States delays electricity debate until September

Deputies backed the delay by 19 votes to 15

A debate on a strategy for Guernsey’s future electricity supply has been delayed until September.

Deputies backed the delay by 19 votes to 15 in a States meeting on Friday.

Deputy Bob Murray proposed delaying the motion, also known as a sursis, because he wanted the debate to happen after the Government Work Plan was discussed.

Environment and Infrastructure (E&I) President Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez, who prosed the strategy, said she was “perplexed” by the decision.

Mr Murray said moving the debate by “a few weeks” would “allow deputies to be fully cognisant of any decisions and guidance which arises out of the Government Work Plan (GWP) decisions".

“These are the only reasons to move debate and certainly not to prevent full and deliberate discussions in the future," he said.

Mrs de Sausmarez warned that delaying the debate until the States meeting starting on 6 September would mean “valuable civil servant” time would be wasted.

She said: “Logically it would be far more sensibly to debate this policy letter before the GWP.

“There are so many people in the energy and business sector who are really keen to capitalise on the strategic direction that would be given through agreement of this policy letter.

“If approved we could have made some interim changes which would have helped the market, for example people who want to put larger solar PV arrays out and make that much easier, it’s that work that has been delayed.”

Deputy Sasha Kazantseva-Miller said members took two and a half hours "to debate that they did not want to debate the electricity strategy" until September.

Former Deputy Chief Minister Deputy Heidi Soulsby labelled the decision as “can kicking", and the Environment and Infrastructure member Deputy Simon Fairclough said delaying was the “easy option".