Pay issue blunder by States

Having spent hour after long hour deciding to cut services ranging from the provision of school milk to the General Hospital hydrotherapy pool, the House turned its attention to Members’ pay. Incredibly, by 20 votes to 17, it was decided that a Standing Order should not be lifted to make it possible to debate a Business Plan amendment calling for a pay freeze for next year and a £10,000 cut from 2012 onwards.

It should be noted that, in the past, it has been more or less standard practice to suspend the particular Standing Order that prevents Members from discussing matters of direct pecuniary interest when the issue of remuneration arises.

Understandably, the author of the amendment, Senator Ben Shenton, was stunned when his proposed pay freeze and cut was blocked through the use of what amounted to a procedural device. He says that some Members must be described hypocrites – on the basis that they were eager to insist on economies which will affect the general public but are apparently unwilling to a bite a similar bullet themselves.

Even if this blanket criticism is unfair because it tars all the Members who voted to block the debate with the same brush, assuming that they were all motivated by naked self-interest, there are still reasons why the bypassing of the pay issue reflects very badly on the House as a whole.

As is so often the case, the impression generated by Members’ actions will matter more than the substance of what happened. The man in the street will, rightly or wrongly, be quick to see the hypocrisy that Senator Shenton detects and is likely to be driven towards becoming even more disillusioned with Jersey politics.

But the really disturbing feature of this affair is that 20 Members could either not see or did not care that sidestepping the pay amendment would lead many Islanders to conclude that as, Senator Shenton has said, they were loudly proclaiming: ‘We’re all right, Jack!’