Might I further enquire through your good officers whether we are likely to see the annexe to the Medium-Term Financial Plan today because that contains the meat that we need to work on? It is rare, never imagined before, that we have not seen it before we break up.

The Deputy Bailiff:

Deputy, this is a not a time for asking questions. I am sure that is a question that can be asked outside of the Assembly and the sitting today.

1. Humanist and Open-air Marriages (P.65/2015) - resumption

The Deputy Bailiff:

We now resume the debate on Humanist and Open-air Marriages P.65/2015. When we adjourned yesterday I had 3 persons notifying their intention or desire to speak and I therefore call upon those persons if they still wish to do so. Deputy Norton.

1.1 Deputy M.J. Norton of St. Brelade:

I think for many in this Assembly we will have varying degrees of wedding experience. Some more than others. [Laughter] I personally having worked in the hospitality trade is what I am referring to. [Laughter] May I congratulate Deputy Doublet on bringing this excellent proposition? Many of the points that are covered in her report that accompanies the proposition cover some of the questions and issues that have been raised so far, particularly that of a plan B in the case of weather not being suitable. One point that I noticed, there was a word being used by one Connétable of “solemnity”. I find a wedding to be a joyful occasion as opposed to one that is solemn. At least for that day. The market for weddings, it was referred to by the Connétable of St. Martin that he was not sure if there would be any economic upturn from having this proposition brought through. The market for couples in the United Kingdom getting married, 250,000 couples upward of got married in the U.K. (United Kingdom) last year. Of those, according to figures that are out at the moment and are suggested by Mintel, one-third of those, upward of 80,000, get married abroad as opposed to getting married in the U.K. They do so because it is cheaper to do so and there is also the offer of getting married in a location of their choice. So you have got an awful lot of people getting married, some 80,000 or so, outside of the U.K. from the U.K. There is a huge market there. Adding to those joining the wedding day celebrations, according to ABTA, 1.5 million people from the U.K. travel abroad every year to attend a wedding, 850,000 of them are under 35. Unsurprisingly, combining the wedding and honeymoon is a popular reason. You go to one destination, you have the wedding there, you have the honeymoon there, and your friends can also join you. Yes, even on the honeymoon. According to You & Your Wedding magazine they published [Interruption] ... the average cost of a wedding in the U.K. according to You & Your Wedding magazine, which I will pass on to Deputy Doublet afterwards, is £21,939 per wedding in the U.K. currently. The average spend on a wedding abroad is between £7,000 and £8,000. So if you are looking for an economic upside, given our superb locations, shorter travel links, excellent reputations in hospitality and catering, Jersey should not miss this opportunity. Of course, a wedding is about people, it is about their love for each other, and for some they want this celebration, this union, done in a house of God. Some will not. It is sad but also true that in order to either conform, appease or simply have the ceremony not in an office in town, some will have opted for the only choice they have got: a church and a church wedding. I am sure no church wants this any more than any non-religious couple who are running out of options and awkwardly turning up a few weeks before the wedding just so they can be present at church for church “keeping up appearances”. But it is not what anyone wants. I have spoken at length with Deputy Doublet in the past about this proposition and it is one I support. I have also spoken at times with the Dean, who I am pleased to say is here in the Assembly today, and I would look forward to his comments on this proposition. As I understand it, and as was mentioned previously, it is something that the Dean is open to, if not supportive of, but we will wait to find out more. Experiences can range from there being a wonderful terraced garden where you could have got married but instead everyone has to move from the wonderful terraced garden overlooking the bay and the beautiful glimmering sea of Jersey and be squeezed in a room which is inappropriate for everyone to get into, so some people have to stand outside while the ceremony takes place. Then everyone troops back outside again afterwards to pretend that they had it in a great location. It is an experience I have had. As a guest I have been all the way across to Elizabeth Castle, a fabulous location. A jewel. You go all the way across there and then everyone tries to squeeze into the tiniest of little rooms where everyone has to stand outside. Why? Because the law says so. It is about time it changed. So you have it economically from my standpoint; morally, it is right to support this proposition, and I do so. I also look forward to the further part of this proposition which has been postponed at the moment for the humanist marriages as well. I would recommend to all Members of the Assembly to support this proposition. Thank you.

The Deputy Bailiff:

Deputy Maçon.

1.1.1 Deputy J.M. Maçon of St. Saviour:

As Deputy Doublet said yesterday, we are of similar minds about having raised this with the Minister previously in trying to establish what the departments were doing on this matter, so I do welcome and support this proposition; I was going to say “this wedding”, this proposition. Being a guest, just having been to my third wedding of 6 this year, I can tell that as a guest, there is certainly a lot of spend that goes on as well, and attracting more guests to the Island is certainly something that we want to do. Briefly, I just want to thank the Assistant Minister for her speech yesterday and for adopting a “can do” attitude and taking a pragmatic approach in order to try and achieve this. We look forward to scrutinising the legislation perhaps when it comes along. With that, I just hope Members will support this proposition. Thank you.

1.1.2 Connétable J. Gallichan of St. Mary:

I just wanted to put some of my experience of the current situation to Members for thought. I was a Parish Secretary when the Marriage and Civil Status (Jersey) Law 2001 and the registration of premises came in and at that time I thought I could really understand the reason why everything had to be in a building, in a room identified as part of a building or attached to a building, whatever. I could not see myself really ever wanting to support an open-air marriage which seemed a bit American in the movie sense of the word and did not seem to quite fit with it. But over the course of time that view has totally changed.

[9:45]

I was a guest at a tourist wedding here in the Island where an Australian couple came over to be married and they chose a beachfront hotel and they luckily had a nice room overlooking the beach. When the bride got there and she said: “There are Australians on the beach” because this was in the day before we changed the contract and there were Australian beach guards just outside the window and they would have loved to have been out there with them. It would have been such an easy thing because literally open the glass doors, take 2 steps, and you were there. So that really made me realise that there are a lot more possibilities than we already accept. I have also as a Constable had to deal, under the current law, and I must say with the Registrar’s co-operation, a fantastically pragmatic department, with torrential, torrential rain in the 3 or 4 days leading up to a marriage that was due to take place in a marquee annexed to a building and of course you have a licence for a specified place. There was just no way the marquee was going to stand up where it should have been put and of course we had to then find alternative solutions because the last thing anybody would want to do is cause the bride and groom any undue stress as they approach their big day. They are usually stressed enough. So in my experience and following on from what the Constable of St. Lawrence said, there are lots of things to consider but there are absolutely easy ways to overcome them all and it can all be achieved. There are lots of things that will need to be considered. There are conditions now that mean you cannot consume food and drink in the same premises or whatever, we have to look at all of that, but there is absolutely nothing here in my opinion that cannot be undertaken. The costs have been raised, there is a permit fee now for a single marriage; there is another slightly increased fee for a 3-year authorisation of premises. If we stay with the authorisation of premises route, really I do not see any difference between an open-air location, as long as it is clearly defined. There are things like safety, literally, that is the simple thing. We look at that and it will not cost any more to do an outside venue in my opinion as it does to do an inside one. I would just like to say that from my own personal experience with dealing with last-minute climate catastrophes, it might always be a good idea to specify on the permit an alternative location because in my experience usually there will be one simply across a promenade or in a very close location. We have an excellent venue in St. Mary, a small fort on the hillside [Laughter] ... I am not promoting it, I am trying to explain. [Interruption] Of course, it does not belong to St. Mary. At the moment the actual ceremony takes places in a tiny little place, as has been said, only a handful of the guests witness the ceremony. If they could take literally 5 steps to the left, everybody could be part of that fantastic ceremony. In my view, no matter how you decide what your religious or non-religious conviction is, it is not the fact of where you get married, it is the fact that you are making that commitment. We have lost that in society for a long time and I think anything we can do to encourage that should be encouraged. [Approbation]

The Deputy Bailiff:

The Dean.

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

My apologies to Members that I had to be in London yesterday and I am delighted that Members managed to keep talking long enough to allow me to take part in this debate this morning. Many couples get married in Jersey by a Dean’s licence or in the French terms of dispense ordinaire or dispense extraordinaire. The document is still in French, they swear a legally-binding oath before me as President of the Ecclesiastical Court, and the licence does away with the need for banns but it also permits, at least the extraordinaire permits, in exactly the same way as an Archbishop’s licence in the United Kingdom. There may be things Archbishops can do that I cannot do but granting wedding licences is not one of them. That extraordinary licence says this: that licence is given to the rector of wherever it is to conduct the marriage at any time and any place he judges to be convenient. So I asked my ecclesiastical lawyers whether any time or any place meant just that, 3.00 a.m. in the morning on the beach or whatever, or did it mean just in a different Parish church? They said, no, as far as they were concerned it meant any time and any place. The dispense ordinaire allows weddings only in the front of the church between 6.00 a.m. in the morning and 6.00 p.m. in the afternoon. I want to respond if I may to Deputy Norton’s very helpful point about stages of faith because anyone coming to church for a wedding does not have to pass a theological examination before they get in the door. The very fact that they want to be married in church is good enough for me. They may well have a very strong faith, they may not be certain at all what they believe, but they are not a nuisance. It is a supreme privilege for any priest to be involved in marrying a couple. One of the things that the churches do is not just wedding arrangements but marriage preparation. It is an astonishing amount of money. £21,000 for the average wedding in the U.K.? When my younger daughter decides to get married I think I shall give her a couple of thousand to elope, it sounds much cheaper. [Laughter] The question is not how much is spent on the wedding, it is how much is invested in the marriage. Certainly in marriage preparation, then families are covered, sexuality, faith, communication and the number one reason statistically why marriages break down, which is the mismanagement of money. We encourage couples to make sure they have talked through all of those things. There is usually a preparation day and, yes, if they are coming from out of the Island, we link them up with a good place in the U.K. where the same opportunities are available to them before they come to get married in Jersey. So I think I support this proposal because I think the church needs to get with the 21st century and meet people where they are and minister God’s love to them. The Anglican wedding service starts by reminding people that Jesus went to a wedding in Cana in Galilee. I have got to tell you that wedding took place both in the open air and inside. There was a procession from one family’s house to the other and that was an integral part of the wedding. So an open-air marriage would be nothing new, it is certainly biblical, at least 2,000 years ago. Open air and indoors, God is just as present in his beautiful creation on the beach, or a lovely Jersey wooded valley, as he is in the most beautiful medieval church and, yes, if it rains I can guarantee a beautiful backup plan B. Thank you. [Approbation]

1.1.4 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

I apologise also for not being in the Assembly yesterday afternoon, having represented the Chief Minister and the Minister for External Relations at the Bastille commemorations in London yesterday, so I have not been part of the debate. I have just realised that the drafting of the Deputy’s proposition might not have included something close to a lot of people’s heart and that is civil partnerships. As it is cast at the moment the proposition simply deals with having open-air marriages which everybody is agreeing to. Therefore, I thank the Chief Minister for lodging today a proposal for us to deal with the issue of marriage equality and that is fantastic. That is really good news. So it may be that it is not going to be necessary but it probably will be because we all understand why, in the event of the Assembly approving the marriage equality proposal, that that is going to take some time and it would probably not be before the end of 2017 that we would be able to have same-sex marriages. Now the alternative for same-sex couples is civil partnerships and I am quite sure that if I know the Deputy as I think I know her to be an absolutely fair-minded and equality-promoting individual, that in her proposition, while it does not say it, perhaps she would respond as to whether or not she would invite the Minister in bringing forward what might be ... I do not know what the timing of the proposals could be, but for the period of time that we have got civil partnerships before marriage equality, that we have equality and that civil partnerships could be performed outside. I have been to a number of civil partnerships, not my own. I might be waiting for something else, you never know. [Laughter] But I have been to lots of civil partnerships and I know that civil partnerships are the same-sex equivalent at the moment to marriage. They are fantastic events and they have all the same attributes that the Dean and other Members have spoken about in terms of being the important day for the 2 individuals. In the eyes of the States, of course, the Church of England has not yet indicated whether they are going to opt in to marriage equality and that will be a matter for future times but certainly in the eyes of the States, civil partnerships are just the same. So I will just invite the Deputy as to whether or not she would agree with me that we could send a message to the Minister, and again it would be up to Members to vote on it, that this decision should be perhaps regarded ... marriage is either sex, it is not civil partnerships, but for the purposes in the spirit of this if we could have civil partnerships included in it.

The Deputy Bailiff:

Does any other Member wish to speak on the proposition? If no other Member wishes to speak then I call on Deputy Doublet to reply.

1.1.5 Deputy L.M.C. Doublet of St. Saviour:

Thank you to all Members who have spoken on this debate. I will respond to Senator Ozouf first of all and, yes, from the bottom of my heart, absolutely I think this proposal should include civil partnerships. As the original proposition it was not a standalone open-air marriage proposition, it was a humanist marriage proposition and the open-air part of it was in some way to facilitate the humanist part of it. So that was my thinking behind that but absolutely 100 per cent I think that the open-air option should be available to those who are having a civil partnership and any kind of marriage. Religion should be able to opt in if that is what they want to do. Non-religious belief marriages and civil weddings I think this option should be open to all, so I hope the Minister will be able to maybe confirm that at some point. So yesterday we heard from Deputy Tadier. Thank you, I heartily agree with you that we should be facilitating diversity of beliefs in Jersey. I am not sure I agree on the issue of union civile and that might be a matter for another debate but I think if we are going to make things fairer in terms of having your belief, celebrant or priest perform your ceremony rather than taking rights away, I think it is better to bring things up and give rights equally to all in terms of humanist and other non-religious belief groups being able to do that. So that is for another day, I think. The Assistant Minister for Home Affairs, thank you. I am very pleased with the support there and, as Deputy Maçon said, the “can do” attitude. Because there are things to be considered but I do believe they can all be overcome, and I have pointed out many possible ways of doing that in my report. Deputy Norton mentioned the plan B. That is something they do in New Zealand. They have some very sensible marriage laws there and I think perhaps the Minister might want someone to look at those when she is drafting. They can put 2 options on the marriage licence for where they are going to get married, so some very reasonable and straightforward ways to go about doing this. The Connétable of St. Martin, yes, I do agree with you the financial argument is the least important and that is why I left it until the end. I am pleased that you agree that marriage should be meaningful, and that is my intention with this proposition, is to give all the couples in Jersey the meaningful marriage ceremony they want. Or civil partnership as Senator Ozouf has pointed out. I really hope that the Connétables will be consulted when the legislation is being drafted because obviously as the system is now, the simple way would be just to make it that you approve the location, but there are other ways of doing it which would be far less onerous on the Connétables. New Zealand, again, I think they register their celebrants rather than their location, so there are lots of ways of doing it.

[10:00]

Deputy Norton, thank you. [Laughter] It was very nice hearing about all of your experiences of marriage and some interesting statistics there. I hope some of those 80,000 people that go abroad from the U.K. will come to Jersey. I am quite excited about the prospects for Jersey on this. I do not think Jersey should miss out on this, I think we should grab it with both hands and totally agree marriage is a joyful occasion. Connétable of St. Mary, thank you, very reasonable comments, as always. I always like hearing what you have got to say. As for defining a place, Scotland have a very nice way of putting it: that the location has to be “safe and dignified” so that is quite simple wording I think that could possibly be written into our legislation. A big thanks to the Dean. I am very pleased that you are supporting this. I am sure your parishioners will be pleased to hear that as well. Sorry, I should be going through the Chair. I think I have covered everyone who has commented. I just want to remind Members of the reason why this is a good thing for Jersey. It is reasonable, people want it. 93 per cent of people who took that poll in the J.E.P. (Jersey Evening Post) said yes to this so it is quite overwhelmingly supported by the public. It would be very simple to introduce, it would strengthen marriage in Jersey in line with the Chief Minister’s intentions and hopefully increase wedding tourism to Jersey. So I urge Members to vote pour and I call for the appel, please.

The Deputy Bailiff:

The appel is called for. Presumably you wish to take (b) and (c) together, Deputy? They seem to be inextricably linked. I would invite Members to return to their seats. I ask the Greffier to open the voting.

POUR: 47	CONTRE: 0	ABSTAIN: 0
Senator P.F. Routier
Senator P.F.C. Ozouf
Senator A.J.H. Maclean
Senator I.J. Gorst
Senator L.J. Farnham
Senator P.M. Bailhache
Senator A.K.F. Green
Senator Z.A. Cameron
Connétable of St. Helier
Connétable of St. Clement
Connétable of St. Peter
Connétable of St. Lawrence
Connétable of St. Mary
Connétable of St. Ouen
Connétable of St. Brelade
Connétable of St. Martin
Connétable of St. Saviour
Connétable of Grouville
Connétable of St. John
Connétable of Trinity
Deputy J.A. Martin (H)
Deputy G.P. Southern (H)
Deputy of Grouville
Deputy J.A. Hilton (H)
Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré (L)
Deputy of Trinity
Deputy K.C. Lewis (S)
Deputy M. Tadier (B)
Deputy E.J. Noel (L)
Deputy of St. John
Deputy J.M. Maçon (S)
Deputy S.J. Pinel (C)
Deputy of St. Martin
Deputy R.G. Bryans (H)
Deputy of St. Peter
Deputy S.Y. Mézec (H)
Deputy A.D. Lewis (H)
Deputy of St. Ouen
Deputy L.M.C. Doublet (S)
Deputy R. Labey (H)
Deputy S.M. Wickenden (H)
Deputy S.M. Brée (C)
Deputy M.J. Norton (B)
Deputy T.A. McDonald (S)
Deputy of St. Mary
Deputy G.J. Truscott (B)
Deputy P.D. McLinton (S)

Deputy L.M.C. Doublet:

Thank you to the Assembly for supporting it.

2. States Assembly: filming proceedings and the installation of clocks (P.39/2015) - as amended

The Deputy Bailiff:

The final item of Public Business is that which was deferred from yesterday which is the proposition lodged by the Privileges and Procedures Committee entitled States Assembly: filming procedures and the installation of clocks, P.39/2015. Chairman, I understand there is an amendment in the name of the Committee. Presumably you would wish the proposition to be taken as amended?

Connétable L. Norman of St. Clement:

Yes, please, Sir.

The Deputy Bailiff:

In which case I would ask the Greffier to read the proposition as amended.

The Greffier of the States:

The States are asked to decide whether they are of opinion: (a) to agree that the proceedings of the States Assembly should be filmed and broadcast live on the internet and that the broadcast of each sitting should be available online to view again for a period of at least 6 months at a cost not exceeding the sums indicated on page 6 of the attached report and the addendum to the report; (b) to agree that the official media should be permitted, at their own cost, to record the proceedings of the States Assembly from the footage made in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (a), and to use it in news reports in accordance with rules to be established by the Privileges and Procedures Committee; (c) to agree that 3 digital display clocks should be installed in the States Chamber to indicate the length of speeches and other interventions made by Members.

2.1 The Connétable of St. Clement (Chairman, Privileges and Procedures Committee):

This proposition is not about filming ourselves; this was suggested in a proposition lodged yesterday. It is not about spending money on ourselves. This proposition really is about one thing: it is about re-engaging with the public, the public who we represent, the public who put us here in the first place. Filming and broadcasting our proceedings will allow us to open the doors of the States Assembly to our constituents. It will make our decisions more accessible and our communication with Islanders more effective. It is the responsibility of the Privileges and Procedures Committee to ensure the provision of information to the public about the work of the States. The committee has worked quickly since its appointment to investigate the feasibility and cost of installing cameras in the States Chamber to bring us in line with modern parliaments, modern democracies around the word. Not just parliaments, indeed, councils, county councils, tiny councils, councils with 9,000 constituents. It is now the norm filming of Assemblies. It is now expected that Assemblies will be accessible to the public through filming. What we are proposing is to stream our meetings live on the internet as well as to provide an archive of States sittings for people to access at their convenience. In developing this proposal, advice has been sought from the Department of Electronics and the Information Services Department, as well as from potential suppliers and other legislatures who film their meetings. Officers from the States Greffe have held initial discussions with potential third party partners who could manage the web-streaming and archiving services. If this proposition is adopted a formal tender process will be organised to select a supplier. During our investigations positive feedback has been received from other legislatures and councils who have said that filming and broadcasting their proceedings has led to better engagement with the public and improved transparency. As I said before, it is not just parliaments. You think of small parliaments like Gibraltar, Bahamas, Barbados, Malta, Iceland and town councils now all over the United Kingdom, it is significant throughout the world. The committee has previously used filming as a means of connecting with the general public. During the 2014 election campaign hustings meetings were filmed and broadcast online by the Vote.je website receiving, amazingly, some 11,000 hits in all which is much more than quite honestly most of us anticipated. The committee believes that the filming of the States Assembly will be of equal interest or even more interest to people in Jersey and indeed elsewhere. We have received positive feedback too from social media, comments on Facebook and Twitter, for example. Streaming our meetings online is an efficient and effective way of improving the transparency of this Assembly and re-engaging with the people that we represent. Details of the proposal: we propose to introduce 5 high-definition cameras in the Chamber which will be operated manually by a member of staff from the States Greffe. Four of the cameras will be positioned to cover our seating areas and a further camera will focus on the Presiding Officer and Greffier seats. The cameras are small and unobtrusive and will be installed sensitively to take account of the historic nature of the Chamber. When an individual speaks, the relevant camera will focus on the person who is speaking and the operator will zoom in on the speaker. The film and sound will be fed directly through a dedicated high-speed line to an outsourced provider and will then be visible live on a dedicated page of the States Assembly website. Streaming will be at a suitable resolution to allow it to be viewed by any user with a standard broadband connection. After each sitting, once the live broadcast is finished, the film of the proceedings will be available for at least 6 months in an online archive available via again the States Assembly website. Each film will have a basic index attached that will link to individual debates and other parts of the proceedings so that viewers can easily find that part of the meeting that interests them. In addition, links to the footage of debates will be able to be sent out via the States Assembly Twitter feed. The archive will be hosted and managed by a third party supplier who will be selected through an open procurement process. Paragraph (b) of the proposition proposes that footage will also be made available to broadcasters at their own costs for use in news programmes. This means that broadcasters will be able to provide improved coverage of States sittings. Discussions have already taken place with Channel TV and the BBC who are both keen to improve their coverage of States proceedings through the use of film to replace the current audio-only output. The BBC is also hopeful that some footage may be used nationally, either on the Democracy Live website or on the BBC parliamentary channel. The committee will be drawing up rules for broadcasters to ensure that footage provided is only used for genuine news and current affairs coverage of the Assembly. Local broadcasters have indicated they would welcome such rules to ensure that there are agreed parameters for everyone about the use of the footage. There is some speculation that the introduction of cameras could encourage some Members to speak more frequently or to play to an outside audience. I can recall similar concerns were expressed in the mid-1980s when the radio was first allowed to broadcast the proceedings in the Assembly and in other parliaments, such as the House of Commons, when cameras were first introduced. But in both cases any potential disadvantages were greatly outweighed by the benefits of opening up legislatures to a wider audience. Although in theory some Members may initially change their behaviour when cameras are introduced, in practice Members will almost certainly become oblivious to the cameras within a very short time. Following feedback from Members at the presentation we held a few weeks ago, we have lodged an amendment to our proposition to ensure that the costs are limited to those outlined in the accompanying report and addendum. The equipment costs for the filming and web-streaming could be funded in one of 2 ways. The initial equipment costs are, with some suppliers, paid for as an initial capital payment, whereas other suppliers provide the equipment as part of an overall annual contract which covers the leasing of the equipment and the running costs of the web-streaming. The decision on the most cost-effective option will be taken as part of the tender process. Leased equipment options are available for less than £30,000 per annum. Alternatively, if the equipment is to be purchased, the estimated cost of the initial setup would not exceed some £40,000 to £45,000. Under this option the annual running costs, including the need for a dedicated S.D.S.L. (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line) and maintenance costs based on 48 meetings a year would be between £22,000 and £27,000 depending on whether the footage was kept online for 6 or 12 months. In both cases there would be a £3,500 per annum opportunity cost for staffing the equipment. Some Members have indicated to me, and I have heard them saying: “Now is not the right time. Spending £30,000 a year when some of our staff are to be made redundant is not appropriate.” I have to say that the spending on this project would not make one iota of difference to any of the departments of the States. We are not asking for any extra money. The modest costs will be funded by prioritising our existing resources, our existing budget. We have already made the savings which other departments have also made. The States Assembly budget has been reduced in the same way that other departments have had their budgets reduced. In addition to broadcasting our proceedings, we are proposing that clocks should be installed in the States Chamber showing Members the total time they have been speaking during a debate. Clocks such as this are in place in many parliaments around the world and have proved to be useful in Chambers such as the House of Lords to inform Members how long their speeches are lasting. We have no intention of introducing time limits on speeches. This proposal today is simply to assist Members to ensure that their speeches are concise and relevant. If this proposition is adopted, 3 clocks will be installed, one over each of the main exit doors in the Chamber. The clocks will appear on a simple flat-screen television around the size of an iPad and will show a digital clock display. It will be the Greffier’s responsibility to start, stop and reset the clocks which will be equally linked. We have received a quote in the sum of £1,748 for the supply and installation of 3 elapsed-time counters in the Chamber. We had intended to trial the operation of the clocks, but in view of the cost involved, we are proposing it should be introduced as a permanent measure, as it would be difficult to justify such an expense for a trial period. It was yesterday I heard the Minister for Treasury on the radio saying, when talking about the Medium-Term Financial Plan, that the States needed to become more efficient. Now, I know that he was talking about the various States departments, but of course we ourselves need to set an example and to be as efficient as we possibly can. We have no mechanisms for disciplining ourselves. We have no time limits on speeches; no time limits on debates; Back-Benchers have equal rights to spend time on propositions as Ministers; there is no priority between legislation and straightforward propositions; there are no guillotine motions.

[10:15]

The only way of controlling ourselves is by our own self-discipline. The object of these clocks is to help us to understand how long we are speaking and how relevant, hopefully, we are being. This proposition as a whole is about moving the States Assembly into the 21st century. We cannot expect people to engage with the States via an audio feed and Hansard. If Members are serious about the need to communicate with Islanders and appeal to younger members of society, we must be prepared to accept the additional modest cost of filming and broadcasting our proceedings. As I said earlier, to provide such a facility is now the norm throughout many places in the world and is taken for granted. This is not about filming ourselves, but it is about bringing the public to us. I was thinking about this: there are many people who cannot come and watch our proceedings, even though we have a public gallery, because never will the disabled be able to enter the public gallery because of the design of this building. Those who cannot manage the stairs will never be able to come and engage with us as other people are able to do. I just wonder, if I was standing here today asking for £100,000 or £200,000 to make disabled access possible - which it is not - in that public gallery, would there be any objection whatsoever? I think probably not. The cost of web-streaming and of the installation of the clocks will be accommodated by making savings in other areas of the States Assembly budget. We are conscious that in coming years, the States Assembly will no doubt be required to find more savings to meet States spending targets, but we consider that this public engagement initiative is an important one that should be funded within existing resources. It is the Committee’s job to provide information to the public about the work of the States and to keep the public information services under review. Public engagement with local politics is difficult, but if we expect to be able to communicate with Islanders, our dialogue needs to be accessible. We must therefore consider the way in which Islanders access information in this digital age. The public does not have the time to digest voluminous verbatim records of States sittings. If we are going to communicate effectively, we must provide visual access to our decision-making process. This proposition provides us with an opportunity to broadcast our decisions, providing a more transparent and open parliament and re-engaging with the people we are here to represent. Supporting this proposition will be a commitment to transparency and openness; it will be a commitment to reconnecting with the people who put us here; it will be a commitment to keeping pace with other parliaments of significance; it will be a commitment to a vision of a modern, forward-thinking and self-confident Assembly; it will be a commitment to a belief that politics and the work that we do in this place is significant and important, and it should be captured, it should be open and not closeted. I make the proposition, Sir. [Approbation]

The Deputy Bailiff:

Is the proposition seconded? [Seconded] Does any Member wish to speak on the proposition? Deputy Labey.

2.1.1 Deputy R. Labey of St. Helier:

As somebody who has covered this Assembly for both radio and television, I thought I just might share a few comments. When I was a reporter for Channel Television, I would sit in that gallery there, and before I left the station, synchronise my watch with the Betamax video-recorder that was recording the audio feed of the Assembly. Every time I heard a choice sound bite or a sound bite that summed up the debate or was interesting or controversial - sometimes it was by the then Deputy Len Norman - I would note down the time code reader, go back to the station at the end of the day, chop those pieces up, put them into a report and the audio was accompanied by a slide of whoever the speaker was sitting in this Chamber that we had taken at the beginning of the parliamentary session. I thought this was exhilarating television, but I was alone in that. Of course it is terrible, terrible television, because television is a visual media. That was in the 1980s, and even then it was not really acceptable, because parliament had already started to be filmed, so people were used to seeing politicians in that Chamber. It is in the 1980s that Deputy Le Fondré’s report is stuck, I am afraid. Things have moved on, and he has missed the point, that for adequate and proper television coverage - and we now have more local television news on the mainstream than we have had ever before - for that to be properly and adequately covered, they need to show the pictures. That is why the reporters do not ever have clips of us speaking with a slide on television now, yet interviewed outside, because it is bad television. Television is a visual media, and not just that, the internet is a visual media, the newspapers are a visual media and the newspapers’ websites are a visual media. Look at the Daily Mail one which is one of the most popular in the world, it is full of pictures, it is full of moving pictures. It will also help the J.E.P. in their online coverage and the Bailiwick Express, all of the local media. I just wanted to share with you that. We think we are terribly trendy because we are on Facebook and Twitter, but even that has been superseded now by Instagram and Snapchat and what have you, the reason being Instagram and Snapchat are more visual. That is the point. I think the argument that Members might be encouraged to play to the camera, those who might be encouraged to play to the camera are already probably playing to the microphone, if they exist. [Approbation] Constable Norman, the Chairman of the P.P.C. (Privileges and Procedures Committee), was very clear in his election speech to get the position that he wanted to bring this in. I remember he got approbation for that and I believe it is great that he has come so quickly to this House with this proposition and he should be supported wholeheartedly. [Approbation]

2.1.2 Deputy P.D. McLinton of St. Saviour:

As part of the proposition, I would like to draw Members’ attention to this line: “Although in theory, some Members may initially change their behaviour when cameras are introduced, the P.P.C. trust that Members will act in a responsible way, and in practice, Members will almost certainly become oblivious to the cameras after a very short while.” The question is will we all be getting our hair done up all nice, choosing our ties more carefully and becoming deeply aware of that blob of mayonnaise that landed on your jacket during the lunch break? What I think we will find is that a number of Members of the Assembly who labour under the misapprehension that they are good public speakers will find that, without the benefit of a Hansard tidy-up, their rambling - “Hang on a minute, it is here somewhere. Hang on, I have just lost my train of thought, err, erm, err” - will be definitely not standing up to public scrutiny, so we can only hope that adaptive preparation of speeches, debates and responses will come into its own, which brings me to part (c) of the proposition: “To agree that 3 digital display clocks should be installed in the States Chamber to indicate the length of speeches and other interventions made by Members.” Again, a quote from the proposition: “A simple clock system showing the total time a Member has been speaking to be used in the States Chamber. Hopefully having a conscious and visible reminder of the duration of a speech or debate will focus the person speaking on participating in an efficient manner.” There are some Members of the Assembly who, when they stand to speak, I perk up. They may not even speak that often, but when they do, the words they use have meaning, are pertinent, well thought-out and thought-provoking. I may not even agree with their sentiment, but they give me pause for thought. They optimise for me what debate is supposed to be, persuasive of another point of view, another opinion, not: “I am right, and you are all wrong and therefore because you do not agree with me, you are all idiots.” Throughout the world this has been shown, that this so-called form of debate is a massive turn-off for the electorate. Just saying, this happens, and it will happen when people get to observe this kind of behaviour in this Chamber. The other Members of the Assembly who think that they have to speak on virtually every subject at virtually every occasion possibly at length, I believe that this denigrates their argument and I, like many in this Assembly now - and historically, I am sure - I am ashamed to say I just switch them off. I should not, but it is hard paying that much attention for that length of time. We are not paid by the word. If we were, some Members of this Assembly would feature in the Times Rich List under the section: “Speaks too much.” A bit rich coming from me, as I have spoken rather a lot over these past couple of days. On balance, I believe that the electorate deserve to witness with their own eyes the workings of this Assembly and that any misgivings that Members may have regarding the performances of Members will naturally find their level in ways that I am sure will surprise us all. I shall wholeheartedly be supporting all 3 parts of the proposition. I urge you to do so. Thank you.

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

So far today, I have heard comments about performance, visual cues and all that sort of stuff. The issue, in the context of where we are, it is about substance. The Connétable of St. Clement said: “This is not about filming ourselves. It is not about spending money on ourselves.” He may like to think that, but I think it is how it will be perceived, and I put that in the context of where we are as of yesterday and what was lodged on our desks yesterday. I note the comments from good friends, I hope, or colleagues who have just spoken with ties to the media, but you cannot ignore the context we are operating in. That is, to an extent, why I lodged my proposition, which may be on Members’ desks - it was lodged yesterday, obviously, which will be debated in September - which I considered a small step, a small improvement to this proposal in front of us. Why? To me, it is about politicians, it is about pensioners, it is about message and it is about mindset. We are in possibly the toughest financial position this Assembly has ever had to face. The full forecast deficit for 2015 is £116 million, for 2015 even, that is this year; for 2016, it is £93 million; for 2017, it is £71 million and so it goes on. If anybody wants to doubt me or challenge me on that, look on page 43 of the Medium-Term Financial Plan. The Council of Ministers have announced they will be cancelling the Christmas Bonus and removing for new entrants Television Licences for the Over-75s. Those are all things that this Assembly in the past… they are embedded in our culture at the moment. We are capping supplementation, which does not necessarily mean very much to people, but on the face of it is taking money out of the Social Security Reserve Fund. That is about everybody in this Assembly’s own pension. We have compulsory redundancies on the horizon, so politically those are pretty tough decisions. They emphasise the seriousness of the position that we continue to face, yet on the day after the Minister for Treasury and Resources has been defending these measures, we in this Assembly are being asked to approve extra spending on filming us - yes, there will be this thing about engagement - but it is we will be the subject of it and which is going to cost somewhere in the order of £25,000 to £30,000 a year. What message does that send out, because I think it will be perceived that we are more interested in ourselves than in pensioners. Will any Minister be able to look at someone who has been made compulsorily redundant and say: “Your specific job needed to go so that we could pay for filming politicians, and that is why I, Minister for X, Y, Z, voted for that proposition.” That is the message that I think could be received. It undoes so much of the work in the M.T.F.P. and we need to be clearly demonstrating that we are serious about the savings that need to be made and we have a clear mindset that we are serious about those savings. That is why this is a matter about principle effectively. Yes, in the overall context it is a small sum of money. We get used to that because we deal with millions of pounds every day. In the context of the man on the street out there £30,000 a year is a substantial sum of money. Voting for this proposition does not clearly demonstrate the mindset here in this Assembly that we are serious about savings. Because filming this Assembly ultimately is a nice to have relative to the things I have just spoken about. You can talk about engagement, you can talk about transparency and all sorts of stuff but ultimately this is a nice to have that presently does not exist. I have to say personally I do not think that filming us is going to increase respect. We all listen to speeches from time to time.

[10:30]

I will relate a conversation I had with a senior politician from a different jurisdiction relatively recently and we talked about the problems they were having. The way they put it was the public are fed up with spin. They are fed up with politicians saying one thing and then coming back later and saying: “Well, I did not quite mean what I said. If you look at my words you should have interpreted them in a different way.” That is the first thing that needs to be addressed and that might start improving respect for us. As for transparency, the better place to start in that process might be, for example, not taking 25 weeks to respond to things from the Public Accounts Committee. [Approbation] It might not be, for example, taking 10 weeks to respond to requests from Scrutiny Panels. That is about improving transparency initially because that is your fundamentals. I tried to look at bringing an amendment but unfortunately it was disallowed because effectively it was deemed it would negate the proposition, and I have explored various ways of trying to come to a compromise, so that is why I lodged the proposition that Members have had which, if this is rejected, we can bring in debate in September. Basically we already record States sittings. We know that. That forms the basis of Hansard. The media already broadcast the Assembly live on audio but you cannot listen again. All I am suggesting is that as a first step we do it through our website through our existing resources and we get that sorted out. Then let us see how that goes. Let us see what the engagement is, and the ongoing cost of setting that up is minimal. It is £1,000 to £1,200 a year as compared to £25,000 to £30,000 a year. In my view it is an incremental improvement that is incidental in terms of costs. There is a one-off capital cost but even that is around one-third of one year’s cost under the proposals from P.P.C. Basically all those costs that I have cited that are in my report are those that P.P.C. have included in their report as well, so we are talking the same language. I have used more expensive options in my comparisons. As I said, if the proposition is approved today I will withdraw my proposition. Otherwise it is there and we can debate it in September. But I re-iterate, this is a nice to have. Adoption of this proposition is £25,000 to £30,000 each and every year based on P.P.C.’s own report, and the day after, we have lodged proposals - sorry not we - the Council Ministers have lodged proposals to cancel the Christmas Bonus for pensioners and cancel certain free TV licences. The Constable of St. Clement said we need to set an example ourselves and referred to savings already having been made within the States Assembly budget. Absolutely correct: we do need to set that example and in my view that means do not just then spend the money you have saved. That is about having the correct mindset and it is about sending that message that we are serious about having that mindset and that therefore everyone else should be serious about that mindset. We as an Assembly need to stop wandering round with our eyes shut as to what is happening in respect of the Island’s finances. We need to clearly demonstrate we are serious about controlling expenditure and not adding to it unnecessarily. We need to show that mindset and, in my view, this proposition should be rejected.

2.1.4 Connétable M.P.S. Le Troquer of St. Martin:

It is difficult to follow the opening speech from the Chairman and I thank the Chairman for delaying bringing the proposition to the Assembly after the query I had raised at the Members’ briefing concerning the seemingly uncapped cost of the project had the proposition as it was worded then been approved. Those present will recall that had it been approved then the Assembly would have given the go-ahead to the installation even if the cost had eventually turned out to be far greater than originally anticipated. We now have the amendment with a cap and also an addendum that covers the cost of the States Greffier’s Department too. I suspect the cost of the facility will increase rapidly in the years to come. I am an old cynic but I hope it becomes value for money at this difficult time. The proposition is quite thorough but I am not sure of a couple of comments contained within it that filming will help re-engage with the public. It may have been better to have the word “hopefully”. I think someone viewing a full day on some States Assembly days then might have the opposite effect. That filming will appeal to younger members of society: can I again add “hopefully” but there is no evidence to support that claim in the paper. Those very broad comments are seemingly the answer to all our problems with engagement with the public. It is sad how often we look up on States days to see the public gallery, and I know there are some people this morning but not very many interested people who will come to a States day and sit here. Most days it is empty, and I am not sure if Radio Jersey is able to tell how many people listen every other week to the States days, and I thank those Islanders who do take an interest and listen to a whole debate rather than subsequent snippets used in media headlines. I appreciate all the work and progress that has been undertaken by P.P.C. but I have concerns on the proposition. This is not a trial proposition. The amendment to Standing Orders to use electronic equipment in the Assembly back in 2012 was initially a trial, albeit I am not sure we all complied with the intent some of the equipment was used for. It was to help us in States debates work towards a paperless society. We know that does not happen. [Laughter] I think it was a term I served sitting next to my dear colleague, the former Connétable of St. John, who called himself the old dinosaur. I think I have taken over, having sat so close to him. Will this proposition be value for money? Will costs remain the same or suddenly start to escalate? The Chairman of P.P.C. might like to confirm again, I am not quite sure in his summing up if it is £45,000 and £27,000 per annum or just basically £30,000 per annum. And I say “just”; £30,000 per annum. How many will watch or benefit predominantly from our critical, and rightly so, colleagues in the media? The existing cost of running this Assembly today is considerable. I do not have those costs but I am sure it would surprise the public and it would probably surprise us how much a day in this Assembly costs. I have concerns about the responsibility for the Greffier and his team who would have to undertake operating cameras and setting clocks. What a lot of spare time they appear to have and we know they do not have that spare time. Of course, even P.P.C. has concerns about the production of satirical and critical videos from the footage. I am unsure if the Chairman will seek to take the 3 items separately but I would ask that he does. I have no appetite for the installation of 3 clocks in the Assembly. Maybe time clocks as Members leave and return to the Assembly might have a more influencing effect. [Laughter] I would, of course, have a different view on the usefulness of clocks if we had time limits on Members’ speeches but we do not have that. I am not convinced that clocks will assist the Assembly or Members in any way whatsoever. In fact, you could compare it to the Mr. Smiley speed machines on the sides of roads, although I am sure nobody in this Assembly would ever dream of seeing if they could get the highest reading as some of the motorists seem to do. I will not mention the stats produced at the end of each term of the number of votes each Member has missed but we know this has happened, where we get a circulation not from the States or from the Greffier but from Members of how many votes we have missed. Even the Greffier on speech times would have something to talk about to Hedley at the Members Christmas lunch. I think it is unnecessary spend of an estimated £1,800, all-singing, all-dancing £600 a clock. That is maybe small on the grand scale of things but I think it is best spent elsewhere. In conclusion, I have changed my speech overnight. I prepared last week for the debate and I was going to support the filming part but not the part in relation to the clocks. But like with all of us our minds keep thinking. We are assessing and weighing things up on a daily basis, new thoughts flashing through our minds all the time, even when we are sitting here during debates. We had the briefings from the Council of Ministers and the Minister for Treasury and Resources on Friday on the Medium-Term Financial Plan, the reality check that faces us all and that is so easy to ignore. On the front page of last night’s newspaper, and I know we should not have newspapers in the Assembly, but I have the copy. “We are all in this together”, and it was in black as well. “New health charge: user-pays for sewerage.” This is just the headline. “Pensioners’ Christmas bonus axed, over-75s free TV licences scrapped, freeze on benefits, rainy day fund raided, £90 million cut-backs in States staff and services, public sector pensions frozen.” All on the front page, not in the story, just the headline. I think some of these issues, for the time being, overshadow the cost involved and perceived benefits of the installation of cameras and clocks, so I will be opposing it today.

2.1.5 Deputy M.J. Norton:

I am, of course, reminded that the former members of the media are among the first to stand up and talk when it comes to something to do with television and radio and further broadcasting. I do say without apology there are questions that I would like to ask on this proposition. In the main I support it. There was something mentioned by the proposer of this proposition that the media would be re-broadcasting at their own cost. I wonder, when I look that the BBC receives £4.8 billion in licence fee, if there is some cost to them in order for them to have the pictures we are producing in the States to do so. Is there a payment that comes from then broadcasters to the States for using our pictures from ITV and BBC? After all, we are paying for the cameras, we are paying for the operators and we are paying for the streaming, are we not? They are paying for it. I am being misled. Whoever is paying for it I am just wondering whether there is some fee to be charged from that. It was a question that I had not asked and it is already being answered for me or perhaps it can be made more clear for me. In terms of the growth of social media and the coverage that we will get, of course, there are those that will be interested to log-on and watch the entire States debate. There will be those that would wish to re-tweet links to part of the debate and put it up on social media. Social media is growing at a huge rate and, of course, will attract other people into our debates and I think that can only be a good thing. One has to look at social media at the moment and realise that all our media, wherever they be, in print, television or radio, use social media non-stop all day long, and they do it to promote the headlines they are writing. We are reliant on the headlines they write to feed the information they give to the public. Perhaps we need to let them see and hear what we do as it happens. Not as they report, and not as they spin it, and there will be spin in either way, but I would rather have people see what happens than be able to read from headlines what the media might want to put on it for whatever agenda they have. For those reasons, while I do take note of the spend I think it is important that we open up for transparency as much as we possibly can. It is a minor spend for a great deal of transparency and I will be supporting.

2.1.6 The Connétable of St. Mary:

I have a great deal of difficulty with this proposition in a couple of aspects and I have come here this morning prepared to vote completely against the proposition. I have heard a very persuasive speech from Deputy Labey explaining the media side of things and some follow-on speeches as well. I can appreciate what they are saying. When the Chairman proposed this he said we cannot expect people to engage with us via an audio feed and Hansard. My question I wrote down then was, why not? The majority of people who do, in my experience, listen to the broadcast do so while they are doing something else. They do not have the time to sit dedicated to a television programme. They are maybe doing the gardening, doing the ironing, whatever, perhaps even driving or something. They are doing it as an ancillary thing; it is not their prime focus. But they are getting verbatim streaming.

[10:45]

If that was available maybe that would satisfy a need. But I can understand the reluctance of the media to take extracts, as Deputy Labey said, and just put them without images. That is a difficulty. But my real question on this is: where did the focus for this come from? Where did it initiate? I have had 2 emails from people saying: “We encourage you to support this.” One from a person and one from a group, and their comments are valid. This is not an easy thing to say yes or no to for me, but I have been out and about and I have spoken to quite a few people about this, just literally asked them a question while we are having a chat about something else: “By the way can I ask you what your opinion of television streaming of the States is?” I have not asked a single person who has told me: “Yes, we need it.” Not one. In fact, I have had some very angry responses from some of the people, so I would say that if the Chairman says we need to engage by doing this he might have engaged better with the public first before bringing it in the way it has, because they certainly do not understand the nuances that Deputy Labey and others have mentioned and they are cross that we think we will be doing this at this time. I would just like to be really sure that the Chairman can convince me that the public of the Island want this. But I am very balanced on a knife edge as regards that part of the proposition, but if I could I would like to talk about time clocks because few people have put much into that at the moment. I was thinking this was probably a very good idea and I still do think it is a good idea but I am not convinced the way this proposition puts it forward is the optimum. The cost is there. It is small but no matter how small it is we do need to make sure we get maximum value for money. We do need to think outside the box on this. Members have said that we do not time our speeches but, of course, that is not always true. We time our questions generally. I know that is just a guideline but we have that. More importantly, perhaps, we time our election speeches. We know how long we can speak for after statements. There are already defined time limits in our Standing Orders. I am very lucky in that I have had the privilege of working in other parliaments around Europe particularly, and I would like to share some of the experiences I have had there in the context of further ways that we could perhaps save money if we did this a little differently. I am sorry I have not had time to think about this in order to put in an amendment, but genuinely the penny dropped last week when I was looking at something in the Swiss Federal Parliament and they have television screens around the Chamber. Obviously the Chamber is bigger than ours. We are limited to where we could perhaps put them but there certainly is space there, there is certainly a space there, perhaps a drop down one for other things. Not only could we use those time clocks as the Chairman is saying, we could use small displays, but, of course, if a Member wants to circulate a photograph in an Island Plan debate, a chart or whatever, that Member does not put 49 pieces of paper round the Chamber. They present it beforehand in pdf format or whatever and it appears on the screen in the place where everybody in that Assembly can see it. I have tried to go completely paperless. I am very fortunate. I work very well reading off the screen. I always have my iPad here and for major debates I bring my laptop. But yesterday, and this is when, of course, I am going to shoot myself in the foot because this would be great to put on television, I received on my paperless desk what I estimate to be 500 sheets of printed material that I will not read because I have every single one of these documents electronically and that is how I have chosen to work. [Approbation] I believe that if we could install in the Chamber screens of a slightly larger size to the ones the Constable and the Committee have envisaged we could use them as a dual purpose. The thing that impressed me most about the clocks I saw last week, because we were very busy in our work and we had a very charged agenda, at one point in the debating we were given 4 minutes to speak. At the start of our 4 minutes a green bar appeared across the screen that was 3½ minutes long and it got shorter and shorter and shorter so wherever you were in the Chamber, however you were speaking you could glance up and think: “I do not have much time left. I must focus.” Then for the last 30 seconds of that 4 minutes it turned orange and it got shorter and shorter and shorter and then all of a sudden the screen went red. It was a visual reminder, it was a focus, and it worked because we had a defined time limit and while we do not have that for our speeches, as I have explained, we do have it for a lot of other things we do in this Assembly. It would be very useful in questions without notice to have 15 minute ticking down so you know; is it worth me pressing the button? Is it worth me trying? Should I make my question briefer to give the next person a chance to get theirs in as well? Should, Ministers, we make our answers briefer to allow for more questions? [Approbation] That, I believe, is the focus we should look for and I think, while I support in principle exactly what the Chairman and the committee have proposed here, this is one place where we could spend a little bit more money, have a slightly bigger screen, make it more multi-capable so we could get rid of all this enormous amount of paper that is wafting around this Chamber and I would wager, if I was a betting woman [Laughter] ... my phone is not on.

The Deputy Bailiff:

Could I ask Members to check they have no electronic equipment at the moment on, or put back to safe mode or whatever it may be?

The Connétable of St. Mary:

Thank you, Sir. I would wager if I was a betting woman that most of the paper that gets circulated within this Chamber during a sitting finds its way into the little receptacles by the doors as we leave. That is a total and utter waste of money. The Reprographics Department I am sure could tell me how much is wasted every week but there we would recoup the cost of initially putting in those screens and demonstrate to the public that we can innovate, that we can engage, that we can progress but we can also save money, and I think that is where I am not quite sure about the first part but definitely the way I feel about the time clocks.

2.1.7 Connétable C.H. Taylor of St. John:

I would like to congratulate the Constable of St. Clement for bringing this proposition forward but I would like to say from the start this is something that we should aspire to, not something we should have at this present time. I am often amused when members of my family return from shopping and they say: “Look, Dad, I’ve saved £50”, and I say: “Yes, and how much did you spend?” “Oh, £100 but it was £50 off.” The Constable of St. Clement very eloquently said: “This is not going to cost anything because we have already made the savings.” Yes, it is going to cost because that cost could be passed on to somewhere else where it may be more badly needed. We had an excellent report from the Chairman of the Education Scrutiny Panel yesterday about special needs teachers and the need in that department for additional financing, and I think additional personnel in that area is probably more needed at this present time than our pictures on peoples’ telephone screens. As a son I have always looked to my father as a man of wisdom. I hope my children think the same. In life if you make a little saving, if you happen to do particularly well you get a bonus. That is when you can spend a little extra money and treat yourselves. I suggest therefore that instead of balancing the books by 2019 balance them by 2018 and I will stand up and propose that we televise and put online our debates because we will have made the savings, we will have achieved targets and so we will be able to treat ourselves and have it then. Finally, the clocks, and I am afraid I have a real issue with this because there are 2 types of speakers in this Assembly. Those who have something to say, stand up, say it, sit down and shut up; and those who waffle. Those who waffle I am afraid I know of no way that will stop them other than perhaps 3 crosses like on one of the television programmes. [Laughter] Certainly not a clock that is counting up the minutes, hours and dare I even suggest, days. I would therefore at this present time urge Members to reject the proposition. That is not to say we will not revisit it but at this present time I think it is unwise that the savings we make are immediately spent. We are looking to make savings that we can keep, not spend.

2.1.8 Deputy G.J. Truscott of St. Brelade:

I am going to be that prudent, careful Jerseyman again. The Government is dealing with financial challenges, a black hole, a structural deficit of £145 million. All departments have been asked to make savings, jobs are being cut and there are tough times ahead. While I agree the Assembly being filmed would have its uses and it would be a nicety, in my opinion it is an ongoing expense that we can do without for now. Personally I believe the funds for this project would be better allocated to be diverted and better spent on training nurses or funding the Social Security Employer Incentive Scheme assisting the long-term unemployed back to work. I worked out this morning that £43,000, which I thought this would cost but it is between £40,000 and £45,000, could buy you 296 TV licences or buy 520 Christmas bonuses. I totally agree with Deputy Le Fondré, this is symbolic. The Minister for Treasury and Resources is aiming to balance the books by 2019 and should he be successful I personally think that would be a more appropriate time for us to consider this matter. Showboating is of concern so just in case this proposition is carried I would like to get a bit of practice in. After all, it is end of term. Is this a Constable I see before me with a proposition in his hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I will be voting to see thee not but hear thee still. [Laughter] [Approbation]

2.1.9 Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier:

I do understand the worry of so-called performing to the camera and I feel I have a perfect face for radio [Laughter] and there we go. But this is very, very serious. I have weighed this up and I have been on many, many P.P.C.s. I do not know why they keep me on there. I am the constant, and with Deputy ... he may well have been a Deputy when he started but he is now the Constable of St. Clement and he is now the Chairman. Yes, probably, a few years back we would have been looking at a lot of money, £100,000, and this is where I go to the Constable of St. Martin, technology goes down. Imagine what you used to pay for this, that and the other. Imagine how much technology has moved on. It is phenomenal. It has passed me by. When I have to ask my 4 year-old grandson how to put his laptop on or his iPad, and he should not really have one anyway but he has one, they know what to do. It is all educational. I want to speak about the media, as Deputy Labey said, the coverage we get in this House today, and I am sorry if I offend anyone, apart from Radio Jersey, is appalling. We used to have after debates a 4 to 5 page pull-out on a good debate and everybody who spoke, not all they said but the relevant and good and interesting points were in there; nothing like that today. As Deputy Norton says, the media governs what goes out there. They govern what they cover. The Deputy of Grouville yesterday brought a fantastic proposition. She won it. The Minister for Planning and Environment never looked at it. Has that been reported anywhere? Was she asked to speak to anybody? No.

[11:00]

I definitely speak to different people from the Constable of St. Mary because they want to know what we are doing here every day. I am told the hard-working middle-Jersey votes for me cannot listen again. They cannot listen when they are hard-working but they would engage. They would engage like a saddo like me who goes on to the BBC Parliament channel at 3.00 in the morning when I cannot sleep and see some fantastically interesting debates. There might only be 6 people around but it is live. Their Parliament sits. That is another thing Deputy Labey said in his speech. He said while he was cutting and pasting audio reports that then Parliament introduced filming. He was referring to the U.K. Parliament. Do we not think of ourselves as a Parliament? As the proposer said, this is done in councils with only 90,000 people ... sorry, 9,000; we are around the 90,000. These are not even county councils or borough councils; they are just very small councils. It is the norm. This is the media the public go to now. I get up in the morning and I turn the radio on. My daughter follows me out and half an hour later the radio goes off and the TV is on. She might not necessarily be watching it but that is her form of that is what it is. The cost is something. I have heard now that Deputy Le Fondré and Deputy Truscott think that if we do not spend this money we will get another teacher. I have been in enough debates to know this will not happen. If you really want to balk about some money read one part of the answer to my written question yesterday. Did any of you approve? Did any of you know that we are supporting 2 Ministers and 3 Assistant Ministers to the tune of £157,000 in secretarial support? That is a lot of money. It has never been approved in this House. This written question went in 10 weeks ago and this is how long it has taken to dig up and find where the money is spent. I want people to hear me question the Chief Minister. People say to me: “What are you doing about this?” I say: “Well, I was questioning him and I asked him about this.” “Oh you should ask about population.” This was over the weekend. “I have a question in on population already. Listen.” “I cannot listen, I am working and you cannot listen again.” “Oh, you can get it on Hansard.” “What is that? What is that? We do not know what that is.” We are not making it easy for the public to engage with us. It is absolutely ... I accept that we are the National Parliament of Jersey. One of the people who wrote to all of us today said we are trying to operate on an international financial stage and people cannot see what we do in here. It is not about performing to the cameras, worrying about what you are wearing. It will be forgotten after a few days or weeks and if it is not the public will certainly pull you up on it. Those excuses are mad. The money will go down. It is fantastic value for money and it will engage the public. It can only be proven. I, who used to follow the Senator hustings all around the Parishes and the extra 2 up at the Royal Jersey Showground, went to the first one at Grouville and then after that I watched every single one on the screen. [Approbation] And not for the simple [Approbation] ... I do not want to listen to the 12, 13, 16 opening speeches again but I wanted to hear the answers or maybe if I had missed one and they were changing ... it was interesting. I watched them all and so did the public. It has been recorded, 11,000 hits, was it? 11,000 and I doubt that was the same person, like me, hitting it 11,000 times because I did only watch it once. [Laughter] I do not put myself through that. But it is getting a feeling. This is bringing this House not 54 years down the line. I know it is not a good time. There is never a good time but this money will not, I can assure you, go to a nurse. It will not. It is something we have saved in-house, in the Greffe, and maybe we might get another Scrutiny or, you know, if we can get more people to come and work on Scrutiny Panels, we may ask the Greffe to employ another Scrutiny Officer because they have had a reshuffle. But that is where it will go. So we have made savings, the Greffe has shown it is worth a go. We want to engage with the public and, as I say, I absolutely do speak to different people than the Constable of St. Mary. They want this. They think it will be interesting. They are not going to watch it day and night. It is not EastEnders and it ... well. [Laughter] In fact, you know, I go quite unnoticed out there until I open my mouth, and they go: “Oh, it is you”, because they know my voice. [Laughter] The cameras, you know, I really cannot see the opposition, as I say ... I will leave it with this, we are a National Parliament and this is happening in tiny, tiny councils as the norm. We need it, we should have it and I really, really hope that everybody feels that they can support it at this point in time. [Approbation]

2.1.10 Deputy A.D. Lewis of St. Helier:

You could get this on camera, could you not? [Laughter] Sorry, a slight problem with the chair there. I, ordinarily, would be very supportive of this. I think what Deputy Labey said about visual communication is absolutely right, particularly young people, that is what they communicate through. Even Facebook now, there is a huge amount of video on there; it comes up straight away as you open up Facebook now. It is the way younger people in particular now communicate using pictures and video. So, yes, if you want to engage with that segment of our community, it is a better way of doing it. I have no doubt about that at all. However, as Chairman of P.A.C. (Public Accounts Committee) you would expect me to say something about the cost and I am impressed with the way the P.P.C. have gone about this in terms of getting such a quite complex system for a very little amount of money. So well done for that and that is because technology costs have come down significantly. I was at the Welsh Assembly a few weeks ago and they installed a significant amount of kit when they built the Assembly, very large cameras hanging from the ceiling. They are now out of date and need to be replaced and it is going to cost them a lot less than the cameras that went in but you do need to take into account that these things do go out of date, they do need replacing, we will need to replace them in perhaps not that short a period of time. But that said, it is still a relatively low cost. In the Welsh Assembly, they not only film it live but they also, when you are at the Assembly, you can see what is going on in various Scrutiny rooms and P.A.C. meetings as well. As you are sitting watching the Welsh Assembly do their thing, you can see what committees are doing at the same time. So it is very engaging and that is for a population of just 3 million people, but we are much smaller so the concept works the same. My concern though, as has been expressed by the Constable of St. John and a few others and Deputy Le Fondré is the timing. The public are going to be asked to take on board a bit of austerity, as close as Jersey ever gets to this, with the M.T.F.P. being debated very soon, so timing is unfortunate. As Deputy Martin said, there is never a good time to do anything, particularly something that looks like it is for us rather than just for the public, albeit we are doing it for the public. So timing is bad and I would much prefer to see us look at this in a couple of years’ time when it might even be cheaper. Who knows? I do not think there is any urgency. I have nobody rush up in the street to me and say: “Wow, I am really looking forward to the States Assembly TV show.” I have not had that at all. So nobody, not a single person, apart from the couple of emails that we all had in the round robin emails, has engaged with me on this subject. That is constituents I am talking about here. So I do not see a massive call for it. What people have said to me on a number of occasions though is that they are working therefore they cannot easily tune in to the live debates on the radio but they would like to go back and listen to podcasts and that is what Deputy Le Fondré is suggesting in his proposition, which I think it is a great shame we are not debating the same 2 items on the same day. Had I been a bit quicker yesterday, I would have proposed that we perhaps did this debate in September at the same time as Deputy Le Fondré’s debate could have been discussed because that is a shorter term, lower cost option that is easier, quicker to download, visual pictures or not and very easy to store and archive away. I know there are other reasons why you might not do that but a very good interim solution to take us through to a time when the public, who may be faced with various changes in their expectations of government expenditure in the very near future, see us maybe installing a vanity product. Some will. Some will say exactly what Deputy Martin said and others. So there will be mixed views out there. The majority of people will not see this as a necessity at this time and a very bad time to do it. So I will struggle, and I do not think I will be voting in favour of it on the basis of that at this time. The clocks, if I could just touch on that a moment. Again, the Welsh Assembly use clocks. I did not see anybody looking at the clocks. I did not see anybody taking account of the time that they were spending. They were going to speak and say what they needed to say regardless of how long it took. I do not think there is really much benefit to the clocks, albeit relatively low cost. I do often look at the clock here and most Members are better placed than I am to see it. I do not really see the need for electronic clocks but that is just a personal view. I think Senator Ozouf has a particular view on that that is perfectly valid as well, but I do not. I know other Members have said something similar. So at this moment in time, I am afraid I am not inclined to vote for it at this time. I think the concept is good. I think the idea and the way the P.P.C. put it together is excellent and well done for getting it together in a manner that is cost effective but not at this time. I really think Members should think very seriously the message you are sending out to the public when we are going to make some big changes to the way our economy is currently functioning in the next few months.

2.1.11 Deputy J.M. Maçon:

Clock on. [Laughter] What I want to say is just to flesh out the points that the Chairman of P.P.C. has said that this is not just about transparency, it is also about accountability. The Constable of St. Martin made a point about the voting records, which I highlight now and again but it is not just about being here to cast your vote, it is also about being here to speak on behalf of your constituents and to be held accountable for what you say and what you do not say. It is important that the public out there are aware of that. So to the Constable of St. Mary, I would say: “Yes, there are different ways in which people obtain information about this Assembly but should we not be doing as much as we can to capture as many people as we can?” In order to do that, the point that Deputy Labey made was that different people engage in different ways in getting that information in the media nowadays. I mean one that is going around at the moment on Twitter and Facebook, which is a brilliant speech, is that of the new S.N.P. (Scottish National Party) member, Mhairi Black, M.P. (Member of Parliament), which is giving her maiden speech in the House of Commons. Brilliant speech for someone of 20 years old to stand up and give that is absolutely brilliant, is engaging the public in a different way. I think that is wonderful. I think that is brilliant and therefore, I really do support this move that the Chairman is bringing. Also, you know, as Deputy Martin said, I remember during the Strategic Plan debate, the Deputy of Grouville gave an absolutely brilliant speech about her concerns around the Strategic Plan debate. Where was that mentioned anywhere else? If you were a constituent of Grouville, would you have known that she had said that, had made those points in this Assembly? No, you would not. So it is important for our constituents to have that kind of method and model and that is why it is brilliant to hear about the indexing that is proposed within this so that the media and Members can reference what has been said and when it has been said. I will, however, have to disagree about the clocks and, as Deputy Lewis of St. Helier has said: “I will speak when I need to. I do not speak all the time but if I need to speak for 20 minutes and if I need to speak for 45 minutes, I will do so because I believe that those are the points that need to be said in this Assembly.” Thankfully that has not really ever needed to happen. I tend to be brief and try to stick to the point. With that ... end of clock: 2 minutes, 30 seconds at no cost to the taxpayer whatsoever. So I will not be supporting part 3 of this proposition.

2.1.12 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments that have been expressed by the Chairman and other members of P.P.C. that are supporting this proposition. There are 2 parts to this proposition and I am going to deal with my remarks in 2 parts. But first of all, in relation to the filming, there seems to be, quite understandably, a discomfort among Members because there are some Members who think about the cost and there are some Members who I think are genuinely concerned about the acting issue, about the playing to the gallery issue. About that latter issue, it needs to be said that I cannot find - apart from Guernsey - any parliament of any national significance or Upper House that does not film their proceedings. Parliaments around the world have been through this process of not having audio and not having visual and then bringing in cameras. Indeed, many parliaments brought them in a number of years ago when, as one of the speakers said earlier, it cost a huge amount of money. In fact, I remember being a much younger Member of this Assembly and asking for it but in fact the costs were astronomical. It was hundreds of thousands of pounds. Technology means that it is much, much more affordable. In fact, if anything, I would say to the Constable of St. Martin, the costs in the future are only going to be less because technology is allowing us to do so many things. I make my own films now on my iPad. I could not even do that 2 years ago. Nobody might look at my films [Laughter] but I will do some on Africa when I finally get around to doing it. Cost of technology coming down and productivity ... our Greffe are possibly one of the most productive departments of the States of Jersey. [Approbation] They multitask. Sir, you are nodding, I am assuming that you are in agreement with the point as opposed to the proposition, I am sure. [Laughter] If it is a nod to say that productivity means that our Greffe staff are going to be able to operate the cameras simply by possibly using their existing resources, I doubt that the Greffier or the Deputy Greffier is going to be going out and recruiting somebody in order to go and press buttons and run these cameras. The Greffe has absorbed, through technology and through better processes and simplification of their processes, everything that we have thrown at the Greffe and indeed they have done it with distinction. I do not have any difficulty with asking, as a member of P.P.C. we have discussed this with the efficient Greffe and they have said: “Look, these are the capital costs of it and this is how we are going to be dealing with it.” There are certainly some questions of detail that will need to be addressed, as other parliaments have done, where the camera goes on the speaker. I think a number of Members may be concerned about panning shots. There were some new cameras which have been installed in the new House of Commons just over the recent break and now you can see whether or not Members are in their seats or not. Now, some people might think that is a good thing. Some people might like to know when Senator Ozouf is not in his seat or whatever. Other Members may be absolutely of the view that for the introductory period, we simply need to have the cameras focused on the speaker because that is the point of it. I also need to just deal with this issue of the importance of availability of what we are doing in this Assembly. Parliaments have been around for some time. The television was introduced in the 1920s in black and white. It became the primary medium for communication and information in the 1950s. Colour came in in the 1960s at places that did not want to say what was going on, like South Africa did not have television at all until later on. Since the 2010s, of course it has almost become indistinguishable what is a television versus what is a Smart TV or computer. Most of my friends who have got kids do not look at TV. They look at the internet. None of them watch the 10.00 p.m. news because they are watching streaming of online publications.

[11:15]

So the world has changed and parliaments adapt and change. We need desperately to send out the message that what we do in this place and the decisions that we make and how we arrive at them are available to the people that we purport to say that we are there to serve. Whoever would have suggested that it is acceptable simply to have an audio feed of a National Parliament in the House of Commons? Would the Scottish Parliament say that it was acceptable that you could not get the cameras in because you could only listen to the audio feed? Would the National Commonwealth Parliament of Australia do that? The Swiss Parliament? The French Assembly? The German Bundestag? None of them would because of course they represent the fact that important decisions of their National Parliament need to be not only heard but also seen. That is what we are doing. We are behind the times; we need to let the people in. We need to let them see the dynamics of the debate and I agree with Deputy Maçon. There have been some absolutely astonishing contributions in other parliaments that deserve to be available on-stream for people to see. I recall the speech on misogyny of the Prime Minister of Australia, a Labour leader who will go down in history as one of the finest parliamentary addresses of any time. I think of other U.K. speeches of leading members of the opposition, whether it be Michael Foot, whether or not it be Tony Benn, whether or not it be any Prime Minister. Is it even remotely acceptable that in the National Parliament of Jersey, the people who we are here to represent and serve cannot see us making the decisions that purport to be so important and are important to their lives? I ask Members to simply catch up a little, to reflect what modern society is. If people do not know anything about the States, it is because they cannot see it in some measure and it is right to say that the reporting of this Assembly, because of the changing nature of the media, is no longer what it was. So we have to offset some of that awareness raising by providing other mechanisms, by providing and having an on-stream facility for people to go and see themselves. Where there has been a splendid speech given by Deputy Maçon or Deputy Mézec or anybody else, or Deputy Norton or the Chief Minister that somebody can see that. Or: “I would have liked to have seen the Deputy of Grouville on her feet yesterday launching forth on her Keppel Tower proposition but of course, nobody will ever see it. They can hear it but would we really think ... we were born with eyes and ears. I think that it is the eyes that need to work as much as the ears. Do we really think that it is possible to justify the cost of £25,000 of annual expenditure so that we cannot enable the people that we are here to serve and whose decisions are massively impacted? Are we going to say that they should be, and I mean no disrespect at all to those people who have no sight, but are we really saying that they should be blind and that they should not see the dynamics of what is said or not said? Of course not. It must be right. It has to be right that the decisions ... and if it is, I do not share the doom and gloom words well. I read the J.E.P. yesterday and I thought: “Am I now living in Greece?” [Laughter] because that is what, if I may borrow the good Constable of St. Martin’s headline, this is the problem that we have is that we are told how to think. Okay, there may be a different view from different parties and different perspectives of this Assembly but I reckon even the most vociferous campaigners against some aspects of this Medium-Term Financial Plan would say: “Well, this Plan is investing in health. It is securing the health care of the future. Debate about how to pay for it. [Approbation] It is investing in the infrastructure to keep Jersey in this financially secure place that it is as one of the only places that has 100 per cent of G.D.P. (Gross Domestic Product) in assets as opposed to debt of other places. But no, what do we do? We have a diatribe of every single lumped together negative thing that you can imagine. The story is not bad but it is the headline that matters. That illustrates the point. It is the visual bit that matters and what is that? That is a black border with a headline saying: “We are all in this black hole together.” What a miserable state of affairs. [Laughter] I would like to see the speech of the M.T.F.P. either by the Minister for Treasury and Resources or the Chief Minister. I think the public are entitled to see what they are saying in this supposed black hole world, which I do not think they are doing. They must see it. They can hear it but they must see it. I see Deputy Le Fondré shaking his head. Maybe he does not want to have a debate about the issues in public and for the public to see effectively the interplay that goes on between Members when we are debating something. I passionately believe that we have to let the people in. They are not in. They are not part of our democracy; they feel disenfranchised. They do not feel involved and one thing that can be done is for them to see what goes on in this place. If we have got all of these terribly, terribly terrible decisions based on this situation, yes we have got some tough decisions but we are preparing in this place for the future and making it a better place. This place, for me, is about making Jersey an exemplar, digitally enabled, modern cosmopolitan, accepting Island, which has got a commitment to openness and transparency and all of the other aspects of what we stand for. I say to the cost, £25,000 to allow an annual decision of what is £650 million of spending and a capital programme of hundreds of billions on top of it ... I think I was told this Minister for Treasury and Resources said: “I knew the price of everything but the value of nothing.” I know the value of what democracy is and democracy should be open and available and it should be seen and that is important. I would say that as far as cost savings are concerned, I think this is good value for money and we must spend this in order to make our democracy more open and more transparent. What message are we going to send out? Are we simply going to say: “No, we are too important not to allow people to see what we are doing ... We are too ashamed of ourselves?” I find it very curious. I congratulate the Greffe on getting a cracking price with the benefit of technology. [Approbation] I know that if anybody can be trusted to reduce the annual ongoing costs, then the Greffe will do so and they will do so well and we will be open and transparent. Now, I did not ask permission but I am going to because I know I have a problem of speaking too much, apparently to some Members. [Approbation] I thank Members for their confirmation of that. [Laughter] So I hope that I am not going to breach Standing Orders because my second part of this speech is going to just simply deal with this issue of a clock. I hope you do not mind, I am just going to put a little clock here.

Senator L.J. Farnham:

Could he put 16 minutes on it already, Sir? [Laughter] [Approbation]

Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

The Senator makes a powerful point because often, it is not fair to say ... I cannot make the thing work now. [Laughter] I got it working. I am now going to know how long I have spoken because Senator Farnham makes an important point and other Members have said some contributions are already time limited speeches for Ministers standing for office, statements, question time and the Constable of St. Mary made such a powerful point where all we are asking for, as far as I am concerned, was a screen. Now, I just got that app, I think it cost me 52p and I can have an app that is seconds or minutes. I am sorry that you cannot see it. If there were 3 here you would be able to see it, of course. That is the point. We want one there, one there and one there, discreetly put. It does not have to be in cerise or yellow. It can be nice and discreet and small but it can give you the information that you need, which is the information you need in order to judge when you should be bringing your remarks to a conclusion, how long you have spoken. I do not know whether I am the only Member of this Assembly, but I often lose track of how long I have spoken. Maybe it is because I get excited but I know I am not the only one. Deputy Tadier is indicating to me that I should look at this clock but I cannot look at the clock and look at you at the same time but if it is over there and I can see a count up, I can certainly see, roughly speaking ... because I cannot remember what I had for breakfast let alone when I started speaking. Trying to work out and speak to work out how many minutes I have spoken and maybe Deputy Southern speaks a lot because he cannot see the clock. [Laughter] All I want, and it has been proven in other parliaments, is that a simple installation of a clock is massively of assistance to the speakers. I say to Members, which was the clinching place that I saw a clock in action was in the House of Lords. The House of Lords is one of those few Chambers and parliamentary institutions that does not have time limited speeches. Most parliaments, it is true, have clocks because effectively there is a time limit so you have to tell people what the limit is apparently. Although we have time limited bits of our proceedings, which we have to be told about by a bell when it is the end of it. I like to know where I am along the process of it. If I have got 5 minutes to make a speech about something, I want to know whether I have a minute left. I do not want to know whether or not there is a bell coming and the apprehension of it. I would invite my Senatorial colleagues and those other Members who were also in elections last year ... I saw a proliferation of people that had, on their desks ... and I know it is free, I say to Deputy Maçon, to have your own stopwatch. It is but it is enormous ... he made the point, it is very much more easy to time your speeches if you can see how long you have spoken. I know I have spoken for 3 and a bit minutes. Some Members will say I have spoken 3½ minutes too much. But at least I know and there is peer pressure. If I was to stand here and speak for 10 minutes, I think Members might think: “My goodness me, we thought he was going on a bit but we have got the proof of it now.” That is the point. It is about sharing information and transparency. A clock would be ... which can of course, the face can change. I saw the Connétable of St. Mary’s pictures of the Swiss Parliament TV camera, which was shown. I am not sure whether everybody is ready to go paperless. I am with her although we do have a lot of paper that we are given. But you could have a clock that did have the green bit and the red bit for questions, for example. I find it quite difficult to answer questions sometimes. It would be a lot easier for you, Sir, if I may say, if you had that clock for Ministers answering their questions because we knew that we would only have 180 seconds to answer the question because that is what you do but we do not know what we have got because we have not started it. So even those areas ... and for those Members with statements, for those Members answering questions, it is going to be useful. It is going to be terribly useful to know how long you are speaking for. I know that I must draw my remarks to a close because I wanted to spend about 5 or so minutes on this part of it because it is important. Time is money. Time is our most precious commodity and we speak about resources and money but time and prioritisation is the most important thing. Prioritising the amount of time one spends... I am advised by the Greffe that this Assembly costs about £5,000 a day to sit. We might deny that but there are certainly costs incurred in doing it because if we would not be here we would presumably be doing something else productive. I know it is a sunk cost, but it is about prioritisation of where we would be spending on other things. If this is one of the most expensive and time consuming places that we have got, then we should know how much time we are spending on these individual items. Deputy Tadier was looking up at the clock. He can see that I have spoken for 5 minutes and 50 seconds. I want to be able to see how long I am speaking to set, I think then, the avoidance of having to put time-limited rules on our speeches, which this Assembly does not have, but peer pressure works. Information works. It is at the heart of the transparency agenda.

[11:30]

When you can see something and you can hold somebody to account to it and you know about it, it has almost a virtuous circle. Whether or not it is £1,500 or £2,000 or whether or not it can be 3 iPads or whatever other technology there ... Microsoft and all other vendors do them now. Whether or not we can have 3 remote controlled screens put up and reduce the cost of it, I am absolutely convinced that the ability to have an ability to know how long you have spoken in a debate will improve our efficiency. It will help speakers and it will avoid, when the inevitable time comes towards the end of a parliamentary session, where we have a lot of business in not enough time, it will allow guidance to be given to say: “If 20 Members want to speak (and they all do 5 minutes), we are going to be here for 3 days” in all these big debates. I do not want rules. I want some guidance. The best guidance is knowing how much you have done. It has gone to zero so I will sit down. [Approbation]

2.1.13 Deputy S.Y. Mézec of St. Helier:

Since there are no cameras pointing at me at the moment and therefore the degree to which I can be held accountable for what I say is limited, can I start by saying how enthusiastically I agreed with virtually everything that Senator Ozouf said. I thought that was a very, very good speech and I agreed wholeheartedly [Approbation] with most of the points he was making. I am sure he is okay with the dissent on one or 2 of the points he made. When I first stood for election in the by-election last year, one of my slogans was: “Bringing politics into the 21st century.” That is primarily what this proposition is about. It is about making our democracy open, accountable and transparent. It is about lifting the roof off of this place and allowing the public to peer in and see exactly what it is we are doing on their behalf. One Member said that most of the people she had spoken to opposed this. In my experience, it is completely the opposite; every single person that I have spoken to has said that this is a good idea, they would like to see it happen and I have seen immense amounts of support for this on social media. In fact, my favourite comment I saw that someone put online said: “Since we have C.C.T.V. (Closed Circuit Television) in town to deter people from committing crimes, why not have it in the States Assembly as well for the same purpose” [Laughter] which I thought was quite good. I think some speakers have raised some important points about the positive things that would happen. Deputy McLinton spoke about how some Members are not as good public speakers as they think they are and I think that that is quite an important point. Whenever I do a radio interview or a T.V. interview, I try and watch it back afterwards, not because I am vain - although maybe I am slightly as well - but because I think it is important to look back on what it is you have said and what you have done to make sure that you have got your message across effectively in the way that you wanted to and you can only do that if you go back and listen to it or watch it. So the ability for Members to look back on their own speeches will help improve the quality of public speaking we get from each of us here and our ability to make a decent argument. So from our own perspective, I think that is an important thing but obviously the most important perspective is for members of the public to be able to look in and say: “Oh, well, you know, at election time, I voted for so and so. I thought they were quite good but then I am looking what they are doing in the States now and they are really unimpressive. They are giving speeches which are not well constructed and they are poorly arguing their case. Perhaps next time I may wish to vote for somebody else.” Or it may be the opposite. I may say: “Well, I did not vote for that person but they got in anyway but I have been really impressed by what I have seen, I may give them my support next time around.” You know, that is one of the abilities it will allow the public to do when they see how we perform in this Chamber. So that is one positive thing. I think it was last year possibly, the Jersey Evening Post did some polls of people in the streets putting up pictures of politicians and went to see how many people could get recognised. Not many people did recognise them. I do not think I was a politician then so maybe the results would have been different had I been. [Laughter] I think that is the point is that when you look at the House of Commons, which all of us are used to seeing because it is on the news virtually every night; we all get to see it, there are certain M.P.s, not just Front-Benchers but also Back-Benchers, who end up becoming really familiar to the public because of the contributions they make and because of how good they are. Senator Ozouf spoke about the former Australian Prime Minister who made a wonderful speech in Parliament there. Another fantastic one was a Conservative M.P. in New Zealand who gave a speech on their Equal Marriage debate, which was absolutely fantastic. It went viral, it was seen by millions of people around the world and there was a moment in that debate where, when the vote was known and it was successful, they burst into song at the end of it. Perhaps that would not be such a good idea here but we do have moments every now and then that are really funny sometimes, moments that are really moving. I remember one speech in particular last year that was particular moving in which Members were choking back tears and that, I think, is so important because it shows the public that we are human. We are human beings. [Approbation] We are not... people consider politicians to be some sort of alien and I think another bad thing is that sometimes when a vote in this Assembly goes a particular way in which members of the public are disappointed, they can also tend to tar us all with the same brush and, as we know very well, there is a diversity of opinion in this Chamber. It is important, I think, for politicians to be able to stand up and say: “Okay, I know you were unhappy about the outcome of that but this is what I said in that debate and I was making the points that I know you agree with so please do not judge me as well for that outcome” and the opposite way as well, when the vote does go the way the public wanted but some Members opposed it. So it can be used in both senses there, which I think is important. I think it is also important to have that, to have people recognise various States Members’ personalities. Even when there are States Members here who say things that I disagree with very, very much. Senator Ozouf is one who often says things I disagree with but I respect very much his ability to put his point across and he is very good at it and it would be something that, for other members of the public who may not agree with things he says, to see that. Likewise, for me, there are lots of members of the public who do not agree with things I say but I would like them to be able to see it first-hand because you read something in the J.E.P., it is completely inane. It often does not represent what you said, no disrespect meant of course. But to see what is said first-hand I think is really, really important. There are M.P.s in the U.K. who I think do not play to the cameras but who give very good speeches that the public benefit from hearing and the 3 prime examples I can think of are Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is a Conservative M.P. who comes across as very, very, very posh but is quite likeable in the way he puts his points across. Dennis Skinner, of course, is a legend because of comments he makes at the State opening of Parliament and Labour M.P., Gerald Kaufman, who is the Father of the House there, I think, also comes across well in his speeches. The public can benefit from seeing the points that they make. I think in his speech, Deputy Le Fondré did make some points with which I have a large degree of sympathy. He spoke about things like the Christmas Bonus being cut. I am outraged by that as well. I think that is the wrong thing to do. He spoke about the financial situation we are in and because of that it makes it the wrong time to be spending money doing this. I completely disagree. It is exactly because we are in such a difficult situation that we should be doing this because the public are going to be the recipients of the decisions that we make here and they should ... and I believe should have the right to know what it is we are saying, what the people they voted for did, whether they supported the things that they did not like or whether they opposed the things that they did like, the public should be able to do that and we, as Members, knowing that we constantly have the public looking over our shoulder, will make us more accountable and we will make better decisions in the long run. So, you know, if we are in a difficult financial position where we are spending too much on this, we are not spending enough on that, if we know we live in a proper democracy where if we make the wrong decisions, we will get kicked out in several years’ time, the quality of the decisions we make will be better. This will improve accountability in what we are doing and result in better decision-making. So I think, when you, in a democracy, enter a difficult period of time and you decide you just close the door and keep everybody out, we will end up making worse decisions as a result of that. I think there has never been a better time to be doing that because of the difficult situation we are in. I do not know if they are still there but I know there was a Member of the Jersey Youth Parliament in the public viewing gallery before. Speaking as the youngest Member ... oh, there are 2 apparently, excellent. That is good to hear. [Approbation] Speaking as the youngest Member of the States Assembly and I do not like to purport to try to speak on behalf of young people, because young people are not homogenous, they do have different views. But I suspect, on this issue, the vast majority of young people will consider it an absolute no-brainer that the States debate should be broadcast on the internet and that if they want, they should be able to go back and check it. There are many debates we have in this Assembly, which are excruciatingly boring. We all know that. There are a lot of things that are purely procedural, it is stuff that was debated a while ago and we are just essentially crossing the t’s or dotting the i’s and not many people will be interested in seeing that. Fair enough. But there are really important debates in here, which lots of members of the public would like to see. When the Equal Marriage debate happens later this year, I can absolutely guarantee you that a large number of people, particularly young people, will want to watch the whole of that debate, not just clips, but I think the whole of it, and will want to see what their elected representative said on something that, for young people in particular, I am sure have a very strong view in one direction on that. What this will also enable people to do is to take out various clips from a speech and put it on social media. So you could take ... if you are a politician who wants to broadcast one of your own speeches that you thought was particularly good or was you attempting to achieve something you promised in your manifesto, you can take that 5-minute clip, put it on Facebook and straight away it will be seen by people. They do not even have to go on to the States website to get access to that video. So I think that this incredibly important and I am really glad that P.P.C. has, I think, done this very, very well. It has managed to get a fantastic price for it.

[11:45]

We all anticipated that it would be a lot more than what it transpires it is. It is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. This Assembly has saved about £93,000 a year since the last election because of the number of States Members going down, so the wages we have saved from that. You know, it is not as if the States Assembly is being profligate with spending; it is clearly not. That brings me on to the second part of this proposition about the clocks. When this was first mooted as an idea, I did think it was a bit silly. We have heard some muttering as it has been spoken about and hear from people who clearly are not convinced that it is the right thing to do. I was initially of that point of view but the more I have thought about it, the more I do think that it is a good idea to be doing that because having the ability to know how long you are speaking for does influence the priorities you might give to certain points you want to make. If you are speaking on something that is very brief and only a short principle, if you are speaking for more than 3 or 4 minutes, you can put people off. If you are able to know that you can condense it as much as possible, that is helpful. Especially if it is a debate where you are speaking towards the end of it and you thought that you may be more likely to be speaking at the beginning of it. But on the other side of things, sometimes we have debates where you have got to be absolutely forensic in the detail you go through, especially when it is something with lots of numbers involved in it. On those occasions, speaking for very lengthy periods of time may well be necessary but you want to be able to utilise that time as best you can. One thing that some Members may not know about me is that I once gave a speech in the House of Lords in the U.K. No, I was not ennobled; that would be hypocritical of me for someone who does not believe in that sort of thing, but it was as part of the Commonwealth Youth Parliament. We had people from all around the Commonwealth come and do a debate on climate change in the House of Lords Chamber, where we had clocks. I remember knowing that I had to aim to speak for a particular length of time. I got about two-thirds of the way in it and realised that I had gone over what I was meant to be saying. In my head, I then looked at the speech I had in front of me and knew, I can get rid of that point, it is not that important, I can get rid of that point, I need to move this point further up. Because of that, I was able to give what I thought was probably a better speech than what I would have given in any other event. So the effect it does have is very important. If you consider that not to be important, you do not think it is the right thing to do, then I think it is possible for this proposition to be taken separately and if it seems that that is the right thing to do, and you do not think that is important, then let us leave that as an option open because opening up our democracy by getting T.V. cameras installed in here will have only a positive impact, not just on democracy, but on the faith of the people in our democracy and on their ability to hold us to account and improve our decision making. As I said, I think for young people, this is a no-brainer and since they are the future, I think those are the views we should be listening to the most on this.

2.1.14 Senator L.J. Farnham:

I am pleased to be able to follow Deputy Mézec and Senator Ozouf and a number of other Members. I think the speeches have been comprehensive so I will not attempt to add to them but I would just like to touch briefly on access - the new access and the improved access - which will be greatly improved by this proposition, should it be successful. I also want to draw Members’ attention to members of our society who we exclude at the moment. I think it is a constant source of embarrassment to us all that disabled members of our society are simply unable to come and see us in action, even if they did want to come to the public gallery. I think this will play an important part in providing new visual access to those Members who cannot currently make it up to the public gallery. I am not switching the timer on, by the way, I am just putting some more notes on it. I would also like to ask the Chairman of the P.P.C., just briefly, about any proposed rules of coverage that will undoubtedly be needed. In other parliaments, there are important rules that appertain to how the media and how shots are used. Deputy Mézec mentioned that there are instances where there are good speeches that can be used on social media, but equally there are times when there are very bad speeches, and of course I think you have to have some control, without being restrictive, and some good guidelines, which provide direction and instructions on how specific events and coverage need to be portrayed. Sound is good, sound and vision is better, it is why we have televisions, it is why we have eyes. Briefly on clocks, just a word of warning; while I agree with the proposal and hopefully Members will use the clocks to be succinct and swift and brief and make their points clearly and quickly, but a word of warning, some might see it as a challenge to use up all of those minutes and seconds available. Thank you.

2.1.15 Deputy M. Tadier:

I was just joking that the clocks do not write your speeches for you, so that is probably the key area about constructing speeches and knowing what you want to say in advance, and I think we can all be guilty at times of that. I do not think there is anything to say on the web-streaming that is new and that has not been said already other than to say I fully support it, both philosophically and practically, it is something we should be doing, it is only right. I would probably just add one thing, which is to do with efficiencies. I think it will make our Assembly more efficient, not just in terms of money, I think the way we do things it will make us more aware, it will of course bring us closer to the public and the public closer to us. I think it has already been mentioned that many people cannot be here simply because they are working at the same time as we are working. So I think that in the long term we will see a more efficient Assembly and a politically more efficient Assembly, hopefully that will come too. So what I would really like to do is to address my comments to do with the clocks issue and the screens, but perhaps before I do that, I think it is worth flagging-up that there may be some ancillary costs that could exist to do with the way that the footage is used. For example, I think we heard a very passionate and a 20-minute speech incidentally from Senator Ozouf, because I was timing that, because he failed to start his clock at the right time, he was already a good 15 minutes into his speech. I suspect he would like, and I suspect we would all like on occasions, to be able to write our own headlines in the J.E.P., and maybe in the past some have argued that the J.E.P. or other newspapers elsewhere are just a mouthpiece for the States, and of course that is not really true, but we do only have one newspaper in Jersey. Strangely enough, I suspect that they will be wanting to use the online footage for their online newspaper because this is the format of that particular medium and the other media has changed, so they will be able to use that footage and compete essentially with the other visual media, which I think will be positive in diversifying and breaking perhaps monopolies, et cetera, when it comes to information dissemination. But my concern is that the budget in terms of the parliamentary costs will be relatively small, but we could see the Comms Unit in overdrive. We know that the Comms Unit is relatively well funded, I consider it to just be the Propaganda Unit for this particular administration, and which the rest of us do not have access to. I think that just the last part is definitely true, the first part is subjective. I would not be at all surprised if we saw selective speeches from certain Ministers being ripped out, tweeted by the Comms Unit by their particular department saying: “There is a new initiative coming out from Social Security, Education [wherever it might be] and this is the official line that has been taken.” We will not necessarily have the ability to be able to do that or the funding or the mechanism to do that ourselves, so when somebody stands up and says: “This particular policy is flawed or there is an alternative policy and these are the concerns you should be having” will we have the right to do that? Because currently at the moment we can ask for audio to be made available, so every now and again we can go to the Greffe and very helpfully, as they do, they incorporate it into their already busy workload, they give us a C.D. (compact disc), usually pretty quickly, and it is of a particular time from the Hansard, but in audio form. Now, one would presume that we would be able to do that ourselves for audiovisual, it seems strange to have that facility of audiovisual without Members being able to ask for the same ability to do that. Now, will the Greffe staff provide that service? Will they have the manpower that they need to do that, to be able to give us the sections that we need so that we can then use that to our ability? In fact, is that even appropriate for us to be able to do that? Should the Greffe staff be acting as our personal secretaries, if you like, anytime that we fancy disseminating a particularly good speech that we have made? So I put this into the mix, not because I think it is a proposition that I do not want to support, I fully support it, but I think these kind of issues will need to be ironed-out as we go along. Now, specifically, when it comes to screens, I think the Constable of St. Mary hit the nail on the head and she clearly has experience from the numerous Parliaments and Assemblies that she has visited throughout the world. It seems to me that there is one basic thing we could do, whether or not we agree with time limits on speeches, whether we think we are efficient as an Assembly when it comes to making speeches, is simply have a clock, by all means. Now, I have a problem, I cannot see that clock from where I am sitting, so it would be great just to have another clock, which was visible, somewhere in the Chamber, either there or probably over the 2 doors would seem to make sense, then I think everybody in the Chamber can see what time it is, and you look at the clock before you make your speech, that is 12 Noon, I would probably like to be finished by 12.10 p.m. or if it is ... it is 12 Noon. Is it not? I cannot see that. That is the issue I have. So I think, by all means, have a clock, have a £10, £20, large clock, like a small version of what you might get in a train station, it does not necessarily have to be digital, and when something goes wrong with it just get the AA battery, put it in the back, and that is it. Now, we saw how much trouble Senator Ozouf had there trying to get his iPad to work, and you can just imagine the fact that these screens are all around there, their sole purpose is just to tell us what time it is, which a clock could do, and we have to get somebody in during a sitting to fix the clock, and that is disruptive, et cetera. It does not seem that wise to me. Also, given the fact that we all have these on our iPads, and you can make that bigger, but that says that Deputy Mézec spoke for 12 minutes and 17 seconds roughly, and we know Senator Ozouf spoke for 20 minutes. My concern is that, when Senator Ozouf was talking, I was not really looking at him or listening to what he was saying, I started looking at the clock and I started clock counting and we seem to become more obsessed about what length somebody talks for rather than what they have said. I think that has been demonstrated there and I was thinking: “Is Senator Ozouf deliberately trying to shoot himself in the foot” because the more he spoke about the clock, the more I thought it was a bad idea to have these clocks there. But it is also, and I think going back to the Constable of St. Mary, it is like having a Ferrari and only driving around in first gear - which probably in Jersey is normal - I think you probably can drive around in first gear if you have a Ferrari; or driving around in the green lanes if we extend the metaphor, only driving around in those lanes. It does not make any sense. If we are going to have screens in this Assembly, which will be more obtrusive than the web-streaming, that has to be said, we might as well put them to good use, we might as well have screens by all means that have a clock at the bottom, but that is not the sole function, it is not necessarily the primary function, it could be there to put information, as the Constable said. But also why not have it so that people in the gallery, they cannot see everybody in the Chamber, so if you happen to be sitting on the back row, and some of us like sitting here for different reasons, but they cannot see us, we cannot see them, but I think a screen with perhaps the streaming of who is speaking, with their title underneath it, because it is all educational, so people who come up to the gallery, it may be schools, it could be visitors, they could say: “This is the Constable of St. Lawrence” and it would come up with their title on the screen, which would be there for the entire time. I think that should be done in the House of Commons. Whenever I have been to the House of Commons and watched their performance, I just look at the screen, and I want to know who is speaking, I cannot necessarily see them unless I strain over. So, if you are going to have a big screen, a flat screen, at least use it. So I do not agree with part (c) as it is currently framed. I think you either do one or the other, you either put some clocks up, so it is not heavy-handed, and I think there is something slightly patronising and heavy-handed about having these clocks ticking away in the background telling you how long you are speaking. By all means, have normal analogue or digital clocks, whatever, analogue I think would be perfectly acceptable, or if you do put screens in use them and have a more aspirational use of them. So I will not be supporting that part. Now, lastly, I have some concerns about the wording of (b). I have spoken to my colleague on the left who I know is on P.P.C. and I think he has reassured me, but as Senator Ozouf said that there is an increasing blurring of lines between a TV monitor, the traditional TV, and the iPad or your laptops, and more people are watching things on these devices, et cetera.

[12:00]

There is also an increasingly blurred line now between the official media and the unofficial media in the sense that some blogs are very successful, very professional, you get freelance journalists who have turned into bloggers because they have been so successful, not necessarily in Jersey, but elsewhere. Similarly, the established media have had to compete with them so that their online presence has had to become often more blog-like or more interactive and more focused on social media. Inevitably, I think, we will see the informal media, the unofficial media, bloggers, et cetera, using our footage, I do not think that we can technically stop that anyway, but I would not like us to try to stop that. There may be times where we are all portrayed in certain ways that we would not like, but I think we just have to take that on the chin. So, certainly in terms of parts (a) and (b), I can support them, but I think there are caveats and there will be a lot of things that come up that we were not expecting as we go along. But, absolutely, we must support this principle; we must be brought into the 21st century. But I would urge Members, especially if they are concerned about costs, to reject part (c) and let us do this bit properly, but certainly support parts (a) and (b) in the substantive proposition.

2.1.16 Senator Z.A. Cameron:

It is undoubtedly true that Jersey is suffering from voter apathy. But is this lack of engagement down to the inability of members of the public to see what goes on in this Assembly? I suspect not. I suspect that it is more likely to be due to the fact that decisions and policies are increasingly made outside this Assembly by faceless bureaucrats and quangos with inadequate public consultation and engagement of front line practitioners, or even Members of this Assembly. With regard to whether Jersey can afford this development at this time, we are certainly giving very mixed messages. The reality, as far as the public is concerned, is that we can no longer afford a Christmas Bonus for pensioners or TV licences; that States employees’ jobs have become uncertain with mass redundancies possible. There has been stricter interpretation of benefits with many members of the public facing cuts for their chronic health problems. Doctors and nurses on the front line have had to do without their secretarial support and have limited access to printers and face ever more cuts to their resources. In conclusion, I do not think that this is the time where we should be thinking about unnecessary expenses and I would prefer Deputy Le Fondré’s suggestion of perhaps audio at this time.

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

The case I think has been very well made for the introduction of filming in this Chamber. A lot of impassioned speeches, very good examples have been made this morning to tell us how and why we should be doing this. I agree with every single one of them. After all, if I look at the Medium-Term Financial Plan for 2016, the States Assembly and its services, the net spend is going to be £5,186,000, and what is £30,000? It is but a peanut in that size of that budget. I would also think about, at the same time, when deciding that, yes, it is right to have these cameras in this Assembly, I also think about the messaging that is going to be sending out to people out there, and in my time involved in my Parish life I recall the people I dealt with on Parish welfare before we had income support and where a pound was the difference between them eating or not eating or not putting the heating on when it was cold or putting the heating on when it was cold, and that is still the case today for many people on income support. I think about the impact and the message that this is going to send out today when we are spending money, which, yes, there are very good arguments for doing it, but is that argument current now, today, on this one week when we are telling people who are on the borderline: “You are going to have to make cuts, you are going to have to lose some of your income, yet we are going to spend some of the income we have taken from your taxation, or other means of taking it on.” Only last week in my Parish Assembly, I had a decision to make in taking my Rating Assembly to the public, and that was whether to buy a new Parish lorry or not. Knowing the background to the M.T.F.P. coming up, part of my decision making was, no, I will not, I will give the money back to the parishioners, and I implemented a rate cut in the Parish rates this year. That will enable the very low income people to virtually have a few more pence in their purse to spend on themselves in this coming year when they are not going to be getting their Christmas bonus and other things like that. It is when I think of those sort of things, while I totally agree with the principle that is coming forward from the P.P.C. and I really appreciated my fellow Assistant Minister for Health, Deputy McLinton’s comments, I thought they were very colourful and very helpful, and I think he made some quite good arguments and the way he presented them as well. But when I think about these people I really have to consider what are they going to be saying, what are they going to be thinking about this? Later on today, on the 6.00 p.m. news tonight, there is going to be an item, which was raised by Deputy Hilton, in the briefing we heard, at St. Paul’s Centre earlier on the week, about a particular lady she knows who may well have to wait 7 months for an M.R.I. (magnetic resonance imaging) scan. I think about her and many others like her who are waiting for medical treatments, and a member of my own staff from the Parish Hall has been waiting now for months to see a consultant to do with an operation on his knee. I think about those people and where the money, if we do have spare money, where we should be really allocating and putting our resources to. Yet at the same time I agree entirely with this proposition, but because of the way the messaging is going to go out, and where, if it was me controlling the purse strings today, I think I would rather be saying: “Let me hang back on that money, let me use that where there may well be a pressure that needs resolving.” So, unfortunately, I say to my fellow Connétable and president of the P.P.C., my humble apologies, but I cannot support you on this occasion. Thank you.

The Deputy Bailiff:

Does any other Member wish to speak on this proposition? Chief Minister, yes I have also heard from ... Chief Minister, your light showed first.

2.1.18 Senator I.J. Gorst:

I might not be here for the vote because I have a plane to catch. I just want to reflect and I had to change my notes after the speech of Senator Cameron because I count only 2 Members who stood up against this proposal who are against filming and recording in that way in this Assembly. Lots of Members have said they are against the proposal but simply because of the timing, simply because of the messaging, simply because of the difficult decisions that this Assembly is going to need to make in the future. I just want to focus on that for a moment. So we have only heard 2 Members who are against the use of cameras in the Assembly. In fact those Members who feel the timing is wrong have been quite positive about the effects of cameras and they have given us a number of reasons why it should be delayed. I, as Chief Minister, understand that. I understand that every day Ministers, officers in departments, Members of this Assembly, have to make difficult decisions about the appropriate allocation of resources, whether that be, as the previous speaker has just mentioned, to try to reduce waiting lists, whether it be for extra training in the special educational needs sector - and I see the Minister for Transport and Technical Services is not here - whether it be repairing a particular pothole, I could go on. [Laughter] I could quite literally go on all afternoon, because these are the balances, the decisions, that people in Government, in this Assembly, have to make day in and day out, and there are no easy answers. There is no easy answer to say, on any given day, which decision is the right one. They are and can be value judgments, so I understand the value judgments that Members are making about the proposition before us. But I think there is another issue, which needs to be addressed, and some speakers have spoken about it, that needs to be added into the value judgment. We are a National Parliament, we do not always act like it, we do not always believe it ourselves, but the truth is that we are. I think that one of the issues that face us is ensuring that, in light of that, we are a modern democracy; that we engage with the people that we serve and that we are open and transparent. There are many areas of the way that we operate as a legislature, some ways that we operate as a Government, which need modernising, which need to change so that they have the appropriate democratic overlay and we can be seen to be democratic, open and transparent, and “accountable” arises from that, absolutely, we cannot be accountable without those things being in place. That is why we do it. Some have said, and I think the Chairman very eloquently said: “This is not about us; this is about delivering openness and transparency and ultimately accountability.” There are a number of things that P.P.C. have been dealing with, this is one of them, there is another one, which Members have been equally as vocal on, and that is States Members’ pensions. You could say they are connected, but they are 2 quite different things. One is very much about us and about our successes. One is very much about engaging and showing that we have a modern democracy and showing that democracy in action. We have today seen some strange bedfellows in this Chamber. I think that is a positive thing when you see Members, left and right, agreeing because they agree with the principles of being open and transparent and they are supporters of a strong modern democracy. Largely, we have been using these same arguments. Our friends in the party have been talking about getting their views across, the issues that they want to raise in this Assembly? They very clearly largely do not wish to be associated with government policy, and that is right, and they do not get the coverage that they deserve. Equally, it may come as a surprise to them - I am not sure it will - I do not wish to be associated with their policies. [Approbation] Because, equally, there are people in our society that will come and criticise government policy to them and ask what they are doing about it, and there is no reflection in the media or in the public domain about what they are doing about it. I have people coming up to me and when I explain issues to them they say: “Well why have you not said that, Chief Minister, why have you not explained that, Chief Minister?” The truth is, both of us have, and largely we do that in this Assembly. But it is not open.

[12:15]

The public do not have the ability to see this dialogue, to see and understand this debate, and to engage with the real issues about how decisions are made and why decisions are made, and that is not good for us, it is not good for democracy, and ultimately it is not good for Jersey. So, I recognise the value judgment. I understand the disquiet of some Members about making that value judgment in light of, yes, the challenging decisions that we are asking Members to make in the M.T.F.P., but I equally ask them to think about the value judgments of strengthening our democracy and making sure that we have a strong, modern, open and transparent, democracy at the same time, because that is an equally important issue, which this Assembly needs to address, and I am grateful that P.P.C. are addressing it. Thank you.

2.1.19 Deputy S.M. Brée of St. Clement:

I am sure you will be pleased to hear that I am going to attempt to make my speech concise and relevant, to steal words from the Constable of St. Clement. I think we, the majority of us here, totally agree with the benefits that this proposition will bring, as mentioned by many of the previous speakers. I too believe that we need to re-engage with the public of Jersey. We must lead by example. But I have a problem and that is my conscience. I cannot support this proposition because my conscience is telling me it is the wrong thing to be doing at this moment in time. The Council of Ministers has presented a Medium-Term Financial Plan that is suggesting many, many cuts, and many, many people will become disadvantaged, particularly if we take the Christmas Bonus for the O.A.P.s (old age pensioners). I am fully aware that the amount of money being proposed to be spent is, in the scheme of things, miniscule. But we are here to lead by example. Perhaps the biggest issues facing the Island and this Assembly is not public engagement, but is about the concerns the public have over the finances of this Island. So I am afraid my conscience will not allow me to support this. I am here as a representative of the people who elected me as Deputy for St. Clement and I believe that the vast majority of them are more concerned about the public finances of this Island than whether or not they can see us streaming live on to their P.C. (personal computer). Thank you.

2.1.20 Deputy G.P. Southern:

I shall try to be brief, as brief as I can, because I just asked the Dean - I am glad to see him back in the Chamber - because he was in the corridor and he said: “Are we not in danger of over-egging this debate? Is it not very straightforward? Should we not have got a vote by now?” I have said: “Yes, we are doing what this Chamber does often, which is to fill the time until 12.45 p.m. before lunch, and we will get to a vote and we will have the last speech just before 12.45 p.m. or 5.30 p.m. that happens time and time again. But what we are talking about here is greater exposure to what happens in this Assembly and accountability for that. I in particular look forward to seeing greater exposure and greater accountability. For example, I do wish us to have another access for the public to witness Ministers avoiding answering questions. How do they do it? Why can they not address the question? We do not even have a rule that says that the answer must address the question. Often it does not, it simply fails to address the question, and I think the public could learn something about behaviours from that. The other thing that happens, and I have noticed it over the years, is the habit of Members speaking with a great deal of empathy and sympathy for a particular case, and supporting in principle the case, and then when it comes to vote they vote against. It happens time and time again, and again I think the public could learn something very instructive about that practice. It is a question of accountability and I cannot not at that stage say that Members must bear in mind that all decisions being made, by Ministers in particular, do not necessarily come through this Chamber. For example, I have here a letter that has been sent to recipients of income support, sent yesterday so it is public: “The Income Support Law is being changed from 1st September 2015. From this date adults under the age of 25 can only get income support if they are part of a claim made by their parent or guardian.” Note the date, 1st September. The letter went out 13th July. Do we have a meeting between 13th July? Is anything lodged for this meeting? No, it was not. Do we have a meeting before 1st September? No. So that decision which affects under 25s claiming income support, a vulnerable chunk of society, has been made without reference to this Assembly. It has been made by an Order, and I take the opportunity to remind people that Orders cannot be amended, Orders can only be rescinded. So there will be a debate about this decision because I shall be lodging a rescindment of this thing which has happened effectively behind our backs, in order that Members and the public will hear a debate about these issues. Members will be asked to either rescind this notion or not. To those who say they have a conscience and cannot act in support of this particular proposition at this moment, I say the time to act on the Medium-Term Financial Plan and the cuts being proposed is in that debate. That is when you use your conscience and vote either for or against. Not now. Not now. This is a separate debate about having clocks and having video streaming. Vote on that and vote if you have a conscience against some of the changes being proposed in the M.T.F.P. Do it at the appropriate time, so please do vote on this particular issue.

The Deputy Bailiff:

Does any other Member have anything to add to the debate? If not, then I call upon the Chairman of P.P.C. to reply.

2.1.21 The Connétable of St. Clement:

Thank you very much and I am grateful to all who have contributed to the debate. Indeed I must refer to Senator Ozouf and he spoke about some great speeches of the past which in some jurisdictions have been saved for posterity, in this jurisdiction have not. I was rather disappointed that he did not mention the rum baba speech. [Approbation] But I think we still have a recording of it somewhere. [Laughter] As I say, I am very grateful to those who have contributed to the debate. I am obviously not going to respond to every single point but I must take issue - and he will not be surprised - with Deputy Le Fondré because he suggested that spending on this proposition was a waste of money. I suggest that the Deputy’s proposal, if it is debated in September, would be even more so because it does absolutely nothing to improve engagement with the public. It actually spends £11,000 of capital which means that an archive radio recording of our sitting might be up and running on the States website about 24 hours before the Hansard is going to be there anyway. So really what is the point? He also listed a number of proposed changes that are proposed in the Medium-Term Financial Plan, and this point was taken up by a couple of other Members, I think the Constable of St. Martin and the Constable of St. Peter. He spoke about Christmas Bonuses. I declare an interest there, if that happens I will lose my Christmas Bonus and I am quite happy to do so. He spoke about TV licences and so on. But let us be absolutely clear, supporting this proposition will change nothing of the proposition in the Medium-Term Financial Plan. [Approbation] Supporting this proposition will not save one redundancy, but what it will do, it will engage the public. It will give access to our debates to the public to help them understand why the decisions which are being proposed in the Medium-Term Financial Plan, and other decisions, are to be made. Otherwise these decisions as far as the public is considered - unless they are able to listen on the radio and they will get some idea - will be made in a vacuum, or the decisions will be made without the context except through the media who will decide what that context should be. So there will no context to the debate and no context to the decision. What we need to do is to show serious respect to our constituents on whose behalf we are making these decisions and let them have access to the decision-making process which they are denied at the present time. The Deputy also said people are fed up with spin. I could not agree with him more. So give them direct access to the decision-making process and they will understand whether something is being spun or not, but without the access they will not really know. The States Assembly budget, which is administered by the P.P.C. has given back over £500,000 in recent times. We are not asking for £25,000 of that back so we can do this project, we are saying we will do this project with the funds that we have available which have been voted and we will do it by reprioritising and not by asking for more money back. The Constable of St. Martin was concerned about future costs going up. The reality is we have seen the cost of technology coming down quite significantly, and when I first suggested this going back 8 or 9 months I thought this was going to be difficult because we would be talking hundreds of thousands of pounds. The fact is it is going to cost around about £22,000 to £25,000 per annum, and as somebody said, the costs are coming down. The Constable also noted that very often there are not many people in the public gallery so where is the interest? Well of course there are not a lot of people in the public gallery because a lot of people are at work so they cannot be here. How many are listening on the radio, I do not know, I suspect the BBC could probably tell him. My mother certainly is. [Laughter] How many people will watch, he asked. Well, I do not know, it could be hundreds, it could be thousands, but I know they want to watch because go back to the filming of the hustings which were broadcast after the event, 11,000 dedicated hits. He also said that he does not know how much it costs to run this Assembly. I think Senator Ozouf told him it is around about £5,000 a day in staff time, in utilities and other costs, so by saving even a few days we are going to save nearly as much as we are proposing to spend on this project. Deputy Norton wanted clarity about providing a feed to the media. The important thing is that the cameras will be ours, the cost will be ours and, therefore, the control will be ours. If the mainstream media want to take a feed for their news programmes and Parliament programmes and so on they will be able to do so but it will be at their cost from our feed. We will produce the programme but any costs for transferring to their news programmes or to their Parliament programmes would be at their cost. The Constable of St. Mary seemed to be half-heartedly supportive and said what is wrong with the present radio facility. The truth is there is no archive so unless you are listening live you cannot hear it, and there is no context without the pictures, we know that. Where did this idea come from? Well, I cannot say it was my idea but it is something which I certainly promoted when I stood for the position of Chairman of P.P.C. and somebody, I think it was Deputy Labey, said that when I mentioned that it got a lot of approbation and I thought: “Well, the States like this so I am going to have bring it forward whether I want to or not now.” But I did raise it in my speech because I am passionate about democracy and engaging with the populations is the core value of democracy.

[12:30]

As Chairman of P.P.C. - and indeed the Constable of St. Mary is a former Chairman of P.P.C. - we always see these low turnouts at election and we talk about improving engagement, improving voter turnout. Well this is an additional way of giving people the opportunity of engaging with us. It is the norm, it is expected, and it is cost effective. Do the public want it, the Constable asked. Well, perhaps not the few people that she may have spoken to, certainly there are a few that I have spoken to, but the reality is in the history. Again I remind Members, 11,000 hits on the filming of the hustings. Does everybody want it? No, of course not. But do a significant number of people want it? Yes, certainly. I was grateful though to the Constable of St. Mary for her comments about the cameras and the way that our idea could be enhanced and improved, and she mentioned in her speech about the 500 sheets of paper that were on her desk and on all of our desks. She worked out that has cost in photocopying costs alone, something like £1,500 for one week’s paperwork for the States Assembly. What I would wish to do, following her comment, if Members do approve the installation of the clocks, that we would look at enhancing that facility so that charts, images and other information can be included on there and hopefully save more money on photocopying and other costs. The Chairman of P.A.C. made a good contribution; again mentioned the cost quite rightly as the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee he should. The reality is the costs keep coming down, even in the last 9 months. We are now looking at a cost of £22,000 per annum if we lease. Surely leasing has to be the way forward, obviously we will go through a procurement process to make sure, but that means that we will always have the most up-to-date and cost-effective equipment and would not have to be returning every 4 or 5 years for additional capital costs. That seems to me in principle the right way of going about it but we would have to look at the principles. Of course the Scrutiny Panels would be very welcome to join in with the scheme and have their hearings, which are in public, screened on the internet as well. I do not think there is much more I can say. I think people have made their mind up, but I would just remind Members of what I said at the end of my opening remarks all those hours ago. Why this is important: the cost is very low, and if people think that £25,000 is too much to spend on this then really - as Deputy Southern said - what we should be doing is looking for more savings in the Medium-Term Financial Plan. But what we are asking today is the commitment to transparency and openness. Let the people in. A commitment to the people reconnecting with this Assembly so they can understand and see how we make our decisions, a commitment to keeping pace with other parliaments and councils of any significance whatsoever, a commitment to a vision of a modern, forward-thinking and self-confident Assembly. Are we so ashamed of what we do here that we do not want the public to see, or perhaps one or 2 might be, but I think the majority of us are not. I am proud to be a Member of this Assembly. It is a commitment to a belief that what we do here, politics, this Assembly is significant and important and should be available to the public, should be captured and not kept in secret. I maintain the proposition. I ask for the appel. I ask for the vote to be taken on (a) and (b) firstly and then on paragraph (c). [Approbation]

The Deputy Bailiff:

The appel is called for. I invite Members to return to their seats. The vote firstly is on whether the Assembly adopts paragraphs (a) and (b) of the proposition. I ask the Greffier to open the voting.

POUR: 31	CONTRE: 13	ABSTAIN: 0
Senator P.F. Routier	Senator Z.A. Cameron
Senator P.F.C. Ozouf	Connétable of St. Peter
Senator I.J. Gorst	Connétable of St. Ouen
Senator L.J. Farnham	Connétable of St. Martin
Senator P.M. Bailhache	Connétable of Grouville
Senator A.K.F. Green	Connétable of St. John
Connétable of St. Helier	Deputy J.A. Hilton (H)
Connétable of St. Clement	Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré (L)
Connétable of St. Lawrence	Deputy K.C. Lewis (S)
Connétable of St. Mary	Deputy of St. Martin
Connétable of St. Brelade	Deputy S.M. Brée (C)
Connétable of St. Saviour	Deputy of St. Mary
Connétable of Trinity	Deputy G.J. Truscott (B)
Deputy J.A. Martin (H)
Deputy G.P. Southern (H)
Deputy of Trinity
Deputy M. Tadier (B)
Deputy E.J. Noel (L)
Deputy of St. John
Deputy J.M. Maçon (S)
Deputy S.J. Pinel (C)
Deputy R.G. Bryans (H)
Deputy of St. Peter
Deputy S.Y. Mézec (H)
Deputy of St. Ouen
Deputy L.M.C. Doublet (S)
Deputy R. Labey (H)
Deputy S.M. Wickenden (H)
Deputy M.J. Norton (B)
Deputy T.A. McDonald (S)
Deputy P.D. McLinton (S)

The Deputy Bailiff:

We now come on to vote on paragraph (c) of the proposition, and I ask the Greffier to open the voting.

POUR: 26	CONTRE: 16	ABSTAIN: 0
Senator P.F. Routier	Connétable of St. Peter
Senator P.F.C. Ozouf	Connétable of St. Ouen
Senator I.J. Gorst	Connétable of St. Martin
Senator L.J. Farnham	Connétable of St. Saviour
Senator P.M. Bailhache	Connétable of Grouville
Senator A.K.F. Green	Connétable of St. John
Connétable of St. Helier	Deputy J.A. Hilton (H)
Connétable of St. Clement	Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré (L)
Connétable of St. Lawrence	Deputy M. Tadier (B)
Connétable of St. Mary	Deputy of St. John
Connétable of St. Brelade	Deputy J.M. Maçon (S)
Connétable of Trinity	Deputy of St. Martin
Deputy J.A. Martin (H)	Deputy L.M.C. Doublet (S)
Deputy G.P. Southern (H)	Deputy R. Labey (H)
Deputy of Trinity	Deputy S.M. Brée (C)
Deputy E.J. Noel (L)	Deputy G.J. Truscott (B)
Deputy S.J. Pinel (C)
Deputy R.G. Bryans (H)
Deputy of St. Peter
Deputy S.Y. Mézec (H)
Deputy of St. Ouen
Deputy S.M. Wickenden (H)
Deputy M.J. Norton (B)
Deputy T.A. McDonald (S)
Deputy of St. Mary
Deputy P.D. McLinton (S)

STATEMENT ON A MATTER OF OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY

3. The Assistant Minister for Education, Sport and Culture - the NatWest Island Games

The Deputy Bailiff:

The one further item of business before dealing with the arrangements for the next sitting, the Assistant Minister with responsibility for sport has a statement concerning the NatWest Island Games.

3.1 Connétable S.W. Pallett of St. Brelade (Assistant Minister, Education, Sport and Culture):

Can I first thank you for giving me the opportunity to make this statement this afternoon. I think it is right that States Members have the first opportunity to thank all those that were involved in the recent Island Games. The recent NatWest Island Games was a huge success and I would like to congratulate all those involved in making it one of the best weeks that Jersey has experienced, I think, in recent years. [Approbation] My first thanks go to Phil Austin and his Organising Committee who planned and masterminded a week which really could not have gone any better. They set out to put on the best Games ever and, having spoken to many experienced local and visiting participants, I am very confident that they achieved this, and more. All our visitors were very complimentary and the committee could not have done more to ensure that all could go so well. They were even bold enough to have their strap line as “a time to shine”. They, and the Jersey weather, certainly did that in abundance. The organisers of the 14 different sports spent many hours preparing and delivering first class competitions at excellent facilities across 34 venues. This resulted in some great sport which was played in the right spirit ensuring that they truly were the friendly games. The sports and their officials should be very proud of what they achieved. In addition to the sport organisers, the Waitrose Games Makers, resplendent in their purple uniforms, made a huge impression and added great value to the Games. They were well trained and worked tirelessly to make all our visitors feel very welcome. Many of these people spent countless hours over many weeks and months in preparation for the Games to ensure all went well. What great volunteers we have in Jersey. I thank them all. [Approbation] I know that the Organising Committee were very grateful for the support received from many States departments and also the Emergency Services, Honorary Police and St. John Ambulance. I am grateful to them all for their efforts and support which was a great example of what can be achieved when so many people work together in a common cause. From the moment people arrived at the ports until they departed 7 or 8 days later, everyone joined in to make their visits as memorable as possible. The Parish of St. Helier played a major role in welcoming everybody, with the streets of town dressed to thrill and full of happy smiling people. All the Parishes were in one way or another involved in the Games and it would be wrong if I did not thank all those who assisted through their Constables here today. Our tourist industries including hotels, transport providers, restaurants and retail all played their part in supporting the Games. Clearly, many of these had financial benefits from the Games, but somehow, it was the positive way in which we all did it together that enhanced the atmosphere and created a ‘feel good’ factor across the Island. School children supported their designated islands by attending many of the sports around the Island and assisting at the medal ceremonies. I have to say extremely well. I hope they will remember these Games for the warmth and generosity they encountered and that the memories will be carried through their formative years into adulthood. These children are our future and it must be hoped that the keenly contested sport they witnessed, played in the right spirit, will spur them on to be our medal winners in future Island Games. The Jersey team certainly played their part in making the week even more special. Their success in competition was excellent and they were so well supported by so many in our community. It was a pleasure to witness many of the achievements but also to see how Team Jersey were such good ambassadors for our Island watched by so many spectators and supporters. My thanks go to the media for the part they played in recording such a marvellous week and for sharing it with the residents of Jersey and many beyond our shores. My final thanks go to my fellow States Members, including the Council of Ministers in 2009, who agreed to back the bid to host the 2015 NatWest Island Games, and subsequent Council of Ministers who have continued with their support. Those decisions allowed so many in our community to deliver the excellent week we have just all enjoyed. I have long been advocating the importance and value of sport in the Island. These Games demonstrated how important sport is and I can do no more than say thank you to each and every person in Jersey who made them happen, and for helping make it such a memorable week, which I am sure many Islanders will never, never forget. [Approbation]

The Deputy Bailiff:

There is now a period of 15 minutes available should anyone have any questions for the Connétable. Does anyone have any questions?

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

I thank the Assistant Minister for Sport for giving us the opportunity as an Assembly to recognise the work that has gone into this. However, it is always dangerous when thanking so many people because there is the always the possibility that someone can be overlooked and I do wonder ... my question to the Assistant Minister is: does he recognise the contribution made to the Island Games by NatWest themselves because they have been mentioned throughout this but not actually formally acknowledged and will the Minister agree that they should be?

The Connétable of St. Brelade:

The Constable of St. Lawrence is quite right. I think without the support that NatWest have given not only to this Island Games but to past Island Games, and I have to say to the future Island Games in Gotland. If it was not for their help and assistance in supporting the event it would be very difficult to put the event on. She is quite right, I should have had them at the top of the list. I did start off with the recent NatWest Island Games but I should have said a big thank you to NatWest. Obviously we thanked them directly by meeting some of their senior executives but I think that it is only right to thank them in public and I thank the Constable for reminding me. [Approbation]

3.1.2 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

You will forgive me if this is a question which hopefully has got a positive answer. I wonder whether the Assistant Minister would also agree with me that this was also a really important diplomatic and engaging opportunity for reaching out to other political leaders and representatives from so many other small Islands. The Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands, many other distinguished individuals were here that the Chief Minister and others Ministers, the Minister for External Relations, was able to engage with during the week, and we also had the Bailiff of Guernsey here for the whole of the week supporting his team even though they did so well in the medals. But also would he say that what a wonderful cultural aspect of the Games was also there with the fantastic work of the Arts Trust in their “lock-in” or whatever that was, but I know it was good art in Elizabeth Castle.

The Connétable of St. Brelade:

I do not know whether to answer that or just agree with what the Senator has just said, but clearly ... as I was waiting to make the speech I just thought I would go to the Memorandum of Understanding of the International Island Games Association, one of those is political and he is quite right. I think during the week we had opportunities to meet political representatives from many of the Islands including Saaremaa, as he has mentioned, the Faroes.

[12:45]

I had an excellent conversation with the sporting minister from Gibraltar. It is an opportunity with these Games to partake in such conversations and build on those relationships for future Games. It is a part of the legacy of the Games and it is something I think we do need to build on. As there are many other issues and sectors and areas such as social benefits and commercial benefits that could be built up by having closer relationships with the 24 islands of the Association. So I totally agree with him. I think we did take those opportunities. There were meetings all week. In fact I wish I had spent more time watching the sport rather than going to meetings but the meetings, I have to agree, were excellent and certainly built up good relations between those islands that we met

3.1.3 The Connétable of St. Martin:

Would the Assistant Minister know the cost of staging the games? Is that available yet?

The Connétable of St. Brelade:

The budget to deliver the Games was £1.9 million of which £700,000 of that was to be raised through sponsorship. We have not had the final report from the NatWest Island Games Organising Committee yet but I know the sponsorship had gone very well. I will be hopeful that they have met that target. But the cost to Government will be around about £1.3 million. Again, I have not get the final figure for sponsorship, it may be better but until I have got the final figures I cannot say any more than that.

3.1.4 Senator L.J. Farnham:

I just wanted the Assistant Minister’s confirmation that this underpins the importance of developing sport and event-led tourism moving forward and something we should build upon and utilise a legacy and the infrastructure and the investment in that way.

The Connétable of St. Brelade:

I think one of the big legacies of these Games, and I think we have got to thank the Assembly, but certainly past Ministers for Treasury and Resources, is the money that has been made available to improve sporting facilities in the Island. Without doubt now, I think we should be extremely proud of the facilities we have got. I can mention one or 2 such as Springfield, the athletics track and certainly some of our shooting facilities, which I was absolutely gobsmacked about when I went to see, such as the Lecq shooting range up at Crabbé. What a fantastic place to shoot. I went up there, watching it you are facing out, looking out over Sark. What a legacy for these Games, and opportunities to bring world class ... I am not saying we go up there and be aimed at, but to bring world class sporting events, shooting events, to the Island. Springfield now can be used 24 hours a day and it is used in the evenings, where it never was. Previously you maybe had 30 or 40 games a year on that pitch, maybe 1,500 people had the opportunity to use it. We are getting 1,000-plus people using it a week now. So the legacy of those facilities will go on and it will boost, and it will give us an opportunity to work on sports tourism, something I know my Minister is very keen to take forward. So, yes, it is all there ready to go. What we have got to do now is promote it.

3.1.5 Deputy S.Y. Mézec:

The Assistant Minister has pre-empted some answers to a question I was going to ask. There has been a feeling in the U.K. that the legacy left behind for the Olympics has not quite been as good as it could be, so could I ask the Assistant Minister if he is willing to assure the House that he will fight for every penny of funding he can to make sure that the legacy of the Island Games here in Jersey reaches its full potential? In particular, would he be prepared to meet with myself and the residents around Springfield to make sure that that site, in particular, continues to reach its full potential for all Islanders?

The Connétable of St. Brelade:

To answer the last point first: the answer is yes, and I think that message has already been conveyed to him through my Director of Sport. In regards to ensuring that the legacy is built upon, I am waiting to see the legacy report from the Island Games Committee. It is clearly going to be very detailed and I think that is where we will see some of the devil in the detail in terms of moving forward. If there is one thing I do not want to lose from these Games, it is the goodwill we have had from volunteers in the Island and building on that. [Approbation] With 450 Waitrose Games Makers we need to engage with them, we need them in future helping at sporting events around the Island. Work is going on at the moment to try to ensure that we can bring them in and use them in future at other events. But it is vitally important. Will I fight for funding? Absolutely. It is a shame the Chief Minister has gone because I have been hassling him for weeks on end about funding for sport and I think there is a good story to be had there. That will obviously come out as we move forward with the Medium-Term Financial Plan. But am I fighting hard? Yes, I am. But I have also got to remember these are difficult financial times and sports is not immune to some of the issues I think that we are going to have to face as an Island.

3.1.6 Senator P.M. Bailhache:

Can the Assistant Minister confirm that he had no difficulty in finding his way to any of the sporting venues? [Members: Oh!] [Laughter]

The Connétable of St. Brelade:

I did not think I would get away this morning without a comment regarding my short trip away from the Island. What I would say about that trip, although I did not get to the destination I intended to go to, it nevertheless highlighted the opportunities this Island has for putting on major sporting events. Next year I think everybody round the U.K. now knows we have got the Dance World Cup coming to Jersey… [Laughter] and also know that England won the Dance World Cup this year, which I was reminded on Radio 4 before I went on. I apologised in public about the mishap. I will apologise again to States Members. I am looking on the positive side. We have got some really great events coming up next year. We have got the touch rugby here as well. My disappointment was it did not give me a chance to go and get the flag from the World Cup but I have spoken to the organisers, they want the event here next year, they are very positive. We are going to have an Island full again. Hotels will be full. We will have the same atmosphere as we have had during the Island Games; that is what I am looking forward to. [Approbation]

3.1.7 Connétable M.J. Paddock of St. Ouen:

I am sure all of us here are aware the tremendous amount of work that the Assistant Minister has put into this. I think it is only that he is a super-fit guy that he got through it so I think he deserves all our thanks for the work that he has done. [Approbation]

The Connétable of St. Brelade:

Can I just add that, and I am glad the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture is still here, he has a fantastic department. He has some fantastic staff in that department and I have, and have been supported by the most generous and supporting Director of Sport that you could ask for. The Constable of St. Ouen is putting the credit on myself. It should not go to me. The credit goes to the Organisation Committee for the Island Games and my Director of Sport, and those involved in the department for the time and effort they have put into the detail to ensure that the Island Games went off, apart from a couple of minor mishaps with bikes, perfectly, and I think we should be proud as an Island in what we delivered. [Approbation]

Deputy M. Tadier:

The Constable of St. Ouen has beaten me to it.

3.1.8 Deputy L.M.C. Doublet:

Just very briefly I wanted to know what the Minister thought about the impact in the schools in the future for sports because I noticed that there were lots of the primary schools, in particular, at the events. I thought they all behaved magnificently and they were excellent ambassadors for Jersey at those events.

The Connétable of St. Brelade:

I have got to say I witnessed many of the schools that went to sporting events. On the first Monday I went to the badminton and saw d’Auvergne were there watching, excellently behaved, really supportive. They had the sticks they were knocking together that drove me mad but in terms of the support they were giving was fantastic. Moving forward, I think the Deputy is aware of my interests and how I would like to see development of young children in terms of physical literacy. I am not going to give up on that. I think we need to make sure that we develop and encourage our children at a very early age and given the right opportunities to be able to perform at the highest level in sport. I am not sure we do that as well as we could. At the moment I have got a fantastic sports development team that are aching to get out there and improve physical literacy in schools. All I have asked for and what I have asked the Council of Ministers for, is enough funding to be able to do that, and hopefully I will be able to say very soon that I will be able to do that. But that is where I am looking to go in terms of supporting young people.

3.1.9 Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

May I just ask: he speaks about sport legacy and Deputy Mézec is absolutely right about the legacy of the Olympics. I wonder whether the Assistant Minister would help the Assembly by perhaps in the autumn publishing a statement or some metrics on what has been achieved in terms of sport as a result of the new sporting strategy, which was agreed previously with the funding that he kindly mentioned. But would he summarise because I do not think that Islanders are aware or perhaps even States Members that as a result of the package of funding that went for sport and the Island Games ... for example, all primary school children have now been able to swim, and would he publish in an infographic or simple way to say what has already been achieved in terms of the legacy already done by the Island Games and perhaps address some of the future looking reports that Deputy Mézec raises, so importantly about future legacy?

The Connétable of St. Brelade:

The Senator makes an extremely good point. I was keen within weeks of being fortunate enough to take over as Assistant Minister for Sport that we gave an update on the Fit for Future strategy. I think the Senator will know we did that early in the New Year, I think it was in February. I am quite happy to give a further update on where the Fit for Future strategy is and how it will move forward under whatever funding is available in the next 2 or 3 years. But I will say it again: we will work with what we have got. I have got a fantastic team and if I am fortunate enough to get the funding I need there is a lot we can do with that. But, yes, you will probably get bored of hearing me talk about sport and I will give you updates when and if you want them.

The Deputy Bailiff:

That brings the time allocated for questions to the Connétable to an end. I therefore call upon the Chairman of P.P.C. to propose the arrangement for future business.

ARRANGEMENT OF PUBLIC BUSINESS FOR FUTURE MEETINGS

4. The Connétable of St. Clement (Chairman, Privileges and Procedures Committee):

I refer Members to item M on the Consolidated Order Paper. The proposal is as per the Order Paper except that Projet 73 in the name of Deputy Tadier - Red Houses Car Park: lease - down for 8th September should be moved to 22nd September. I am assuming that Projet 74 in the name of Deputy Le Fondré is withdrawn. He confirms that to me. I would suspect that if this arrangement is maintained that 8th September, the sitting would last for one day. But of course we still have some 8 or 9 weeks before 8th September so it is possible other items could come forward in the meanwhile.

The Deputy Bailiff:

Do Members agree that we will take the future business in the way proposed by the Chairman of P.P.C.? Very well. The States therefore stands adjourned to 8th September.

ADJOURNMENT

[12:57]