Final question, Final hustings - but where is the Final Solution?

The final question at the last hustings of the October election was posed by a woman who clearly understood the inequalities and unfairness of Jersey’s housing market.

I was not able to speak with her afterwards because of the crush of the audience leaving the Radisson but whoever she was - would express my thanks for her question and the way in which she phrased it.

It was not the usual moan about the minority of people with housing quals who experience bad housing in Jersey but was an appeal on behalf of ALL people – with or without housing quals – who live in damp, expensive and sub-standard “homes” without any security of tenure. The 10,000 or so working adults without quals who provide so many of the services that are taken for granted yet are largely forgotten, year after year so far as their rights (and those of their children) are concerned.

Jersey’s international image is being dragged through the mud all over the world by reason of finance centre activities and such discriminatory housing and employment policies are further and wholly justified reasons for similar criticisms.

Whether the “Greek TV” team who recorded the final hustings and so much more during their stay in Jersey will focus on such problems is not known – but these are problems that need to be resolved - not hidden from international gaze.

I have campaigned about these very problems over four decades and the disgraceful and discriminatory Housing Law lies at the root of the problem. It is largely useless as a means of ending Jersey’s housing shortage because it actually perpetuates that shortage through discriminatory regulations that effectively remove £millions from the all Island house building funds. It does not give a real advantage to those with quals over those without because there is now no such thing as “affordable housing “and the only useful part of the law – price controls – was scrapped.

The new Migration control under the Chief Minister’s hand with registers of addresses and other details of all residents on an “identity card” is just the same existing bag of discriminatory policies dressed up as something different. In fact, these promise to be even more repressive and are the latest attempt to operate an immigration controlling mechanism through covert means.

I have petitioned the Pricy Council against the new laws being sanctioned.

The video here is a complete recording of the responses of all the Senatorial candidates to that most important final question. It is possible that the order of responses might be slightly different from the night because of my lack of edit skills – but nothing has been omitted so far as I know.

If you experience difficulty loading the video - try clicking the Youtube box.