Deputy John Young said that once his current term had finished he intended to let the ‘younger Members take over’. However, he said he was determined to complete his ongoing environmental work as far as he could to leave the next post holder in the best possible position.
Deputy Young said that he would be pushing for an increase in eco-friendly policies. This, he said, could include a vehicle taxation system of £100 a year, which he said could generate as much as £15 million for the government to put into other environmental initiatives.
‘It may be that the States don’t like it because they do not like increasing taxes, even for environmental reasons, but there is no hiding place from that and I will not pull back,’ he said.
‘The proposals will go forward and, if the States reject them, then at least we’ll have tried.’
The next general election is scheduled to take place in 2022, and the former chairman of the Environment Scrutiny Panel said it would mark the end of his long and wide-ranging career within the Island’s government.
The government declared a climate-change emergency in 2019, while in February last year the Assembly backed proposals to make the Island carbon neutral by 2030.
‘I have, as minister, less than 14 months to go before the elections and I have made it clear that I won’t be standing again,’ he said. ‘So I will not be able to see it through – and that’s due to age and not any other reason. I will be 75 and I think it’s right that younger Members take over. So I want to give them a much better situation to take over than the one I took on: resources to do things, new policies in place to implement, and some of the barriers that have got in the way of us giving proper weight to the environment broken down.’
Deputy Young was first elected as Deputy of St Brelade No.1 in November 2011. He attempted to secure a Senatorial seat in the following election but was unsuccessful. He was re-elected in June 2018 – again as a Deputy for St Brelade No.1. In addition to his two stints as Deputy he also worked for three years as Alderney’s Planning Officer, and is the former chief officer of Jersey’s Planning Department. Prior to this he served as a finance director at the General Hospital.
‘The reason I went into the States was to make a change,’ he said. ‘For decades Jersey has not given adequate weight to its environment and has very much put it down the list of priorities – that is totally unsatisfactory. What I think I’ve been able to do is to achieve a modest but decent uplift in resources, but we still need to see that the environment gets a fair crack of the whip in terms of government policies. Unfortunately we are still seeing situations where economy overrides the environment and that cannot continue. We cannot keep treating the environment as a good to exploit and not invest in it and nurture it.’
Deputy Young said that policies to achieve the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 had faced setbacks as a result of the Island’s ongoing response to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, he said he remained committed to making that objective a reality.
With the end of his career now in sight, the Deputy is aware that he has a limited window of opportunity to introduce environmental policies – although he is certain that he will stick by his decision not to run again.
‘The Council of Ministers has only got 14 months left, and maybe some of my colleagues have got it in their mind that they will carry on. But for me it’s clear because of my age, and I believe passionately that younger Members should be encouraged and brought on.’
Saturday Interview: pages 10 and 11.
