STATES OF JERSEY

OFFICIAL REPORT

THURSDAY, 24th SEPTEMBER 2009

PUBLIC BUSINESS – resumption

1. Connétable J. Gallichan of St. Mary (Chairman, Privileges and Procedures Committee):

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

1.2 Connétable G.F. Butcher of St. John:

1.3 Deputy P.J. Rondel of St. John:

2. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009): eleventh amendment (P.117/2009 Amd.(11)) continued

Senator S. Syvret:

Senator T.A. Le Sueur:

Senator J.L. Perchard:

2.1 Deputy T.M. Pitman:

3. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009): third amendment (P.117/2009 Amd.(3)) (paragraph 1)

3.1 Senator B.E. Shenton:

3.1.1 Senator P.F. Routier:

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

3.1.3 Senator J.L. Perchard:

3.1.4 Deputy T.M. Pitman:

3.1.5 Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade:

3.1.6 Deputy A.E. Pryke of Trinity:

3.1.7 Senator S.C. Ferguson:

3.1.8 The Deputy of St. Mary:

3.1.9 Deputy I.J. Gorst of St. Clement:

3.1.10 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

3.1.11 Deputy A.E. Jeune of St. Brelade:

3.1.12 Senator B.E. Shenton:

4. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009): nineteenth amendment (P.117/2009 Amd.(19))

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

4.1.1 The Deputy of Trinity:

4.1.2 Deputy D.J. De Sousa St. Helier:

4.1.3 The Deputy of St. Mary:

4.1.4 Deputy A.K.F. Green:

4.1.5 Senator B.E. Shenton:

4.1.6 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

4.1.7 Deputy F.J. Hill of St. Martin:

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

4.1.9 Senator P.F. Routier:

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

4.1.11 Senator J.L. Perchard:

4.1.12 Deputy A.E. Jeune:

4.1.13 Deputy I.J. Gorst:

4.1.14 Deputy E.J. Noel of St. Lawrence:

4.1.15 Senator S. Syvret:

4.1.16 Senator T.A. Le Sueur:

5. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009): tenth amendment (P.117/2009 Amd.(10))

5.1 Deputy S. Pitman:

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

5.1.2 The Connétable of St. John:

5.1.3 Senator S.C. Ferguson:

5.1.4 Connétable D.J. Murphy of Grouville:

5.1.5 Deputy C.F. Labey of Grouville:

5.1.6 Deputy M. Tadier:

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

5.1.8 Deputy G.P. Southern:

5.1.9 Deputy A.T. Dupre of St. Clement:

5.1.10 Senator B.E. Shenton:

5.1.11 Deputy T.M. Pitman:

5.1.12 Deputy J.B. Fox of St. Helier:

5.1.13 Deputy E.J. Noel:

5.1.14 Connétable J.M. Refault of St. Peter:

5.1.15 Senator S. Syvret:

5.1.16 Senator T.J. Le Main:

5.1.17 The Connétable of St. Mary:

5.1.18 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

The Deputy of St. John:

5.1.19 Deputy S. Pitman:

6. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009): seventeenth amendment (P.117/2009 Amd.(17)) (paragraph 6)

6.1 The Deputy of St. Mary:

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT PROPOSED

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT

The Deputy of St. Mary:

6.1.1 Deputy C.H. Egré of St. Peter:

6.1.2 Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire:

6.1.3 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

6.1.4 Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré:

6.1.5 Senator A. Breckon:

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

6.1.7 Deputy R.G. Le Hérissier:

6.1.8 The Deputy of St. John:

6.1.9 Deputy G.P. Southern:

6.1.10 Deputy M. Tadier:

6.1.11 Deputy T.M. Pitman:

7. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009) - paragraph (b) - as amended

7.1 Deputy D.J. De Sousa:

7.2 Deputy G.P. Southern:

7.3 Deputy T.M. Pitman:

7.4 The Deputy of St. Mary:

7.5 Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire:

7.6 Deputy M. Tadier:

7.7 Senator A. Breckon:

7.8 Deputy A.E. Jeune:

7.9 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

8. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009) - paragraph (c)

8.1 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf (The Minister for Treasury and Resources):

9. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009) fifth amendment (P.117/2009 Amd.(5)) (paragraph 1)

9.1 The Deputy of Grouville:

9.1.1 The Connétable of St. Brelade:

9.1.2 The Connétable of Grouville:

9.1.3 Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire:

9.1.4 Deputy T.M. Pitman:

9.1.5 Senator T.J. Le Main:

9.1.6 The Connétable of St. Saviour:

9.1.7 Deputy D.J. De Sousa:

9.1.8 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

9.1.9 Deputy T.A. Vallois of St. Saviour:

9.1.10 Deputy A.T. Dupre:

9.1.11 Deputy J.B. Fox:

9.1.12 Senator J.L. Perchard:

9.1.13 The Deputy of St. Martin:

9.1.14 The Deputy of St. Mary:

9.1.15 Senator T.A. Le Sueur:

9.1.16 Deputy K.C. Lewis of St. Saviour:

9.1.17 Deputy M. Tadier:

9.1.18 Connétable A.S. Crowcroft of St. Helier:

9.1.19 Senator A.J.H. Maclean:

9.1.20 Deputy A.E. Jeune:

9.1.21 Deputy S. Power of St. Brelade:

9.1.22 The Connétable of St. Mary:

9.1.23 Deputy I.J. Gorst:

9.1.24 Connétable D.W. Mezbourian of St. Lawrence:

9.1.25 The Very Reverend R.F. Key, B.A., The Dean of Jersey:

9.1.26 The Deputy of Grouville:

10. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009) - paragraph (c) as amended

11. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009) - paragraph (d)

11.1 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf (The Minister for Treasury and Resources):

12. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009) seventh amendment (P.117/2009 Amd. (7))

12.1 The Connétable of St. Helier:

12.1.1 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

13. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009) amendment

13.1 Deputy G.P. Southern:

Deputy S. Pitman:

13.1.1 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

13.1.2 Deputy A.K.F. Green:

13.1.3 Deputy S. Pitman:

13.1.4 Deputy D.J. De Sousa:

13.1.5 The Connétable of St. Helier:

13.1.6 The Connétable of St. John:

13.1.7 Senator B.I. Le Marquand:

13.1.8 Deputy J.B. Fox:

13.1.9 Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire:

13.1.10 Deputy M. Tadier:

13.1.11 Deputy R.C. Duhamel:

ADJOURNMENT

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

PUBLIC BUSINESS – resumption

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Perhaps I could just advise Members from the Chair that as part of the States Greffe business continuity plans with a view to matters such as pandemic flu, we have asked a number of our staff to take a turn sitting in the Chamber today to familiarise themselves.  If the “Catch it, Bin it” or whatever it is, Madam Minister, did not quite work for us, I am sure Members will understand that various staff are coming and going.  Secondly, it was agreed that the Chairman of P.P.C. (Privileges and Procedures Committee) would just give some initial thoughts on the matter of the continuity of this debate.  Chairman.

1. Connétable J. Gallichan of St. Mary (Chairman, Privileges and Procedures Committee):

The Assembly had set aside 4 complete, clear days for this debate and I would have hoped that it could have been finished within that timescale.  There is, as Members will well know, always a risk that debates can expand to fill the time available.  Of course, this is a very important debate and as Chairman of P.P.C. I would not wish to suggest that it should be hurried.  But I would urge Members to put across their arguments in as concise a manner as possible.  [Approbation]  On that point, and as less is quite often more, I would simply refer Members to Standing Order 104 which, among other things, requires that a speech by a Member of the States must be relevant to the business being discussed and that a Member of the States must not unduly repeat his or her own arguments with the arguments of others.  I fear that once the barrier of going into another week is broken, and having spent some considerable time last night trying to gauge the likely length of debate on the remaining business, it is possible that we could well be sitting not only on Monday and Tuesday but possibly on Wednesday as well.  For that reason, as a first step, I would ask Members to consider restricting the lunch hour today and tomorrow to one hour - from 1.00 p.m. to 2.00 p.m. - and to agree to work on until 6.30 p.m. or perhaps even 7.00 p.m. in the evening.  There is also a precedent for agreeing to start tomorrow’s sitting at 8.30 a.m.  When this was done during the 2003 Budget debate, a surprising amount of business was covered during that day.  If after these measures, if agreed, the debate is still not concluded by tomorrow evening, we will obviously have to agree either a continuation day or to carry over items to the next sitting.  As the whole of this week was set aside for States business, I am aware that many Members have a heavy schedule of meetings for next week and there are a number of important Scrutiny meetings and all States Members’ briefings scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, including, I understand, an Economic Affairs Panel Hearing on Monday with an adviser who has come over from Canada especially.  It is fair to say then that a great deal of disruption would be caused by meeting next week.  It would be possible to take the remaining Business Plan business at the next sitting on 6th October but doing this would require the Assembly to do 2 things.  Firstly, to take a conscious decision to finish the Annual Business Plan in October and not in September, as the Public Finances Law says that the Business Plan must be lodged in time for it to be debated and approved by the States at least 3 months before the start of that financial year or such other period as the States may decide.  I believe that a simple decision to defer to the first sitting in October would fulfil that requirement.  The second point, as a result of the Business Plan debate is required, of course, in order for the Treasury to finalise work on the budget, I believe that the whole budget process would need to be pushed back by one week as well.  Therefore, the States would need to agree to meet on 15th December for the budget debate.  I would ask Members to reflect on these options.  For now, I would propose a one-hour lunch adjournment for the remainder of this week and that the Assembly sits until 6.30 p.m. tonight.  At the close of business I suggest that we review how far we have got and make the decision about the start and finishing time tomorrow and about how to proceed thereafter.  Thank you.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

We do not wish to waste too much time on this but we obviously need to take the important points.  Deputy Higgins.

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

I just want to emphasise that the Economic Affairs Scrutiny Panel is not only meeting on Monday with a hearing with our adviser, we have also brought Oxera to the Island and we are meeting them during the lunchtime tomorrow and tomorrow evening.  We have other meetings scheduled as well and if the States does continue using this time period which we have set aside for this critical phase of our review in order for us to complete our work to bring it back to the States on 20th October, we will not make 20th October to report back to you.  That will mean that debate will have to go back 2 weeks, so I would hope Members will realise we are at a critical phase, we want to meet the timescales, but if the States carries on, we will not be able to.  Thank you.

1.2 Connétable G.F. Butcher of St. John:

Can I just make a short comment, something the chairman of P.P.C. has not mentioned?  I wonder if Members, in view of the timeframe that we have in front of us at the moment, when an amendment has been agreed by the Council of Ministers that we do not need to make long speeches on something that has already been agreed.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

She did address that point, Constable.  She did urge Members to keep to the point and keep relevant.  The Deputy of St. John.

1.3 Deputy P.J. Rondel of St. John:

I appreciate where the P.P.C. chairman is coming from but in my case I have prior engagements at 6.00 p.m. this evening and other Members may be the same.  She was supposed to come back with a plan, not immediately to be effective from this evening.  I will have to leave here at 5.30 p.m. at the latest [Approbation] because that is the procedure that we put in place: in these long debates we finish at 5.30 p.m.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Well there are 2 matters the chairman has proposed I think need to be decided immediately because they do affect today’s sitting; let us take them one at a time.  Chairman, you had proposed that lunch should be restricted, notwithstanding the comments - that the Members will have heard - of the chairman of the Economic Affairs Scrutiny Panel.  That related to tomorrow, chairman?

Deputy M.R. Higgins:

Tomorrow is the hearing with Oxera but we still have meetings today relating to that meeting tomorrow.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

So you are proposing, chairman, the lunch break today is restricted to one hour from 1.00 p.m. to 2.00 p.m.?

The Connétable of St. Mary:

Yes.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Is that seconded?  [Seconded]  Those in favour of restricting the lunch hour to one hour kindly show?  Unfortunately, we need the appel.  The one-hour lunch hour is proposed.  The Greffier will open the voting.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Secondly, chairman, you wish to propose the Assembly sits until 6.30 p.m. this evening.

The Connétable of St. Mary:

That is correct.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Is that seconded?  [Seconded]  The appel is called for.  I ask the Greffier to open the voting.  I ask the Greffier to close the voting.  That proposition is equally adopted: 34 votes were cast in favour, 13 votes against.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

As you say, chairman, the other matters can be addressed at the end of this afternoon’s sitting.

2. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009): eleventh amendment (P.117/2009 Amd.(11)) continued

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

The debate now resumes on the amendment of Deputy Trevor Pitman to the Business Plan.

Senator S. Syvret:

Just a point of order.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

You have already spoken, Senator.

Senator S. Syvret:

I am aware of that but there was some question yesterday evening about the information I provided to the Assembly in my speech.  I just wanted to inform Members that I have in fact emailed a good deal of material around last night.  I am more than happy to answer any questions to clarify any points that I made in my speech.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

It is not Question Time, Senator.

Senator S. Syvret:

Members may wish to question me; I am just indicating that I am entirely happy to do so.  I also indicated last night in an email that I would distribute today some further evidence which showed the Chief Executive to the States of Jersey to be a liar.  [Members: Oh!]  That is now emailed to all Members and it can be found on their email system now.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Chief Minister, you have also spoken.

Senator T.A. Le Sueur:

I have also spoken but I did, yesterday in the States, ask the Senator - who made, I believe, comments in his privileged position - to substantiate allegations of improper conduct relating to States employees.  I asked for evidence of that and so far I have seen nothing which I would consider as evidence of those allegations.  I have a duty ...

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Is this a speech, Chief Minister, or is it ...?

Senator T.A. Le Sueur:

No, I believe that in failing to produce that evidence, the Senator has made an unfair slur against States employees, employees who are unable to defend themselves in this House.  [Approbation]  They cannot speak here but I can speak on their behalf.  In view of the fact that the Senator has been unable to substantiate the allegations, I call upon him formally to withdraw the allegations until such time as he can give evidence to genuinely substantiate them.  It is not fair to our employees that they should have allegations like this hanging over them maybe for days, weeks or months, never substantiated and I do urge the Senator to withdraw them now in the interests of treating our employees fairly and in the interests of natural justice.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

You have asked a simple question that requires a yes or no answer from the Senator.  Senator, I simply require a yes or no from you, are you prepared to withdraw the allegations?

Senator S. Syvret:

The Chief Minister made assertions in his remarks just then to the effect that I have provided no evidence.  I have, in fact, provided evidence and I am not prepared to withdraw ...

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Senator, are you prepared to withdraw the allegations or not?

Senator S. Syvret:

I am not prepared to withdraw one word of what I said because it is all true and it is demonstrably true.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Very well, thank you, Senator.  Please resume your seat, we are in the middle of a debate on an amendment of Deputy Trevor Pitman to paragraph (b) of the Business Plan.

Deputy T.M. Pitman of St. Helier:

Could I ask you for clarification then of where we are?

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Late yesterday afternoon Senator Syvret gave his views on the Communications Unit and made certain assertions.  He was asked to produce evidence he had and, as he said, he has emailed all Members 3 times overnight with a number of documents and explained that other material he has is not currently available in Jersey.  It is entirely a matter of political judgment for Members to decide whether or not they are satisfied the documents provided substantiate the assertions made by the Senator.  This is not the time or the forum to adjudicate on whether or not Members consider that Senator Syvret may have abused [Approbation] that vital privilege of freedom of expression that he and other Members enjoy in this Assembly.  If any Member wishes the matter to be investigated further by P.P.C. or another body, that is a matter for another time and we must proceed with this debate.  I am not prepared to allow the normal rules of debate to be further set aside and pursue the issue and I wonder if any other Member wishes to speak on the amendment.

Senator J.L. Perchard:

Yesterday I gave notice of my intention to propose closure.  The half hour has transpired and I would like to, as is my right, propose the closure of this debate on the amendment.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Yes, just checking the time, Senator.  The Deputy Greffier assures me that the correct notice was given; you are entitled to propose that.  Is the proposal seconded?  [Seconded]

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

Can I ask how many people wish to speak?

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

None on the Bailiff’s list at the moment.  Very well, I do not believe it is, at this stage of the debate, an abuse of the procedure, therefore the proposal is in order.  The vote is therefore for or against the proposal of Senator Perchard that the debate be closed and Deputy Pitman invited to sum-up before the vote.  The Greffier will open the voting.  If all Members who wish to do so have cast their votes.  The Greffier will close the voting.  The closure motion is adopted 32 votes in favour, 15 votes against and

Senator S. Syvret:

Could we have the 15 against please?

The Deputy Greffier of the States:

The 15 Members voting against: Senators Syvret, Le Sueur, Breckon, Ferguson and Maclean; the Connétable of St. Lawrence; Deputies Fox, Southern, Grouville, Gorst, Tadier, T. Pitman, Vallois, Higgins and Green.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Accordingly I call upon Deputy Trevor Pitman to reply.

2.1 Deputy T.M. Pitman:

I was only going to offer - and it is not ideal for me in the light of the confusion, and I do not know the procedure - if we could have just deferred this so whatever evidence is coming forward from the Chief Minister or Senator Syvret could be presented.  It is not good for me but I was happy to do that if it was possible.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

I do not think it can be deferred, Deputy, because we are in the middle of an amendment to this paragraph.  You could seek leave to withdraw it completely but I do not think we can defer, unfortunately.

Deputy T.M. Pitman:

That is all I wish to know, thank you.  I thank the Member but I do not think I should withdraw it; we have come this far, let us get on with it.  I would like to say that I thank almost every Member who spoke indeed.  [Laughter]  However, I am not going to respond to what Senator Le Main said other than to thank the 31 people who, I have to say, contacted me last night to express their disgust at the behaviour and the interruptions and I will say no more.  Senator Le Sueur, the Chief Minister, talked about the efficiency of what he saw is the Communications Unit and the importance of it and linked this to their mandated role.  I had no problem with any of that.  I would agree with him on many of the issues; I just wished he would have talked about some of the problems now but that is his call, so thank you for that.  Senator Shenton, he said that he did not even know what the Communications Unit did, which was interesting.  Perhaps that explains why he was only a Minister for 18 months, I do not know.  He also raised the very pertinent issue of how many people will vote to keep the Communications Unit in this form and will vote against very important calls for funding for respite care, so a very good point; something to keep in mind.  Deputy De Sousa felt she could not agree with me on my kind remarks to the Treasury Minister’s speech.  She thought the Communications Unit is there for spin and was a waste of taxpayers’ money.  The Deputy of St. Mary, again, he raised some very good points.  I do not think he was quite sure which way he was going to vote but he recognised the need for communication.  He did really put his finger on a lot of the problems which I will not go through in detail: the form design; the fact that they only work for the Council of Ministers.  He did raise an interesting issue that it would be nice to have a breakdown of the percentage of what they do and who they do it for.  He really used the example of Imagine Jersey and the damage that he said had been done with the way that unfolded.  Senator Ferguson made some very good points.  She highlighted the very different and the excellent role of Scrutiny and the officers, and the way they deliver their press releases and evidence.  Although I have different political views to Senator Ferguson, I think we have a good enough relationship to tell her that I often wished she would sit down and stop speaking when she is giving her take on global warming, which I obviously differ with, but on this occasion I wish she had carried on talking.  Because my experience of Scrutiny, not just our own officers, Sam and Liz, but all of the Scrutiny Officers, the way they deliver their work, put across just fact, evidence, completely unadorned, I think is absolutely brilliant.  [Approbation]  It really highlighted for me the concerns I am getting at, as I felt if the Communications Unit, whether it continues, if that is the approach that can be taken, then it would be all so much for the better.  The Senator also talked about subliminal messaging but I do not think I am qualified to go into that in detail, or the capabilities of Mr. Ingram and Mr. Campbell, so I will not go on to that.  Deputy Noel, he felt that he could not support the proposition, that the work could not be absorbed within Ministers, their Assistants and officers.  He drew attention to my statement about this within my report.  Interestingly, he also mentions the good work done with swine flu.  If he had looked further up the page he would have seen that I do use that as an example of the good work that Communications Unit do, so I agree with him there.  Deputy Maçon, he viewed the Communications Unit as just “nice to have” and something we could do without in these tight economic times and he was going to support the proposition as well, so I welcome him for that.  Deputy Southern, when Deputy Southern, my colleague stood up to speak, I did wonder for a moment whether he had too much sun last week on his holiday because he seemed to be saying that Senator Le Main was his inspiration for staying in politics, so he did momentarily throw me.  But after that he went back to his usual incisive manner and talked about the need for the Communications Unit and Ministers, all of us, to put across the real facts; not just selected bits to show things in their best light and he was going to support the motion too.  The Deputy of St. John, he paid real tribute to the Home Affairs Minister and the way he tells it how it is and linked this to how the Communications Unit should operate.  He also was going to support the proposition.  He spoke about how he felt we no longer had investigative journalism as he felt we had when he first came into the House.  He also made the point that we pay our civil servants “top dollar”, to use his words, and the Ministers’ departments should be able to do much of the reports and work, et cetera, undertaken by the Communications Unit themselves, so I thank him for his input.  Deputy Tadier spoke first about he felt we did not perhaps need the Communications Unit to represent and advertise the Island or communicate overseas, and raised the issue of perhaps whether it should be focused locally.  He asked the question: “Who does the Communications Unit represent?”  A very valid question, I believe.  Deputy Tadier also raised the issue of the Historic Abuse Inquiry saying with such an important issue he would have really expected an absolute top job with advice to Ministers in a very difficult situation.  He felt that the Council of Ministers at the time - obviously the previous one - had been made to look stupid and he highlighted the press conference.  He asked for confirmation that the Communications Unit were involved in that, which I think was given later by Senator Syvret.  He closed by saying that maybe it was time to disband and have a rethink, and it is probably one of the lines I am suggesting, really.  Senator Ozouf, again, I have absolutely no problem with Senator Ozouf’s comments other than one point which I will come to later.  He talked about individuals and I think I touched on that in my speech.  In answer to Deputy Tadier, he highlighted what he felt were clear differences between the need to have representation abroad; he talked about Financial Services.  He highlighted the difference saying that we do not have in place a full-party political system yet, so there were some differences there and could not be really compared.  He made the observation that what we all put around sometimes has an element of spin and that is, of course, fair comment from the Senator; I would not disagree with him.  What I would disagree with him, and I think, again, Senator Syvret highlighted this, is whatever a Back-Bencher may put out and whether subliminal leanings creep into it, none of us do that with taxpayers’ money, so I think that is a very important issue to acknowledge.  As I say, I have no problem with any of the Senator’s comments; I welcome them.  He did say that he felt I cast aspersions on the members of the Communications Unit and I have to say that that is not the fact.  I have criticised the work they do but it is certainly not a personal attack on any of them and if anyone took it that way, then I am happy to clarify that, but it is certainly not the case.  My problem is the way that some of the work has been delivered.  The Deputy of Trinity talked about the Communications Unit being vital, highlighting the flu pandemic, again, something I touched on in my report.  She said it would have been impossible without their input.  I would have liked her to say about how Health managed before the Communications Unit; how they coped then and was it Health Officers who put the message across?  Senator Syvret was next.  He started by referring to Senator Le Main’s speech, pointing out that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.  I was going to talk about that but I was glad that the Senator did because I could not remember who said it but Senator Syvret obviously has a bigger book of quotes than I have.  [Interruption]  Yes, he probably phoned Deputy Le Hérissier, so true.  The Senator also talked about his concerns about manufacturing consensus within the Island and manipulating people to think a certain way.  He used the example of Imagine Jersey to say how opinions were manipulated by leading them in a direction that they could almost only come to one conclusion.  He asked the very relevant point whether taxpayers’ money was being used for the benefit of all or, as he put it, to the advantage of what he called a “de facto political party”.  He also made the point about his concerns about press releases and content that the media has put out, people should just focus on honestly and I think that is something for everyone to dwell on.  The Historic Abuse Inquiry, the Senator stated that the Communications Unit were indeed heavily involved and he felt responsible for the press conference which is now, I believe, featured on YouTube according to some Members.  He highlighted this as an example of what he felt were the failings of the Communications Unit.  I do not want to go too far into this but the Senator stated how the Communications Unit ran campaigns containing what he felt to be were half-truths and even slurs against individuals, and flagged this up as an issue that really needed further investigation which I think we are going to have now or later, hence my offer to defer the debate.  He stressed strongly the fact that the Communications Unit should have no mandate or leeway for spin because it was taxpayers’ money at the end of the day and it should be giving just facts.  I think the Senator was the last one to speak and I do apologise if I have missed anyone out.  I would just say to the House that in many ways I have achieved part of what I wanted to achieve because I have raised the issue and they are genuine concerns.  I fully respect that people have different political views on this.  That is politics and I think that is a good thing.  My concerns were genuine, this proposition was brought for good reasons.  In its present form I do think £203,000 would be far better spent possibly on matters such as respite care, areas where we are being squeezed due to the current situation.  But the fact that this has been raised I think can only be of benefit to the Island.  It can certainly only be of benefit to transparent and democratic government.  With that I would really just, again, thank everyone and hope that we can maintain a nice, tight debate and make the proposition, call for the appel, and wish everyone a lovely lunch.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Very well, the Members are in their designated seats, the vote is for or against the Eleventh Amendment relating to the Communications Unit in the name of Deputy Trevor Pitman and the Greffier will open the voting.

3. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009): third amendment (P.117/2009 Amd.(3)) (paragraph 1)

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

We come now to the first part of the Third Amendment in the name of Senator Shenton and I ask the Greffier to read that amendment.

The Deputy Greffier of the States:

On page 3, paragraph (b), after the words “withdrawn from the consolidated fund in 2010”, insert the words “except that the net revenue expenditure of the Health and Social Services Department shall be increased by £475,000 to provide funding for adult respite care.”

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Now, Chief Minister, the Council has presented comments on this amendment but perhaps you could clarify to the Assembly your position on it.

Senator T.A. Le Sueur:

I think the sentiment of some of those comments may still remain but in the interests of a good debate and in recognising the excellent work that needs to be done in respect of respite care, we have come to the conclusion that we will not maintain any opposition to this amendment.  [Approbation]

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

With that in mind, I call on Senator Shenton to propose the amendment.

3.1 Senator B.E. Shenton:

In light of the Chief Minister’s comments obviously I will keep this speech fairly short.  It was not going to be a speech designed from a political level.  The amendment was brought out of a genuine need to provide funding for an area of our society where too often more important things have taken the funding away from them, and they have never quite sort of risen to the top of the tree with regard respite funding.  Although the proposition and the amendment is in my name, I feel, after speaking to many Members of the Assembly, that this is an amendment that is agreed by most Members of the Assembly regardless of their political persuasions.  I would just like to thank Deputy Power, Deputy Tadier, Deputy Green, Senator Routier and Senator Perchard for their assistance in putting the proposal together and also the assistance of members of staff at Health and Social Services who obviously I had to contact to get the facts and find out where the provision was needed.  I think a lot of people when they are calling for cuts probably do not even know where Maison Allo, Oakwell or Aviemore are or see the good work that they do.  We have a number of carers in society that look after people suffering from mental or physical disabilities that as a child we provide reasonable facilities.  But, of course, people grow up and people are living longer and it does put a tremendous burden on the carers.  To be honest with you, it would be a false economy not to accept this amendment because if we drive people into institutional care because the carers cannot look after them any longer, it is increasing the cost to us and the cost to the taxpayer.  So I would thank the Council of Ministers for accepting the amendment and I would like to put it forward.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Is the amendment seconded?  [Seconded]  Senator Routier.

3.1.1 Senator P.F. Routier:

Firstly, I just need to remind Members of my voluntary position which I hold as chairman of the charity Les Amis which provides full-time care for children and for adults with multiple physical and learning disabilities.  I have campaigned for over 30 years for services for people with learning disabilities and I have no intention of stopping now.  In fact, it was 16 years ago, before I was a Member of the States, that I met with the Presidents of Health and Social Services to ask about respite care.  It was at that meeting that I decided that I would stand for the elections because I was not getting very far with them at that stage but I think things have changed a little bit since then.  It has been suggested to me that because of my interest in it I have a conflict of interest, but I do not agree with that at all and I believe that I should take part in this debate.  I am obviously thrilled that the Chief Minister has now decided to accept this amendment because it is vitally important that respite services are provided to families within our community.  There are, of course, people living within our community who do try and continue to live in the community with the obvious support of having respite care.  As the proposer of the amendment said that if you wanted to be mercenary, for instance, you would support this because it is a cheaper option for you because otherwise the States would end up having to support people in full-time residential care.  I am not sure that Members will realise that this proposition, although it is focused on supporting adults in respite care which is desperately needed, this will, in effect, also help children’s respite services as well because there is a pressure within the children’s respite service who is currently looking after children who have grown up, who have now become adults, who would be more appropriately cared for in an adult respite service.  So there is pressure in the children’s respite service and also in the adult’s respite service, so providing this additional support to adults will ease up places for children who are now adults or to move into the adult service.  But in saying that, even if we approved this today, the children’s respite service at Oakwell still needs additional support because they have had their service restricted in recent times.  They are now closing at weekends and on bank holidays, which is not the best of things to be happening, and I hope at some stage that the Minister for Health and Social Services will be able to find the necessary resources to replace that service which has been restricted in recent times.  I am grateful to the Minister and the Assistant Minister, Deputy Noel, for taking the time to visit Les Amis last week.  I hope they will be able to confirm that the current service that we provide at Les Amis is in a constrained building, it does not provide what would be expected to be a proper service at the present time because the building was originally developed for children and the rooms are very, very small.  We do our very, very best within those confined circumstances but I should mention that Jersey Mencap, the parent charity which I am president of, has launched a project to have a full respite service in a new building.  We will take on that commitment of finding the building but certainly the funding that will come from accepting this proposition will help us to fund the service within a new building.  I am delighted that the Council of Ministers has now accepted this and I do hope that all Members will get fully behind it.  I know the Minister for Health and Social Services and her team are fully behind it as well and want to ensure that there are good respite services within the Island and I thank all Members who do support it.  Thank you.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

I will just remind Members the amendment is accepted and those speaking in favour may wish to [Approbation] keep their remarks relatively brief.  Obviously, any Members who wish to speak against the amendment will no doubt wish to speak at greater length.  I have seen Deputy Green.

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

I will cut out most of what I was going to say and thank the Chief Minister and the Council of Ministers for supporting this.  But there are some things I would like to just pull out of this because I think it is quite shameful that we find ourselves in this position today where an amendment had to be brought.  Most Members of this Assembly - there are a few exceptions - have no idea what it is like to be a carer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, day in, day out: never to be able to eat a meal in peace, never to have an uninterrupted discussion with friends or your partner, never being able to vary your arrangements in terms of going home, holidays are impossible, a simple trip to the pictures denied, a peaceful soak in the bath impossible, the list is endless.  As I say, few people would understand what it is like to have that level of stress; not day in, day out but year in, year out.  The only release that comes from that is on the person, the carer’s, own death or the death of the person they are caring for.  Clearly, something is wrong when carers look forward to going into hospital for surgery, not because it will relieve the condition they suffer from - and I have seen many cases of this - but because it will give them a day off.  Something is very, very wrong.  We have been in a position where we have been for years employing social workers, which is a complete and utter waste of time unless we give them the tools to do the job, and we are going to do that today; I am pleased to see that.  It is no good writing good care plans and action plans unless there are facilities there for those plans to be fulfilled, and I am delighted that we are going to see that today.  [Approbation]  There has been a total lack of understanding by officers in the Department of Health and Social Services of the pressures carers find themselves under, the need for good community support for children and vulnerable adults.  It is estimated in the Carers’ Strategy that there are 10,000 carers in this Island.  Mencap do an excellent job around people with learning difficulties and some young children.  I am looking forward to seeing the Green Paper from the Minister on the people with dementia but there is a whole raft of people not catered for.  Frankly, I am delighted to see this money come in but I doubt that it will be enough but it is a good start.  The lack of understanding is evidenced.  The lack of understanding of the support that the carers need is evidenced in a number of ways.  I have to question the advice that the Minister and her team were given at the start of this Business Plan process with the shutting of Maison Allo and places like that.  [Approbation]  How can the department justify a reduction in the budget for those elderly suffering from dementia of over 25 per cent reduction in that budget since 2005 and a 49 per cent reduction in the rehabilitation budget for elderly since the same time?  This has got to stop.  Senator Shenton’s proposal has started the move in the right direction and I urge Members to support it.

3.1.3 Senator J.L. Perchard:

In the interests of efficiency, there is little to add to what Senator Shenton, Senator Routier and Deputy Green have just said and I will not repeat what they have said.  I just want to say I do question the priorities that the Council of Ministers give to spending programmes.  Deputy Green has highlighted the difficulties of a carer and the cared-for person and the incredible circumstances in which they have to function.  We expect carers to manage without reasonable support and it is not only questionable priority as to whether the Council of Ministers have their priorities right; we see massive investment at the airport, for example and the tightening of the belts at Health and Social Services.  Not only do they have their priorities wrong but they also have their business model wrong.  There are approximately 10,000 people in Jersey who are involved in caring for their loved ones.  It is estimated one in 7 of us, in some way, are involved in caring for somebody who needs support.  Of course, there are massive degrees of that level of support.  But if 0.25 per cent of those carers just say: “I cannot cope.  I have to give up, I cannot do this”, that means 25 people will come into the care of Health and Social Services.  Those people will probably have complex needs.  That is quite likely to cost in excess of £50,000, more like £100,000, per client.  Not only does the Council of Ministers have their priorities wrong in the moral debate but they have their priorities wrong in the business debate here.  This is nonsense.  For them to have considered rejecting this proposition was wrong and I am delighted and I thank them for having second thoughts.  The Carers’ Strategy is a draft that the new Minister for Health and Social Services has circulated and hopefully will be seeking funding.  The Carers’ Strategy, it is vitally important that we do fund it; it is an investment.  It is a sound business investment which the Treasury surely will support and it has to be right to support carers in the community.  These unpaid heroes need our support.

3.1.4 Deputy T.M. Pitman:

Again, I want to just follow on from the last 2 speakers; all speakers really.  Senator Perchard raises some excellent points.  I have seen, certainly from family circumstances, how people have to struggle to look after a loved one once they have had a series of strokes, even having to transport them to hospital and things when they are 78 years-old themselves and unwell.  As I said the other day, we need to get back to looking at causes and not treating symptoms because that is how we will save money long term.  Deputy Green raised the points that I really wanted to talk about with the carers.  I thought he might just touch on young carers as well, because I know that he will be aware that there are many of those; I have been fortunate enough to work with quite a lot.  For them the problems and the strains are perhaps even greater because you are still developing and you are almost being an adult before your time.  The other part of that, of course, is you do not get to be a child and that, as I say, we really need to find - I think we are moving towards finding - a better way where money might be spent.  It might seem a lot but in the long term what we are getting back is worth that tenfold because we are enabling all people to play a part in the community.  I just pay credit to Senator Shenton for bringing this and, of course, I will support it.

3.1.5 Deputy M. Tadier of St. Brelade:

Yesterday may not have been our finest day but I think we have achieved something very important here in this decision and I think it is important that I personally, in one sense, thank the Chief Minister for his decision for changing his mind.  I think credit where credit is due.  One is often criticised for criticising, sometimes unduly or sometimes validly, but I think this is a correct decision and that has to be acknowledged.  The Council of Ministers could have remained hardnosed and tried to justify on a superficial level purely economic grounds, but as we have heard from Senator Routier, it would have been a false economy because in the long term I believe it would have lost us money and, of course, there is a human price.  The reason I rise to my feet is that I did not really do much in all this; I was on holiday a lot of the time when all the negotiations were going on but I did act as a point of contact for 2 parishioners.  I will not talk at length but, briefly, they are 2 parents and they have very different situations but in some ways very similar.  One is the parent of a child with severe autism; the other a parent of a child who I believe has cerebral palsy.  Although the conditions themselves are very different, the requirements for the parents and the rest, which Deputy Green pointed out, are absolutely important.  These are people who work very hard.  They often never ask for anything and the little they do get is always gratefully received.  For example, I believe that in the past they have benefited from one night a week where they know that they can put their child into a place of care and the children will be looked after, and that simply gives them one night off a week where they can do things we take for granted like watching television, having a bath, things that were mentioned only a moment ago.  This was exactly this that was being threatened.  It is very much an issue when the child gets over a certain age and they no longer qualify automatically for certain benefits.  One person in particular, rather than being offered one night off a week was being offered 2 half days, and although it seems like that adds up mathematically, it is not the same at all.  It is very important, and I cannot stress that enough, the parents have a complete break to really recharge the batteries and also to get away once in a while from the Island.  Not because they want to do that; because it is necessary just for their own sanity and their own wellbeing.  So I think what we have seen today is really a triumph for compassion, it is also a triumph for democracy because this really started at the grassroots.  Some of us had varying amounts of knowledge about the problems and also the commitment that these carers put in, but it really started off from the parishioners themselves getting in contact with the Deputies or the Senators, and the Constables as well, of course, advising us that there is a problem.  It really shows that things can change and that we are not right to be cynical all the time.  The system can work and it serves as an example for people really to get engaged in politics at a grassroots level, I believe.  I do just have a couple of further points to make.  I imagine we will hear from the Chief Minister and I would like to know what caused this U-turn.  I am not asking that to crow; I am really asking just so that we might get an insight into it.  I would also just give one last point as a warning to us all to maybe search our souls.  Because we will all support this today.  I am sure that when it comes to the vote and an appel will be called for, that it will have unanimous support.  But I would also say that if the Council of Ministers had not accepted this amendment, which I am glad that they have, I wonder how many people would have voted against it.  Certainly one should have been the Chief Minister.  That really has to lead us to question how many times do the Council of Ministers get things wrong; when they do not do a U-turn?  How many of us who want a debate go simply along with them purely because we have trust?  That is not to disparage or diminish any of our judgments, it is just simply to say that people do have some trust in the Council of Ministers; is that trust always well based?

3.1.6 Deputy A.E. Pryke of Trinity:

I rise really to thank people for comment and especially those that are mentioned and I will add to that the good service that is provided by different organisations like Les Amis, Maison Allo, Mencap and others.  This is a very difficult one: do I rule my heart or my head?  I am very much aware that I have had a big budget and hopefully will be supported with the next amendment.  I also want to make sure that Senator Shenton’s proposition in the report focused on children with special needs.  This is a big area and will need to be addressed and with this funding, I hope that it will go some of the way, but also it is wider than that.  It is special needs and also adult respite care and those other vulnerable groups such as the elderly and those with dementia that would benefit from respite care.  It is very difficult to single out one area rather than another because all of them have their own special needs.  This will become even more important as we go into future years because of good medical treatment and good medical intervention, as we all know that we are living longer and those with special needs and the elderly will fall into this as well.  I just want to mention briefly because we are looking at all these issues and Senator Perchard mentioned the Carers’ Strategy of which he was the start of it, under his ministerial, and I commend Members to read it, but more importantly we are looking at this.  We are taking the broad approach and under the chairmanship of Dr. Margaret Bayes it is progressing, so we have not just been sitting back idly doing nothing.  It is important that any strategy that we do put in place is broad and encompasses all areas.  That is the most important thing that I want to get the message across.  It is progressing and there is a policy team led by Jurat Myles who is away, who, I am sure most of you will know, leads by action.  It will be put in place over the next year and the following years.  So, a lot of work is being done and we have to look at this right across the board.  As people have mentioned, it will need more funding and that is one of the challenges that I will have next year and future years.  I do not want to do it by piecemeal.  I want to make sure that what is in place is going to be fit for purpose and is going to help every single one that needs respite care.  I would like to thank the Chief Minister too that we, the Council of Ministers, have changed our minds and I will leave it there.  Thank you.

3.1.7 Senator S.C. Ferguson:

I would just like to reiterate the fact that I think everybody here has their own particular area of caring that they support and there are different types of respite for different types of situation.  I agree entirely with Deputy Green.  Like him, I do have some experience of this and whatever else, you do develop a wonderful sense of black humour.  My particular area is the number of the aged and we are considering the carers, but I would also remind people that better respite for the cared for is in their own homes and in familiar surroundings.  That is an area that we do need to keep in mind plus the necessity for helping the carers when they find themselves in a state of caring.  If it is a child looking after a parent, you suddenly realise that there is a total role reversal and you are not the child any more; you are the parent and that psychologically can be incredibly difficult.  Thank you.

Senator S. Syvret:

Could I just propose a point of order?  There is a Standing Order, is there not, about repetitious and time-wasting speeches.  We did discuss the nature of the business we have to get through earlier this morning and I am sure we could all stand up and speak for 5 or 10 minutes [Approbation] about how strongly we support this proposition but I really think, given that it is not contested any more, I would urge Members simply to get on and accept it.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

That is a helpful intervention, Senator, I am sure Members will bear that in mind.  I saw the Deputy of St. Mary. 

3.1.8 The Deputy of St. Mary:

I take Senator Syvret’s point but I do have some experience in this area, as I worked for Jersey Mencap for a number of years with people with learning difficulties, not that that is directly relevant to this but I have been sensitised to these issues.  We have to remember that this amendment originally was opposed and now it is accepted and I am really thankful to the Council of Ministers for their change of mind and we have heard exactly why from other speakers.  I just wanted to make 2 points: one is that in their original comments and, remember, these opposed this and it is so important to get this right for the future that it is imperative that funds are invested in the high-risk areas already identified.  Now, Deputy Le Hérissier asked a written question, I think, in the last session - perhaps this one - and he asked about the prioritisation process within the Health Department.  All S.M.T. (Senior Management Team) members on 19th May were formally requested to identify, based on their professional opinion, the 10 “lowest priority service areas” with regard to risk to patient life/urgent care.  That is what this is about.  It is about the fact that if we always just do what is urgent, what is necessary to save lives, we are not going to find the money for this sort of amendment.  I am so glad that it has been accepted, I am so glad that it has been taken on board but I hope that it is a structural change and that we do not see that kind of wording again because that is so important.  The other little point is that also in their comments the Council of Ministers originally objected to this on the ground that it was not quite ready and that somebody else was working on it: the Carers’ Partnership Group.  I fully support their work but to say: “Well we are not quite ready, so maybe not the money now and maybe later” I am so glad that we are voting the money; we are saying that this matters, this has to be committed to and within that group and within Health in general, we will find out how to spend the money in the best way for this purpose.  I think that is the right way to go and I am so, so pleased and, of course, will vote for the amendment.

3.1.9 Deputy I.J. Gorst of St. Clement:

I will try to be quick.  This is, in my view, just a start and we will not fully get to grips with all the issues that are outlined in the Carers’ Strategy until we finally get to grips with appropriate funding for Health for these particular individuals.  I am of the belief that individuals that need this sort of care should have individual funding packages so that the care can be provided from the money that we provide for them.  Over the course of the last 24 hours Senator Syvret sent a number of emails with attachments to Members.  I do not wish to comment about most of them but I do wish to draw Members’ attention again to one of them and that was where he gave his critique of New Directions.  I think that there is some very valuable and informative points made in there [Approbation] and in actual fact he is right when he says we need to get to grips with Health funding in the long term.  He suggests perhaps a European-type social insurance scheme for topping up healthcare.  I have to say that I personally think that that probably is the way forward but we must stop having these sorts of debates, coming and arguing over small amounts for small improvements [Approbation] and finally, once and for all, get to grips with the big picture.  Thank you.

3.1.10 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

I realise that a lot of people have spoken.  I said yesterday that somebody has to be the financial conscience.  My heart tells me that this should be supported but my financial head, without a commensurate income-raising measure or the appropriate funding tells me that we cannot or should not, and this is extremely difficult.  I fully understand and accept, and the Health team and I have been looking at issues of dementia and care, of which there are equally compelling arguments that could be made and I support them.  The reality is that this Assembly is going to have to deal with and this amendment is going to be accepted.  I am going to abstain from it because I am going to have to remain independent and deal with the revenue-raising consequences.  Health has a budget of £167 million.  It has been increased by £10 million this year and there is going to be a consequence of that.  Deputy Gorst is absolutely right that we have to deal with the fundamental issues of healthcare funding and I am going to do that.  If Members want to support this amendment, then I have to tell them that there is going to have to be a revenue-raising consequence of all the amendments and the consequences of a £10 million additional investment in Health in the budget and that has to be against the promise of no new taxes.  But we are going to have to look at it; there has to be a financial consequence.  I will do my best but I need to be the financial conscience of Members and say that there is income-raising.  I do not think we should debate this much more; it is going to be accepted.  I will take the signal of the Assembly and deal with the serious consequences that this imposes on us.

3.1.11 Deputy A.E. Jeune of St. Brelade:

J.A.C.I. (Jersey Association of Carers Incorporated) was set up by Soroptimist International of Jersey of which I am a member and therefore declare an interest.  I believe we all know that the respite services are lacking in the Island.  But I do not believe these knee-jerk financial arrangements are going to address the main issue which is dealing with the long-term care in a co-ordinated, joined-up, well-managed and resourced manner.  What has been discussed this morning appears to have tended far more towards children respite services and my understanding is this proposition is about adult respite services.  I would be grateful if the proposer, in his summing-up, would clearly identify that this £475,000 is going to be put to adult respite services.  Thank you.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Well, I think Senator Shenton can address it in his summing-up.

Deputy M. Tadier:

I just have a point of order, and it is a point of order because I believe it does need a ruling from the Chair.  A moment ago we heard great groans when the Deputy of St. Mary stood to speak, and even though that is his democratic right and it was not a particularly long speech either, we have other Members who subsequently have stood up to speak and that was quite valid.  You do not hear groans on this side because [Approbation] if you excuse the language, it is damn rude.  Now basically I would like a ruling from the Chair because I think this is a divisive practice and after yesterday’s shenanigans it only serves to bring the House into disrepute.  So I would like a ruling from the Chair as to whether groaning is allowed when certain Members stand up and others do not.  [Laughter]

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

The tradition of the Assembly is one of courtesy and respect to other Members and we do not have the bear pit attitude, luckily, that prevails in other parliaments but one cannot, nevertheless, prevent Members from occasionally expressing the feelings they may feel about other Members.  I do not think I can say much more than that but I think all I would say is we do, luckily, have a tradition of respect and courtesy that perhaps does not prevail in other parliaments around the world.  I call on Senator Shenton to reply.

3.1.12 Senator B.E. Shenton:

I am going to be very brief.  I would like to thank all those Members that have spoken.  I think I will ask for the appel because I would like to send out a signal that this is fully supported.  There are just a couple of very small points.  What I would suggest to the Treasury Minister and to the Council of Ministers in future is that when you do your Annual Business Plan you start with a clean sheet of paper.  At A&E (Accident and Emergency) we operate a triage system where you deal with the more important aspects of illness, so on and so forth first and then deal with the less serious cases later.  What happens at the moment is we have the set budgets and you start off with the budget base.  I think if you started with a clean sheet of paper you would find that Health would deserve a lot more money and perhaps some other departments like Economic Development and Education would warrant less money.  With regard to Deputy Jeune, I think the proposition which is fairly short and fairly straightforward says: “The net revenue expenditure of the Health and Social Services Department shall be increased by £475,000 to provide funding for adult respite care.”  I do not really think that you can get much clear than that.  I would just point out to Deputy Jeune that I have been a Member of this States for 4 years and my father was a Member of the States of Assembly for a very long time before that and too often we spend all our time writing reports and saying what we are going to do without putting the funding in place to do anything.  [Approbation]  These carers, they are caring for people today.  They cannot sit around and we cannot say to them: “Well you can go to the pictures in 2012 because we have a few more reports to write.  There might be some good films on then.”  With regard to the Minister for Treasury and Resources about identifying funding, the whole point of the Annual Business Plan and separation of the budget was so that we did not get into the base where you are saying: “Well we fund our respite care by putting 2 pence on a pint of beer” which is what we do with television licences.  This has to be funded.  There is waste in the States and I think the Minister for Treasury and Resources, if they did start with a clean sheet of paper, would be able to identify the waste.  I would ask for the appel.  I thank the Council of Ministers for supporting this.  I thank the Assembly for supporting this because I think it is supported by most politicians.  As I said before, this amendment, although it is brought in my name, I think it is brought by the majority of Members in this House and I ask for the appel.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

The vote is for or against the Third Amendment in the name of Senator Shenton.  If Members are in their designated seats I will ask the Greffier to open the voting.

4. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009): nineteenth amendment (P.117/2009 Amd.(19))

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

The next item on the running order is the Nineteenth Amendment.  Chief Minister this is an amendment that was lodged by you under Article 11(5) of the Public Finances Law after the normal 14-day notice period.  Do you wish to ask the Assembly that be taken today?

Senator T.A. Le Sueur:

I do, yes, please.  I apologise to Members for bringing this somewhat late in the day but we have been trying it this way and that way to see how we can resolve some of the issues facing the Health and Social Services Department.  At the end of the day, we felt this amendment was necessary for the delivery of good health services next year and I would therefore ask the indulgence of the Members that we be allowed to debate that this morning and provide some extra funds to Health.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Are Members content to debate this amendment this morning?  I see no dissent so I will ask the Greffier to read Part 1 of the amendment.

The Deputy Greffier of the States:

Page 3, paragraph (b), after the words “withdrawn from the consolidated fund in 2010”, insert the words: “except that the net revenue expenditure of the Health and Social Services Department shall be increased by £1,100,000.”

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Is this a matter you are presenting, Chief Minister, or ...?

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

Well the proposition is in my name so I think, probably in fairness, I should bring it myself.  Earlier this year I spent some time at the General Hospital talking to medical staff at various levels and I became aware of the pressures they were facing.  Over the past few weeks I have become even more acutely aware of those pressures and the need to address them urgently.  Together with my fellow Ministers, I spent many hours discussing with the Minister for Health and Social Services an acceptable way forward in coping with the many pressures her department faces.  I have to say that recognising those pressures, the Council of Ministers earlier this year identified the need for additional funding and sought ways of finding additional monies for the Health and Social Services Department.  Members will see that even in the original Business Plan we provided significant additional sums.  The Minister for Treasury and Resources mentioned the sum of £10 million; it is significantly more than that and is more like a 10 per cent increase in their budget.  We did hope that with such a significant increase in their budget they would be able to deliver these services that they need to provide to an acceptable level.  But I accept that since that time a new Minister for Health and Social Services has been appointed and she has needed time to come to terms with the actual scale of the problems facing that department.  Along with every other Minister, she has had to look for savings in her own department in order to achieve our objective of not adding to the overall spending burden.  She has faced pressures, just as other Ministers have, and throughout the summer I know that the Minister for Health and Social Services has looked at every way she can to balance her budget and to find the required level of savings; real savings which can be delivered in the coming year.  I should pay tribute here to the way in which she and the Minister for Social Security have worked together in a constructive and positive way.  Evidence of that is the fact that £900,000 has been identified as a potential charge to the Health Insurance Fund subject to certain changes in those funds’ legislation.  But nonetheless, even with the full co-operation of Social Security, who have come up with nearly half that £2 million shortfall we have, there remains a balance of just over £1 million to find.  I believe that it is essential that this money is spent and I am therefore bringing this late amendment to our Business Plan.  It is brought in my name to comply with Article 11 of the Public Finances Law but I think it is really brought in response to the pressures which I know that the Health Department and the Minister for Health and Social Services are facing, particularly in the areas of nursing and medical staff, the problems that they are faced with: overtime levels, manning levels and the need to give those staff proper working conditions in order to deliver their job more effectively for the benefit of their patients.  I therefore propose the amendment.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Is the amendment seconded?  [Seconded]  The Deputy of Trinity.

4.1.1 The Deputy of Trinity:

Since becoming the Minister for Health and Social Services at the end of April this year, one of the most difficult tasks and challenges has been to put together this Business Plan.  The Assistant Ministers and I came to it in the middle of discussions which were already being held regarding the Business Plan which, as you know, initially caused great concerns to the members of the public and to this House.  Having listened to the concerns of Islanders, I went back and revisited some aspects of it and brought forward a revised Business Plan and this draft is in front of you today.  But I want Members to be under no misapprehension that my department faces significant cross-pressures right across the board because every service we provide affects people, children and families.  Over the last month of finalising the Business Plan, my Assistant Ministers and I have strived to balance the very urgent need to under-funded areas, especially in critical services, but also recognising that the Island faces severe financial constraints.  This is why one of my Assistant Ministers, Deputy Noel, has financial responsibility in this area.  I am determined to look ahead and take Health and Social Services forward to make it fit for the 21st century.  But that does not come without its difficulties, one of which is the Business Plan.  To achieve this looking forward, we need to learn from the past and move on, improve a service which in turn improves staff morale and undoubtedly improves the life and health of us all and I have a great responsibility to every single member of the community.  A service that is continually being asked to look back with reviews, reports, et cetera, just drifts, gets nowhere and achieves very little.  I do not want this and I hope this House does not want it either.  I cannot achieve this alone and it has been an effort by all the staff and, very importantly, will need help and support from this House.  This year this Business Plan is the beginning of that process.  It has significant investment in specific areas, especially investment in drug therapies that increase year on year with no regard to inflation.  For this reason the Business Plan incorporates a £300,000 increase in the department drug budget.  A further £1 million investment is included to support older people who are discharged from hospital into suitable care in the community.  A £1 million investment is also included in acute services and provision of U.K. (United Kingdom) specialist treatments.  Another £400,000 is being directed towards the mental health services with regard to building safer society initiatives; an additional funding to Les Amis to support those clients with special needs.  One of the main investments is to implement the Williamson Plan with £2.8 million earmarked for 2010.  At this point I am grateful to the Health, Social Security and Housing Scrutiny Panel for their review of services to vulnerable children.  My response to their review will be coming out shortly.  I aim to lodge the Williamson Implementation Plan soon to the Council of Ministers prior to it being lodged in this House.  There have been some amendments as a result of the review as well as input from Andrew Williamson and the independent chair of the Child Protection Committee, as we are a year further down the line.  I am determined to put this plan into place to enable our service to move forward and improve services for our vulnerable children in Jersey as soon as possible.  But in looking forward I also need to take account of the individuals affected by the Historic Child Abuse Inquiry.  Investment is included to support these victims and their families to have psychological trauma support.  This is to ensure that they get the professional help and support they need to move forward in their lives.  But I would be failing in my duty if I did not look at savings.  Any organisation, department, even a household budget needs to look at where savings can be made.  I have done that and have a demanding programme of efficiencies across the departments.  One of the main ways will be the first States departments, other than the Environment Department, to be ECO-ACTIVE business accredited.  I am delighted with the staff’s initial reaction to my war on waste and hope to deliver this important agenda in the next 12 months.  Other efficiency savings have been achieved without resorting to any compulsory redundancy or significant reduction in service levels.  But this leaves me with a shortfall of £2 million.  This is partly addressed by my colleague, the Minister for Social Security, who is working with me to bring some sensible solutions to the delivery and funding of care in the primary and secondary sectors and I thank him and his department for that.  We will be bringing these proposals to the House for debate before the end of the year.  The remaining £1.1 million is contained with this amendment 19.  I have been very grateful for the support of the Chief Minister, the Council of Ministers and especially the Minister for Treasury and Resources for his wholehearted support for bringing forward this amendment to increase the net revenue expenditure of the Health and Social Security Department by that extra £1.1 million in 2010, and by similar sums the following 2 years to address those vital frontline nursing pressures at the hospital.  I believe it is important, as I explain in some detail, why this amendment is necessary and, if Members allow, I will explain why this figure was not included in the original Business Plan.  As I have already described, as most of you are well aware, Health and Social Services have come under significant increase in demand for services.  This is mostly due to the obvious impact of an ageing population but in no small way by the increasing demands of a number of other fronts, not least relating to the needs of children and the preparation and planning for an unprecedented mobilisation of healthcare workers to offset the worst outcomes associated with the pandemic flu outbreak here in Jersey.  However, this amendment relates to a fundamental risk at the heart of healthcare and that is insufficient nurses to run our wards.  Looking forward, I am delighted with our progress to grow our own nurses but this takes time: 4 years before the first locally-trained nurses will be on the frontline.  Also to add that we have cadetship, as well as encouraging Year 10s and 11s from secondary schools to have a look at how the staffing and midwifery staff work at the hospital.  We are looking forward.  But meanwhile we are losing well-trained professional nurses to other countries as a global demand outstrips the supply and there are a number of issues that sit right at the heart of this but by no means is there one issue that is causing our nurses to leave the service.  But we also see many of our nurses moving across the organisation from other areas where there are very heavy workloads, to those areas where staffing levels, sickness levels are lower.  Although I have been at Health and Social Services for a short time, I have walked all around the wards, met the staff and seen how the nurses are going the extra mile time and time again covering extra shifts, working with a patient workload that is getting older and sicker.  These increased dependency levels of patients means that more nurses are required to care for them.  From June 2007 to June 2008, data was collected across the General Hospital, Mental Health area, Older People and Special Needs area; in total, 35 inpatient areas.  This provided the data for a comprehensive and independent staffing review.  Statistical analysis and best practice benchmarking was provided by Professor Keith Hurst from the University of Leeds.  The result of the review recommended a minimum number of nurses per occupied bed ratio and also a minimum staff mix ratio - that is the percentage of qualified nurses to healthcare assistants to sustain a safe shift pattern.  This research demonstrated clearly that staffing levels across Health and Social Services were inadequate compared to other jurisdictions in similar hospitals.  The research recommended investment in support of an additional 64.5 full-time equivalents at a recurring cost of £3.2 million required over a phased period of 3 years.  Unfortunately, these plans did not come forward at a time to coincide with the business planning process but that is abundantly clear today and what was a chronic staff shortage is now an acute one.  Much can be said of: “Did we not realise it was coming?”  There has been an unprecedented change over the last 6 to 9 months with more people being admitted into hospital.  I now have very detailed plans to increase spare capacity at the General Hospital so as to be able to reduce the bed occupancy to a maximum 85 per cent and to increase nurse staffing levels across those areas most badly affected by the shortages.  If this additional money is agreed today, I will begin a 3-year phased investment in nursing staffing levels across Health and Social Services equating to 39 full-time equivalents in 2010.  The increase in staffing level must be carefully phased so that appropriate training and safeguards can be put into place.  It will also begin to address the issues of medical manpower where the hospital needs to improve its own out-of-hours senior medical staff to cover high risk areas such as acute emergency, A&E Department and emergency medicine as well as obstetrics and gynaecology.  While there is much work to be done to address recruitment and retention in nursing in Jersey, this investment will help to break the cycle of overworked staff leaving the Island and the profession and the hospital’s over reliance on expensive overtime, agency and bank staff.  I come to you today to inform you that this risk provision to safeguard Health is rapidly increasing as the situation with retention escalates and I urge Members to support this amendment so I am able to provide a safe, high quality care across the Health Service.  I would also like to, at this point, thank the officers and staff of Health and Social Services, including the management team.  It has been very challenging and it has not been helped by all the changes that have taken place at Ministerial level.  Be under no illusion.  We all have learnt from this process but we all will move forward together.  2010 will be difficult but we will rise to that challenge.  The Minister for Treasury and Resources has asked for a comprehensive financial plan of the whole of the department.  This is an important step as we move forward to 2011 and beyond where there will be undoubtedly more demands on the service due to improved medical and surgical treatments, new drugs as well as a changing demographic profile.  I very much welcome this comprehensive review and look forward to working with the Minister for Treasury and Resources and Deputy Noel to achieve this.  We have to have a service that is fit for purpose.  We will need to look at what type of Health and Social Services this Island needs and requires for the future and to ensure that it is properly funded and we all need to do that together.  With the support of my Assistant Ministers, Council of Ministers and this House, we will take Health and Social Services forward to one of which the Island can be proud.  I ask for that support today by approving this Business Plan and this Amendment 19.

4.1.2 Deputy D.J. De Sousa St. Helier:

I will say, first of all, I am, and I am sure most people in the House here today are, going to wholeheartedly support this, but I do feel I must say that the Minister for Treasury and Resources has just very vociferously spoken about having to find an extra £475,000 for adult respite care and told us in no uncertain terms what we must do and think about where these savings are going to come from to fund this.  Now we are being asked to find £1.1 million and he has seconded this amendment.

Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

Sir, would the Deputy give way?

Deputy D.J. De Sousa:

Can I just finish and then you can come back afterwards please?

Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

Carry on.

Deputy D.J. De Sousa:

Go on then.  [Laughter]

Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

All I would say is that I was not suggesting savings.  I was suggesting that there was going to be commensurate income lines and, therefore, charges and taxes.

Deputy D.J. De Sousa:

Along the same lines but the money has to come from somewhere.  I believe that every area of Health needs extra funding and all areas are equally important.  It is just as important that carers are provided assistance, otherwise, there will be increases on nursing care and beds putting a strain on staffing as the Minister for Health and Social Services has reiterated.  So, therefore, I cannot see what the difference is.  We have to, in this Annual Business Plan, come up with what we need and then the budget comes later.  I will be backing this.

4.1.3 The Deputy of St. Mary:

I will be brief but I was so amazed at some of the things the Minister for Health and Social Services said that I felt I had to perhaps ask for clarification from somewhere on the Council of Ministers’ benches.  Of course I welcome this amendment.  It is another of those: “The money has to be found.”  But to pick up on just a few of the things the Minister said towards the end of her speech.  If I heard her correctly and if I noted it down correctly, she said that there was research done recently that showed that we needed a further 64.5 full-time equivalents over 3 years in terms of medical staff in the hospital but these plans did not come forward into any Annual Business Plan for some reason to do with timing and I was not quite sure what.  But there is that research, it was not done and so that is the first strange thing.  The second was she rhetorically asked me and I did not realise it was coming ... and then mentioned that there were more people coming into the hospital over the last 9 months.  I am sorry but I do not think this problem is about more people coming into the hospital over the last 9 months, unless that can be substantiated that the numbers have gone up really in such a way that the whole budget is blown sideways.  The third is this issue of staff retention or staff loss talking about a cycle now of overworked staff leaving the Island and reliance on more expensive, obviously, agency staff.  Now I would just like to finish what I am saying and I am quite happy to make the point of the more expensive agency staff.  Now I remember following the whole prison saga as a reader of the J.E.P. (Jersey Evening Post) and the struggles that Senator Kinnard had to get funding for the prison on the same basis.  There were overworked prison officers.  They were leaving, they were under stress, they were going off sick and they were doing overtime as well.  They were stuffing the holes with overtime because they did not have enough staff and I think they were hiring agency staff as well.  I may have got that wrong but I think it was overtime or agency or both but a similar problem at the prison.  Now we learn 2 days ago in our J.E.P. that the Acting Police Chief is saying that he is below staff, he has not got his complement and so the police will have to reduce their service to the public and he can go on with this for maybe a year but the cracks will begin to seriously show.  What kind of false economy is that?  So we have this kind of picture of not quite dealing with the fundamental issues, as Deputy Gorst pointed out in his speech about the last amendment, and we cannot go on like this.  We have to learn the lessons and I do hope the Council of Ministers learn the lessons from this.  I heard from the Minister that there will be a comprehensive spending review.  Well, you will find what you are looking for and if you are looking for efficiency cuts, you will find them but I do suggest that there are not many more efficiency cuts to find and the good Minister did say that she is pursuing ECO-ACTIVE.  That is the way to go.  You will save money by turning down the heating and so on.  There are big savings there but the fact is the problem is deeper and I just hope that the Council of Ministers and this House learns the lessons from this amendment.  Thank you.

4.1.4 Deputy A.K.F. Green:

I have to say, when I first read the proposition, to say my gast was flabbered would be an understatement.  I was not sure whether I was going to support this or not and I will explain why but I think the Minister has convinced me of the need to support his.  I meant no disrespect to the Minister for Health and Social Services when I said I was not sure whether I was going to support it or not because she really has - to use a sanitised Army term - been handed a crock of effluent.  [Laughter]  I was extremely surprised, like others.  Sorry, I could not resist that one.  I was extremely surprised, like others, that the Minister for Treasury and Resources, who is normally very prudent, has agreed to this amendment - but maybe he knows more detail than we know - on what is the sketchiest of information.  Okay, it is highlighted a little bit more by the Minister but I suspect if I or any of the other Members had brought a proposition on that sort of information, it would have been thrown out saying: “There is not enough information there.”  I might be persuaded and I think I have been persuaded to support this but I have some concerns and these concerns are what has happened to the nursing posts that were there and what has happened to the budget that was there?  What I would like the Minister to do is perhaps go back to 2005, and maybe 2006 and 2007, and look at the establishment and look at the funding that was there and find out where it has gone because I suspect we will find that the nursing posts were there, that the budget was there and they have been used differently.  Now that is rewarding creative accounting and it is rewarding poor management.  The Minister for Home Affairs could make the same decision: “Well, I will move some money out of the police workforce into some other budget and then scream that I have not got enough policemen.”  We, I would suggest, had sufficient there.  I would like to know what happened to those posts and what happened to the money.  I know we are in a situation now, we need to do something about it, so I have been persuaded to support it but I am not happy.

4.1.5 Senator B.E. Shenton:

Deputy De Sousa makes a very good point and I note that the Minister for Treasury and Resources has not spoken yet, so I would ask him whether he is going to abstain on this vote, seeing that the funding source has not been identified.  It seems rather strange that he seconds something and then abstains on it.  I would also ask him why, when they rejected my carers’ strategy proposition, they said it was partly because I had not identified any savings and yet this proposition has been brought forward without identifying any savings.  [Approbation]  There seems to be one rule for one and one rule for another.  Thirdly - again directed at the Minister for Treasury and Resources - there is a massive job to do at Health and I am well aware of that, being a former Minister for Health and Social Services, and I would just like to say to him that snide remarks made at the I.O.D. (Institute of Directors) debate about the previous political leadership at this House is neither helpful nor professional.

4.1.6 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

Deputy Green is absolutely correct when he has serious questions about previous Health budget increases which have gone on nurses and what I need to say to Deputy Green and others is that I fully accept that this is not good or acceptable financial discipline for this Assembly and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable.  But the new Minister for Health and Social Services and I and the team, together with the Chief Minister, over the last few weeks have spent hours and hours with the Health officials and with the Health Finance Director working as a team to try and get to the bottom of the scale of issues that she and her team are making.  I have confidence in the Financial Director of Health.  We are getting good information now and we are getting to a real better understanding of the different areas of expenditure pressure, et cetera.  It is quite simply that we have arrived at a position where there was no alternative but to give Health, for 2010, this additional money in order to increase the nursing establishment.  Of course there is going to have to be a consequence in dealing with income.  In relation to Senator Shenton’s comment about why the Council of Ministers was not initially supportive of the proposition for the carer strategy, it was not particularly thought through and worked out in detail.  There now is a plan by the Minister for Health and Social Services to work through a healthcare strategy and it will be delivered and income will have to be found from somewhere.  A comprehensive spending review is underway or shortly will become underway - which is what he asks for - in terms of Health spending, in terms of Education and Social Security and there are going to be some difficult choices that are going to have to be made.  In relation to snide comments, well, I am sorry about that but - and I am saying absolutely the truth in relation to this - none of us on the Council of Ministers appreciated until a relatively short time ago the scale of issues that the Minister for Health and Social Services was dealing with.  None of us did.  The previous political individuals that have been responsible for Health, I think, share some responsibility.  I hear Senator Perchard.  He started some good work in relation to bringing the funding pressures to the attention of the Council of Ministers.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Let us not turn this into a political debate.

Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

Exactly, but all I will say is there are unresolved issues and this proposition before the Assembly represents a catch-up that ought to have been made some time ago.  It is difficult to say but we are now getting to the real heart of the issues with Health spending and there are challenges.  I am going to support it but I recognise the fact that this is not good financial management and we are, from a public point of view, going to have some explaining to do to the public when we finally tot up the amount of additional spending.  The public do not want to see additional spending in terms of States spending, they do not like the taxation consequences for it but there is a clearly a catch-up in Health, which is what this proposition is about, but there are also some hard questions that Deputy Green raises which we are going to have to deal with in the comprehensive spending review.  I intend to bring those answers to this Assembly with the Minister for Health and Social Services and then we will find out what happened in the last 10 years.

4.1.7 Deputy F.J. Hill of St. Martin:

I feel, again, we are having a gun held to our head, but it is all right, folks, it is going to come from the Council of Ministers so we can then cave in.  Well, I am going to cave in.  I was always going to cave in because I think we have got to spend this money.  However, is it a false economy, as the Deputy of St. Mary has had to say?  Are we, again, throwing money to solve a management problem rather than spending time dealing with the problem?  That is the problem.  Deal with it.  You talk about staff morale.  Of course their staff morale is low.  They are frustrated.  They just feel that things are going on and no one is taking any interest.  Someone has to take some concern.  Someone has got to do something about it.  I am delighted to hear that the Chief Minister and, indeed, the Minister for Treasury and Resources have spent hours discussing the financial issues at the hospital.  I wonder, did they spend any time looking at the suspension issues which is costing thousands or millions of pounds now [Approbation] not just hundreds of thousands, we know.  Millions of pounds and what are they doing about it?  Nothing.  We now have 3 doctors suspended at the hospital.  How much money are we going to spend to get that one sorted out?  In fact, I gather the Chief Minister and the Minister for Treasury and Resources are members of the States Employment Board.  So there we can be saving money right away by doing their job and doing something about it.  I am going to support it and I hope Members will.  I hope we will not spend too much time talking about this but can I make one plea?  Get the simple things right and more complicated things will fall into place.

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

I am pleased to hear that the Chief Minister has found his way to going to the hospital recently and looking at the issues and, again, in his speech, he makes that point that he has gone there to understand these issues and, more recently, gone back again to understand them more fully.  The Minister for Treasury and Resources is now taking an active role in understanding those issues, as is one of the Assistant Ministers, Deputy Noel, in helping the Minister for Health and Social Services achieve these important objectives, one of which has been something that has been coming on the horizon for a number of years; the shortage of nurses.  I have been informed somewhere where there may be a pool of nurses that has not been explored, and I will share that with the Minister for Health and Social Services- after this debate, and maybe perhaps that could be an area that they could look into.  So then that really brings me back to the point: “Has this all been thoroughly thought through?”  In defence of Senator Perchard and in defence of Senator Shenton, I was on Senator Shenton’s Health Committee - that is the previous Senator Shenton - in 1999, 2000 and 2001 and we were considerably pressured at that time for all of the same reasons that we are pressured now and we were consistently failing to keep within budget and at risk of running over our budget and breaking the Jersey Finance Law.  We were constantly sending Acts and notes and having debates with the Finance and Economics Committee of the day who were practically deaf to our appeals.  I think the Vice President of the Finance and Economics Committee at that time was Senator Ozouf, I think the President at that time was the Chief Minister and I believe Senator Routier was in there as well.  So when people talk about the failing of management at Health and when people talk about the failing of political responsibility at Health, I am sorry, it is not a failing of any political responsibility at Health; it is a failing of the States of Jersey to take onboard the issues in a holistic way.  We all share - me included - in the blame that lies rightfully at our feet for the poor investment and the lack of attention to our Health and Social Services industry and services in this Island over the last decade.  I can speak for the last decade because I have experience of it.  Possibly before, but certainly in the last 10 years, it was not just those involved with Health, as the Deputy of St. Martin would bear me out and Senator Le Main as well.  We sat on the Health Committee pleading for money and we were ignored.  These problems have come home to roost and I am sorry to say only now - because there is a Council of Ministers - are those same professionals and those same politicians that are now leading us asking us to sort out the issues.  They were aware of them a long, long, long time ago.

4.1.9 Senator P.F. Routier:

I will be brief.  This is a must do.  We must support the Health and Social Services on a vital important facility for our Island.  What I would ask is that perhaps some work would be done to ensure that the Social Services side of the budgeting is protected because we have suffered over years and years of funding being given to Health and Social Services and then to see it being spent and siphoned off into the Health acute service.  I know it is very difficult for them when there are vital things that happen within the acute service but it is only to the detriment of Social Services and we have to deal with the previous debate in giving money to the Social Services side of things.  So I would ask if it is possible that some work could be done to ensure that the Social Services’ funds are kept within Social Services.  The second point I would like to make is I am delighted that there is a partnership approach to funding some of these things with the Minister for Social Security and using the Health fund and I am also delighted to be able to comment that he has only been able to do that because the Health fund is in such a good state, even after the free prescriptions that have come about previously.

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

Given the obvious and urgent need that I am aware of for increased funding in our Health Service, I will of course be supporting this amendment.  However, I do so almost with a heavy heart as I look on page 5 of the amendment at the new list of savings proposals that have been imposed on a pro rata basis under a whole range of titles, some of which I have serious reservations about.  As soon as I see “re-prioritisation” and “efficiencies”, I think: “What is that?”  That is management speak for reduction in services.  By and large, it usually is, and I wonder to what extent that almost £1.4 million worth of externally imposed cuts in addition to those which have been sought within Health Service staff are in fact cuts in services effectively and are simply the least awful alternatives when the management has its arm twisted up its back and a Minister for Treasury and Resources insisting on cuts somewhere.  Some of those issues look, to me, to be very dangerous.  Then I examined this £900,000 transfer of primary care services to the H.I.E. (Health Insurance Exemption) fund in the Social Security Department and I do not believe the Minister for Social Security has spoken in this debate but I would like him to explain exactly what that means, given that we no longer have H.I.E.  There are no free G.P. (General Practitioner) visits to anybody on the Island because there is no H.I.E.  Presumably, the H.I.E. fund is sitting there waiting to do something else that is good and that is its use, but I would like an explanation of exactly what that money is being put to and what changes to the H.I.E. fund he will be bringing later in the year to enable that to be done.  That seems to me an area that needs exploration.  Furthermore, while it is very good to say that we are going to conduct a comprehensive spending review for 2011, the effect of that is, in 2011, to produce a further £1.75 million worth of cuts already decided.  Again, to my mind, that sort of level of cut already decided before we have a review is again going to be, I believe, reductions in services.  So, yes, something is being done but I believe the net effect will still be reduction in services on the Island.  Of course, it is all very laudable to engage in an ambitious recruitment campaign to make sure that we get out of the dire straits that we are in with vacancy rates in nursing.  However, I have to question the likely success of any such recruitment campaign, given the fact that we have just imposed a wage freeze on these hard-pressed staff.  The fact is that one of the first questions a potential nurse coming to this Island will ask is - and will ask of any Health Authority anywhere in the world but certainly in the U.K. - “What vacancy rates are you operating at?”  Quite frankly, the answers that we have to give in terms of vacancy rates ... thank you, Senator Perchard for signalling me that I should hurry up.  This is a Business Plan debate and most important in the Annual Plans.  Leave me to finish please.  The vacancy rates that they will be informed of in Jersey will result in them running away from Jersey and saying: “No way are we coming here because the workload and the stress levels will be impossible.”  Furthermore, the situation is - and I think the Deputy of St. Mary mentioned it briefly - that our over reliance on agency nurses was going through the ceiling and was costing a fortune and we find a solution to that.  Effectively, we closed down a ward and dragged down the use of bank nurses to more reasonable levels simply by again reducing the number of beds available and therefore the requirement for nurses.  It seems to me that I admire the words that the Minister for Health and Social Services can put around her marvellous campaign.  However, I have serious doubts that it will be the success that she needs, given the situation and given the terms and conditions under which our nurses are working.  It is an issue that we will be coming to re-address; the fact that, comparatively, with our rivals, we are having extreme problems recruiting and retaining nurses especially in the light of this wage freeze.

4.1.11 Senator J.L. Perchard:

Yesterday, the Chief Minister spoke about our excellent Health Service and I agree.  It is and has been an excellent Health Service.  It is a Health Service under immense financial pressure.  It is a Health Service that has enjoyed the 2.6 per cent budget increases, with the exception of last year where there was a slight increase above that, but it is a Health Service that has been subject to double figure inflation when purchasing drugs, blood products and many imported specialist services and products from outside.  So it is a Health Service that - taking a term out of Deputy Green’s speech - has to have involved itself in some creative accounting.  It has had little choice.  It has had no choice.  It has a responsibility to provide lifesaving medical care and it does that and it has a responsibility to do that.  As a consequence, there has been some creative accounting.  It has happened.  It has had to happen.  Senator Routier mentioned perhaps Social Services being underfunded.  We are asking more from our nurses and medical professionals while we have been purchasing double figure inflated lifesaving and life extending drugs.  We will have all had experience in some way or another of people who have enjoyed fantastic treatment at Jersey General Hospital; hugely expensive drugs and visits to the mainland for treatment.  This Health Service is creaking.  It is suffering terribly and I urge the new Minister and the Council of Ministers and the Treasury Minister who is now taking a close involvement in the department - and I welcome that - to look carefully at how we can find another funding stream.  This is a little plaster over a very big wound.  There is the need to fund a new funding stream for Health and Social Services.  Deputy Gorst touched on it earlier.  I fully support the initiative to have some social insurance scheme that is targeted at Health.  It can become an issue of politics.  We have the standard £160 million being voted to Health but if I am elected, I will campaign for a 0.5 per cent increase in the Health budget and knowing that it will go to the Health Department.  This is a plaster.  It must be supported.  I get the impression people are supporting it but it is just the beginning of very serious funding requirements for the department.

4.1.12 Deputy A.E. Jeune:

I probably come from the same direction as Deputy Green.  I am not totally convinced.  I note some of this money is to increase the nursing staff complement but with the international problem of a shortage of nursing, it remains to be seen whether this can be overcome but we must ensure that the monies are ring-fenced for the purposes identified, and I would be grateful if the Chief Minister could confirm this in his summing up.  Thank you.

4.1.13 Deputy I.J. Gorst:

I rise after the question was posed by Deputy Southern.  I am grateful for the kind comments of my colleagues.  However, perhaps I am not quite as amenable as they have tried to indicate.  As I think we all agree and as we have discussed in an earlier debate, Health is facing increased funding pressures.  Some of the services that they currently provide, they provide to G.P.s at no cost.  I have given an undertaking that I would review whether some of those services are more appropriately funded from the Health Insurance Fund.  It might be that Health would decide to charge a small amount for those services and I would consider whether that charge could be offset against monies in the Health Insurance Fund.  I have given, therefore, a cautious commitment to consider that.  I have said that it must go through a process and that process must be that I can see the benefit, that the Council of Ministers gives it approval and that it comes to this House for approval because it will require an amendment to the Health Insurance Fund.  So I might have been portrayed as a knight in shining armour but that is not quite how I see myself.  Deputy Southern also mentioned the H.I.E.  It is my understanding - and I was not Minister at that time - that that was partly funded by the taxpayer and there may have been some funding also from the fund and not that it sits in a special fund for H.I.E.  I hope that clarifies my position and the position of my department.  Suffice to say that I will of course then be coming back with any changes and recommendations to this Assembly at a later date and it will be for Members to decide whether they agree that that is an appropriate use of the Health Insurance Fund.

4.1.14 Deputy E.J. Noel of St. Lawrence:

To the Deputy of St. Mary, I can comment that the research was done.  It was not presented to us until the 2010 Business Plan was well underway.  We are addressing the whole issues regarding the advice that we received concerning the pro rata cuts.  Deputy Green has mentioned some valid concerns about what happens to the funds already allocated and that is exactly why we are doing a fundamental review of the spending using a clean sheet of paper upwards.  Senator Shenton is correct that we failed to match the £1.1 million to additional savings.  In the timeframe that we had, it just simply was not possible to do without having a significant impairment to the services already being provided.  The Deputy of St. Martin can have our assurances that we are tackling the issues.  The suspension issues are not relevant here.  They are being addressed by S.E.B. (States Employment Board).  As for Deputy Le Claire, we welcome any potential new sources of nurses that he may have and to recap on one of Deputy Green’s further points, I have had communications from the Director of Nursing and since the summer of 2006, no nursing posts have been removed to cover other costs bases.  In relation to some comments made by Senator Routier, I am willing to give my assurances that the Social Services budget allocation within Health and Social Services will be ring-fenced.  To Deputy Southern, I can hand on heart say that the services will not be adversely affected by the efficiency savings and I am happy to give him a detailed breakdown of what those efficiency savings mean.  This list has already been given to the unions concerned and they are, as far as I am aware, happy with what has been proposed.  With regards to Jersey remaining competitive within the worldwide nursing market, that is exactly why we need this additional funding so we can keep those new nurses.  I agree with Senator Perchard that creative accounting treats the symptoms and not the cause, hence the need for a fundamental spending review and then that review needs to be matched against appropriate funding streams.  I can give Deputy Jeune assurances that the additional funds raised by this amendment will be used purely for what is stated and it just leaves me to finally thank the Ministerial team at Social Security for their continued support.  Thank you.

Deputy I.J. Gorst:

Sorry, I ought to have started my speech by confirming that I know that Members are aware that my wife is indeed a nurse at the hospital.  Thank you.

Deputy A.E. Jeune:

The information that the Deputy has offered to give to Deputy Southern, can he circulate it to all Members please?  Thank you.

4.1.15 Senator S. Syvret:

I will be supporting this proposition, although I echo at least some of the views expressed by other speakers in that there are issues that need addressing in Health and Social Services.  We do not have any choice I think other than to make this funding available at the present time.  But it is clear to me that the organisation does in fact need a fundamental review and a complete restructuring, not only of the organisation itself in terms of how it is managed but we need a fundamental re-think of the entire way we contemplate health and social care in the Island and how we fund it.  I must agree with the comments made by Senator Shenton.  Senator Ozouf’s, frankly, grossly inaccurate and petty point scoring at the Institute of Directors hardly equates to responsible or frank statesmanship, I would suggest.  I have distributed to all Members the 10-page critique.  I wrote on the New Directions strategy in March 2007 and Members appear to have found it very helpful and a very useful document.  There are a lot of ideas in it, a lot of addressing of the issues that were not addressed in the first draft of the New Directions strategy and I produced that myself just by sitting down and thinking about the issues, and I am a carpenter.  We have a department of civil servants across several departments who cost millions and millions of pounds combined each year who not only, after about 3 or 4 years worth of work to the States, have still not succeeded in producing the detailed strategic proposals that we need to be contemplating, that we should in fact have addressed several years ago in order to secure proper health and social care for this community into the future.  One of the things that the newer Members will learn about politics is that it is not always possible to be popular.  Sometimes one has to exhibit leadership and face some unpleasant issues because that is what is in the best interests of the community.  The classic example of course, which is always cited, was the introduction of the Social Security system all those decades ago.  It was massively, massively unpopular at the time but, oh dear, what a mess we would be in if we had not had that.  The Chief Minister just remarked: “Like G.S.T. (Goods and Services Tax).”  [Laughter]

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Let us not go down that route, Senator.  [Laughter]

Senator S. Syvret:

Well, we are talking about money and I would remind the Chief Minister that I never had any kind of in principle opposition personally to sales taxes.  My main concern was that there should have been exemptions to it for life’s essentials, so his remark is misdirected in fact when it comes to being targeted at me.  But the fact is the total tax take of all kinds from the economy in Jersey is extremely very low and if we are going to enjoy into the future not only the same kind of standards of healthcare that we get at the moment but in fact have things like a continuing care scheme properly funded and additional funding for the things we are going to be investing in like more staff, to provide more attractive terms and conditions, like capital renewal of the system, like training for people, like support for people in the community who care for those with conditions, we are going to have to pay for that.  The money is going to have to come from somewhere and I can state this much as a stone fact.  There is no existing source of funding that it can come from.  There is no huge colossal wastage that people might imagine somewhere else in the States system where the money could just be taken from and diverted at things like a proper fully functioning and integrated Health and Social Care Strategy.  If we want to do it properly, we are going to have to pay for it.  That is not going to be popular with people in the community but it is one of those things that we have to drive forward if we are going to exhibit some leadership.  I was pleased to hear that the Minister for Social Security is attracted to the idea, as I was, in this critique of introducing a European style social insurance system.  That would pay not only for the continuing care scheme that we have long-awaited but also, in all probability, provide a direct additional funding stream for secondary care, as well as tertiary care and indeed primary care as well quite possibly.  Now what the legal structure of the scheme would be and what the detail may be, that remains to be worked out but there is no escaping the fact that we have got to introduce such a funding mechanism and after 8 years I think of talking about it, the time, I would suggest, has come to end all the prevarication and the awaiting of reports and such and just to get some propositions before this Assembly in the coming months whereby we make the decisions and put the necessary decisions and the strategy in place so that we do in fact succeed in planning in the longer term, as we should do, despite the important strategic consideration rather than this kind of fire fighting that we see today.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

I call on the Chief Minister to reply.

4.1.16 Senator T.A. Le Sueur:

I do not intend to respond in detail to every Member who has spoken to day because I think that there has been broad consensus of approval for supporting the need for giving Health adequate funding and that is nothing new.  I would point out that, over recent years, we have faced similar Business Plan debates and consistently a greater proportion of money has been directed towards Health and Social Services, quite rightly, in view of the additional pressures including external pressures that they face.  But I think what is becoming increasingly clear to me, clear to the Minister for Health and Social Services and clear to the Minister for Treasury and Resources and, I am pleased to say, clear to Members of this House is the fact that what we need is a comprehensive look at the whole of healthcare and healthcare funding.  That, I know, is already underway at the same time that the Minister for Treasury and Resources is undertaking a separate review into our funding requirements for the future, not just for Health but in total.  So this proposition, as Senator Perchard identifies, is indeed something of a sticking plaster until we can find a clear way forward.  Nonetheless, even a sticking plaster is necessary at this stage rather than allowing the situation to fail completely and so I make no apology for bringing this proposition and asking for a further £1.1 million even though we have got this ongoing review.  General comments have mainly been dealt with by the Assistant Minister for Health and Social Services - in his remarks.  The Deputy of St. Mary is not here at the moment but he asked about the rise in admissions and I gather that there has been a significant rise in admissions this year; more than was normal.  I cannot understand why that should be.  Maybe we are getting less healthy or maybe we are getting more efficient and getting a bigger throughput.  I certainly do not want to go into discussions about personalities and previous Ministers or what may or may not have been done.  What I am anxious about here is the service to the patients and the service we need to provide to those patients by our nursing staff and this money is directed to help the nursing staff in order that they can help the patients.  Some people question whether this is in fact a false economy.  I do not believe it is an economy.  I believe it is an essential investment at this stage in order to maintain a transition, if you like, until we can have a proper review of the Health Department, a review which may - but I hope will not - extend to New Directions but I think this is something which needs to be looked at by itself.  Deputy Le Claire made a suggestion that the Treasury in the past has not looked sympathetically at Health funding and rejected requests for increases.  I think the figures belie that.  There have been significant increases in Health funding but that has been necessary simply to stand still, so I make no apology for saying that we have given those increases.  Nonetheless, we still have an ongoing problem and it is a problem which will no doubt ultimately need a more radical approach than simply an increase here and an ongoing increase here so, in that respect, Senator Syvret is quite right.  In fact, I can see no alternative but a new funding stream.  If that is the case, then clearly it has to be looked at against some of the other funding requirements that the Island is facing in terms of other services besides Health.  That is a far wider issue.  This amendment today seeks at least to put Health in a stable position for the next 12 months.  I say no more than “stable” and, on that basis, I am very pleased to maintain this amendment.  Since it seems to be the fashion, Sir, I will ask for the appel.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Very well.  The vote is therefore pour or against the Nineteenth Amendment in the name of the Chief Minister.  When Members are in their designated seats, the Greffier will open the voting.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Very well.  The next amendment listed was in the name of the Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel but, following the decision on the earlier amendment, Deputy, that has fallen away because the funding is not needed because the States agreed ...

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

Can I just say, Sir, that we were very impressed that the Minister for Home Affairs accepted it in spirit, if not in fact.  [Laughter]

5. Draft Annual Business Plan 2010 (P.117/2009): tenth amendment (P.117/2009 Amd.(10))

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

So, therefore, we come to the Tenth Amendment in the name of Deputy Shona Pitman.  Deputy, I think before the States are able to debate your amendment, you must formally propose that the States agreed to lift Standing Orders on declaration of interest because every Member theoretically has a direct pecuniary interest in this matter.  Do you make that proposition?

Deputy S. Pitman of St. Helier:

Yes, Sir.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Are Members content to suspend Standing Orders to enable the amendment to be proposed?  Very well, the amendment will be read by the Greffier.

The Assistant Greffier of the States:

Page 3, paragraph (b) after the words “withdrawn from the consolidated fund in 2010”, insert the words “accept that the net revenue expenditure of the States Assembly and its services shall be decreased by £11,300 through the cessation of free lunches to States Members on States meeting days and the cessation of free sandwich lunches during all meetings of Scrutiny Panels, the Public Accounts Committee and the Privileges and Procedures Committee.”

5.1 Deputy S. Pitman:

We come to the most contentious debate of this Business Plan, which I feel privileged to be bringing, as I know I am going to be very popular after this has been voted through.  The issue of States lunches first arose with what was the House Committee in 1990 as there were calls from States Members for States days to be shortened.  It was hoped that by providing States Members with lunch within a close proximity of the Chamber that they would re-convene business earlier.  It was considered that half an hour should be saved or could be saved.  Having tried buffet lunches, sandwich lunches, vegetarian lunches, which was requested by Senator Syvret, and 3-course lunches and at different venues - and I must add here that Members were asked to make contributions to the cost of their food - after reports, propositions and numerous meetings, it was in the year 2000 - that was 10 years later - that the House Committee concluded that trying to cut half an hour off States Members’ lunches was pointless.  It was an utter waste of time.  Why they reached this decision, I do not know, but I would suggest that Members needed the full hour and a half to eat their 3-course lunches that they opted.  So why do I bring this very minor amendment to the Business Plan?  Out of principle.  The people of the Island have heard so much of late from us about the need for Government to tighten its belt that we have to make efficiency savings more now than ever in this time of economic downturn.  So what do we do?  We target vulnerable people, using patient transport and those that we use in the Grand Vaux Youth Family Centre.  Thankfully the Minister for Housing listened to the outrage over this and stopped it.  We target our community by putting off yet again, and for how many more years, the Millennium Town Park.  We target our small but traditional agriculture and tourism industries, which have a great potential to expand.  We target our 6,500 valued States workers, so-called by the Council of Ministers, by giving them what is effectively a pay cut.  I could go on and on.  While our ears are pained after 3 hours of debate and our tummies ache with food deprivation, we, the majority of this House, are happy in the knowledge that we regularly have a 3-course lunch to look forward to, while people are left with the consequences of budget cuts.

Senator S.C. Ferguson:

Correction.  It is not a 3-course lunch.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Let us not have a …

Deputy S. Pitman:

Sometimes, this is why I did say “regularly”.  There are sandwich lunches but you have a dinner, you have cheese, you have fruit, you have dessert.  Does it really matter, the definition?  You have lunch which is paid for you.  I have to ask: what message are we sending out to the public?  What confidence do Islanders have in this Government if we do not practise what we preach?  Colleagues and my J.D.A. (Jersey Democratic Alliance) comrade, Deputy Southern, may say that it is trivial to take away free lunches.  I would say that it is taking away a “nice to have”, as the Chief Minister says.  But Members need not worry that I am trying to take away their lunches.  All they need to do is pay for it.  No business needs to lose out on a contract, no redundancies or lowering of staff morale, as I am sure those who feed and serve us during the lunch hour are grateful for the privilege.  Just States Members needing to pay a modest sum to keep what they already enjoy.  I make this amendment and I do hope that it is a quick debate.  Thank you.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Is the amendment seconded?  [Seconded]

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

We have got a long business list in front of us and I think this is a bit of a nonsense.  I suggest the proposer reads her own proposition.  She has just said she does not want to stop lunches.  She wants people to pay for them.  She is asking for the cessation of lunches. 

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Free lunches.

The Connétable of St. Saviour:

Free lunches.  She is not asking for them to be paid.  They will be stopped.  It is quite simple that …

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Free lunches will be stopped.

The Connétable of St. Saviour:

That free lunches will be stopped, yes.  There is no mechanism for paying proposed in this and unless we have the detail, as she has been the first one to ask, in previous propositions, this is a nonsense.  If we are going to meetings, then I think lunches should be provided.  I personally have to take medication at lunchtime and if I do not have something to eat then I will not be going to the briefings.  Now, whether I pay for them or not, I am not worried.  I am quite happy to pay.  But the meals have to be there.  I think what we are doing here is just messing about with the system and I think we are wasting time.

5.1.2 The Connétable of St. John:

Much of what I was going to say has already been said.  I do not partake of the lunches downstairs.  I think I have had probably about 5 in the 3 years I have been here.  But I do take exception if one is expected to work through lunch, which we do work through lunch at many, many Scrutiny meetings.  I do not believe that that should be stopped.  I wish this amendment was split into 2 parts because one part I can accept; the other part I cannot. 

5.1.3 Senator S.C. Ferguson:

In keeping with the spirit of this, I give notice to the House that I will bring a proposition requiring States Members to pay for their parking.

5.1.4 Connétable D.J. Murphy of Grouville:

I am sorry.  I am trying not to be repetitive but I did have a word with Deputy Pitman this morning.  I said that I did back her sentiments wholly and completely, except, of course, for the fact that, if you are working, I think you deserve a lunch.  I was going to propose a fee for the car parking as well.  But that has all been done now.

5.1.5 Deputy C.F. Labey of Grouville:

I would just like to ask the proposer: when she is asking for the free sandwich lunches for the Public Accounts Committee, Privileges and Procedures and Scrutiny Panels to be stopped, why she has not included the Council of Ministers lunches in that list?

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

A separate budget, I think is the answer, Deputy.

Deputy J.M. Maçon of St. Saviour:

The Deputy of Grouville raised my point.

5.1.6 Deputy M. Tadier:

I do thank Deputy Shona Pitman for bringing this amendment.  Certainly it does give us food for thought and of course none of us want to make a meal of this amendment.  But I have to say that some of the comments I have heard from certain people do take the biscuit.  But biscuits are allowed, so maybe that is why the last one did not get quite such a groan.  Seriously, though, we should remind ourselves why we have been in this position.  This is a necessary consequence of the T.V. (television) licences for over-75s, which were free.  That is why we have to do this.  It is a logical consequence.  I hope we will be hearing Senator Le Main speak on this in favour of the amendment, before lunch, preferably, so that we do not have another diatribe as we may have had yesterday.  The reason being is that Senator Le Main spoke out in favour of it, and I know “The Legend” up there in the box has referred to it in his column in the newspaper.  Basically, one of the arguments we heard against free T.V. licences for all over-75s was the fact that it was not means tested.  The counter-argument was put therefore that free lunches for States Members are not means tested.  So we were asking whether that was valid or not.  They are not means tested, so whether you are a millionaire or you are not, you are allowed to have a free lunch.  There are pros and cons but we were told it is not right to give a millionaire a free T.V. licence even though they paid for it via taxes, or whatever, even though they contribute to society.  So we must be consistent.  This is a logical consequence of that.  So we have already decided on the principle.  Now, I do have some sympathy for the panel lunches.  I know that certain people do have meetings and we do work through lunches.  That is probably something which is not often seen by the public.  Many of us go without a full lunch break and sandwiches are put on.  But I think that is really a side issue because that could be taken by the Scrutiny budget.  If Scrutiny are calling meetings at lunchtime …

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

To avoid you misleading the House, Deputy, it would not be possible because the Scrutiny budget is part of this budget.  The money would be cut and so the States would send a very clear message they did not want that to be funded.

Deputy M. Tadier:

I take that point.  I think that is something which can be dealt with, though.  As has been pointed out, there is nothing to stop us walking across the road to get a sandwich if people feel really strongly about not wanting to work through lunchtimes just because they do not get free sandwiches.  That might be a sad thing.  But that is a call we have to make.  There may well be that we have to take 10 minutes to get a sandwich and then we just simply have 10 minutes less where we have to do that work.  But that is a call for Members to make.  I find the comments about medication slightly confusing from the Connétable St. Saviour, although I do have sympathy with him.  I have to say that my own brother is diabetic and although I think twice about using personal examples, often that is all we can use.  We can only speak from personal experience and when we cannot we have to use examples of people who are close to us.  He is diabetic and before every meal he has to inject himself.  But he works for the States on the road.  He certainly does not get a free lunch.  He has to take a packed lunch with him to work.  He does not have the privilege of having a 3 or 2-course lunch.  I personally think it is a 3-course lunch because Members are able to take 3.  It is not policed.  But these are the kind of petty squabbles we are getting involved in here.  He makes sure that he has got his food.  He injects himself with the insulin and he does not ask the taxpayer to pay for it.  He is also quite capable of going and getting his own food if he does not have a lunchbox.  So I think that is a spurious argument.  I think this just shows the complete double standards that we have been living by.  Everyone seems to agree: they say they have got no problems with paying for their lunches.  The argument that lunchtime is a good time for people to socialise is a valid one, but, of course, it does not mean we cannot pay for our lunches like other people do.  Go out and get your sandwiches, bring your lunchbox in and then sit together if you want to in there.  Do not sit together if you do not.  Well, let us just look at the double standards that this would be sending out if we did not support this amendment. We know that we voted for a pay freeze for States workers.  It is a slightly different issue.  Not all of us did but the States did as whole.  That is consensus politics for you.  We voted for the pay reduction because, in fact, we know that is what it is.  They have had a reduction in pay.  They do not get free lunches themselves.  To add insult to injury, they are told that if they dare to attend the rally which has been planned and which was described in yesterday’s paper, that they would face disciplinary action.  I would say there is safety in numbers and that that is completely unacceptable, that they should just attend.  They cannot discipline all of them.  I will be making that statement to the press later on today, if they wish to indulge me.  But to get back to the point, we must support this.  We have talked about tightening our belts, which is perhaps appropriate because, in fact, we are loosening our belts, both literally and figuratively.  I think that Deputy Shona Pitman is to be commended for this amendment and we should all support it without any more stupid comments.  Otherwise we will simply be feeding the puns and all sorts that will come out in the newspaper.

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

I will try and be constructive, I think, on the debate, although I will have to say, slightly jokingly, I was very disappointed in the remarks from Senator Ferguson and the Connétable of Grouville, principally because I had exactly the same point down and they stole my thunder.  But what I was going to say is, I came across an article in an audit publication to which I subscribe; and it is very sadly occasionally.  It talks about the findings that an American commission called Treadway, which was a U.S. commission sponsored by the main accounting body to look into corporate governance and business ethics and all that type of stuff.  The article set out to remind readers that one of the key findings of the day - and it was an act in the late 1980s - was about tone at the top.  This was elaborated upon by stating that the tone set by top management is the most important factor contributing to the integrity of the financial process.  There is a relevance here.  If the tone set by management is lax, if internal procedures are disregarded, then inappropriate behaviour results, and, basically, that leads all the way down.  So, if you apply that to costs control, naturally, although it makes us look at little bit embarrassed occasionally, to an extent we do not have much of a choice.  But if we are serious about cost control - and we should be - then we need to set the example.  If we do not worry about the odd £2,000 here, the odd £11,300 here, or the odd £100,000 elsewhere, then why should we expect our officers to do what we do not?  The tone at the top is very important.  It is also about strategic and well-considered decisions, not quick political fixes.  Now, what I am going on about is if we are going to be seen to be leading the way, then there obviously needs to be follow-up to that as well.  Therefore I would have to say that, firstly, I am quite attracted by this sudden hawkishness by our members of the J.D.A., in a few days have been suggesting that part of our services, our overweight of employees - I think they have made reference to the youth service - it mentioned efficiencies, the number of times.  Now, according to the Jersey Evening Post, I believe they are aligning themselves with the U.K. Conservative Party.  They question why we are not truly targeting … they are targeting the truly unnecessary police cuts.  That is absolutely right.

The Deputy of St. Mary:

On a little point of clarification, does the Deputy believe everything he reads in the paper?

Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré:

No more than the Deputy of St. Mary, I am sure.  So then, if we are going to be saying we should be looking at these type of expenses, well, something that came to mind … and we have had parking, and that leads elsewhere.  What about things like canteens?  I do not mean ones for school children.  I think we do provide these services elsewhere within the States for adult employees.  Now, what I am saying is - it is set by the example of the Jersey Democratic Alliance - we should be looking at those things.  If they subsidised, and that includes do they get free locations of rent and things like that, we should be looking at those.  That, in these terms, if you are talking about an extra cancer nurse or a canteen, where is your choice?  Where is your priority?  That is what we are trying to get to.  We are trying to get to a point of considering what our priorities are.  That is, I think, where we should take a degree of inspiration from this idea, and, of course, give credit to where credit is due, because I am sure they will not be a smooth path, necessarily.  What I would just say … and I have got absolutely no problem with paying for the meal.  At the end of the day we are talking, I think it is £12 per month, remember.  It is great politics; it is great headline politics.  The point, as far as I have understood, was to get Members, given the way we operate, to get them in an almost forced way, to sit together and to talk to each other.  Everybody is talking about funds.  It is not the oil of the machinery of the Government but perhaps it is the mayonnaise that feeds the machinery of government.  I think that is enough.  So I think it is worthwhile supporting but if we use this as an example and look elsewhere, that is why it is worth supporting.  If it is just to save £12 a month each, well, that is fine; it is great headlining and it is great politics.  It is not going to do a huge amount.

5.1.8 Deputy G.P. Southern:

I thought I was depressed earlier in the week.  But, by God, I am pretty depressed now.  I feel entirely depressed by the prospect of debating this issue at all.  I just examine what is going to happen today.  We have volunteered to reduce our lunch hour by an hour.  During that hour I will be entirely occupied with a Scrutiny Panel deciding on questions for a meeting that I am doing tomorrow when I am supposed to be here as well.  I will be in 2 places at once.  Fine.  But overall, let us look at the principles.  Members will be aware that time and time again I try and defend the terms of conditions of workers on the Island in many ways.  We are workers, a simple thing to grasp.  We are paid workers now but for how much longer if we start on this slippery slope, I do not know.  Free lunches, car parking, £1,000 given up from our salaries.  We are already underpaid.  Our terms and conditions are good, granted.  But no trade unionist worth his salt would voluntarily give up negotiated rights and terms and conditions.  If I am to be asked to work through my lunch hour then I think it is absolutely appropriate that I should be fed.  I do not have a problem with that.  When I look at my previous career as a teacher, now, we had big arguments over lunch time duties.  The minimum condition laid down was that at least half an hour in any teacher’s lunch was given without responsibility.  They did not have to be walking round the yard; they did not have to be looking after kids.  It was non-contact time.  That was the precious bit of non-contact time.  Today I will have no non-contact time equivalent.  I will be working straight through my lunch hour.  I think it is absolutely only reasonable that I should have some sandwiches to enable me to do that and do 2 things at once: eat and talk, carefully, of course, because otherwise that would be very rude, would it not?

5.1.9 Deputy A.T. Dupre of St. Clement:

I must admit I was somewhat surprised to find that lunch was provided when I first entered the States, and is suggested we pay for the privilege of having it ready for us when we ended our morning session.  I was informed that it was originally brought in so that Members can meet and talk informally about many issues, and this continues.  I hope therefore that this does carry on, albeit, paid for by ourselves.

5.1.10 Senator B.E. Shenton:

Just very briefly, I did check with our Guernsey colleagues to see whether they had their lunches paid for on States sitting days and I can tell you categorically that they do not have their lunches paid for, and, in fact, they were very surprised that we did in Jersey have lunches paid for, for States Members.

5.1.11 Deputy T.M. Pitman:

I have to say that I was really looking forward to this debate.  It might not be a big issue but what it will highlight, I think, is very telling for the public.  I have learnt one thing and that is not to have quick chats in the gentlemen’s with the Minister for Home Affairs and Deputy Tadier and share your jokes because if you do not speak first they get nicked.  But there we go.  No honour among politicians.  But, as I say, I was looking forward to it because it does throw up some interesting issues.  To take a humorous but still serious point, I really look forward to hearing some of what we call “the establishment” people speak because time and time again - and we had a good example with Deputy Noel yesterday - they get on their high horse.  The champions that we are about cost cutting, cutting out all that is superfluous, all that is frivolous and nice to have.  When I hear today, I would really expect to see the likes of the Chief Minister and the Minister for Treasury and Resources, Deputy Noel, really jumping up and pushing all the lefties off those overturned tables in the Winter Palace.  This must be done.  It really must.  But, no, I have to say the Constable of St. Saviour, who I have got every respect for, but I find his arguments incredible.  Double-standards.  I worked for education and I have to say I never was given free lunch.  It was not part of my job.  Why do we need to have free lunch?  I fully accept what Deputy Southern says, and I have to say, if there is one person who I would bend the rule and give a free lunch to for the way he has been treated this year, it would be Deputy Southern.  But that is by the by.  Put this in context.  We listen on the radio sometimes and I too am amazed at what people do criticise politicians for.  I have to say that before Deputy S. Pitman was elected, even though I followed politics, I was not aware of all the circumstances, and it has opened my eyes to many things.  I heard the other day we were being criticised for States Members having computers.  Well, I have never heard of anyone going into private business or whatever and then being told to bring your own computer.  Some things are just plain silly.  Senator Ferguson raises the issue of parking.  Well, where I worked I did have a parking place.  Was that a luxury?  Probably because there was no public parking I could have used for perhaps a mile and a half, 2 miles and the realities of my job, I had to leave those premises 3 or 4 times a day and go to other facilities.  But there we go.  Maybe if we got rid of parking it would be good.  We would all be on our bikes.  Because there is one thing that we can agree: left, right, centre and Green, it is that politicians tend to get fat.  I am certainly suffering.  I notice the proposer does not drive.  So there we go.  But it is about the message that we are sending out.  As someone said - and I am sorry I cannot remember who it was - but it is £11,300.  But this is a natural conclusion of the route we are going down.  If we are going to target things like patient transport services and really important things, like the family centre at Grand Vaux, so frivolously, because let us remember that they were never even visited to find out what work was done before that decision was initially announced.  That is how frivolous the approach was from the Council of Ministers.  That fact should not be lost on people because these Councils should surely be serious.  I am sure the Minister for Treasury and Resources would echo that.  He spoke very, very well, as I said, shocking everyone by commending him, but I have no problem with that.  But this is the natural culmination of where we are going.  The proposer is quite right.  She is not saying that lunches have to cease.  She is just saying that free lunches have to cease.  I do not ever take my lunch here.  I have eaten sandwich lunches on occasions when there has been a vegetarian option, when we have been going through on Scrutiny.  But I view that as a nice to have.  I think the teas, coffees, water, biscuits we get are quite adequate.  I would not mind so much if we came to some sort of a different interpretation where perhaps sandwiches were provided by people we brought in.  But we certainly do not need them.  I go across the way every day, across to Royal Square, and I know there is probably some regulation that says we must not do advertising.  So I will not mention the café’s name.  It is excellent food.  It is inexpensive.  I am quite happy.  I have always put my hand in my pocket to do that.  I have never worked out how much it costs a month, I must admit.  But the other reason, some people talk about the benefit of working through lunch and chatting to each other and maybe for some people that is genuine.  Maybe it is.  I have to say, in many instances it surely cannot be and I do not believe it can for a minute.  The reason I do not have my lunch here is … because certainly yesterday is a really good example.  After hours, sometimes, listening to being attacked, abused for whatever, there are some people I do not want to sit there and take my lunch with.  That is a fact.  That is no disrespect to other people.  There are other people I like, I enjoy their company, et cetera.  It is my choice to go over there to the café and take my lunch.  The link that Deputy Le Fondré makes, I think, is quite bizarre.  But then again, very clever politicking.  I must congratulate him on that.  Excellent.  He drew attention to a Conservative Party initiative.  Well, I would just say, it just shows the growing influence of the J.D.A. where we are now influencing …  Indeed, I think Deputy Southern has departed to go and attend a conference on sandwich filling with Mr. Cameron this very day.  I think we have got to support this.  But I hope some of you do not because I just want to see it in the paper.  I want to see your double-standards, sorry, the House’s double-standards.  I really do want to see it.  Deputy Southern is right in many ways.  It is trivial.  Yet it is not, is it?  This is where we are going to end.  It is going to be quite interesting to see Senator Ferguson’s proposition on parking, very interesting.  I have got no problem with that.  Unlike some, I did not come into politics for money, despite the propaganda put out by some elements of the media.  I took a pay cut to come here.  I gave up a pension.  So I have no problem.  This has got to be supported if we are not going to look completely false and double-standard in our actions.  I commend the proposer for bringing it.  Yes, the Constable of St. John, I think it was, had a good point.  It could have been split, possibly, into 2, and then he could have supported one and not the other.  But there we go.  He has had the chance to amend the amendment.  I know it is a clumsy, cluttered process, as I found out when I amended an amendment.  But there we go.  We hear this so often, do we not, criticisms of why people cannot support, yet they never take up the opportunity to put those thoughts into actions.  I am going to support it.  It is not hard for me, as a leftie liberal, or is it?  I am meant to support everything that is about spend, spend, spend, according to Deputy Noel.  So it is time to put the true colours now into the mast, is it not, guys and ladies? 

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

I do not like “guys and ladies” in this place, Deputy.

5.1.12 Deputy J.B. Fox of St. Helier:

I want you to excuse my first 2 words “piecemeal” because it has really got nothing to do with the subject matter.  It is just the States seem to frequently go down this road of piecemeal.  I am a Member of P.P.C. and we have recently brought the constitutional review for about what seems like the fifth time in about twice as many years.  It all got thrown out and we will continue with having piecemeal until now and eternity, probably, on that subject.  This is the same type of piecemeal.  The piecemeal is that people bring up about car parking, people bring up about computers, people bring up about all sorts of facilities, wanting … at the moment we are talking about wanting States Members’ facilities for research, for having all sorts of different and expensive facilities.  That is piecemeal.  To me, these things should not be brought up as individual piecemeal.  They should be brought up in an organised way with a request that this be taken to the P.P.C. for that committee to discuss it, to evaluate, and report back to the States.  But I would remind this House that we have pay conditions, like most others that have been brought up.  We have an independent review body that does this for us so that we are not seen to be making our own rules and our remuneration, et cetera.  I would suggest to you that that would be another area that we could have had that the P.P.C. would consider it with a review for it being included in the review body along with whatever other things we want to put in, whether it is car parking or computers or anything else, and that to be done at an appropriate time in an organised professional way.  For that reason I shall not be voting for this proposition.

5.1.13 Deputy E.J. Noel:

I am delighted to follow Deputy Trevor Pitman.  I am very happy to vote in favour of this amendment, as it sets a precedent.  I hope all those voting for this amendment will also vote in the future.  Let us take this principle throughout the States.  In addition, I share the same feelings as Senator Ferguson that the same precedent can be applied to the free parking that States Members currently have.  Again, this principle can be taken throughout the States as a whole and utilise the benefits in the kind of rules that the Comptroller of Income Tax implements.  So I will happily vote in favour but I expect the support of Members in the future to take this precedent forward.

5.1.14 Connétable J.M. Refault of St. Peter:

Surprisingly, I thought long and hard about this proposition.  I really quite struggled with it when it first arrived on my desk at home and wondered what it was doing there.  A lot has already been said that I wanted to say about this proposition this morning.  I do feel that it does set a precedent and I think that Deputy Le Fondré of St. Lawrence has brought forward some very good suggestions.  If we really are motivated to show leadership and make real cuts in the States’ budget, then, yes, let us look at all the other examples where there are “nice to haves” and let us look at those and see if we can withdraw those to make some real impact for the benefit of the Island as a whole.  What has really frustrated me with this amendment is the fact that if Deputy Shona Pitman had come to me - and I am sure many other Members - on the day she was about to lodge this and said: “What do you think?” I would have gone: “Certainly, Shona.  I am absolutely delighted that you are bringing this forward.”  I do not have a problem with paying for lunch because I quite frequently choose to go out and buy my lunch anyway.  So it makes no difference to me whether we pay for it or not and that does show a good example.  My problem with this proposition is we are here to debate matters of Island importance; about people who are out of work, about structural deficits.  Quite frankly, this, for me, fits the 4 Ps.  I call this: petty, puerile, little politics … not politics; I would have got my Ps wrong.  It should not be brought on the agenda of this House.  This could have been done by a round robin among Members and I will not vote either for or against as a matter of principle.

5.1.15 Senator S. Syvret:

I fear that the Assembly is in danger of making a collective fool of itself if we spend, frankly, any great longer time on this.  We have already discussed today just how desperately pressed for time we are and just how difficult it is going to be to complete the Business Plan in any event.  If we spend, frankly, another hour, 2 hours or whatever discussing States Members lunches, we will, indeed, look absurd.  So what, then, do we do with the proposition?  Well, as much as it may not be popular with certain Members of this Assembly, the fact is, the proposer of the amendment has got you.  You have been nailed with this and if you do not vote for it, Members and those who traditionally adopt the hawkish attitude will be made to look ridiculous.  So one has to simply vote for the proposition and anyone who does not will make themselves look absurd.  I will just remind Members that the principle, in response to the last speaker, is a serious matter.  It may be a small sum of money but the principle that has motivated this amendment - and I would particularly draw this to the attention of people like Deputy Le Fondré and Senator Ferguson and others - was the principle of means testing.  We have said on many different occasions in this Assembly that our policy, whether it be T.V. licences or income support or a whole range of other issues, will be means tested.  We do not want to give benefits to people that do not really need it.  We do not want to give benefits to those that can afford to pay for it themselves.  So that is the principle that we should apply in respect of States Members provision.  So I will certainly be voting in favour of this proposition, and, if, indeed, it is necessary, as Senator Ferguson or Deputy Le Fondré or others have suggested, to take the axe to other aspects of States Members remuneration in terms and conditions, again, indeed, to do that will be absolutely fine.  I will have no problem at all with that because I will support it on the basis of a means testing policy.  So multi-millionaires like …

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

Do not name them.

Senator S. Syvret:

Multi-millionaires like some Members of this Assembly would indeed have to pay for things that those of us who are poor do get provided because we cannot afford it.  So that would be the consistent application of the means testing principle that the States is so keen to apply and enforce upon the population at large.

5.1.16 Senator T.J. Le Main:

I was not going to speak, only after the last speaker ... I never eat lunches in there.  I go home, normally, and I can count on one hand in all the years I have been a Member the times I have eaten free lunches and I am not on the Scrutiny Panels at all.  But I have great sympathy for those like Deputy Southern who were saying that they have to work over a lunch time, very urgently.  There are sandwiches.  But I very much support what Deputy Fox has been saying, and the Constable of St. Peter.  I will not be supporting this amendment.  I believe that if there has to be any real meal changes, real changes across the board, they should be done by the P.P.C. and today we are just making absolute fools of ourselves.  As I say, I have no particular interest in this at all.  I do not, as I say, dine in the dining room downstairs.  But for goodness sake, let us knock it on the head now and allow P.P.C. to come forward if that is what really Members want.

5.1.17 The Connétable of St. Mary:

Once again I would like to say I am saddened that Senator Syvret again decided that he could label all Members who might vote against this in a particular way.  I respect the way Members of this House vote, based on their own feelings.  Having said that, and I am not going to support this amendment, not because I think it is petty - although in the context of the bigger figures, of course, it is such a lot smaller - but simply because I do not believe that Deputy Shona Pitman has addressed the question of efficiency.  We are continually looking for efficiency savings and that word has not been used.  The Deputy, when proposing, made great play of the fact that attempts had been made to try and trim half an hour off the lunch and that had never, in fact, worked.  But, of course, the lunch hour was reduced in 2005 when the new Standing Orders were adopted.  It was reduced to a greater extent than today because one of the first things that the Assembly of the 2005 elections did was to vote to extend it by quarter of an hour again.  I am pleased to say that Deputy Pitman and I were present in the House and we both voted against that because we thought that one hour was enough or one hour and 15 minutes was enough.  I think there would be more efficiency achieved and therefore more savings achieved by reducing the lunch hour by cutting the cost of sandwiches because they are a vital ingredient in meetings when you have to meet over lunchtime, not just on occasion, let us say, structured Scrutiny meetings that happen on a pre-arranged basis, but ad hoc meetings that arise at lunchtime because of events that have happened during the morning’s debate.  That happens extremely often.  I am sorry, but States Members are like herding cats, getting them together.  If 53 Members all disappear in different directions to get a sandwich lunch there is no telling when they are going to come back to discuss things.  Time and time again we hear when we reach a sticking point in debate: “Perhaps Minister X could go away with Minister Y and discuss this at lunch time.  Perhaps you could come to a conclusion.”  That means talking to lots of different people.  I think that is a very important part.  I think that that gives a lot more efficiency to the debate than would be saved by a financial gain of £11,000 per annum.  What we should be looking at, and I apologise to Deputy Trevor Pitman because he is right about the amendment that had been brought, but I really did not see this until the debate started.  Deputy Le Fondré said it is only £12 per head per month.  Well, of course, there are certain efficiencies of scale built into that.  We have a bulk order; maybe it costs us less.  Probably if we were to administer taking in the money and working out what people have paid, that would be cumbersome.  But if everybody was in agreement, why did we not put a flat fee per month into a kitty, pay for the lunches out of it and at the end of the year any surplus we would give to a charity?  What a fabulous idea.  It would not cost us so deeply.  I regret, I sincerely regret and I do apologise to the Deputy, I did not think of it in time.  But that would be a good idea.  I am quite prepared to take that forward, perhaps, if other Members are in agreement, if this amendment is defeated.  So I really feel the efficiency that we gain through being able to meet on an ad hoc basis … I am the chairman of P.P.C. and I have got 7 Members including myself.  Trying to get them together for anything on the hoof that arises is extremely difficult and that is no disrespect to them.  That is because they are all busy and they are all doing lots of different things.  To have to then send them out and say: “Well, come back a bit earlier and we will meet”, it just does not happen.  I really feel that for this amount of saving we are losing the possibility of a lot of productive work.  That is informal meetings.  I would also very briefly just like to say that informal discussions at lunchtime, I value.  I have had a chance during the course of this current week to sit at lunch next to 2 separate Members that I rarely have a chance to talk to during the course of my normal business in the States.  I have learnt from one Member particularly, a lot more background about the amendment they were going to bring than I had any idea about before.  I think that is extremely valuable and I think that would be a great disservice if that had not happened.  I do regret that I do not have the opportunity more often to perhaps chat informally, although I would not steal his jokes, with Deputy Trevor Pitman, because I used to sit on a Scrutiny Panel with the proposer and valued the time that we could discuss things then.  So, having said that, I think there are very serious reasons why this should be rejected, on the grounds of efficiency.  I would have liked to have seen perhaps more thought given to whether we should be, in fact, trimming down the lunch hour, as was originally envisaged by the revised standing orders in 2005.

5.1.18 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

I agree with the comments that people have made about making fools of ourselves.  I think there is a general consensus in this Assembly that we should pay for our lunches when the States are sitting.  That is clear.  I think that I would urge Deputy Shona Pitman to withdraw this proposition.  I think there is a problem with it.  I think it is unfair and I think it is wrong that there is going to be, as a result of this proposition, arrangements for Scrutiny Panels and P.A.C. (Public Accounts Committee), of which there are some people who serve for no remuneration in terms of their service to the Assembly that they are going to be denied, effectively, arrangements for meeting over lunch time.  I think it sends a demeaning message out for the functions of this Assembly.  So I would urge Deputy Pitman to withdraw this proposition.  There is clearly a consensus that we should pay for our lunches at States Assemblies.  A simple token system could be introduced.  We should be getting with the real issues of how we can save money in this Assembly.  £11,000 does not even touch the sides as far as efficiency of this Assembly is concerned.

The Deputy of St. John:

I propose we move to the next item, Sir.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

You are entitled to make that proposition, Deputy.  I get the impression we are nearly at the end of the debate to take the vote.

The Connétable of St. Mary:

I am sorry, could I have clarification?  I am sure I asked about this at some time in the past and I was told that it did not cover moving to the next item if we are talking about amendments. 

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

What it involves, Constable, is moving to the next amendment, which is the next item of business.  I think on the other occasion it was requested it be moved to the next item on an amendment with the whole debate fall.  I think it is a matter you are entitled to put, Deputy.  Is that seconded?  [Seconded]  It is seconded.  Very well.  The appel is called for.  The proposition of the Deputy of St. John, that the Assembly moves to the next item of business.  The Greffier will open the voting.

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

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

5.1.19 Deputy S. Pitman:

The reason why I brought it to the States, this subject, really is to put out to the public because they have been suffering: G.S.T, we have got States workers’ pay freeze, cuts here and there, and I thought that we should show an example that there are more important things than filling our bellies with food that is paid for by taxpayers.  We should be setting a precedent as legislator.  As for Senator Ozouf’s comments on: this is demeaning to the States and it is unfair to place this on States Members, well, I would ask him to step in the shoes of States workers who have just been given a pay freeze.  How do you think they feel?  I would imagine that States workers feel demeaned and unfair with their pay freeze.  The Constable of St. Mary cannot support this amendment, came up with an alternative, why did she not submit it?  Constable Refault of St. Peter thinks this, again, did not need to be brought to the House because it is trivial.  Well, I do remember him bringing a proposition to the House to give up our £1,000 pay rise.  Why could he not discuss that with the relevant officers and sort it out?  The Constable of St. Saviour, I acknowledge that he does have a condition where he does have to take medication at lunchtime but I also acknowledge that there are States workers who need to do this.  Are they given a free lunch?  Yes, there are canteens but I think the majority of our States workers are not given paid lunches.  There is a lot of discontent among States workers to us having free lunches while we are cutting their pay freeze, and that was demonstrated at the Unite meeting a few weeks ago.  The Deputy of Grouville, I think she did raise a point, despite the Greffier intervening, saying: “Yes, it is a different budget and sending out a particular message.”  We are trying to send out a message.  Something probably that I should have included in this was the Council of Ministers’ lunches and it might be another proposition that I will gladly bring to the States and I am sure everybody will be excited by it.  To finish, as I have said earlier, this was about setting precedents and setting an example to our States workers.  I certainly feel that there are more important things this money could go to.  I can think of some small projects which would benefit this Island which are more important than paying for our lunches.  The last thing I would say: enjoy your free lunch today because it is the last one.  I call for the appel.