The official version of this document can be found via the PDF button.
The below content has been automatically generated from the original PDF and some formatting may have been lost, therefore it should not be relied upon to extract citations or propose amendments.
STATES OF JERSEY
Corporate Services Migration Policy Panel
WEDNESDAY, 13th FEBRUARY 2007
Panel:
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan of St. Helier (Chairman) Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier
Deputy C.H. Egré of St. Peter
Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier
Mr. P. Boden (Adviser)
Witnesses:
Senator F.H. Walker (The Chief Minister)
Dr. D. Gibaut (Head of Statistics, States of Jersey Statistics Unit) Mr. D. Peedle (Economic Adviser)
Mr. B. Ogley (Chief Executive, Council of Ministers)
Mr. M. Heald (Assistant Chief Executive)
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan of St. Helier (Chairman):
Good morning, Mr. Chief Minister. Bill, Doug, Duncan, Mick, and members of the press. Could I ask you, please, to introduce yourself to the microphone so that on the recording you can be properly identified? So, I think we know who we are so start with yourself, please, Peter. Just so it can be identified on the recording, thank you.
Mr. P. Boden:
My name is Peter Boden. I am a consultant supporting the Scrutiny Panel.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
I am Duncan Gibaut, Head of Statistics at the States of Jersey Statistics Unit.
Mr. D. Peedle:
Dougie Peedle, Economic Advisor to the States.
Mr. B. Ogley:
And Bill Ogley, Chief Executive, Council of Ministers.
Senator F.H. Walker (The Chief Minister): Frank Walker , Chief Minister.
Mr. M. Heald:
Mick Heald, Assistant Chief Executive.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Thank you for that. I think, probably, we would have recognised the Chief Minister and Bill but the others, maybe not. So, good morning. I think before we start there is something that I very quickly would like to say. The question of migration and, particularly, Imagine Jersey 2035, is clearly of huge political interest all around. I would, in the politest possible way, just remind all of the politicians here present that the States Chamber is a place for States debate. This is a Scrutiny hearing and it is to collect evidence. So, it will be for the asking of questions and the giving of answers. I will not be tolerating political debate in that sense. So, it is as well that all people present understand that. As Chairman of the meeting, I will not be allowing political debate. I will be allowing questions and answers, as far as possible. Thank you. I think we should start by, if you would not mind, Chief Minister, asking some of the more technical questions of Duncan and our Statistics Unit to start with to establish a few of the ground rules on the statistical information involved. If you could do that? I think I will kick off by asking, really, where we are now? What is the latest estimate of the population of Jersey? And could you summarise how you have come to that estimate and the sensitivity that surrounds it?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
At the Statistics Unit, we publish an annual update of the total resident population annually. The latest one we have is for the end of year 2006 at which we measured the total resident population to be
89,300. For the current at 2007, we will be publishing that on 4th June. We have done that update annually since 2002 and what we are doing, when we publish this annual update, we are measuring the annual change in the population. So, you are starting from the benchmark of the previous census, the 2001 census, and then looking at the net change on an annual basis. The methodology is spelled out a little bit in the report itself, in the notes section of the annual report we put out, and there is also a complimentary, very detailed methodology report that was put out when we first did this a few years ago. All of that is on the website. I will try and explain how we do it. What we are trying to measure
from year to year is the change in the population and the way we do that is we have 3 mini censuses of data. The mini censuses of data cover various parts of the age distribution of the population. Major to that is the 6-monthly Manpower Survey that lets us look at working-age people; people of 16 to perhaps 64. The Manpower Survey is an unfortunate misnomer. It has been called a manpower survey for many years. It is actually a manpower census. It was run by the Regulations of Undertakings Department and is now run by the Population Office but under the Regulations of Undertakings Law, all businesses in Jersey have to reply or respond to this survey. So, it is a census every 6 months. But, in particular, not
only the total numbers of employers are recorded but also their residential qualifications. That is, residential qualifications under Regulations of Undertakings. So, we have a census of working people from the Manpower Survey. We then have censuses of secondary school children and primary school children from the Education Department. We have the education rolls and we have total numbers and we have net migration of primary and secondary school children. The third mini census that we have is pre-school children, from Health. They have comprehensive data on children being born, children coming into the Island, children leaving the Island. So, we have 3 mini censuses that very accurately can tell us what is the change, particularly in the non-locally qualified, and school-aged children and pre-school children. They are the main components. We also have, obviously, the births and deaths data from the Superintendent Registrar so we can look at the natural growth. Then we do a little bit of modelling on top of that. That covers just about all of the change but you are then looking for non- economically active adults, particularly, which would not be covered by the previous 3 mini censuses, that is, the labour force, the health and the education. We can do a little bit of mathematical modelling of adults who are not either economically active or associated with children of any age. So, we are looking at household structures when attaching non-economically active adults to either economically active adults or school-aged or pre-school children. These are small numbers, so we can play with sensitivity in the modelling as we change the distribution of, for example, spouses or partners who are not working, of perhaps older generations coming over and not working. We have information on that from the previous census. We have updated information from other sources, the Social Survey and the Housing Needs Survey. But we can tweak that as well in the modelling. But it is a small component. Basically, the change is measured from 3 mini censuses and so, very accurately, to within plus or minus 100 or so, we can measure the annual change in the population. So, basically, you roll forward from the previous census each year. 2002, 2003 et cetera. So, on the front page of our little report you have an annual update of the population.
Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier
Does that become less reliable the further you go from the last census or not? Does it compound any --
Dr. D. Gibaut:
There certainly can be drift. You would be unlucky if all the inaccuracies are in one direction. That can happen. Generally, what you have is a drift with ups and downs like that but certainly one can calibrate after certain numbers of years but you would be very unlucky to have all the negatives, plus and minus, all being negative or the plus and minus all being positive.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
And the figures for 2006 reveal what is happening to our population?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
The total population was up 900 on the previous year, that is, the end of 2005. The change in the
population is made up of 2 components. Natural growth and net migration. Natural growth is the births minus deaths, which has been about 200 per year in Jersey.
Deputy G.P. Southern : Which way?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
More births than deaths, for the last few years. Again, there is a plot there showing that for most of the past 2 decades there has been about 200 more births than deaths per year. That is going to change in future. Nevertheless, that was 200 in 2006, and then the net migration contributed 700 people of the 900. So, the increase was 900 in the calendar year, 200 of which was natural growth, 700 of which was net migration.
Mr. P. Boden:
Has it become more difficult to measure migration component at the time? Is that becoming more difficult?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
No, it has not. We are obtaining more information all the time. There is additional information from our Social Survey which we run annually and there will be additional information from the Housing Needs Survey. We are now in our third generation of Housing Needs Survey at the moment and that is useful for telling us what is the structure of households of recent migrants. So, it allows us to tweak with a little bit more intelligence the household structure distribution. Sorry if I am a bit technical at times, but it allows us to change things a little bit. It gives us a little bit more information. So, we are learning things all the time. So, not more difficult perhaps just more information which can feed into our calculations.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Could I just clarify that one? Within your latest calculations, is it possible for you to determine the difference, say, in birth rates between the indigenous, or I should say the traditional Jersey population, and the fairly recent migrant families that have arrived? Can you tell the differences?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Not with any statistical significance, no. We are moving into the population model, so this is how we measure the population. We then have the population model developed in-house in the Statistics Unit. In that we have birth rates, particularly age-specific fertility rates, that is, the probability of a woman of a given age giving birth in the next year. Okay? We have that from Jersey data. But there is only in the order of 1,000 births per year in Jersey. So, to do that for age-specific, you need to go back over several years which is what we did. We looked at data going back over 10 years and we calculated age-specific rates for the resident population which would have included a component of inward migrants coming in, that is, their birth rates. However, to unravel the separate component of migrants and the indigenous, you would have to attach some statistical uncertainty to that and it would not be terribly meaningful. But what we can do, and what we have done in the working paper (this went along with the Imagine Jersey documentation and there is a little working paper on the population model) we did some sensitivity analyses. What happens if we change the age-specific birth rates, or fertility rates, by quite a large amount, giving you large changes in the number of children that women are, potentially, expected to have in their childbearing years? At the moment in Jersey it is about 1.5. Forgive my sometimes impersonal technical language, but women of childbearing age are expected to have, on average, 1.5 children in their lifetime in Jersey.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
How does that rate, because I have read the paper where they talk about family size? How does the fertility rate link to average family size, or whatever?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
To have replacement fertility you need a T.F.R. (Total Fertility Rate), this average number of children a woman is expected to have to be 2. Theoretically, you need 2. It is a smidgeon higher, 2.1, because there is female mortality and child mortality. But Jersey is 1.5, looking back over the years. The U.K. (United Kingdom) is closer to 1.6. What one can do is a sensitivity analysis. What happens to the population model, the projections and the structure, as one changes that number of children that woman is expected to have? Put it from 1.5 up to 1.7, implicitly assuming there might be a change not just of the indigenous but also from migrants coming in from different cultural backgrounds. One can also put it down to 1.3. So, we have done large sensitivity analyses on the birth rates given you changes in the number of children women are expected to have. How does that change the population? By 2035, the total population change with this very large change in numbers of children women are expected to have, on average, by only 2 per cent or less. So, implicitly it is in there in terms that we are looking at real Jersey data. However, to assign meaningful birth rates to migrants, you would have a large uncertainty to them but, in principle, one could. The model is very flexible. It is not just set in stone as a fait accompli. We developed this a year or so ago and it is flexible enough to include, if one really wanted to, different birth rates for migrants, indigenous, ethnic groups et cetera. We have the flexibility to do that. At the moment the birth rates are from Jersey data and are used constant in time.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Can I just take us back to the 2006 figures and just talk about the skills mix in that basis? We know that, for example, there is something like 200 J-cats, presumably with a relatively high level of skill. The Oxera model, the Computable General Equilibrium model of the economy, C.G.E, suggests that for every additional worker in the high-skills sector you need an additional worker in the low-skills sector.
What do you make of that in the Oxera model?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
I translated that into what I could put into the population model in terms of J-cats and non-qualifieds. Again, it sounds impersonal, so forgive me, but I can then attach dependants, i.e. non-working spouses and dependent children and grannies et cetera to such workers. J-cats in finance, J-cats outside of finance, non-qualifieds in finance, non-qualifieds out of finance. What I have done is to take the Oxera breakdown, translate it into a breakdown for which we have information in terms of family sizes of non- qualifieds in and out of finance, J-cats in and out of finance, and constructed families from the inward migrant breakdown from that Oxera model, constructed family units and then built the net migration on that.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
You have the 2006 figures and they reflect a fairly substantial increase in the net population for the first time in many years. It that likely to be reflected in the 2007 figures? You are working on them now. Is there any indicators?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
No indicators yet. The first indicator, like I say, we have 3 mini censuses. The first indicator will be the Labour Market Report. We are due to publish that at the end of April. That is very much the first mini census. Then the health data and the education data comes in but the first indicator is the Labour Market Report and that is an important component and I must admit I have not seen the Superintendent Registrar's data for 2007 but, very quickly, there is your natural growth.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
But the labour market is usually a fairly significant indicator, is it not?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
You can look at the residential qualifications, particularly in terms of the J-cats and the non-qualified and that gives you an idea of what those components are contributing to the overall change.
Mr. P. Boden:
I just wanted to ask a question about this concept of hidden and transient populations within Jersey. You talked a little bit about this at the Imagine Jersey event. Can you just give an indication of the extent of the transient population? Whether there is a permanent stock of transient population that is over and above the 89.3?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
No, the transient population is -- if we can define transient as 2 types, basically. There is the seasonal workers which one could define as transients. Seasonal workers coming to the Island for a few months, that is, less than a year. The transients, I would call, are people coming for between a year and several years all the way through to the housing qualification period which, obviously, has been diving down, as you know. So, there is a lot of churn in that transient population where I am talking about people who have been here for a year to N years. We have profiles of that from the census and profiles of that from other surveys and those are included in the resident population and those are included in the population model, that is, transients. Non-qualifieds coming in and, over time, churning. That is, leaving with a probability after each year. So, those are included. The seasonals, the summer seasonals which is the peak of the seasonal, i.e., the very short-term transients, are not included in the total residential population because we are measuring that at the end of the December at the end of the calendar year.
Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier :
I just wanted to go back to the -- I have the old one here, the Housing Needs Survey that is nearing completion. I think we are up to 1,000 households, am I right?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Gosh, no. 10,000 households.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
10,000. Sorry. Yes. A lot of households. My question is, because you said that would help you and whether it did or not I cannot remember, the make up of the actual migrants or the people living in qualified, do you know what the split is that have come back to the people living in lodging houses to one room or to their own houses or Jersey people just living with their parents? Is it a fair representation across the 10,000 that we have?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Yes, it will be. It is, indeed, 10,000, which is the largest survey we have run. The census is of the order of 35,000 households. This is an enormous survey and we are collecting information on 2 components of the net migration, that is, residents, people here already, who are expressing potential intention to leave over the next 5 years. So, we can see where they are potentially coming from and what total numbers they are, what tenures and what household structure they are. We are also recording information on people who have come back to the Island over the last 5 years and again into what tenure they are going and what household structures they have. So, it will give us extra information even though the main focus is to look at housing needs on the Island at the moment, we are collecting extra intelligence that will feed into our other calculations, our net migration calculations. So, I think it will be very useful.
Deputy C.H. Egré of St. Peter :
We discussed, I think, several meetings ago the fact that we were concerned at how you put the figure on the number of people who could be living in lodging accommodation because we have no real record because there is no physical way of putting it in, as I understand, as to how many people are living in that sector. What effect does that have on your overall figure?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Well, firstly the Housing Department do have a very detailed list of lodging houses, of registered lodging houses and we can sample those and we do. The non-qualified sector, as a whole, non-qualified lodgers, we work very hard to find as well and, again, we have information from the last census and we do very detailed samples and focused samples of, particularly, the non-qualified. We do random samples of all households and, particularly, focused samples of the non-qualified sector of the registered lodging houses and of the lodgers. So, we have firstly, we find from the Social Surveys that the non- qualified are working at a very high economic activity rate and hence appear in the Manpower Survey results as the non-qualifieds. So, we have 2 angles of attack. Ongoing Social Surveys, or 2 angles of finding intelligence. Social Surveys, we are all working very hard with focused, i.e. targeted sampling but also the Manpower Survey which is a census.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
Sorry, I think what Colin was saying was we do know people in the lodging houses because the lodging houses are controlled highly by the Housing Department. It is the people who allowed 5 lodgers and I would -- and it is just a suggestion, that if you are allowed 5 lodgers and even if you have a Social Survey, a Household Survey, but let us assume that, on your tax form, you tell the taxman you only have 3 lodgers. Now, you would be very loathe to put these other 2 lodgers down anywhere and do you account for this? I am not saying -- the honesty check. You know, when people are filling in forms and there are lots of people who do live in this area all over every parish: "I only have one lodger," but he might have 2. I am saying, how do you account -- how do you find these people that are not hiding but their landlord will not put them on a form.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
They appear, or members of their family will appear elsewhere. They will appear in the non-qualified working from the Manpower Survey. Their children will appear in schools or pre-schools in Health and, remember, we are looking at net change. So, there may be a hard to find set of lodgers and they may have replaced another hard to find set of lodgers. Remember, we are doing net change when we look at the total population and the change in the total population and these people will appear as economically active in the Manpower Survey, or their children will appear. If they do not appear there, we do some modelling, i.e. we attach people on to that looking at past information. So, we work very hard to account for people that are, perhaps, just hard to find.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
We seem to be concentrating on -- I think it is important we examine before moving on to the Imagine Jersey process that we examine what is required to do accurate surveys and things. Perhaps, could I take
you on to the general terms of conducting a survey?
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Before we do that, could I just ask one question which is half answered and I would just like to ask it before I come back to you, if you would not mind? Just hang on to that one for a second. It would help us if we could have a summary of the trends of in and out migration provided for us, maybe over the last 5 years, and also a view as to how accurate they are, and perhaps a request for the paperwork. Can I just ask one question on the levels of --
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Patrick, it is published every year. Sorry, to --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Yes, but what I am saying is that --
Dr. D. Gibaut:
It is on the website and I send it to all States Members. Although the front page is the total population, on page 3 we have the net migration per year.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
We can pull out of that what we probably want. I was just really asking for the -- and make life easier and do it for us.
Dr. D. Gibaut: No problem.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
But let me just the question which went after that. It is a question about whether the levels of net migration run in parallel with Jersey's economic growth, whether there is a trend there? Have you done that kind of comparison with economic growth?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
We have not directly. However, bear in mind that net migration is, potentially, just one component of economic growth or which may contribute to economic growth. I am sure Dougie and our economists can talk in much more depth about this but, clearly, there are potential for structural changes, economic participation rates, productivity and net migration. So, it is not going to be a direct coupling of economic growth and net migration although, clearly, economic growth will be a driver of net migration and net migration can be a contributor to economic growth. So, that is one thing. Just conceptually, it is not just a one-to-one relationship. Secondly, the rates of growth, without being precious or too pedantic about it, when you say "in parallel", that suggests that the rates of economic growth and of migration are moving in parallel, i.e., at the same rate. Not necessarily so. For example, 2006 was the last year for which we measured the size of the Jersey economy and its growth and we will be doing the same for 2007. We will have all the data done by late summer. Nevertheless, for 2006, real term economic growth was 7 per cent. Net migration was less than 1 per cent, about 0.8 per cent. That is 700 of the 89,000. So, the rates are not parallel.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
But that was a high rate compared to previous years?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
It was a high rate compared to previous years.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Which were low economic growth rates. In fact, almost bottoming.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
So, conceptually, there is a link but the rates of growth are not the same.
Deputy G.P. Southern : No, never said that.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Also, there may be, again, perhaps being a bit pedantic, a time-lag or phase difference, yes?
Deputy G.P. Southern : Sure.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
You might see economic growth and then a reactive net migration or an economic something else and a net migration something else. So, without focusing on the word "parallel", they may be related. Nevertheless, the rates of growth may be different -- and there may be a time difference.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Historically, though, times of high economic growth have corresponded, more or less, to times of high net migration.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
That tends to be the tendency and you can see it --this is the net migration plot and if I showed you the economic growth plot it would be different rates but a similar sort. I mean, here is economic stability, essentially, and the migration rates were lower. Here was, perhaps, an economic downturn, and then strong economic growth. So, there is certainly a relationship. Not a direct coupling and there are all
sorts of other local, economic concepts going in there.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Could we ask you, Doug, that same question, and ask you whether you have correlated those 2?
Mr. D. Peedle:
Yes, I mean, one of the problems we have going back beyond the sort of chart that Duncan is looking at is the quality of data. Going sort of pre-1999 is nowhere near as good as it is today. We have some data and we can look at broad trends in the cycle, but some of the analysis we did and Oxera did for us, looking back, it is quite clear that in terms of past economic growth there is a whole host of factors at play that generate that economic growth. In terms of Jersey's economic performance over the last 20 to 30 years, what you have is clearly a very strong economic performance driven by a number of factors. One is the structural change that has taken place over that period, the move to finance, move to high value-added activity delivers you economic growth. That does not need more people to do it. That is a change in the nature of the workforce and the type of work you do. The other thing that you are seeing going hand in hand is productivity growth over that period. Long-term trend in productivity growth has being quite high in Jersey. Why? Because it picks up that structural change as well. Yes, at times inward migration does add to economic growth and it goes without saying, in terms of labour supply in the Island -- because there is more people here able to work and, let us face it, what brings them here is the possibility of working and contributing. That can add to economic growth but if you look back over Jersey's more recent trend in terms of inward migration, say, relative to the UK, you have a situation over the last 10 years when we had been through very strong periods of economic growth and the net overall impact in terms of inward migration has been relatively low over a 10 year period because you have periods of net outward migration, net inward migration, to some extent counting them out. But, yes, there appears to be some inward migration over that period.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Yes. You could always take a 10-year average and reduce your figures but, nonetheless, where in that cycle you have growth it is often, almost, I would say, inevitably accompanied by population growth or immigration growth.
Mr. D. Peedle:
The point being, over that 10-year period Jersey has experienced economic growth and sustained economic growth. Whether it would be in terms of inward migration, the relative net increase has been a lot less than you might expect from just looking at, say, the recent numbers over the course of the last couple of years. It is important to look at those long-term trends and that is what we try to do in some of the analysis underpinning this work.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Specifically, but nonetheless, within the context of you saying on a 10-year average, for example, when you have periods of economic growth it tends to be associated with periods of population growth.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
And the question is, would you agree with that?
Mr. D. Peedle:
Again, if you look at this chart, I would not say it is quite as simple as that because if you focus on these 2 years and say: "Okay. We had a good migration in the last 2 years and we have had economic growth." But we have had -- correct me if I am wrong, Duncan, but 4 years of negative economic growth, 2 of which had inward and 2 of which had outward migrations.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Between those 2 periods, surely you can see one is relatively high in terms of immigration growth and associated economic growth, and the other is of a decline or static economy and static figures for population.
Mr. D. Peedle:
I think for that relationship to hold and be true -- I mean, there is always a danger of just looking at 5 years, then you would need to say you have outward migration in these 4 years and inward migration there. The point I am trying to make is that what drives economic growth is not just inward migration.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Nobody has said that. Nobody has said that. Can I, please -- just give me a stand. Nonetheless, there is an association between economic growth and population growth. I mean, let us not split hairs about that.
Mr. D. Peedle: There can be.
Deputy G.P. Southern : And there has been in Jersey.
Mr. D. Peedle:
At certain times there has been inward migration and economic growth. I do not think you can deny that.
Deputy G.P. Southern : Thank you.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Yes, thanks, Doug.
Mr. B. Ogley:
I just wanted to add to that slant because we control inward -- manage inward migration as we --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
I am glad you changed your second word.
Mr. B. Ogley:
-- housing and employment and if, at a time of economic reductions, stagnation, decline, you receive an increase in migrant population over a long run, then we would not be using the controls that are -- the available controls properly.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
You would take the brakes off a little bit?
Mr. B. Ogley:
Because what we do is, people only obtain new licences for new employment if it is economically beneficial to the Island.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Can I ask you a question on that, then? Does that not reinforce Deputy Southern 's point because, if we take the brakes off for employment licences and possibly housing licences at a point in time when we see, shall we say, reduced economic growth, then it would tend to reinforce the point that there is a link between economic growth or reduced economic growth and net inward migration. If you assume that the when you take the brakes off Regulation of Undertakings, what you are, effectively, doing is allowing more non-qualified people to be registered.
Mr. B. Ogley:
I was not saying you take the brakes off. What I was saying is, licences are only granted when an employer can demonstrate that that additional employee will bring additional economic benefits to the Island.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Can I just come in there? You attempted to use the word "control" and then you used the word "manage." You returned to the word "control." In what sense do you feel we are controlling economic growth or immigration when we have hit figures like 700 immigrants net in 2006?
Mr. B. Ogley:
I use the word "control" because the whole policy structure is set up with the aim of controlling.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Do you believe it is controlled?
Senator F.H. Walker :
The new migration policy will allow a much greater degree of control across the board than we have previously and that, of course, is why it was brought forward and why the States approved it. Nevertheless, even before it comes fully into being we do have, and we exercise, the means of controlling numbers from the Regulation of Undertakings and that has been the case now as --
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I repeat the question, and perhaps you would like to come back on it? Do you believe the 2006 figure of net immigration of 700 immigrants as contributing towards the total population growth of 900 is controlled immigration? Do you think 700 in a year --
Senator F.H. Walker :
Yes, I do. If you take it over the period -- you cannot take one year in isolation. We could have been sitting here 3 years ago and we would be discussing a reduction in inward migration. We could well have been. What we have to do, as our statistician and our economic adviser say, is take it over a period, and if you take it over a period it is very definitely controlled and the means to control it are there and will, indeed, be strengthened in the near future.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
No, it very definitely responds to economic conditions. There is no control there.
Senator F.H. Walker :
I am not going to go -- I think the Panel has heard more than enough evidence, statistical and economic, from our advisers on the link, or lack of direct link, between economic growth and net migration.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
No, there is a direct link between economic growth and population.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Sorry, you are making -- could you phrase that as a question?
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I have just heard a mis-statement of what I have heard. I have heard that there is, both from the statisticians from the Stats Department and from the economic adviser that there is a link between population growth and economic growth. Not the opposite.
Senator F.H. Walker :
What I think Deputy Southern is trying to say is that there is an inevitability about migration growth if you have economic growth and I think what we have heard very clearly from the evidence it is not necessarily so.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I do not agree that is an accurate summary of what I have heard.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Okay. We will record that.
Mr. B. Ogley:
The question was asked about control and I think control implies that you are seeking to use the policy or the mechanisms at your disposal to make something happen and that is what has happened. The States' Strategic Plan set, if you remember, a target of 1 per cent growth in the workforce, 1 per cent inward migration but 1 per cent growth in the workforce over the period of the Strategic Plan. So, on average, taking into account the point made that there are economic cycles and there are points at which the economy turns down and then, of course, if the economy has turned down and there are not jobs for people so, inevitably, they do leave. If you look at the experience over the period of economic cycle or the Strategic Plan cycle, then the control at our disposal have been used and the workforce has kept within that 1 per cent for an increase. So, that is --
The Deputy of St. Peter :
Bill, within your control -- you mentioned a bit earlier that the main purpose of the control is the Undertaking of Regulations.
Mr. B. Ogley: And Housing.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
And Housing. If what I understood you to say was that if a company applies for a licence and can prove that there is a requirement for a particular person, an immigrant to come into the Island to increase economic work within the Island, that would be viewed in positive light?
Mr. B. Ogley:
I think there are 2 points there. What I was trying to say was that a licence would not be given unless the link could be demonstrated between that employment and economic growth.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
So, if that link is demonstrated --
Mr. B. Ogley:
Those would be the only circumstances under which the licence would be given but bear in mind what we have done over the last 2 years is to bring regulations and house licence management together to be able to --
The Deputy of St. Peter :
The point you make is well made. So, if that link is established then we allow someone to come in, what you are saying is that there is a link, therefore, between increased economic activity and population growth?
Mr. B. Ogley:
But the decision to allow that person to come in is not automatic. A decision has to be taken by the 2 Ministers of Housing and Economic Development, advised by the office so that it is done together and not all requests, even when it can demonstrate that there are economic benefits from that employment, are agreed. That is where I come back to say that a control at your disposal is used to effect the outcome. If all that you saw was somebody coming along and saying: "I can demonstrate that if you give me X worker, there will be an increase in the economic productivity of the Island of £90,000 for that person" and there was an automatic: "Okay. You have the licence." Then, I think, you would say the control was not being used but if there was a judgment being made as to whether 40,000 or 90,000 or, indeed, whether that --
The Deputy of St. Peter :
Just to clarify. What is the mechanics of that judgment?
Mr. B. Ogley:
The Minister is advised and the Minister makes that decision.
Senator F.H. Walker :
It would depend on a number of things, would it not? It would depend on the record of the company making the application in terms of employing local people, the balance that they have achieved between local people, Js non-qualified. It will depend on their training record of local people; it will depend on their economic contribution and their business plan.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
There is a fair chunk of analysis?
Senator F.H. Walker :
There is a fair chunk of analysis and nearly all employers, certainly all major employers, now have 3- year licences which stipulate how many local employees they are allowed, how many Js they are allowed and how many non-qualified they are allowed. Once they have a 3-year licence, it is unusual -- I do not say it does not happen, but it is very unusual that those numbers will change in the 3-year period.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Okay. Unless you have something specific, Deputy Southern ?
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Can I just briefly there suggest that it will be within our remit to look at the way in which model licences are working at the moment? We did so about 4 years ago on a different Panel concerned with migration. I think it is probably time we did look at them again.
Senator F.H. Walker :
Patrick, can I make just one observation and it is not political, I do not think. I think underlying the discussion we are having is whether economic growth is good for Jersey or not.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Nobody is debating that.
Senator F.H. Walker :
I think it may come back to that.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Nobody is debating that.
Senator F.H. Walker :
No. I am not saying anyone said anything. I am posing a question. There are pressures from economic growth felt in a number of ways. But what we ultimately will have to decide, perhaps, is whether that is more preferable than the alternative.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Than something else? Point taken. Thank you. Peter, you have a question?
Mr. P. Boden:
I just wanted to extend that debate just slightly and say had you have focused specifically on the financial services sector, would the link between economic growth and migration be more pronounced specifically at that sector given the dominance that that sector within the Island?
Mr. B. Ogley:
I do not believe it would. No. Not in that sense.
Mr. D. Peedle:
I think it is kind of false to just look at financial services industry because you are talking about employment in financial services and, clearly, the financial services industry will grow without inward migration or you would need additional inward migration. What you would need is structural change within your economy, the employment of non-locals in other sectors to decline. You have to look at the inter-relations of the economy overall.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
If you look at economic growth figures, if you look at what happens in the finance sector, it goes down and then it goes up, and look at the overall economy, you tend to find very similar occurs whereas if you strip out the financial services sector, you find a different line. So, it is true that the economy overall tends to respond and follows the financial services.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
What we can do, then, if we want to, is to ask Duncan and Doug to provide us, if we ask a specific set of questions and what data presented to us in a different form, we can certainly formulate what that data is - -
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I think that particular question you find in Jersey figures. It is there. Or the Economic Digest, yes.
Mr. B. Ogley:
If I could just make a point? Nobody would dissent from exactly what Deputy Southern had said, that the finance industry is currently, in economic terms, the economic driver of economic performance on the Island. Absolutely correct. If the question is: "Is there a closer link between inward migration, numbers of inward migrants to the finance industry and financial services performance over a run?" then I think the answer becomes "no" because the financial services, as you know, has seen significant restructuring of its employment, a significant move to higher-value industry and we have seen significant productivity gains as they have changed the structure of financial services because it is a very diverse industry. I do not think we have seen that direct correlation.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
Is there statistic that says exactly what the question --
Mr. B. Ogley:
I think we will go away and look that out for you and check it. That is just as it would appear to us at the moment.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
I would like to come back to what Deputy Southern and he started to ask -- we have asked all sorts of quite dry stuff which probably -- I am quite surprised the members of the press are still awake.
Deputy G.P. Southern : Somebody has to do it.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Somebody has to do it. But we are going to move on, and thank you very much for all of that statistical stuff but now what we would like to do is move on to the question of Imagine Jersey and to Geoff.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
What I want to do to set the context is to just talk about the problems of conducting a survey. You have just done the Jersey Annual Social Survey 2007. 1,000-plus respondents. 1,000-plus respondents on the Imagine Jersey. Could you talk about the differences between the 2 types of survey? The one you did, the one you are responsible for, the social survey, and the one that was involved in Imagine Jersey 2035.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Different surveys, very different survey designs when one is trying to draw inferences from a random sample. That is what we are doing. This Imagine Jersey survey was very much more an attitudinal survey. So, there are different issues there. What we are doing in the Social Survey is trying to measure precisely things like unemployment rates and all sorts of opinions on a number of things. Different surveys. Different designs. I am not quite sure I know what you want me to say. I can give you a lecture on survey design.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Yes, I would like to talk about the problems of designing surveys to be representative in any way whatsoever. For example, how much time do you spend on refining your questions to have them just right, in your survey? I mean, there are lots of attitudinal opinions in here as well.
Senator F.H. Walker :
Patrick, could I come in here and add to what Duncan has said? There is a very considerable difference between a survey which is aimed at getting statistical exactitude, or as close to statistical exactitude as you can and a survey which is launched with the objective of obtaining an indication of opinion. You cannot possibly compare the 2.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
I understand what you are saying, Frank, but the question was at Duncan and I think Deputy Southern would like him to answer.
Senator F.H. Walker :
Sorry, I thought I could contribute.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Absolutely. And here are lots of attitudinal opinions in here. How good do you think the police is? What do you worry about? There are lots of attitudes.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
The question was to Duncan.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
The Social Survey was an end in itself. That is, we were exploring a whole bunch of social issues as well as some economic and statistical issues over a very long time scale. We ran the survey, did a pilot, ran the survey for 3 months. A great deal of data and we have only just published the report. The Imagine Jersey survey was very much part of a much broader thing. The Social Survey was a thing in itself. The Imagine Jersey survey was a front-end part of the consultation process. So, it is part of a much bigger beast and it is an attitudinal survey and, yes, there are different ways of doing survey designs. A very powerful survey design is to do a random sample, that we do. Other equally valid or very valid ways of doing surveys are things like quota samples used by the market research types where they tend to phone up as many people as possible until they have a certain quota of, whether it be ethnic groups, socio-economic groups et cetera. An attitudinal survey which is online is, obviously, self- reported. We have run self-reported surveys ourselves. If you remember the I.S.A.S. (Island Wide Strategy for an Ageing Society) survey about 3 or 4 years ago?
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Yes, I was a conductor of that survey, yes.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
The Island Wide Strategy for the Aged and Society. Again, not a random sample but a self-reported sample. Different issues with a random sample and a self-reported sample but, again, you have the same basic principles in terms of doing the analysis. Self-reported, you take enough demographic and classification variables that you can go off and look at how representative is the raw data and then one can make it with statistical techniques to be representative of the whole population and look for things like bias, or, firstly, measure accuracy, statistical uncertainty, but look for bias as well. And one can do all of that whether it be in a random sample or self-reported or a quota sample or other survey designs. Different survey designs, different issues but you still have the fundamentals of how do you draw inferences from your sample that are representative of and relevant to the whole population.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
If you conducted a survey where greater than 60 per cent of the respondents --
Senator F.H. Walker :
Which survey are we looking at? Is this a Social Survey or the Imagine Jersey survey?
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I am asking the question in general of the stats advisor.
Senator F.H. Walker :
I just want to clarify which survey you are referring to, Geoff.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I am referring, in general, to a question about survey design and survey results. If you found that over 60 per cent of your respondents were from a particular sector in society, like civil servants, how do you then accommodate for that sort of massive differential between random representative and this survey? Does this happen with Imagine Jersey 2035?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
One can. You have the classification variables and you can look at profiles that you know from other sources. For example, I said the Manpower Survey is not a survey, it is a census. So, we know very accurately what the proportion of public sector workers are in the full workforce.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Sure. It is around 12 per cent. Yes.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
We also know, very accurately, the proportion of economically active versus economically non-active from all sorts of other surveys, particularly the Social Survey allows us to have a very up-to-date figure for that. So, we have the marginal distributions. We know the proportions of particular types of workers and of workers versus non-workers. So, what one can do is take the raw data and then do -- a word I hesitate to use -- a "post-stratification", where you construct weights such that the sample that you have back, attach a weight to each individual, then such that the sample you are analysing looks like the full population. So, yes, there are going to be relatively large weights. Public sector workers in this survey would be down-weighted. Non-workers would be up-weighted. Public sector workers had the ability to fill in this survey online, as did everybody, but one would construct weights so that the raw data, the raw distributions, would look like the full Island distributions by weighting it. So, that is one thing you can do, this technique of post-stratification. That accounts for representativity. That is, you have the right distributions. You then worry about the other side of things and that is very much a statistical-type technique. Another thing to think about all the time is bias. You have 3 major distributions when I cast my eye over the results. 3 major components. Public sector workers, non- public sector workers and non-workers. If you are doing these statistical techniques of weighting, you still might not be accounting for any potential bias in there. That is, there may be very different responses from public sector workers and non-workers. So even with the weighting you might still have some inherent bias in there. So, what one would do is look at responses to all the questions of public sector workers, non-public sector workers and non-workers and just see if the themes that are coming through and the proportions are similar amongst the 3 groups. If you do that, it does not really matter what weighting you do, you will have the same sorts of results coming through and you are not having the polarisation that perhaps bias could sometimes introduce.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
If then, as a result of that -- 75 per cent were public sector workers in the survey. If you then go down to small figures, like 5 per cent of the sample were in finance when that represents 25 per cent of the workforce, again, if you get down to smallish numbers there, how reliable do you judge it to be?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Well, one can always associate statistics and uncertainty. With a sample of about 1,000, you are asking for proportions, let us say, in several categories. Let us say, "yes" or "no." That is in 2 categories, yes? With 1,000, your statistical uncertainty at 95 per cent confidence is a band of plus or minus about 2.1/2 or 3 per cent. So, if you have 60 per cent say "yes", 60 per cent say "no", from your sample of 1,000 you have a range of "yeses" of between about 58 and 62. If you did the survey an infinite number of times, you would have a range of distribution in that band there and the right answer, that is, the answer out there in the full population with 95 per cent confidence, is in that range. So, 1,000 -- that is why it is like a magic number for the market researchers, it gives you this accuracy of about 2.1/2 to 3 per cent on the full population. But when you start going down to sub-sets of the population, then the uncertainty increases by what is called root-n. There is a root-n effect. Things get quite large. But even with an order of 300, you are still getting -- I cannot do it off the top of my head, you are still getting meaningful ranges. Even with a few hundred, you can have ranges of plus or minus 6-ish percentage points which can then, also, be very powerful in interpreting. If you have something at 70 per cent and something at 30 per cent, a plus or minus 6 percentage points still means a 70 is very different to the 30.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
And if you are down to a handful, if you are down to 20 or 30 --
Dr. D. Gibaut:
If one is breaking it down into categories where there are very small respondents then, obviously, the errors increase. However, in terms of the 3 categories of public sector workers, non-public sector workers and non-workers, then the uncertainties -- I cannot do them off the top of my head, but they will be of order of 5 or 6 percentage points. Smaller categories, obviously, much larger.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
In the Imagine Jersey 2035, there was the online survey and then there was the conference and the
presentation of the data. Let me ask you a question. What involvement do you have, at the Statistics Unit, in the Imagine Jersey survey, first of all, where there was something like 1,000-plus respondents?
Dr. D. Gibaut: 1,275, I think it was.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
1,275 respondents. What involvement did you have with the question make-up and the analysis of the results?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Very little. That was done by Involve. Involve are experts in this field and know how to run online surveys and, in particular, attitudinal surveys. So, very little in either. Yes, the questionnaire was passed over my desk and yes I saw the results and would ask them questions like: ""Have you done some weighting?" and "Have you accounted for the potential bias?"
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
What did you find when you look at that?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Well, they could answer the questions. "Have you looked at, particularly," as I have just been talking about, "those 3 categories?" You worry, or one might raise an eyebrow when you have a distribution that is heavily weighted towards one category. One can account for it by doing this weighting technique but then one still wants to look at potential bias by looking at the 3 categories separately. They did that. They assured me that they had done it.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
A question I would ask of you, had you been responsible for putting this survey together, would you have constructed it in the same way?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
In terms of an attitudinal survey at the start of the consultation process, I think it was absolutely fine in that context. In terms of running -- questionnaire design is not so much a science. It really is a bit of an art. So, of course I could argue with some of the wording, but they would argue with some of the wording of our Social Survey. Questionnaire design is very much an art. There are fundamentals in terms of how one can ask good questions but, yes, of course, one can always redesign questions very slightly. But overall it was a good survey and the questions, I think, were very accessible and there was enough classification variables in there that one could then use because very often you can see surveys where there is not enough information with which to do the statistical techniques afterwards. There was enough classification information in there that one could then go and account for differences in the
distribution of respondents compared to the Islands as a whole.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
You appear to indicate there that the way questions are put together is very important.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
It is very important.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
You also appear to -- and correct me if I am wrong -- to indicate that some of the questions may -- you questioned some of the questions?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
No, not at all. Not at all. Absolutely not at all. If I could categorically, absolutely not. Questions can always be reworded. Our Social Survey, we will look at them again next year. We are about to start another Social Survey and we will look back at the questions and we will always reword things. We sometimes think: "Okay, that could have been worded a little bit tighter." It is a bit of an art, questionnaire design.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
But one you spend considerable time doing on your own surveys? Your Social Survey, you spend hours defining your questions?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Absolutely. Involve are experts in attitudinal surveys like this and I am sure they would also spend hours.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
And you did not have very much input into the --
Dr. D. Gibaut: Minimal. Very minimal.
Senator F.H. Walker :
I think the important issue relating to the survey is not just the way the questions were constructed. It is what is going to be done with the results. Now, in Duncan's case, when he publishes statistical results which may be unemployment figures, it may be the R.P.I. (Retail Price s Index), it may be house prices or whatever, then you have a factual report which gives you statistics. In this case, all we sought was an indication. Nobody, and I emphasise this point, if you like -- nobody is saying, "We have some results here. This is, alone, going to shape our policy recommendations to the States." What we are saying is,
particularly when Duncan has finished his analyses and the weightings and so on, what we are saying is that this gives us an indication. Nothing more. It does not give us firm evidence or facts. It gives us an indication as to the Imagine Jersey event. An indication of public opinion. Now, surely, I would argue it has to be right for us to seek public opinion on such a major issue as this. We have sought public opinion in the widest possible way and I said 1,275 earlier -- it is actually 1,257 people responded. Now, would we have welcomed it if several thousand more people had responded? Yes, of course we would. But we have given everyone the opportunity and we are not going to say: "Right, game, set and match. That is public opinion, therefore that is the policy we have got to bring forward."
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Thank you. That point has been made.
Deputy G.P. Southern : We do accept that it is --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Sorry, Geoff. Bill.
Mr. B. Ogley:
Just in case there is any lack of clarity, in terms of the rebate and the validity of the analysis of the survey, bearing in mind the point that the Chief Minister has made, we are not relying on it for any answers. In fact, there is a feeling to the Imagine Jersey event more than anything else. But coming back to the validity, I make it clear that I asked Duncan to make sure that it was valid. I asked Involve to work with Duncan to make sure it was valid and Involve went to Duncan for the rebasing factors and then applied them. Duncan's job was to make sure that they did that work because otherwise it would --
Deputy G.P. Southern :
The rebasing is not one of the questions and Duncan's work is absolutely not under question here.
Male Speaker:
I just want to make it clear --
Dr. D. Gibaut:
It's just to tell them where the information was basically.
Male Speaker: Okay, but I --
Senator F.H. Walker :
I think -- I assume Patrick --
Deputy P.J.D Ryan:
Sorry, I saw, Geoff, unless there is a new point in part -- sorry, I did see Geoff. Go on, Geoff.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Yes, can I come down to the Imagine Jersey 2035 survey? For example, in section 6 "what should our priorities be?" at the bottom we get a ranking exercise of one to 4; most acceptable/least acceptable. Between 4 items "growing the economy", "working longer", "resident population pays more", "allowing more people to come and live and work in Jersey." We have just had debate about the link between growing the economy and population growth. The results of that showed clearly that option 4 was I think the least acceptable of the options by some big margin and yet it is linked to growing the economy as the most acceptable and the 2 are in some ways, as we have discussed, actually linked. They are non- exclusive options. As a statistician, and as a designer of surveys, would you say that that is actually -- what words we use to describe non-exclusive options in a ranking situation like that?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
It is very tough but the point I think - forgive me if I am wrong - of the survey, and particularly this section, was to tease out some of the issues. It was actually to get people thinking about really what are very complex issues and they are certainly inter-related or non-exclusive. Not just one and 4 but other issues, they are all inter-related basically. To do that in a survey is incredibly difficult so the point of this, my impression is, is to tease out people's thoughts; to get them thinking about what these issues are and to stimulate discussion to get an initial idea of what people's initial thoughts were but also to stimulate the ongoing discussion to the rest of the process.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Right, and could I take you on to another question then. Under section 7 of the online survey it starts off with putting in 2 premises. In future it is likely that more houses will need to be built; nobody is objecting to that. That is true. Whether to accommodate the elderly people living alone - back to the elderly people - or for people who move here to live and work up would suggest that is 2 separate items. One building housing for elderly; you know, that has got one reaction. Building housing for immigrants is another reaction. It then goes on to talk about the options and say: "What do you think of these?" and you have got building higher density residential developments in town, higher density, building a new village, building homes on green field land. You have got an additional complication of a range of options which talk about high density and talk about green fields and where they are. So, you have actually built in 4 variables into one question. If you did that in your social survey, what would you think of the results?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Again it is trying to probe very complex issues. It is basically getting the issue of housing and then probing for opinions on 4 different concepts. That structure I think works. You introduce the concept of housing and then there are very focused issues, definitionally: apartment complexes, suburban centres, villages, green field sites and there is a good 6 point scale. So, again, for probing attitudes towards particular concepts I think that issue works and there is a preamble that leads you into that as well.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
You think that was fair preamble; building in 4 variables in to one question is a valid thing to do with a survey and would you do it in your own survey?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
We do that all the time in terms of you have a section -- we actually sometimes have a little preamble saying: "This section is about back pain" for example, which we did have, and then we had chapter and verse on back pain, and so you lead through with a little preamble and then ask some very much more specific and detailed questions to --
Deputy G.P. Southern :
You do not accept my criticism that there are 2 elements there: building homes for old people is a different set of attitudes to building homes for immigrants.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
They look like illustrative examples of why there may be more housing needed. They actually seem -- again with a preamble you have to be careful that people do not lose the will to live by reading the preamble and not answering the questions --
Deputy G.P. Southern : But you have also got --
Deputy P.J.D Ryan:
Geoff, would you let him answer, please?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
So, there are -- clearly, I mean, as I read through this, top of my head, particularly because I have been looking at the housing needs survey, there are other issues that could have been included in there but are much more complex to explain in terms of, for example, smaller household size. We have got concealed households in Jersey; that is, families and young people wanting accommodation. We have seen the household size and we have tracked it over many decades and we have seen what the trend in that is. That can lead to increased housing needs. We can look at existing households wanting to change accommodation for various reasons as well. So, one could give a plethora of examples here. I think they are quite accessible and easily to understand examples in a preamble. You do not want the preamble to be a paragraph.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I did not suggest that. What about simply separating building homes for old people and build 2 questions: building homes for immigrants. And then to look in 2 different questions; nice and simple. You can still keep it simple. I am not suggesting make it complex and confuse people, although I think they are more intelligent than we give them credit.
Deputy P.J.D Ryan: The question.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
The question would be breaking the question up into 2 sections: old people and immigrants and also breaking down those high density in one place versus something else in another. To my mind that comes out, whether attitudinal survey or not, that comes out as what -- the word I would use is "sloppy".
Dr. D. Gibaut:
It gives you the attitudes towards various types of potential housing development. The fact that -- I think this was the question that saw a fair bit of item non-response.
Deputy G.P. Southern : Indeed.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
That would suggest that these are -- and it probably did what was intended, in terms of this is a complex issue and it stimulates response; stimulates thought. As an initial question that firstly gets people thinking about the concept and then these issues here, and the item non-response can then follow and the discussion follows through the rest of the consultation programme -- process. For example, in the event itself.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Is there then further work to do on something like that?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
It is the consultation process. Here is the initial attitudinal survey with a concept, i.e. future housing need with some potential ways of addressing it and there are always going to be additional issues to that. It is never going to be just a simple cut and dried "this is the issue; here are your 4 choices." There is actually inter-relationships.
Deputy G.P. Southern : Okay.
Mr. B. Ogley:
I think a really important point has been introduced there which is that this is not in any way intended to be a definitive survey. The results of which are given back to Statesmen, Scrutiny and Council Ministers to say: "Here are the answers." Bear in mind this survey went out as an attempt to elucidate people's current initial opinions. We did not give them all of the wealth of information and say: "Can you please read this and now give us answers?" We sent out a survey with the intention of finding out how people in the Island view particularly difficult issues, and then absolutely, there is a lot more work to be done. That is why we put the very detailed work. We invited consultation back which ends early this month. We held the full whole day Imagine event in which we described in a lot more detail. We carried similar, at the beginning of that event, just to then see what people's initial preconceptions were and then after giving them the information, to check it out again. There is a whole long process and it does not finish at the end of this month because the intention is that there will be now a response published of all the consultation, a response to that consultation, potentially much greater discussion and debate, and then maybe the need, as people say, for more surveying, to come to States discussions later in the year. 11:43:55
Deputy P.J.D Ryan:
Okay, can I just ask -- I will come back to you, Geoff.
Male Speaker: It was not Geoff.
Deputy P.J.D Ryan:
I knew it was this direction. It was my right ear. That is the survey. Coming to the conference itself and the way in which information was presented at the conference, Duncan, did you have any input in that?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
No, again. They are the experts at that.
Deputy P.J.D Ryan: And post analysis after?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
It was very quick. The results came up on the screen straightaway so, no, I had no involvement in that. That was obviously some software they had.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
It is a question that has been niggling in the back of my head almost from the very beginning of this chat. How do you define the point where somebody becomes no longer economically active?
Dr. D. Gibaut:
There are strict international labour organisation definitions of what is economically active.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
I thought there might be but --
Dr. D. Gibaut:
There are. If you are working full time or part time; if you are self-employed, whether employing just yourself or others; if you are actually looking for a job or between jobs. So, you might be registered as unemployed - i.e. looking for a job; in between jobs - or you might not be registered unemployed but you are looking for a job. You are then economically active. So, there is about 5 or 6 categories. Then the non-economically active people will be home makers, retired, long term incapacity --
The Deputy of St. Peter :
There is a point I brought out in one of the very early presentations that was given. There would appear to be quite a good foundation - quite a number of people in Jersey - who might be defined as "economically inactive" and yet are playing a huge big part in the economy in the charity sector. How is that being built in to where we are coming from in Imagine Jersey because we are talking about that very sector? It did not come out in Imagine Jersey.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
The voluntary sector would not be included as economically active. We did ask the question in this latest social survey what proportion of people had actually gone off and done some voluntary sports work and it came out at 6 per cent; it was similar to the U.K. (United Kingdom).
The Deputy of St. Peter :
That is being definitive. A voluntary sports worker is very limited. There is a lot more than that going.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Absolutely. We can probe that more in future surveys but strictly speaking if the voluntary sector are not employed full time or part time then they would be counted as economically inactive. If they are working in the voluntary but getting any sort of payment at all from an undertaking then they would be economically active.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
But again Jersey is fairly unique in this field in that we all know how much the voluntary sector puts into the economy.
Dr. D. Gibaut:
Although it is technically not in there, the fact that in terms of the economic model that we were doing,
we knew that Jersey has got high participation rates at the moment and actually a defined pool of people that you could bring back into participation --
The Deputy of St. Peter :
The first words you used there: "technically it is not there".
Dr. D. Gibaut:
I know but it is partly there with the numbers because the reason we got high participation rates and a smaller pool of people you can draw in is probably because some of these people may well be in the care sector and it is getting on to the next issue. The question is if you want to boost participation, part of which we are asking in Imagine Jersey, how we might go about doing that and what would the impact be and what would the scope be. I think that is the next set of questions you need to consider.
Mr. B. Ogley:
If I can pick up exactly that point. It was raised in Imagine Jersey by a member of the public who pointed out that the question about working longer could, if not handled very carefully, reduce the number of people in the voluntary sector and that would have very significant implications. We have to think of that in much more detail, particularly in terms of the working longer and it is one of the key work streams that will inevitably come out of this. From here on in, it has got to be really researched and built in.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
It is about the overall of the survey and we have been working on this, and I think I brought this up when we all met on 19th November and Doug has said: "This is attitudinal." You need more people involved. We got 1,200 online and then probably about 100 on the day. My question is when I joined this panel in all the paper up until 19th November we were reviewing a migration policy to Jersey and it is called Scrutiny Panel Migration Policy with you. Then on 19th November we were presented with the same papers called Imagine Jersey 2035. My point being I would say it could be a very clever way of disguising that this is actually a debate on the migration (how many people are needed; how many houses) covered up into -- I wanted to know why the name changed overnight and why, to me, there was not enough -- if you have a phone in on any topic and you get on migration, somebody has got something to say about it but nothing on this, the actual survey, stated "migration." It is called Imagine Jersey 2035. Totally changed from the Migration Policy Review for Jersey which was following on from what we reviewed with the Es and the Js and all that. So, maybe that is why, I would suggest, the public was not so excited about this because even the name does not say to me what it will or could be doing.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Just for the sake of clarity for all concerned, I think we have -- thank you, Duncan, for your input now. I
think we are now moving much more into the area of political input so we are now moving on to really the question session for yourself.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
Yes, it is to Frank and Bill because they were involved with Involve and the experts.
Senator F.H. Walker :
Let us get a fundamental point on the table: the States have approved a migration policy and that policy stands. This is not a migration policy. This is a consultation process based on what we know will happen to the population of Jersey generally as we move forward towards 2035. There are 2 fundamentally different topics. Now, of course they are linked but they are fundamentally different and we should not confuse the 2. I have been under quite significant political pressure, not least from Deputy Southern and Martin and others to bring forward a population paper to the States. This is the start of that process. I have had questions asked of me when I am going to bring forward a population policy to the States. I have committed to doing so. This is the start of that process. However, and again I think clarity here is vitally important, we are not going to ask the States to take a final decision on any of these issues in 2008. We are facing elections at the end of this year. This is a long-term issue and any report and proposition that we bring to the States this year will be high-level strategic issues only and we will keep the final decisions very clearly open for the next stage to take. I repeat: this is a long running process which we started in answer to the wishes of States members and which I promised we would. That is exactly what we are doing but this is different to (hence different terminology) the Migration Policy which remains as the States agreed it last year.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
I am going to be controversial --
Mr. B. Ogley:
Can I just add one thing to that which is - and I think it is just a corrective point to be made - none of the papers on Jersey 2035 said that we have brought forward papers called "migration." They will not.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
No, it was called Population Review.
Mr. B. Ogley:
It was called Population Review and it flowed on from the I.S.A.S. The Ageing Population work. We were very clear all the way down the line that that is what we were doing. But you could not look at population in isolation from its effects on environment, our fiscal position in the world, our economic activity, the actual structure of society itself and, therefore, all the papers we have brought forward on this have consistently talked about population and we have built in all of these factors. We understood
we were bringing them to the Migration Scrutiny Panel because that is what Scrutiny asked us to do. We have always done as the Chief Minister said and separated the 2 issues of the Migration Policy which is following on from the States debate, the mechanics, the process, indeed, even things like the registry of the population have always been separated from this work on the population and the future; significant policy issues that flow out of inhabitable changes in population. I just needed to make that clear. (overspeaking)
Senator F.H. Walker :
I have not said an awful lot this morning yet. If I could add very briefly to that: the Council of Ministers has a duty to bring forward these issues if we were aware, as we have become aware, that if nothing at all was to be done, the Island is likely to be faced with something like £140 million a year deficit by 2035 because of demographic change. If we are aware of that and we did nothing, we would be charged, quite rightly, with being in dereliction of our duty. It would have been very easy for us to say: "Oh, we are aware of the problem but we will pass that on to the next Council of Ministers long term. We do not have to get involved." In my view that would be shirking our responsibility. All we have done so far is seek opinion to give us an indication of public opinion long before the Council of Ministers decides what it wishes to put to the States.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
If I was going to be controversial I would say to you, suggest, that the whole question of 2035 and ageing population is, in fact, a means to an end. In fact, the end game is to justify increased migration due to economic growth of the finance sector, and the means is to divert attention through moving the debate into the ageing population area, as a means to an end. What would you say to that? I think probably what I have said, in a nutshell, sums up what sections of the political body feel.
Senator F.H. Walker :
What the opposition are saying, yes.
Male Speaker:
He did not say that.
Senator F.H. Walker :
I will give you categorical assurance that that is not the case. There is a problem here for Jersey. We cannot escape it; we cannot duck it. There is a significant problem here and if we did not address it, other people have said just now we would not be doing our job and would be open, quite rightly, to criticism. We have presented all the options that, so far, we are aware of and it has to be said that no new options have surfaced from the public during the consultation process and there are principally 4 options for the future as we see it. A few options did come forward; we would be more than pleased to embrace them. There are 4 principal options and the Island -- sooner or later the States --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Sorry, I was just slightly worried about the conversations going on because they will be recorded as background noise unfortunately.
Senator F.H. Walker :
The States and the Island, sooner or later, are going to have to make hard choices. All we have done is present those choices and I would totally refute any allegation that there is bias in favour of increased immigration. Indeed, the results of the survey and the results of the Imagine Jersey actually go firmly against increased immigration as the suggested policy (suggested way forward) to deal with this problem. The overriding concern of the people of Jersey, as consulted, is to protect the countryside. I think Deputy Southern has spoken at length this morning and I have not actually --
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I have asked questions at length, Frank.
Senator F.H. Walker :
I am happy to answer it. I would say to you that what we have done is impartial, essential for the people of Jersey and is not weighted in any direction whatsoever. The Council of Ministers has not come to any preconceived conclusions. The Council of Ministers has not got a hidden agenda as your question basically suggested. The Council of Ministers is doing nothing other than doing its job in flagging up a problem. Let me say in advance of most other jurisdictions who have exactly the same problem. Guernsey has the same problem; the U.K. has the same problem; France has the same problem. In advance of all those jurisdictions we have said: "Jersey, there is long term a major problem here. We have choices to make (difficulty choices to make) on how we address it. These are what we see as the options. What do you think?" Ultimately of course it will be for the States to decide and I have already said that will not be this year.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Thank you, that is clear, but let me probe a bit further because the problem comes, I believe, in some of the way that the data for the Imagine Jersey conference was presented. There are some issues over the presentation and the way that the presentations were put, and possibly there is a question on some of the conclusions, possibly led by the press, that have come out since. Can we probe this area a bit further and with a view to doing that I want to talk about the options one to 5 that you presented? Let us start with option one which was presented as no immigration. Perhaps you would like to talk --
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Patrick, before we go further down there, we were talking about 4 options. I think the 4 options we were talking about was growing the economy, working longer, inviting more people in. Those were the presented options. There are some points to make before that.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
We will come back to that.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I think there are some points we need to make before that on those very options before we move on to the scenario of growing the population.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Questions, okay.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Questions, yes, by all means. Peeling off your question about is it not led by economic growth and not looking after our old people, you have got a statement on page 8 of your summary of the officer working group which says that: "2 scenarios, 4 and 5, inward migration of plus 35 and plus 650 heads of household have been chosen because as they broadly equate to the amount of workers needed to generate 1 per cent and 2 per cent ground(?) growth in the economy." Your denial that it is led by economic growth is, I think, contradicted by that statement. Why have you chosen those scenarios because it is a clear statement there: they are chosen because they represent 1 per cent or 2 per cent growth in the economy and I remind you that 2 per cent growth in the economy is what we are aiming for now. So, they were not chosen to grow the economy.
Senator F.H. Walker :
If they are chosen to maintain economic health and grow the economy in context and in accordance with the States decision, yes.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Was that fact presented to any audience?
Senator F.H. Walker : Yes, absolutely.
Mr. B. Ogley:
Can I explain it is an officer working group? It was advice put in and that statement comes at the end of a discussion around what the options are to deal with the problems, and you look at page 7 because we have identified the fiscal deficit of £140 million and essentially it is seeking to see ways of addressing that fiscal deficit. I just need to step back from that for one moment which is why I was just whispering to Duncan to make sure my facts are right. It is about your "this is driven by a need to get people into the finance industry" alteration. I.S.A.S. started in 2002. It was essentially led by the then health and social services committee with the support of the employment and social security committee to assess the impact of the ageing society in terms of what we could do to support that ageing society. That was led in 2002, totally out with any economic, fiscal or other considerations. It was essentially a social desire to address this and it came out with, you will remember, the very thick report that identified the implications and talked about how we would need to invest in a whole range of services to support the increasing ageing society and identified at that point that there was a very significant -- it did not say a fiscal deficit but an economic deficit because we are going to have to spend a lot on that. We picked that up into this work. We immediately -- that went into that asked Oxera and our in-house economist and statisticians to start working on the implications of that; to explain to us what the future could be like.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
I do not think anyone is questioning the need for a survey and for us to think about the ageing population. No one is actually questioning that.
Mr. B. Ogley:
If you like I am explaining the process; how we got to this because I think if you understand the process of it, you will see that this is not driven by any desire to get to an end point other than to find out how we can invest appropriately in Jersey to meet the needs of that ageing society. So, we took I.S.A.S. We got from Oxera -- you have seen all the work from that. That identified choice. There was £140 million potential long run fiscal deficit if we did not do anything. So, we took that out and then into this officer paper, and I think it is right now that we talk about pages 8 or whatever, but at page 7, before we got to the page 8, we identified that there were options to address this which are (a) people paying more; (b) growing the economy by a range of means in terms of productivity; focusing on high value industries; (c) bringing 1,000 from part time to full time employment; (d) participation rates; (e) bringing people from inactivity to full time employment; participation rates; (f) working longer. We set all that out and then we said: "There is a fourth option which is about some migration to also stimulate economic activity" and we had to find a way of trying to describe -- and remember we came to you as the Migration Panel I think in April 2007 and you said to us: "Can you not find some way of separating out all of these factors and dealing with them in isolation?" and at that point we said: "We cannot see how we can do it because they are so interdependent and choices need to be made." So, we came up with a vehicle of trying to describe just 4 possible scenarios for the future which we have a mix of: (1) working longer; (2) increased participation; (3) increased economic activity; and (4) different migration rates because you have to see how they impact. It was the migration rates and the increase in the population which had all the significant environmental and infrastructure effects. What page 8 actually says is that we chose 650 to start with as a potential larger scenario because it did, on its own, equate to 2 per cent economic growth. Not because it was driven by 2 per cent; it equated to 2 per cent and it was quite clear that 2 per cent year-on-year economic growth was what was required for the Oxera work to fill the £140 million deficit if you were only going for that route. So, we started that and we put it there as there is the most extreme. What are the options in between? It just seemed to us sensible we choose one option halfway in between and that halfway between equated to 1 per cent. We have been very clear about that.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
I will come back to the halfway between choice in a second but I saw Senator Walker first.
Senator F.H. Walker :
Picking up your question, Patrick, if the underlying agenda was, as your question suggested and as some people would have us believe, was the case, it has been a spectacular failure because at no point in the survey or in Imagine Jersey did anyone, so far as I am aware, certainly no significant element of those consulted, come back and say: "Growing the population is the answer." If you look at pages 15 and 16 in the survey response, it was the least recommended option. So, I would put it you that if a conspiracy theory is right, then we failed spectacularly.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Geoff first and then you.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
However that then is built on by examining in some depth the options for growing the population with result that certainly on the day of Imagine Jersey 2035 they were asked to plump for a population growth figure and part of the balance of the trade off game at the end. Now, having said this is the least acceptable option they then were asked to plump for an option which is said in bold "growing the population." It came out to a relatively low figure, yes, which represents the absolute abhorrence that people have for it. Nonetheless that got translated (now, I know it is not your responsibility for that but I wonder how much you argued with it) to a headline in the J.P. (Jersey Press) that said: "Islands have say future. Says more immigration'" because as a result of the process that you conducted people have put a figure. The question is how come you ended up with headlines like that as a result of your process? Is there not something wrong with your process when the starting point was no to immigration and yet that managed to make its way, and it is not just about the reporting.
Senator F.H. Walker :
I am sorry, I cannot take responsibility for how the media reports on events such as that. It is entirely a matter for the media.
Male Speaker:
But did you refute that as --
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Did you refute that on the 21st?
Senator F.H. Walker :
Of course I do not refute what the headline says because quite properly the audience at Imagine Jersey were asked to make choices. Here is the problem: £140 million a year deficit by 2035. Now, of the 4 options in front of you, how would you like best to meet that deficit? Do you want to pay more? Do you want to work longer, et cetera? All of the tables quite independently came up with their own opinions. Significantly none of them came up with: "Let the population grow." A number of them came up with limited growth in immigration so that headline is, in essence, correct. It has chosen to focus on one element of what the people said but they chose balances. Some want to pay more in tax than others, some want to work longer than others and so on. Sorry, Patrick, I think this is important because the whole professional and the whole structure of Imagine Jersey is being severely questioned. It was put together by one of the world's most professional organisations in --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
So, you are happy with the level of integrity in the process?
Senator F.H. Walker : Absolutely.
Mr. B. Ogley:
Can I address one point? Nobody at Imagine Jersey - none of the tables or individuals - were required to plump for migration.
Deputy G.P. Southern : They were asked to balance.
Mr. B. Ogley:
They were asked to balance across the 4 options and we gave them at the end of the day an option of growing the economy, working longer, paying more, allowing some migration and we said to them: "You fill in that balance and you make the choices" and they had every opportunity in that process because we made sure we gave them cards that they could play to clarify the choices, and we made it absolutely clear: "You do not have to put anything in the migration number." It could easily have been nil. The consequence though, because we are asking people to balance because there is £140 million a year fiscal deficit to be closed, is that if you do not choose that, then you need to choose some more of one of the others.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Which comes down to how do we end up with that line like that from a process that you think is absolutely sound and I have some questions about. I think the process is illustrated by the consultation document which has informed the online and other -- the ongoing consultation. What we have got here
are the 4 options, as you say; perfectly adequate. Are they adequately presented? Option one: three- quarters of a page. Option 2: "working longer"; a brief paragraph. Option 3: "resident population pays more" which on the day was actually highly ranked; one line. Apart from saying: "The States have already taken steps to safeguard the economy by agreeing changes to the tax structure including blah- blah this is what we have done" and then the final line: "Paying more; a range of options available to pay more. These may include increasing taxes further, reducing personal tax allowances or encouraging more private companies to provide certain services. Healthcare: privatisation of healthcare is an option for paying for the elderly." Then, to my mind is -- never mind, we will not go there. But then turn the pages; 7½ pages of options on growing the population. Is that informed decision making? I would argue it is not.
Senator F.H. Walker :
You are entitled to your opinion, Deputy . We do not share it. None of our experts --
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Equal weighting. 7½ sides to one line.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Order please. Order!
Senator F.H. Walker :
We do not share Deputy Southern 's opinion.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Thank you. We are getting into the realm of political debate.
Senator F.H. Walker : If I may just go on --
The Deputy of St. Peter :
I promised myself a question earlier on and I would like to take it if I may.
Senator F.H. Walker :
Can I just complete this comment? The Deputy has suggested that there is an imbalance in favour of increased migration. I repeat what I said earlier: if that was what we intended, we failed spectacularly, but there we are. Hang on, Patrick. The reason that there is more space given to the population scenarios is that the population scenarios uniquely, depending on which level you choose, affect the environment, education, health; the whole infrastructure of Jersey and they need to be spelt out and if you look over the scenarios you will see what impact -- I have got 325 here; the page I happened to open. What impact would that have on our society; our population; the economy; health services;
housing and planning; education; infrastructure and resources including water, electricity and not least our environment? Those had to be spelt out. In the other, paying tax, you do not have that sort of impact. You pay more tax basically. It is much, much simpler and that is the only reason why there is more space devoted to those options.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
That is your answer - and please confirm whether my understanding is right of what you have said - is that you think that the population area is so complicated that you need to devote much more time to it, whereas the others are relatively simple ones and you do not think are easily understood.
Senator F.H. Walker :
Correct. None of this is simple but if we had not spelt out the consequences of -- just imagine we had one paragraph for "population growth" --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
There are so many options on tax though, Frank. Surely you could have -- no?
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Are we not going to spell out anything on paying more?
Senator F.H. Walker :
The options on tax is you pay more basically but if we had not spelt out --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Different sections of the community could pay more and other sections could pay a bit less.
Senator F.H. Walker : Possibly.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
It did not warrant a third --
Senator F.H. Walker :
That is for later discussion, is it not? If we had not spelt out the consequences - and they are consequences - of different levels of population growth we would have been accused of hiding it so what we have done here is come straight up front and said: "If people want this level of population growth, this is the price we have to pay." We have been totally up front with it and it is the first time that the States and the public have ever been given that level of analysis on the effects of population growth.
To add a fact to that, but actually none of the scenarios just deal with population because if you look at each of them it identifies that there is still a deficit to be filled if you went for that level of migration and then it says, as the Chief Minister picked up at 325, examples of how the £50 million deficit could be met; increasing the States pension age by 5 years would raise approximately £50 million. Alternative £50 million could be raised by increasing taxes or contributions which reads back to the paragraph that sets out, and bear in mind all the debate and discussion around fiscal strategy and the huge publication, to the public of the options that have already gone forward. So, we would also say that there are not 7½ pages just addressed to one option. There are 7½ pages addressed to all 4 options and all 4 options are reflected in each scenario and we were very careful about that.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
To maintain the flow of the discussion but Peter wanted to put a question based on what you said so I prefer to defer to Peter and come back.
Mr. P. Boden:
It is not an observation; it is a question. I just wondered whether you think it may have been more appropriate to avoid the sort of headlines about increasing migration to have been more explicit about the situation that is happening now rather than hypothetical scenarios because you were not really comparing the situation as it is now with, say, what has been happening over the last 2 or 3 years and then using that as the comparison on our 152, 53, 56, 50 because I do not think people were making that comparison. I think the event we were sort of making the comparison with the net nil scenario which is not necessarily a particular -- I understand why you do it because they do well, but not necessarily a realistic scenario so when people are being asked to make choices; choices such as the 250, 250 is a -- the headline suggests that 250 is an increase; more migration. In reality, is it? I do not think people knew because they were not given the statistics on what has been happening in the last 3 years. I know that is difficult because the picture we have got here of increasing levels of migration relate to an average picture over a 3 year period may have given a more appropriate benchmark for people to try and understand precisely where we are at at the moment.
Senator F.H. Walker :
I think that is a fair point. That information is available. Was it put to the forefront of the Imagine Jersey event? No. In fact, I cannot recall in the presentations that were made whether or not it was. I do not recall.
Mr. P. Boden:
I did not really get a feel for what is happening now? What is the situation now? The benchmark we were given was a net nil benchmark.
To answer that, and we have discussed this in the past, we would have been open to many accusations and probably reasonably based had we made any assumption about what likely future migration levels would be because there have been numerous States debates on this and the States themselves have never decided on what is an acceptable level of migration. Indeed, before I arrived I understand the last States debate was having a debate about should there be 100 or not, and the States could not make a decision. Therefore, if we build this and said: "We will assume there is 150 a year because that seems about what might have been happening." I do not know if it is what has been happening. It is around about that. Then what everybody would have said: "Well, you are just prejudicing the States decision because there is no decision on this" and actually the only decision is a 1 per cent increase in the workforce and we have always been at pains and the whole States have been at pains to make it clear that that 1 per cent banner was not a migration number. It was a workforce number.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
Sorry, Bill, I thought Frank said earlier we already had a Migration Policy and we did discuss it and wanted to in regulation Migration (P.25/2005) and Frank, just about 20 minutes ago, said apart from this, we are carrying on with that. This is a separate discussion.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
If I may now interject, please. We have a responsibility as politicians to deal with government. We also have a responsibility to people who are out there; the people who went to Imagine Jersey. I have had a chance to speak to quite a few; some were reasonably happy; some were not. We had a document on our desks yesterday at the States; I do not know if Frank has had a chance to read it.
Senator F.H. Walker : Where did that come from?
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
It is from a member of the public.
Senator F.H. Walker : I do not think I got that.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
I think it is important that you should see it because --
Senator F.H. Walker : Is that Mr. McCarthy?
The Deputy of St. Peter : No.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
It does not matter but the points that are in it are --
The Deputy of St. Peter :
The points that are in there are fairly representative of the comments that I have heard. I was going to ask you the question but if you have not read it you cannot respond.
Senator F.H. Walker : Ask away and I will try.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
No, it would be totally stupid to ask you something that you have not read because it will make no sense at all. It appears to give a fairly balanced view of what we are hearing. The question I would ask is could you respond to that because it goes back to public perceptions. It goes back to possibly a failure to put out in the public arena what you are telling us now because a message has to be put across; it has to be put across and it is not getting there.
Senator F.H. Walker :
I agree it is not getting there, Collin. I note the author of this; a well known conservationist/environmentalist and that is fine. I note that but I will come back to that if I may. Let me make a couple of observations: (1) you were there and you saw how people voted electronically.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
I was there for the first half; not the second half.
Senator F.H. Walker :
Okay. People continued to vote electronically in exactly the same way as they did in the first bit; just by pressing their buttons. At the end of the process we had an exceptionally high approval rating for the day. That is not me getting them to press their buttons.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
Frank, I am quite happy with that. If you go to a good theatre, you will get a good response. People will stand and clap.
Senator F.H. Walker :
We have not got that message over and I do regret that - and I will say this - that some elements in the media seem to have not balanced the output between, for example, more people coming into Jersey and paying more tax. It has focused very heavily on immigration.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
You did actually say - correct me if I am wrong - that it is not your responsibility to correct errors in the media. I think in part it is because --
Senator F.H. Walker :
If you like, Collin, this is one of the reasons why we issued the statement to you today. The statement will be going to the media and that is exactly one of the objectives of the statement and I have to say that a limited number of individuals - and I am not suggesting the author of the letter is one of them - both within the States and elsewhere, have misrepresented Imagine Jersey. But can I come back with a question if I may to you? We are focusing here on the integrity of the process. Where is that going to take us? There will be differing views on the integrity of the process. You will never reach agreement on whether the process was as it should be or not. The professionals say it is; a number of other people say it is not. But where is that going to get us? Even if the process was completely shot, which it is not, where is this going to get us? We have got to move the debate forward. We have got to continue to put the choices in front of an extended range of people and not least the States. I do not really see the point of --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Are you saying that the integrity of the process does not matter?
Senator F.H. Walker :
If the Council of Ministers were repeating something I said earlier, ah ha, we have got a clear mandate here from the public to grow the population - which I do not believe we have - but if we were saying that and we were coming forth with report and proposition which said: "Right, the public have said we should grow the population by a certain figure" then there would be a point to the whole questioning of the process. The fact is there has been a process which the experts say was very well undertaken. The integrity is in tact. It has given us an indication; nothing more; nothing less. The Council of Ministers will analyse the feedback; will come forward with its own comments and in time, as I indicated earlier, a very broadly based report with proposition, not aimed as has been suggested elsewhere at locking the States into some sort of permanent policy on population growth. Not aimed at that at all. That is a matter for future States. That is what we have done and we can go on, it seems to me, questioning the integrity of the process for ever. It is actually not going to change the problem or change the choices that we have to take to arrest the problem.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
You do not expect me to answer that question and I am not going to but are you saying by asking that question - by way of the answer to a previous question - that in fact it really does not matter too much about the integrity of this process?
Senator F.H. Walker :
No, I am saying this debate is obviously not going to lead us anywhere meaningful. The process was properly and professionally conducted but others will disagree. We will never agree.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Nonetheless the results of the consultation process will inform the high level strategy which you intend to bring to the States.
Senator F.H. Walker :
It will contribute to it. There is a difference between contributing to and informing, quite simply put.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Inform, I think. The word was inform?
Senator F.H. Walker :
Yes, and I said: "No. Contribute to." There is a difference.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
We have had the answer to the question.
Mr. B. Ogley:
Just 2 points of fact because the integrity is very important. When those people that were at Imagine Jersey were asked at the end to vote on how the day was run their answer was, overall are you satisfied how the day has been run? "Yes" 78 per cent. Did you feel you had your say? "Yes" 84 per cent. How confident are you that the States of Jersey will act on the result of today's event? "Very confident and quite confident" 60 per cent; "not confident" 40 per cent. All I can report there is what has been said by the people who were at that event. Clearly 84 per cent were satisfied and 16 per cent were not. We just have to ask who has been dissatisfied and --
Deputy G.P. Southern :
One question that was not asked was: "And do you feel you had enough information to make up your mind on the options presented?"
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
So, the question is does the Chief Minister feel that there was enough information? Is that your question?
Deputy G.P. Southern : Yes, the question is --
Senator F.H. Walker :
Do I feel they had enough information? Yes, and so does the response of the audience suggest that they
felt they had enough information.
Mr. B. Ogley:
Deputy Egré asked a question: (1) I think it is important to make it clear that nobody who is organising the conference - the officers or Ministers - have made any reports on the conference. The only reports are media reports. We will be making a full report when the whole consultation is completed of both all the consultation responses, what went on today, and the survey will be in there because it was not in the survey, and we will make a full report. I think there is a point, having read this, to make a quick point. One point is it is said here: "Bill will be presenting a hypothetical baseline scenario as the do nothing' scenario; net nil." I did not. None of the paperwork nor the way I presented it - because I was extremely careful - said it was do nothing. It said it is net nil which is a basis for continued debate and it is very interesting when you read this that what is almost being said is that we are confusing migration with population growth. This is making a fundamental point.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
The point I make, Bill: this went out to all States members so therefore --
Senator F.H. Walker : I did not see it.
The Deputy of St. Peter :
It went out the majority of States members so, therefore, it does require some comment.
Mr. B. Ogley:
It is extremely useful because it brings to light this point that people are saying: "Migration necessity means population growth." We were very clear at Imagine Jersey with all the pictures and graphs we put up to show future trends that acting net nil is population decline and 150 or even to 250 migrant head of households a year is effectively -- 150 I think is keeping it constant; 150 is some growth but then a plateauing off. It is an extremely useful contribution that we will need to respond to when we will publish the response to consultation rather than incomplete responses. So, it is very helpful.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
So, that is very important because, again referring to this document, do you believe therefore that the report in the J.E.P. (Jersey Evening Post) of 21st January, front page: "Islanders have say on future. More finance; more immigration; later retirement; more town homes." Do you feel that is a fair representation or do you feel there are problems with that, because that is where you are coming from, Bill?
Mr. B. Ogley:
It would have been much better had the headline said: "Overall protect our countryside. Come what
may protect our countryside" because that was, by far and away, the biggest feedback we got from both the survey and --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Would you like to comment on the difference between the 2 reports in the J.E.P. that are in this paper? The first one on 25th January which was the result of the survey rather than the conference, and the result of the survey was: "Keep Jersey green and control the population." Would you like to make a comment on that?
Senator F.H. Walker : That is accurate.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
There are differences between the 2.
Senator F.H. Walker :
We have had no input into the way the J.E.P. have reported either the survey or the event at all. That is a matter for them. We have had no input --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
The difference between immigration and actual population numbers, going back to Bill's point, you feel that is something that will need more emphasis?
Senator F.H. Walker : Yes, I think that right.
Mr. B. Ogley:
That is really important because what we would hope with the consultation response is not that we are going to feed back -- yes, of course, there is a lot of opinions but I do not think we would want to be feeding back more immigration. We would want to give feedback from the consultation that tries to put some specifics around what people have said either from the consultation or the exercise and address population.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
I am confused, Frank. I thought we had a Migration Policy (P.25/2005) which, yes, we are allowed to grow the workforce by 1 per cent which is 500 a year. You have always maintained ideally that we would like to get those people from within. We know - and I think the figures over the last few years pan out - that we did not get more from him. We have quite a few --
They do not come out that way at all but we can go into that.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
My question is if and when the high level on the population debate or the Imagine Jersey 2035, will that replace this? Is it as well as? Because we need to know exactly -- as you say if that pans out, if it is 250 in jobs created from people working or 250 from out. We need to know the starting point because net nil -- or we could already be in the middle and before we need a very clear line on where that is. So, is it a replacement? Is it a continuation? That stands then: (P.25/2005) stands as it was?
Senator F.H. Walker :
Yes. Let me say very clearly this Council of Ministers will not be bringing forward any proposition to change the Migration Policy as agreed by the States.
Mr. B. Ogley:
I think it is important to be very specific though on the Migration Policy for P.121. It did not actually set any numbers. The Migration Policy in the States decision was to define a process to monitor and manage population in future which is what we are implementing and it is set as the objective, and this is what States decided, is to create a balance between the effect of population change and issues like the economy, society and environment. The States policy is to create that balance. Everything that has been done since following on from the Ageing Society, Imaging Jersey 2035 is to present enough information for the States to actually determine where they want that balance to lie.
Senator F.H. Walker :
Can I emphasise 2 points: firstly I would emphasise the point I have just made to Deputy Martin that this Council of Ministers will not be proposing a change in the Migration Strategy nor will this Council of Ministers be coming forward with any specific proposals which may configure that or may not on numbers on the back of this consultation. That is not in our thinking at all so if the fear, if you like, is that the Council of Ministers is going to put a report and proposition to States which says: "We have got to grow the population by 325 or allow 250 more people in" that is not going to happen. That is just not going to happen. Again, I think it suggests very clearly that that is not our agenda, never has been our agenda and we are not going to put the States in a position to take decisions on those issues. The only proposition we may put to the States would be a very high number one indeed which will be for further debate in the next States and it may even by the States after that in terms of detail and how we actually precisely meet the problem that --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Is it the proposition though you are going to want a particular direction ratified by the States?
It depends. I cannot tell you at this juncture, Patrick, what the output of the Council of Ministers deliberations will be. Council of Ministers have not yet discussed the output from the survey or Imagine Jersey so I cannot say at this juncture how we are going to progress it. But the maximum that will happen will be a report and proposition on high level strategic issues to go to the States. At this juncture I do not know.
Deputy G.P. Southern :
Can I bring us back to the central premise that option 4 revolves around and ask you for your reaction to Professor Dolman's work? I am referring to 2001 work on replacement migration and he says: "Clearly demographic theory and numerous simulations have already shown that immigration cannot compensate for population ageing except with flows so large as to hugely increase population growth." What do you make of that eminent professor who has actually been to the Island and examined our situation? Do you hold with that?
Senator F.H. Walker :
You have not explained the context of those comments. Dougie or Bill could do that.
Mr. D. Peedle:
What is the paper that is in?
Deputy G.P. Southern :
The paper is a paper from March 2001 "replacement migration" referring to the United Nations paper that came out in 2000 on population migration.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Without actually --
Deputy G.P. Southern :
This is the core premise that we can contribute to solving the problem by increasing immigration.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
That is a good question and it is a relevant one. Basically what it says is that you are not going to cure these problems by immigration, I think. But without you having access to that paper we might ask for a written reply from you when you have had a chance to have a look at it. I think that would be fairer because we --
Senator F.H. Walker :
I am vaguely aware of the paper and there is a context to the comments which is not applicable, as I understand, to the current level of Jersey's economy but we will have a good look at it.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
It would be unfair to ask you to answer that question without furnishing you with the paper --
Deputy G.P. Southern :
I know. I will post the second question as well and we will probably include that, which he then goes on to say: "Immigration is impotent to stop ageing because the average age of immigrants is little lower than that of the natives." So, unless as we loosely talked about 5 years ago, we were talking about, "Ah, yes, we will only have young immigrants and young immigrants without families" which was immediately dismissed. How are we going to solve that problem of actually by and large immigrants --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
If you would like to react to those questions, by all means do so but we would also ask you -- we will furnish you with a paper and ask for a written reply. It is entirely up to you.
Mr. B. Ogley:
Thank you. We definitely will reply to that with a paper but if the question is do we believe that some inward migration can contribute to addressing this problem, we do because we have laid out all the facts why we believe using the statistical model, using the economics, we can see the contribution. We also -- the pay preference for our client was brought up previously and at Imagine Jersey which actually complemented our views and we are very comfortable on that. But we will respond in detail to it.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
I have got one last question and it is rather like the question from that favourite story of mine of the guy that climbs up a tree and says that you are all in the wrong forest and it is a complete waste of time. Is it possible to control the number of migrants coming into the Island anyway?
Senator F.H. Walker :
I think the answer to that right at the outset of the meeting today: yes, it is and we do. We do it currently under regulation of undertaking. I went into a certain amount of detail on how decisions are taken with Collin earlier. We do it currently through a regulation of undertakings and of course the controls we will have under the migration policy, when up and running, will enable even greater control than we have today. So, the answer is yes.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
I think really the subject of the question is without border controls.
Senator F.H. Walker :
Yes, it is because how many people will -- and we accept we cannot have border control but how many people will want to come and live in Jersey if they can either work or live or get a home essentially? That is the bottom line.
It was a slightly tongue in cheek question and I hear what you say. This has cross-references to the other side of the migration sub-panels review to do with the population register but we are not here to talk about that today. Unless there are any other questions from anybody --
Senator F.H. Walker :
Patrick, can I just ask Mr. Boden if he is satisfied with the level of information that he is receiving or is there any significant question or more information or better information that you feel he should be having or are you satisfied that you are getting everything necessary to draw your own conclusions?
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
I can answer that for Peter. If there are things he is not getting, rest assured you will be the first to know about it.