THE Housing Minister has defended himself in the wake of strong criticism from a Scrutiny panel claiming that he wasn’t “up to speed” with his brief after four months in post.
Deputy Malcolm Ferey was responding to a statement from backbench politicians making up the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Panel following a quarterly hearing with the minister on Thursday.
The panel, chaired by Deputy Hilary Jeune, stated: “We are concerned that the minister isn’t yet up to speed with the Housing remit four months into the role and after the publication of the Common Strategic Policy, which includes providing more homes as a key priority.”
Reference was also made to Deputy Ferey’s admissions that he hadn’t yet had a chance to consider certain policy issues and had only had a “brief conversation” with Planning Minister Mark Boleat about recently launched consultation into proposed minimum size standards for housing, as well as an apparent contradiction between the ministerial priorities and data from Statistics Jersey.
Deputy Ferey told the JEP he did not accept the allegations about not being up to speed “in any way, shape or form”.
“I am always open to constructive criticism, but it has to be borne in mind that I’ve been minister for four months, and I make no apology for taking my time to understand all the evidence and meet all the relevant stakeholders before making firm policy decisions,” he said.
“I fully appreciate that this is a big issue for Islanders and was mentioned frequently during the election campaign, but that just makes me more determined to get it right.
“I will be publishing my work plan for the coming political term before the end of this year, and I hope the Scrutiny panel understand that I’ll only be sharing it once it’s fully formed – I very much want to have a constructive dialogue with the panel as we go forward.”
Deputy Ferey told the hearing that he was confident that he could deliver across all of the eight areas spelt out in the Common Strategic Priorities published by the Council of Ministers last month.
Asked to name his top priorities, the first area Deputy Ferey mentioned was to achieve increased mobility that would enable Islanders to move up and down the housing ladder, as well as enabling first-time buyers to realise the dream of home ownership.
A better provision of social housing, with good quality, safe and affordable accommodation options available to those who wanted to take this route, was the minister’s second stated priority.
And he also mentioned Stamp Duty, saying that while there were no specific measures in the 2027 Budget, he wanted to make changes later in the political term in order to help those who wanted to downsize.
