Q. Do candidates support the principle of a new secondary school for Les Quennevais?
A. I am 100% in favour of a new school. We have neglected the severe overcrowding in this excellent school for far too long. I am very disappointed that the ministers have achieved so little progress in three years. I attended the planning inquiry when it was identified that the ministers had decided on a preferred site without any consultation with the public. This cannot be acceptable and we must put this right. We must look at alternative sites before deciding that this open land must be taken for the school. I am not only concerned about the loss of agricultural land but have concerns over infilling this important open space in this built up area. I am against any intrusion into the playing fields. The existing school buildings, when released, will provide the opportunity of either a health centre, community centre or skills centre for 14 plus. We have to decide whether our Jersey curriculum is to include a vocational element as well as functional skills at post 14 and factor this into the design of the new school.
Q. What will the candidates do to support local companies?
A. We must remove the red tape and bureaucracy which government imposes on businesses, and in particular we have to remove the data protection restriction which prevents joined up government and the sharing of information between departments. Under zero ten taxes we can’t give tax incentives to start up businesses, we have to look at concessions for employers from social security contributions. Government building contracts need to be managed so that those local businesses as far as possible are awarded the contracts so we get the full economic benefit.
Q.What are the candidate’s views on the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes?
A. I rely on the medical advice; there will be circumstances with individual people where the relief of their symptoms has greater benefit than the harm caused. This requires an individual clinical judgment to be made by a medically qualified doctor. So there will be limited circumstances where the use should be permitted.
Q. Do you see the need the need to control population and how will you go about it?
A. We cannot set a cap on our population, if were to do so under the EU/UK protocol for Jersey we would prevent our people from living and working in the UK and Europe. We have to manage our population growth by ensuring the permits issued to employers restrict recruiting off-island to people with skills which the island can’t meet, under the new housing and work law. In the longer term, we need to do much more to train local people in the skills required to meet business needs. We have to transform our urban areas into places where people want to live; as this is the only way we can absorb the population growth while conserving the islands countryside.
Q.We have too many eggs in the finance industry basket, what alternative economic activities would the candidates propose if the industry collapsed?
A. We must make every effort to prevent the finance industry collapsing. The industry is already diversifying itself and we should support this process. It is essential. We must act to encourage the digital sector to grow with new applications and we should ensure that the fast internet service is able to meet the new business opportunities. In particular we must ensure the problem of differential upload / download speed of the JT standard charge fast internet service (raised at previous hustings) is resolved or the cost may limit the growth of new businesses applications. Renewable energy, both for utility scale and the supply and installation of micro renewable technology has a big potential for economic growth, to encourage this, we need an energy market with incentives. This requires energy regulation and working closely with the JEC and commercial partners
Q.Does the ministerial attempt to delay the island signing the International FATCA agreement on tax information sharing mean that the efforts to improve the transparency and openness of our finance industry are unimportant?
A. Absolutely not. The Island has already passed legislation and entered into international tax information exchange agreements which puts us ahead of others and has made our laws more complaint with the international standards of financial services set by the OECD etc, than other jurisdictions. Any doubt about this can be checked against international compliance websites which identifies the many jurisdictions which do not comply, jurisdictions which are our competitors. Jersey being so close to the UK has no choice but to be compliant, if we declined we would isolate ourselves internationally to our detriment