Cap on population is ruled out

The States heard that Guernsey’s government will soon consider a proposal to cap theirs at 60,000, and Deputy Kevin Lewis wanted to know what Senator Frank Walker considered to be the maximum number of people for Jersey. Jersey’s population is currently above 88,000, but the Senator declined to set a maximum figure for it. He told the House that a major cross-departmental research project was under way considering the impact of population growth and that it would be wrong to pre-empt its findings. The report would go to the Council of Ministers in February and be published soon afterwards to allow full public consultation prior to a States debate on the Migration Law later this year.