POLITICS is no stranger to resignations, albeit it is Westminster, rather than Royal Square, which has seen more than its fair share in recent years, a trend which may well continue after the UK’s local elections in May.
When Jersey’s current Ministers took their seats in January 2024, midway through the current electoral cycle, some predicted that given the range of political views which they represented, this Council would also struggle to see out the course.
As its turned out, rumours of their demise were greatly exagerrated. The forthcoming election campaign will give voters the opportinuity to rule on their achievements, since all Ministers have now put themselves forward for another term – but working together for their full term of office, albeit a truncated one, is certainly one of them.
The same cannot be said once the scope is widened into Assistant Ministers too – just days before confirming she wouldn’t be standing again this year, Deputy Moz Scott resigned as Assistant Minister for Economic Development, and External Relations.
As readers will see elewhere in this newspaper, she has now published the full text of her resignation letter, with comments which may well be hotly contested by some of her former colleagues.
In a week when the States Complaints Panel said that her recent report on administrative redress had failed to move the issue on, she says in her resignation letter that the creation of an public sector Ombudsman was not given the priority it deserved (or the Assembly wanted) giving rise to “perceptions of conflicts of interest and adherence to the principle of political impartiality.” Put more simply, some Ministers just didn’t want to do it.
But it is her comments on the Department of the Economy which cut more deeply, particularly where she calls into question why the economic advice which Ministers received on both recent minimum wage increases, and the new Residential Tenancy Law, has not apparently been published.
Both topics are likely to come up in the forthcoming election campaign, presented from one perspective as essential social safeguards, and from the other as harming economic growth – so what Ministers were told by their experts is important, and it should be released.
The balance between those two priorities, and whether this Council has successfully found it, is one of the most critical issues in this election campaign, given that it speaks to both the wellbeing and the prosperity of the Island through the next four year term of office.
Deputy Scott states these key policy decisions were not supported by economic advice – that point needs to be clarified.
