"Scrutiny Has No Faith In Council of Ministers"

Population controls will not be sufficient, Scrutiny concludes

The Corporate Services Scrutiny sub-panel are not convinced about proposals to control population

WITH just weeks until a new immigration system comes into force, a Scrutiny review has found it is ‘very unclear’ how it will give ministers any power to control population levels.

The review has also found that the failure of the current control mechanisms are responsible for the increase in population seen in the 2011 Census, which has brought the Island to the brink of a population of 100,000.

With just a week to go until the Strategic Plan debate that will guide States policies for the next three years, the Corporate Services Scrutiny sub-panel, chaired by Deputy James Reed, says interim measures proposed to protect jobs for Islanders in advance of a full population debate in 2013 did not reassure them.

The sub-panel found that ‘we cannot have confidence in what is being proposed by the Council of Ministers, given that the current control mechanisms for population and migration are failing, and have been for the last three years’.