Jun 24 - Selwyn Figueras - 2015 Budget Speech
Mr Speaker, I have the honour and privilege to rise to address this House on the Appropriation Bill for the fourth and final time… before the end of this Parliament and a general election before the end of the year.
It is the practice in this House for the members to make their contributions in relation to the bill and to the budget book, the outturns and estimates and to then make general statements of party political positions, setting out by way of consolidation the issues that have been the feature of the last twelve months in politics.
This debate is, Mr Speaker, the opportunity we get every year to sit down, collate, organise and present political arguments on our respective portfolios without fear of interruption, as a general rule at least, or without hindrance by the rules of question and answer sessions. Given that we are in an election year and, more particularly, given that time is ticking down to the end of my time, and that of all those present, in this Parliament, I also propose to revisit, as has the Chief Minister, a variety of themes that have coloured the debates across this floor since December 2011.
In dealing with my areas of responsibility, I will touch lightly upon the figures set out in the budget book which, as ever, makes fascinating reading. In relation to planning, justice, traffic and transport, there really isn't very much to write home about beyond a handful of specific points I will make once more this year in relation to the Justice portfolio which I turn to deal with now.
Justice
Mr Speaker I am grateful to the Minister for his contribution to the debate. This is an area of Government business where, largely, there is agreement across the floor of the House
In the Companies and Insolvency context, I can report that in my dealings with London professionals wearing my business development hat, the concept of a new companies and solvency regime has been welcome and, certainly, from the professional point of view, a positive development in the message about Gibraltar’s plc appeal as a centre for structured and asset finance transactions. The coming into force of the new body of legislation, a not insignificant series of changes, has represented a real shot in the arm for the purposes of selling the jurisdiction in the context I have just alluded to, being an insolvency regime which, although new to us, is certainly not new to UK practitioners, practitioners who can turn to a body of jurisprudence established in England & Wales familiar to those who practice in this area of law. Having lost some ground over the years to other centres, I am confident, and expect others are, that we might now be able to work to recover some of that lost ground.
Marrache
In the Justice portfolio Mr Speaker, one issue stands out above the rest as a source of dispute between us and that is the Government’s handling of legal aid and assistance.
It is an issue Mr Speaker which, frankly, was worthy of a much more mischievous use than that to which we have put it Mr Speaker. I have raised it on a number of occasions when the opportunity has arisen and yes, it is one of those stalwart issues that is covered here every year - and with good cause Mr Speaker.
The background to it goes thus, and I’m quoting from my own speech last year Mr Speaker...
The GSLP/Liberal manifesto contains a commitment to increase the limits of qualification for legal aid and assistance and to explore other mechanisms to ensure citizens have appropriate legal representation when they need it. It goes on to say: “Although there is a draft bill already, these have not been increased for many years and a lot of people who should be eligible and need legal aid or assistance are not getting the cover.”
Despite the not insignificant amount of very good work that the Honourable Minister and his team have done in Justice, which I am very happy to point out to congratulate him, they have not delivered on the manifesto commitment on legal aid and assistance.
Instead, Mr Speaker, what has happened is that in 2012, new rules on legal aid were published, effectively extending the gift of unlimited legal aid to four defendants in the Marrache case. The rules excluded defendants in any other complex cases other than fraud, a fact which the Minister himself conceded in accepting that there could indeed be complex cases not involving fraud.
It is a matter of public interest and intrigue why this was done the way it was. Of course Mr Speaker, in the most recent exchanges on this issue in September last year, the Government sought to dismiss the suggestion that there was anything worthy of legitimate criticism in the change by alluding to legal advice that the Government had received from the chambers of my good, learned and honourable friend, Mr Bossino, in the hope, one expects, that it might silence the opposition. Mr Speaker, what would certainly be quite improper would be for us to accept that statement and the Government’s version or interpretation of the advice at face value when, as the Minister himself had conceded, there were other cases where the rules should, by implication, be extended to apply. The lack of an indication as to what distinguished, at the time, one set of cases from another meant that no compelling enough reason for the differing approaches could be deduced from the Government’s position.
The consequence of the change in the rules in 2012 was the meteoric rise in the legal aid and assistance charge on the consolidated fund.
Now Mr Speaker, as expected, given how far the case has already come, the estimate for next year is an altogether more reasonable £1.2m
The position today Mr Speaker, as brought about by the changes in the rules published in 2014 that the Minister talked about, is that if another Marrache case came along, the kind of expense of in the region of £10 million to which this community was put would not happen again.
What the new rules in 2014 did, Mr Speaker, as a transitional provision, was to ensure that cases covered by the old (2012) rules, would, until the conclusion of said matters, would continue to be covered by those rules. As you might have guessed, Mr Speaker, the Marrache case was the only case covered by this provision.
The defence by this Government on this issue has, unlike their defence in other areas of policy, been weak by comparison. On early challenge by my honourable and learned friend, the Leader of the Opposition and in answers to questions, the Honourable Minister said that they weren’t going to reform Legal aid in a piecemeal fashion, but that is in fact exactly what they did.
They have brought before this house a large catalogue of legislation, including some very substantial items such as the Companies and Insolvency Acts, but they have not yet got round to making changes to the levels of qualification for legal aid and assistance they suggested in their manifesto was so badly needed.
"The Honourable Minister inherited draft legislation that had been prepared in consultation with the industry, and could have made to that draft bill such changes as circumstances or policy dictate today. What he cannot do, with respect, Mr Speaker, is take the better part of four years in Government reviewing and considering draft legislation, one which the Honourable Mr Licudi told us he had in February 2012.
As I said last year Mr Speaker, the issue came to the fore not just because it was an important issue in its own right, not because they had set it out as such in their manifesto, but because of piecemeal way in which, by defining a class of defendants into which at the time practically only the Marraches would fit, the Government wrote a blank cheque to one group of defendants.
As I said Mr Speaker, we could have made much more of this issue by incessantly and repeatedly reminding the electorate of the staggering expense in this case. I chose not to Mr Speaker - but that does not alter the fact the Government footed a bill to the tune of 0.6% GDP (on the latest figure of £1.64bn Mr Speaker)
However significant the growth, whatever the economic health of this community is down to, we cannot allow ourselves to be blinded by the many numbers and the many zeros we have been looking at for the last few weeks - £10 million is not a sum of money to turn one’s nose up at, and the fact that such an amount of money was spent on one case, regardless of the result, cannot simply be dismissed as an anomaly without explanation or indeed, accepted at face value, just like that.
The Giraldi Enquiry
The story is somewhat different with the outcome and expense of the Giraldi enquiry. The Leader of the Opposition touched upon the issue in his own intervention and we will all recall, some more or less fondly than others, the lengthy debate on the motion filed by the Honourable Leader of the Opposition which, by virtue of political devices available to 10 man governments standing opposite 7 man oppositions in 17 member Parliaments like ours became, to my mind, one of the most unpleasant and unsavoury days of my short career in this House.
I was counselled earlier this week to speak about issues that matter to me during this, my final address in this Parliament and I speak, as suggested, from the heart Mr Speaker when I say that witnessing the Honourable the Father of the House delivering his piece on the motion, oozing as it was with barely contained fury and a generous helping of contempt for the Chairman of the Inquiry, I found it difficult viewing. Not difficult, Mr Speaker, because of any notion that anything the Honourable the Father of the House was saying was either powerful or compelling enough, in my view, to diminish the importance of the conclusion of the inquiry. Not difficult either, Mr Speaker, because the Honourable the Father of the House was in any way legitimately deconstructing the Chairman’s view of the behaviour of and evidence given by members, current and past, of the GSD Government during the period of time in question. No, Mr Speaker, difficult viewing of a display which turned out to be an example of how the parliamentary privilege and, of course, parliamentary practice, could be used by a member of this here Parliament to play to a party-political audience and, without even the slightest hint of remorse for his targeting of the Chairman and his work, to make a mockery of an Inquiry that had cost the better part of £4 million and which they themselves had commissioned Mr Speaker. When the Chief Minister then rose to speak and described Mr Bossano’s intervention as a tour de force, I was even more surprised.
One develops a thick skin rather quickly at the sharp end of politics in Gibraltar but I have to admit that I came away from that debate finding it impossible to fathom how smug, yes, smug, some of the Ministers looked at the end of that debate, a debate on an inquiry that they themselves had commissioned and then gone on to spend millions of taxpayers’ money on and which they had just witnessed the Honourable Mr Bossano trying to rubbish, in addition to the reputation of the President of the Court of Appeal, and they were entirely comfortable with it… Proud, even.
Never mind, Mr Speaker, I suppose it’s all part of one’s learning curve.
Planning
Moving on to briefly touch upon planning before finally moving on to talk about Traffic and Transport, I’d like to start by congratulating the DCM for the progress that he and his department have made in this area. The fact that the minutes of the meetings of the DPC are now, as well as the agendas, published online along with the applications and supporting information in respect of Government projects are clearly positive developments, as is the holding of meetings in public.
I’d like to congratulate them too, Mr Speaker, for being masterful at identifying areas of policy where the honourable and learned Sir Peter Caruana, conviction politician that he is, had not given ground on and in respect of which, they saw the opportunity to put easy and clear blue water between themselves and the then Chief Minister.
What the Honourable members did with the DPC, along with a number of other initiatives in the time since they were elected, was to take areas of policy in respect of which they could easily, starkly even, cast themselves as the diametric opposite of the honourable and learned Sir Peter Caruana’s GSD in 2011. The holding of meetings in public of the DPC is one such example. You see Mr Speaker, by adding more people to the committee and holding meetings in public they, at once, became the perceived standard bearers for openness and transparency in that context, and the effect of it was to placate the relatively small group of people who took issue with not being allowed to participate in those meetings whilst, at the same time, effectively neutralising in large part the complaints and criticisms that typically flow when works start on any number of projects by saying ‘it was all done in public.’
It's very true that you can please all of the people some of time or, indeed, some of the people all of the time but alas Mr Speaker, you cannot, however, please all of the people all of the time.
The complaints about the process today centre, and we have issued statements to the effect, on the quality of the decision making when it comes to difficult questions of choosing one set of interests over another. It is in the context of the decisions taken vis-à-vis the Risso bakery and the facade of the old Police Barracks as two examples that the quality of the decisions is called into question. The decisions made by the DPC in these two scenarios, as well as, say, the decision to allow the building of rather a tall structure right smack in the heart of town in Town Range, have caused consternation and anger in some quarters because, frankly Mr Speaker, the people can’t vote a DPC out and replace it with another.
Contrast those decisions with their decision some years ago not to allow the demolition of an entirely insignificant building with no heritage value whatsoever because of an ‘in principle objection to demolition!' The make up of the DPC today, with two Government ministers sitting in the committee and the Town Planner having the Chair mean that there is no political accountability, certainly not a direct or technical one, for the decisions of this public body.
The Government, by divesting itself of the power to direct or lead the DPC on applications by private individuals and entities has effectively freed the committee, and itself arguably, of accountability at election time. Perhaps Mr Speaker, those feeling sufficiently aggrieved about bad decisions could vote to punish the Government for having brought about this state of affairs, but the committee would continue in situ, doing what they do, taking the decisions that they see fit to take in all the circumstances, taking into account political factors, whether those are front and centre in their deliberations or merely present on the minds of the committee members, when there’s no apparent or overt political leadership of it. This is why, Mr Speaker, we maintain the position in respect of which office should chair the DPC. It should not, in our view, be the office of the Town Planner - it should be the office of the relevant Minister, whoever that may be from time to time.
I talked last year Mr Speaker about the difficulties of the Committee in controversial decisions by making reference to the application by the GFA to build the Europa Point Stadium. The fact that some say that the possibility of hosting top level UEFA football depends on having the stadium at Europa Point make what are sometimes very emotive issues are difficult to ignore Mr Speaker, and members of the Committee could be forgiven for letting such matters colour their judgment, which is not to say that they do or that they will. The point, Mr Speaker, is that if, regardless of the prevailing sentiment at the time when decisions are made, they are subjectively bad decisions in the eyes of a large number of the electorate, there’s precious little that can be done to change the course set by the DPC.
The Chief Minister might think it scandalous that I should be talking about ‘power to the people’ when his predecessor made no secret of being something of a control freak in many respects - that it’s scandalous that I should be talking about these things when under the previous administration meetings would be held behind closed doors and minutes would never get published but, to such charges, there are simple answers. That was the policy of the GSD then and remains the policy of the GSD now.
The situation we have today, which brings me to my final point in relation to planning, is that the Government appoints the Town Planner as the Chairman of the DPC but its own projects are not subject to the DPC’s approval - a GSD policy position which survived the New Dawn and is doing really rather well. This despite the fact that we’re close to the end of the life of this Parliament and the fact that they committed to making the Government’s projects subject to the rules in the manner they promised.
I wonder, Mr Speaker, whether the Honourable the Chief Minister has made peace with the idea that he will not be ticking every box in the manifesto, like for example the parking under Commonwealth park, and that the luxury of not needing the approval of the DPC will prove too hard to give away. It’s just a little un-ticked box at the end of the day...
Traffic and Transport
And talking about the Park, Mr Speaker (I can never resist) brings me to deal with the final area of responsibility on which I will be addressing you today and I open my address on traffic and transport matters by citing a quote which I think, Mr Speaker, you’ll find rather apropos - it goes thus: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”
This is a quote I had originally heard attributed to Abraham Lincoln but which, upon investigation, is said to have originated in 17th century France, by the hand of a mathematician and philosopher by the name of Blaise Pascal, a scientist attributed with the clarification of concepts such as pressure and vacuums. The quote, I think, captures very neatly the idea that the use of succinct and pointed language always trumps verbosity and unnecessary diversion from the crux of the issue.
In the last few months, Mr Speaker, since the publication of the STTMP draft summary, we have had many exchanges across the floor of this house, and publicly too, about our differing views of this initiative that the Government hails as something of a game changer.
The Honourable Minister, who often complains about my use of language as being complicated or hard to follow in question and answer sessions, paradoxically enough touts the length of the draft summary of the plan as evidence of the initiative’s brilliance, in what has become, in essence, a ‘mine is bigger than yours’ argument. Well Mr Speaker, I hate to burst his bubble, but that’s not what this is about.
They have had the better part of three and a half years to come up with the text of the plan, which, by extension of the concept captured by the Pascal Mr Speaker, should have been plenty of time to ‘make the letter shorter.’ Mr Speaker, the plan should have been able to fit on a rolodex card by now...
You see Mr Speaker, it may be lost on the Minister that length does not, on its own, make an argument stronger in much the same way as shouting doesn’t strengthen an argument or make truth of a lie Mr Speaker. Noise, Mr Speaker, is just that. It adds nothing. It is for this reason that every time the Minister seeks to defend the lack of action on the ground of any real progress on our roads to tackle the traffic problem in Gibraltar by flicking through the draft of the plan which goes to 30 pages, with over 70 images and graphics, for good measure Mr Speaker, he does a disservice to himself and this community, by effectively dismissing the genuine and important concerns many in this community harbour about the traffic situation.
Why would he be so dismissive Mr Speaker? Why would the Minister for Traffic be so happy to effectively flick away the traffic problems of this community with a flick of the draft of the plan. Simple Mr Speaker; The Minister does not perceive the problem and it simply doesn’t mean anything to him but I’ll come back to this point later.
The draft summary of the plan looks impressive, certainly. Very colourful, lots of images and some good ideas. It certainly helps the imagination when there are images to guide you along. I’ve already said, openly and in this House that if returned to Government, the GSD would not be so foolish as to take the investment so far of well over half a million pounds and consign it to the dustbin Mr Speaker.
I take no issue with the plan per se, though it is costing us Mr Speaker.
STTMP costs
12/13 87,561
13/14 - 337,707
14/15 - 170,000
15/16 - 243,000
Total - £838, 358
I take issue with the fact that, in the first place, the GSLP Liberals clearly didn’t have a clue between them on what to about traffic so, effective as they are in finding the path of least resistance, they committed to paying external experts hundreds of thousands of pounds to tell us what any number of local experts and stakeholders could tell us about how to tackle the problem in Gibraltar already. Tackling the culture of car use in Gibraltar by encouraging people to use alternative forms of transport by providing an integrated public transport system with an improved and appealing/safer environment for people to walk and cycle in.
It’s clear from the plan Mr Speaker, that car ownership and, importantly, use is still front and centre in the thought process behind the plan. One of the initiatives supposedly designed to reduce congestion in the plan is to make more short term parking available in the Landport Ditch area so that people who want to come to town to shop find it easier to park their cars! Mr Speaker, this in a report that acknowledges the increasing congestion and lists reducing pollution and congestion as one of the main objectives. It’s certainly repeated enough Mr Speaker, hence the length of the document.
This, allied to their manifesto commitment which remains unmet, to deliver twice the number of parking spaces beneath commonwealth park, proves that this Government is not serious about tackling the traffic issue. It lambasted the GSD when in Opposition despite the step change that that administration brought about in the traffic context and yet they are now failing in the same way they described the GSD as failing only for them its worse because the backdrop of their failure is their supposed determination to undo the damage the GSD allegedly did.
But we didn’t kill the Gibibikes Mr Speaker, they did.
We didn’t bring buses to Gibraltar that the elderly or disabled couldn’t use; they did.
The starting point for them is clearly ‘the car is sacred, don’t touch people’s cars.'
If they were genuine about this process Mr Speaker and didn't care about the electoral impact of their decisions, they would have set about introducing charging for parking in the town area, and not cheap parking either, parking fees at a rate that would make someone living in Montagu Gardens and working in John Mackintosh Square think a few times about whether it’s really worth taking the car out, pa darse palo con la gente to find a parking. They might have reintroduced road tax, calculated it by reference to annual mileage, they might have also overhauled the import duty system and based it on emissions so that more and more people would be persuaded to make better choices with their diesel/petrol cars. They might, Mr Speaker, even have contemplated measures such as banning vehicular traffic from the city centre beyond public service vehicles or even introduced a congestion charge, a real hot potato in London. They might also, Mr Speaker, have spent the half a million they’ve spent on Mott McDonald on renewing or replacing the Gibibikes, on getting some cycle lanes painted, some advanced stop lines too whilst at it.
Maybe Mr Speaker they could have even come up with a pedestrian crossing at the Trafalgar Interchange. WOW Mr Speaker, Now THAT is amazing, The Minister announces the completion of a pedestrian crossing on Ragged Staff Road the same way the Chief Minister announces the second highest budget surplus in the history of this community or the Honourable the Leader of the Opposition retorts that, actually, we are up to our eyeballs in off-balance sheet debt! He doesn’t tell you that it took weeks to complete (a pair of traffic lights and access ramps) and that during that time it was a ‘salvese quien pueda’ affair, with likely thousands of pedestrians running the gauntlet on a ‘is it? isn’t?’ crossing whilst work progressed slowly to complete it. He likes his lines on the road Mr Speaker, I wonder why we don’t get more. He also talks about the crossing by king’s Bastion. I must have been one of hundreds who wrote to him a long long time ago suggesting that it might not be a bad idea to do it before someone got killed.
I have welcomed the things that they have actually done. I was very quick to congratulate them on the installation of the intelligent traffic light system on Queensway, as well as the roundabout by the Marina Bay/Ocean Village area, colloquially know as ‘la curva del med’ and even the pilot scheme for drop off and pickup at St Joseph’s school. Valuable and effective though those initiatives have been, none of them can be described as revolutionary - it is the mere execution under the guidance of foreign experts of an understanding and expertise which is homegrown. There is nothing in that report that we didn’t already know.
It contains statements like “the border crossing causes congestion.” Shocker
“in future, the problem will be bigger if not tackled.” Amazing insight, isn’t it, Mr Speaker?
Mr Speaker, the plan teaches the local stakeholders to suck eggs.
It gets it wrong in one respect mr Speaker. Car ownership is part of the problem, not all of the problem. Mr Speaker, with respect, it is not the car ownership that’s the problem, it’s the use of those cars that is the problem. The GSD set about building car parks for people to park their cars at home and, at the same time, was embarked upon delivering an integrated public transport system.
All the Government has done is to rid the community of the commonwealth parade car park, given us the park and then spend the rest of the time frantically trying to make up the numbers of parking. Why didn’t they just say in their manifesto - we’re going to give you a really pretty park - car parking be damned? It won’t surprise anyone that the risk of electoral damage of eradicating 700 car parking spaces was too much for them to stomach.
In Town Without My Car had some great ideas at the last election for using the city walls as a solution for walking and cycling, and it is good to see this incorporated in the draft plan yet to be finalised after even more consultation. It is disappointing to be the lone voice criticising the Government’s lack of action on the ground but, I suppose they must be satisfied with just the fact of the plan and the adoption of an initiative rather than any substantive change.
The plan, Mr Speaker, even makes reference to the public transport issues that the Europa Point Stadium would give rise to - did anyone mention a fait accomplis?
Of the many initiatives listed in the plan, what is the Government waiting for to actually get cracking? The new bus routes, the introduction of ‘bus lanes?’ I mean that, Mr Speaker, I’m really looking forward to see. They tell me there’s no room for cycle lanes but they’re going to make a bus lane along Waterport road? There’s already an effective solution in place for Eastbound public service traffic - what are they thinking Mr Speaker?
Talking about Waterport and the Watergardens area, I mentioned earlier that the Minister has no sense for the traffic problem, in some ways similar to me. He walks and cycles, as I walk and cycle (other than now in the summer when I’m on my maxi-scooter), but he also access to the official cars and frankly, parks wherever he wants Mr Speaker so, he just doesn’t get it - which is probably why he finds it so amusing that I keep applying a few Pascals of pressure on him to get the job done. I suspect, mr Speaker, that like sound traveling in a vacuum (other than, as it recently appears to have been postulated, a vacuum separating two objects made of piezoelectric crystals), my message is falling on deaf ears.
The plan was always, I am certain Mr Speaker, for the Government to let four years pass, fill them with consultation, planning and drafting, and then consulting, drafting and planning, to take them to publication of the full plan on announcement of the election.
I note that token provision for a new link road to the South and black cabs, two manifesto commitments they will not deliver in this term of office, is now made in the budget book.
In the Transport context Mr Speaker, I have to alight upon the issue of the new buses and, separately the issue of the contract for advertising on the old buses and the bus stops.
The red buses have caused much consternation. For all the talk of eco and user friendliness, the buses have hardly lived up to the hype, That and the fact that the award of the contract went to Bassadone motors and that the Government refused to disclose whether it was the lowest tender have caused what should have been a victory for the Government to leave a bad taste in the community’s mouth. The Government boast of their Eco-friendliness but, Mr Speaker, they are just diesel buses - not electric, not hybrid and not running on chip fat either.
The Big Publications issue is another example of where an allegedly impartial process resulted in the award of a contract ultimately to companies owned by stalwart supporters of the regime, much like the contracts for the solar panels, the lifts, the doors etc but, in this case, it seems it hasn’t worked out. Since September last year when i raised the issue, I’ve been trying to obtain from the Government confirmation of how much revenue the Bus Company and therefore the Government indirectly, is missing out on because Big Publications hasn’t paid up. Even last week, they still didn’t know. Had it not been for my enquiry Mr Speaker last year, we wouldn’t be pursuing the contract debt as actively as we are and I am hopeful that substantial monies will be recovered and a full account of the payments/commissions due will be brought to this House.
I take the opportunity of my intervention to remind the Minister that the Bus Company’s website, in particular the mobile version which has been created using a free utility which places third party apps on the website, look absolutely atrocious. It does Gibraltar’s image and that of our Bus Company, no favours whatsoever. I wonder if the Minister could let me know how much that cost and perhaps Government's brand consultants can cast their eye over it...
General and Conclusion
More generally Mr Speaker, and to develop a little further something that I’ve only briefly touched upon I want to return to the issue of emissions. I note that the CM has reduced import duty on hybrid vehicles to 0% for importers and 5% for private imports. I wish to take the opportunity to impress upon him the fact that many jurisdictions are turning to calculating registration taxes on vehicles on the basis of the rated emissions of the vehicles in question. Whilst our system has served us well for a long time, I wonder whether I might be able to pique the CM’s interest into looking at this. You see Mr Speaker, as an example of the kind of anomaly that arises from our system, a Porsche Cayenne Hybrid has rated emissions of 193 g/km of CO2 and pays, if imported by a dealer, 0% and attracts a £1,000 bonus A Ford Focus Ecoboost 1.0t has emissions, by comparison, of 109g/km of CO2 yet that pays 12% and doesn’t attract the bonus. The latter is the cleaner car and, from the local environment point of view, the more desirable one.
I understand that market forces may play a role here but I am happy to discuss the issue with him should he consider it desirable to do so.
Conclusion
And that, Mr Speaker, brings to a close my contribution in this debate. I’d like just to say a few more general words on the ‘state of the nation’ address by the Honourable the Chief Minister and the economic performance of this place we call home.
It is clear that much of the growth we have seen in the last few years is down in no small measure to the investment of the Government in major projects - there is nothing wrong with that, clearly, so long as there remains a sense of control and an objective assessment of what this community is, devoid of what our aspirations may be. Put simply, so long as we spend within our means, there should be nothing to worry about. We see that private enterprise is ‘taking the wheel’ in relation to a number of projects, all of which are in principle, positive for this place, but questions still arise which I hear every day.
If we have one less bank and the new International bank does things as it is required to be the terms of its licence, how is everyone going to get a mortgage for all the property that’s going to be available to buy?
How did we go from a 100 million pound hole to spending like there’s no tomorrow?
How exactly did we go from broke to spoilt rotten in a couple of years?
Well, Mr Speaker, some answers are harder to come by than others and try as we may, we certainly can’t get answers in the context of the construct that is the financing arrangement through the Savings Bank, Credit Finance Company Limited and Gibraltar Investment Holdings Limited
Should we consider contingent liability an actual liability?
Who’s right? Us or the Government? Is there a right and wrong?
There are a lot of questions to which the answers are certainly not clear for the average person on the street - many of the issues are simply too complex or too alien to men and women busy staying busy paying mortgages, paying the bills, giving their children the best start possible - concepts which exist only in the abstract for them. We come to this house and debate these issues as the political leadership of this small nation and it is our responsibility to do the best we can for the betterment and the improvement of the lives of all in this community.
The Government owes a duty to the people not to put party political interests ahead of the greater good. It owes the people a duty, as the party elected to lead, to assimilate and understand the challenges ahead, the party elected to develop a vision of where Gibraltar goes next and how to get there. It owes the people a duty not to get it wrong, like we owe the people a duty to keep the Government on its toes.
The economic output data that the Chief Minister set out yesterday was, by any means, good news for this place. Growth of 10.3%. Economic output of £1.64bn. Full employment. Over 24,000 in employment. Record this, record that. I am sincere when I say that that all sounds like great news - not just for me, but for my children too, because it means that the economy continues to fire on all cylinders, that the financial services and gaming sectors that form a large part of the work I do as a professional and what keeps my family in the blessed lifestyle to which I think a lot of us are accustomed, remain healthy.
The only dark cloud I see in the distance has the name Credit Finance Company limited on it, and were it not for the uncertainty of that view in the distance on an otherwise sunny day, all the other issues we tackle here from time to time, would seem that little less critical, that little less important. I hope, for the sake of this place and the community at large, that things continue to go well for Gibraltar and that we have many more years of 'plain sailing,' on which, it seems, the Government’s economic and finance model is predicated. I hope too Mr Speaker, that should we encounter stormy seas along the way, that this economy’s ‘engine room’ is up to the task.
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