Plan to increase number of Guernsey deputies by seven

A member of Guernsey's top political committee wants to increase the number of politicians elected to the island's States.

Deputy John Gollop wants to change a proposal from Deputy Mark Helyar to reduce the number of States members by 10.

Gollop said he wants to see the number of deputies return to 45 as it was before changes in 2016 .

The Policy and Resources (P&R) Committee recently "paused" a sub-group looking at changes to the way Guernsey's government works .

Gollop criticised that "the debate around changing government always starts with the idea of reducing committee members".

He said he didn't agree with Helyar's proposals to drop the number of deputies by 10, but wasn't against the idea of a move to executive government by putting more power in the hands of fewer members.

As part of Helyar's requêtes [political petitions] looking at changes to the machinery of government, there are also plans to get rid of the Scrutiny Management Committee and the States Trading Supervisory Board (STSB).

The requête states STSB should be "disbanded" and its shareholder function for orgainsations like Aurigny and Guernsey Electricity should be moved to P&R, alongside "making overseas aid an external function".

It also suggests pay for deputies should be "performance based".

His requête has been signed by Deputies David Mahoney, Sue Aldwell, Nick Moakes, former Chief Minister Peter Ferbrache, P&R member Bob Murray, Home Affairs President Rob Prow.

Helyar has stated in his requêt that it is "patently beyond argument that Guernsey's government system is unfit for purpose in the 21st century.

"It is a rudderless, leaderless system at the mercy of political ideologues and egotists."

Gollop said the States was better off when there were more deputies and Helyar's plan looked like an attempt to get rid of some people.

Helyar said "it is the view of the requêrants and a statistically significant sampled proportion of Guernsey's public that the number of States deputies is currently too high".

President of the Committee for Economic Development Neil Inder is considering an amendment to the proposals to reduce the number of deputies by either four or five, rather than 10.

The proposal from Helyar is set to be lodged later this year and could be debated around at the States meeting starting 11 December.