-

pays charges. We know that in many jurisdictions, many systems, that the water system and the sewerage system are linked - I think I have said this before, I am getting déjà vu or déjà entendu is maybe the better phrase - and that usually Government takes care of the whole thing or it outsources water and sewerage to a private supplier or an arm's length, who then puts in a charge. This is when we need to be having the debate about whether we want that to be regressive. Let us not say this debate is going to happen sometime in the future. Deputy Mézec has lodged an amendment saying that we should not have regressive charges. If you have any thoughts about whether water charges should be regressive or not, Members need to be putting them on the record now, so that is what I will do. I will say that I have already been quite uncomfortable with the fact that the water metering was brought in, I think, under the radar. What that means is you might just say that is rational; that is surely fair, is it not? It is fair that you pay for what you use. I would welcome the thoughts of the Assistant Minister for Education, who we know likes to speak on children's issues. Because if you have a large family with 3, 4, 5 children you will necessarily use more water, I would suspect, if you want to maintain basic standards of hygiene, whether that is to do with bathing, to do with cooking, to do with washing the dishes. You will necessarily use more water and you will necessarily produce more waste water as a result. Therefore, if in addition we are going to bring in a waste charge, which potentially looks at how much water comes out of your waste water pipes, you will be paying more if we allow for regressive taxation, regressive charging to happen because that is what we already do with the water system. If we go down the route and say to the Minister: "We are quite happy for you to pursue a regressive methodology", which he will no doubt want to look at .. that is what he is saying. He wants to look at ways that are regressive and that harm those who are least able to pay the most. He is going to come back with a whole load of options, which we, as an Assembly, then have to look through. Then we have to have this debate again as to say, why did you go down that avenue in the first place? It is because you told me that you wanted me to look at regressive charges. What we are saying today is that if we do not accept this amendment by Deputy Mézec , which I think is obvious and any right-thinking person should accept and adopt that, we are saying to the Minister please go away and look at regressive charges and taxes to find a way to bring that back to the Assembly. Then of course we are just going to have this debate again, whether it is in a year, 2 years, 3 years or in a future Assembly there will be lots of options there for regressive taxation. I do not want any part of that. I want to expedite the system and the methodology that the Assistant Minister goes through to make sure that and we know this is a wider issue, is it not? Because at the moment it is about water, in the future it will be about climate change, it will be about climate taxes. I do very much look to the Assistant Minister behind me. Because when those new taxes are in, if there is already a methodology and a track record of imposing regressive taxation on a population who are already finding it difficult, the cost of living difficult because those are the type who can absorb the costs; they do not mind if a new charge is introduced. But it is the majority of those who cannot afford it and that is what we are asking in this very simple amendment, is to not consider regressive taxes in future. Please, come back with charges or taxes if you must. Make sure they are tax-neutral or that they are possibly, a radical idea, even progressive in nature.

11. Connétable A.N. Jehan of St. John :

I was reminded by Deputy Johnson about the 2017 plans because at that time I was the chair of the Chamber of Commerce Transport and Tourism Committee. We felt that the plans were very ill- thought-through.

[12:15]

Deputy Binet spoke about the underinvestment in drains. There is a clear need. In 2023 we have got far too many houses, areas that are not connected to drains, areas that would shock people when they saw the location, who are unable to build houses because we do not have drains and we do not invest in the drains that we have got. That plan in 2017 was targeting commercial businesses and yet a lot of households would have used far more water than some of those businesses that have been targeted.

I believe any review that is undertaken should look at everything possible. We are currently looking at a budget of £1.3 billion. Our priorities are totally wrong, in my opinion. We should be able to provide basic infrastructure from the money we currently raise. It is totally wrong that we do not have good recycling. My colleague behind me spoke about the Guernsey recycling. St. John has introduced recycling in 2006; it is still not adopted across the Island. We have to do far better to reduce our waste, to ensure that we provide the services; basic, basic services. I am pleased to see the increase in water and sewer extensions in this budget but we have got to do far more and we should not restrict ourselves where we look to get that revenue but I would look where we have currently got it in our existing income.

12. The Connétable of St. Brelade :

I would just like to contain myself to a solid waste issue and particularly highlight the costs of the local kerbside collections, which all Parishes deal with. At the moment those collections are taken down to La Collette and received by the department that the parishioners through their rates pay for the actual collection. What I would flag up, we do not anticipate receiving a charge from Infrastructure to take that waste. We are already dealing with it. It has been mentioned before and I suggest that would be a regressive tax in that all households would be hit. Notwithstanding that, I think everybody has to look after their own waste and perhaps the department might consider focusing rather more on how people dispose of their own waste and making that easier.

13. Deputy R.J. Ward :

First of all, I would like to congratulate the Council of Ministers for getting their act in order. It is good to see that they can really get together when it comes to the introduction of regressive taxes into the future. That is a clear principle, it is focused, it has got a really good - what is the phrase, I cannot remember what the phrase is now - relentless focus? That is the phrase, thank you, Deputy . A relentless focus and ensuring that we enable government officers .. very important the role of officers because officers will inform you on what you should be doing, very important that we enable them to come up with regressive taxes in the future. That is really important, so well done, Council of Ministers. It is good to see so many principles in the Assembly. The Constable of St. Helier , really strong principled about St. Helier not being charged for waste but do not worry because there is another set of principles there as well now as part of the Council of Ministers; good to see part of that Council of Ministers. Congratulations to the Constable of St. Helier bringing real transparency and how those principles now change for the people of St. Helier . We have regressive tax, we have water meters. Water meters look at how much water each individual household uses and pays and they are regressive because if you have a large family you will pay more. If you are not wealthy enough or you live in accommodation that you rent that does not have an efficient water system, for example, or may have waste, then you will pay for it and you might not be able to do anything with it. It is a nice world that we can all live in to say we can look at every single piece of waste that we have but if you have not got your own bin and you are going to share one in a house of 5 or 6 flats or rooms, then that is much more difficult to do. How are we going to account for that? I do not know and regressive taxes punishes. The argument will be: "But we are not looking at these taxes, we are not, honestly not, it is okay." And the question was there is no hidden agendas. But that has to be coupled with the very opening speech from the Minister for Infrastructure - trying to get the Ministerial names right - he said: "We might even have a progressive tax." Let us think about that. So in psychology this thing called para-linguistics, the vocal features that accompany speech; it is really important. Because I could say to you no, or I could say no, and they are very different meanings with the same word. I think it is very important the tonation that comes with these sentences that are used in this Assembly. We might even have a progressive tax. We might even have a progressive tax. We might even have a progressive tax. That suggests to me that a progressive tax is somewhere down the line. What we are looking at is let us remove that democratic control that said there are some principles in this Assembly, there are some principles that we have. Some have other sets of principles will fit in

wherever. I want to also say let us remove that democratic principle that we say that we are not going to just have raft after raft of regressive taxes, particularly when it comes to waste disposal for people on this Island and businesses. Yes, of course we have to address the recycling and the amount that we use. We have to look at the amount of energy we use. We have to look at the way we insulate our homes. We are not doing any of those things effectively because we are just not going down that line. The reason is this, because the simple fall-back position and the principled position of the Council of Ministers and this Government is we can always fall back on a nice regressive tax because those it affects most will not be the people who are out there voting as much as everyone else and they probably will not have the control. Because those who speak up in this Assembly against that are currently in the minority, and that is where we are and that is one of the issues that we face. I would like to say though to the Minister for the Environment, and I honestly mean this, I do not like it when he stood up and said he is not entirely stupid. I could be facetious and stand up here and not entirely .. but what I would like to say is I do not see the Minister as stupid at all, he is an intelligent man. There are intelligent people throughout this Assembly and we need to stop putting ourselves down. This is not about some sort of personality clash which keeps coming up. I have got to say that every time somebody it does seem those personality attacks are on the increase, particularly for us in Reform but there you go, just listen to the argument instead. I do not see him as stupid at all. What I see is a principle that is misguided and we need to talk about that principle and we need to accept that as misguided. The notion of outsourcing, and this is the concern and this is why we need to keep this check and balance in place at the moment. Because what we have got is an increasing narrative of we have huge investments needed, huge investment in the sewerage system, et cetera, et cetera, okay, but we cannot really afford it. What are we going to do? We are going to do it because we want more homes on the sewerage system otherwise we cannot build homes, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then the principle behind it is we do not have the money from central Government, we cannot do that because we have a huge hospital to build to begin with and we do not know how much that is going to cost. But there you go, we will cross that bridge when we come to it; let us not talk about bridges. We might end up with one of those. Perhaps if we could connect it up to a anyway, move on. Moving to Guernsey and send our waste there, build a pipe, and we are coming up with some ideas, there we go, Council of Ministers, great idea. I have lost my own track now. Yes, of course, we get to the huge cost and then we outsource that cost and as soon as we outsource that cost we lose control of that cost. Then, inevitably, it becomes a regressive tax with different drivers. The drivers are not about the well-being or the fairness for our people, it is about I have this cost as a company, I must take this cost back, therefore this tax is the one that fits that most effectively, therefore it will happen. That is why we have to put the check and balance against regressive taxes in place now in this Assembly, rather than leaving it to have this gradual acceptance of that change, which is what happens. That is the worry and that is why this amendment is way more important than we recognise. That if we allow this to be cut loose now we will come back here in 3, 4, 5 years' time and we will be introducing waste charges for individuals on this Island at a time when there are charges everywhere else and the Government would have lost its responsibility. The reality for people in this Island is they have these charges everywhere, from their water charges to G.P. (general practitioner) charges, to these small charges, G.S.T., these regressive taxes that build up and build up and build up. They are an annoyance if you are quite well-off and they are: "I just do not want to pay this extra, although I can afford it." But they are much more than that if you are struggling, and more and more people in this Island are struggling; that is the reality. We had a quote, I do not know when it was in history, I am a great fan of, I think it is Susie Dent - I keep getting the name wrong. No, Arthur Dent, that is Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - who is a wordsmith and she tweets every day or Xs, I do not know what you call it now, word of the day and today's is .. I think it is called bayardism. It is a 17th century word and: "It is a confidence that is rooted in ignorance or wilful understanding of reality." I think we need to be really careful of that. That the reality of people's lives day to day and these extra charges that can be imposed may seem small but when you build them up together we end up with a sort of gestalt charge where the sum is

more than the total of the parts because of the impact it has on those individuals. I would say be very, very wary of voting against this because we will come back in a few years' time - probably not me - someone will come back and hold this Assembly to account for the decision that was made today and lets loose the move to regressive charges for such an essential part of what we have every single day on this Island. I urge you to vote for this amendment.

14. Deputy E. Millar of St. John , St. Lawrence and Trinity :

The first thing I would say is I do not think I have heard anywhere from anyone in Government that we are going to bring in regressive charging. It is very much a matter of considering options and nobody is going to plan .. is starting with a blank sheet of paper that says let us draw up a regressive tax. As the Constable of St. John has said, there is no question that we need investment. I support the principle of some charging for waste management. It is clear that we need that. I was approached by a constituent some months ago who was outraged, he was not on mains drains, his septic tank was broken and he had asked, he had identified closest mains drain and ask to be connected to it. The answer he was given was that he could not connect to it because it was full. It just simply did not have any more capacity and that connecting more houses to it would cause possible sewage in water courses and all sorts of environmental damage. It is very clear to me that we need to look at investment in mains drains. The reason I also support charging is that my experience of it is that it is pathetically poor. I also do not have mains drains; an advantage or disadvantage, you may say, of living in Trinity or some of the other northern Parishes that do not have mains drains. It would appear that I own a septic tank. Even though the septic tank is situated in another person's field and it supports another 2 properties, I appear to have ownership of it. I have responsibility therefore, periodically, at least once a year, of having it emptied. If I get organised and empty it earlier, sometimes it does not need very much emptying and it only takes one tank, which means you pay nothing. Other years, and I blame my neighbour's over enthusiasm for power washing, it sometimes takes 2 tanks. This year it cost £33 for the second tank. That is the cost for waste clearance for 3 households; all of which are under-occupied, I accept. However, £33 cannot come close to meeting the Government's cost of sending 2 tankers with people to empty the tanks and take it away and drain it. It just cannot. I do not mind user-pays charges. I do not mind paying more than £33 to have that tank cleared. We do have to think about how we invest into infrastructure and how we raise funds to do that. Nobody is planning on regressive charging.

[12:30]

15. Deputy S.G. Luce of Grouville and St. Martin :

I will be brief. Members have spoken about main drains. I want to put them on notice that my Scrutiny Panel will very shortly be publishing a review that we have taken some time to do over the situation. Members are quite right, there are areas of this Island that you would consider to be mainstream, yet applicants are putting in requests to join the main drain system and being told it is at capacity. In the middle of the Island, in the middle of Trinity , there are people being told they cannot join. Work has to be done across the whole Island to make sure that we can continue to build houses for people to live in. At the moment, the ageing main drain system is a problem. I want to talk briefly about solid waste. We are trying in this age to get people to produce less waste, but we need to look at systems which penalise, if you like, businesses that produce vast amounts of waste. They do not pay any more than a business that is good and creates fewer problems for us and for Government. We need to look at that. Kerbside recycling has been mentioned. We could not get anybody to tender to do kerbside recycling in St. Martin recently. That needs to be looked at. We need to be thinking about where we go in the future. We have energy from a waste plant which is halfway through its useful life. The decision on where we go next needs to be taken soon, when you think about how long it took to get a decision to build the plant at La Collette. We have heard about water meters. They may be regressive, but they certainly save a huge amount of water; water which is going to be an important resource in the coming years. The meter itself is an absolute necessity. The way we

use that meter might be the way forward for the Reform Party. What I want to say with that is the meter was a policy, if you like, that needs to be modified in the way it is used. I say to Members: please do not tie the Minister's hands with this amendment. What he could do is look at these regressive taxes and modify them so they can be used for best for everybody in the future. I have given a very short list of issues that he faces. There are many, many more. He does not have enough money to do everything. He is going to have to come up with some solutions, so I say to Members, please do not tie his hands at this early stage. Every decision he makes will have to come back to this Assembly.

16. Deputy I.J. Gorst :

I am loath to stand bearing in mind the time and what the previous speaker has just said. I take it with a light-hearted pinch of salt when people refer to the Gorst -led austerity Government, particularly when there was a Member referring to it negatively. He was a Member of that Government. Anyway, that is politics. I wanted to reiterate what the Minister for Infrastructure said in his initial response about the cautious careful approach that he is taking with this, together with his colleague, the Minister for the Environment. I absolutely believe that they are taking a cautious careful approach. They are very mindful of what has happened previously. They are equally mindful, as the Assistant Chief Minister said in heaping praise upon how Guernsey are dealing with their waste in an appropriate manner. It would be wrong of us to tie the hands of the Minister as he does his thinking, which he is not able to do now without this change. He wants to be able to learn from best international practice, be that in Guernsey or be that somewhere else across the globe. That investment is needed. Some of it, as the Constable of St. John says, can be taken from existing funding. Some of it may require additional funding. The whole purpose of the wording as drafted in the Government Plan currently, is that he can do that work, he can engage with his Scrutiny Panel, as we have heard he is very willing to do. The problem with the amendment that Deputy Mézec brings forward is that it inadvertently and unintentionally may tie off some proposals which are positive, which the mover of this amendment would support. Therefore, I would urge Members to reject the amendment for the reasons that others have said.

The Deputy Bailiff :

Does any other Member wish to speak on this amendment? I call upon Deputy Mézec to reply.

17. Deputy S.Y. Mézec :

I thank Members who contributed to this debate. There is one good argument against my amendment that I am surprised to not hear from any Member. That argument is that a regressive tax is the right thing to do because it would be the most efficient and practical way of raising revenue for this. Nobody has had the guts to make that argument. Instead they say: "Oh no, we do not like regressive taxation, but do not vote to rule it out." If not now, when? They are asking to dedicate time and resources to something that they either do not have the guts to say they support or do not support, in which case they are asking Members to waste time and money. Neither of those positions, frankly, are legitimate on this. To be clear, when some Members have taken offence at my referring to a previous Government as an austerity Government .. Deputy Ozouf , who does not have a correct definition of "austerity" if he thinks that it simply means absolute reductions in terms of budgets, because that is not what it means. We will come on to definitions later. It was an austerity Government, because it took certain elements of Government spending to find savings from that inflicted harm on some of the most vulnerable people in our society. They include £10 million cuts to the Social Security budget targeted at single-parent households, pensioners and people with disabilities. It was a shameful episode in Jersey's political history and ought never to be repeated. The architects of it should have it brought back to them every time possible in the hope that they may learn the lessons from it. What that Government also did, is it attempted on 2 occasions to fill the financial black hole that had been created by the previous Minister for Treasury and Resources by

introducing stealth taxes, like a waste disposal charge, albeit not to domestic households, which was defeated in this Assembly, because it was badly thought through, badly consulted on and would have had a harmful impact on those businesses. Some of them appear to have learned no lessons from that exercise at all and instead want to dedicate time and resources to looking at other mechanisms which may suffer the exact same fate. They also proposed introducing a health tax, which would have been capped to exempt the super wealthy from paying the full rate of it; another regressive tax. These definitions are not difficult to deal with. It was astounding listening to Deputy Renouf . He had this idea that if there were different bands to the charge .. if there was a 3-band version or a 5-band version would you be prohibited from looking at the 3-band option? Perhaps they would have to call me to ask. The definition is clear. The definition of a regressive tax is a tax where the effective rate increases as the taxable base decreases. Unless the rates decrease as those bands go up, of course, you would not be prohibited from looking at them. That is absolutely clear in the proposition. Those attempts to muddy the waters are wrong. In fact, that same Deputy spoke about, and I made a note of the words, "being upfront and honest". That is exactly the point of this amendment. It is about us saying to one another in this Assembly, as the body that will have to take the decision one way or the other at the end of it, and to the public, these are the things that we are not prepared to tolerate because we think they are wrong. Deputy Morel spoke about democracy. What is undemocratic about an elected Chamber saying: "We do not want this to happen, so please do not waste your time on it." It is what happened in 2016, that a prohibition was put on the Government from investigating those kinds of domestic waste charges. Now this Government is wanting to increase charges on the public and on businesses, despite their statements that they do not want to raise taxes. That Government wanting to increase taxes and charges has lodged a Government Plan, which has part (b) on it to lift that prohibition and the Assembly will decide one way or the other. That is a perfectly democratic process. Just as it is democratic to say here and now: "Okay, if you want to go down that road, do not waste your time with iterations of taxes and charges, which are going to harm the households and businesses that we say we want to stand up for, because it will suffer the same fate if it comes back to this Assembly as previous ones. You should exclusively use your time and resources on measures that will be more palatable to this Assembly." Instead, they want to say to us: "Let us waste time looking at measures." Some of those same Ministers say: "Of course, we are not going to do." It is complete cognitive dissonance. Deputy Binet spoke about there being no monopoly on care for vulnerable and businesses, which of course is right. However, there is such a thing as a voting record, and you cannot keep hammering people with a voting record that seems to be at odds with that principle. I am offering Members that opportunity to say if they do not want those restaurants, those bars, those hotels, that may not be in the best of times, that may not be making loads and loads of profit, to say to them here and now: "Do not worry about a massive regressive charge being put on you in the future, at this moment in time we are going to rule that out." Instead they are going to have to look at something fairer and more progressive." It is about saying to households now who may be struggling with the cost of living: "Do not worry, we are not going to hammer you with a charge that you cannot afford. We will come up with a better mechanism." This idea that Deputy Binet raised about how we may impose this charge but we will increase income support to counteract it. Is that the most creative thing they can do; give with one hand and take with the other and create a greater dependency on the welfare system, which Deputy Ward 's Scrutiny Panel has already shown has many problems with it and the practical way that it delivers its services? I do not think that is the right thing to do. We can do much better than that. There is nothing antidemocratic about making a decision today, but we do not want to give any kind of credence to the idea that we will introduce a regressive tax, but we will give the Government the freedom that it is asking for to look at proportionate and progressive measures, which many of those Members of Government say that is exclusively what they would be prepared to tolerate anyway. This is about saving time and money. It is about saying to those households and businesses: "Do not worry, we are not going to have that dark cloud hanging over you for longer, and allowing you to fear or you to maybe even hold back on investing in your businesses, your restaurant, your bar or what have you, because you are worried

about  the  cost  of  the  business  going  up  by  an  unfair  regressive  charge  put  forward  by  the Government." Let us get to that point sooner rather than later. I want to give a special shout out to my Constable for his wonderful speech where he started by extolling his previous reputation as someone who opposed waste charges and then gave a speech which left that reputation in tatters by the end of it. It is amazing how you see these transformations in these debates sometimes. I have been pretty clear all along that I am against regressive taxation and I will never make an apology for bringing propositions to this Assembly to try to get that principle adopted. That is about being upfront and honest, as Deputy Renouf asked for us. I make the proposition and the amendment and ask for the appel.

The Deputy Bailiff :

The appel has been called for. I invite Members to return to their seats. I ask the Greffier to open the voting. If all Members have had the chance to cast their votes then I ask the Greffier to close the voting. I can announce that the amendment has been rejected: 16 votes pour, 31 votes contre and one abstention.