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ADDENDUM to May briefing note – updated on 6 October 2024:
The States Assembly and Constitution Committee submitted a third election policy letter for debate at the 4 September 2024 States meeting. Read it here.
In it, they gave their rationale for overturning, or not progressing, a number of amendments that Deputies had made to the first and second policy letters.
Spending limits: Rather than £6,000 for individuals and £12,000 for parties, agreed by the States as a result of the Roffey/Bury amendment in May 2024, SACC re-proposed their original figures of £7,500 and £15,000. Their justification was based on more detailed evidence, including comparisons with other jurisdictions and the necessity of allowing candidates to send their manifesto to all voters (if they wish to) to meet international guidance on election campaigning. They also argued that £7,500 represents the £6,000 limit in 2020 uplifted for inflation. To maintain £6,000 in 2025 therefore effectively meant a spending cut in real terms. So existing deputies would be imposing a lower spending limit on their challengers than they benefited from.
Three amendments were lodged relating to spending limits:
Amendment 1 Falla/Aldwell: spending limits to be £3,000 for individuals and £6,000 for parties. CARRIED 19-18.
Amendment 2 Roffey/DeSaus: spending limits to be £6,000 for individuals and £12,000 for parties (a repeat of Deputy Roffey’s previous successful amendment, not clear why). NOT LAID due to success of Amendment 1.
Amendment 3 DeSaus/Roffey: spending limit for parties to be the same as for individuals OR spending limit for parties to be 1.5 x individuals. CARRIED 23-12.
Amendment 4 Queripel/Bury: Reinstate the £500 candidate grant. Late amendment, required suspension of the rules. Proposal to suspend the rules defeated 15-21.
The combination of amendments 1 and 3 means that the spending limits for 2025 will be £3,000 for individuals and £3,000 for parties.
Declarations of convictions: SACC wanted to maintain the current rules about candidates declaring convictions. That is, that candidates only have to declare convictions from the last five years and only if they have resulted in imprisonment for more than six months in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man. They argued that any sex offence (the main area of concern in the debate) would attract a sentence greater than six months. And that someone could have been convicted in another jurisdiction for something that would not be a crime in Guernsey so we need to stick to local convictions (countering the Prow/Ferbrache amendment from January 2024).
Local nighttime safety charity, SafetyNet, wrote to all deputies because they were concerned that sex offenders are not necessarily imprisoned for six months or more. However, in the case they cited, the person had not been imprisoned but had been given a suspended sentence of more then six months which have to be declared under the current rules.
DBS checks: SACC investigated DBS checks, as instructed by the Bury/Oliver amendment from May 2024, and concluded that introducing them is not practical. Standard and enhanced DBS checks can only be requested by an employer and States members are self-employed. Candidates could request their own basic police check but making this compulsory would lead to a rush of applications just before the nomination deadline which may not be able to be completed in time. In addition, DBS checks reveal all convictions, even minor ones, which could put candidates off standing.
In debate, many deputies agreed with the suggestion from SafetyNet that, if DBS checks couldn’t be made on candidates, they should at least be requested for committees that come into contact with vulnerable groups. Education have already implemented DBS checks for their committee members and President, Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen, promised to pass on the details to HSC and Home Affairs.
Original briefing note, updated just after the May 2024 States debate:
At the 22 May States meeting, Deputies debated the second of two policy letters from the States Assembly and Constitution Committee (SACC) setting out how Election 2025 will be run. Second policy letter.
In summary, the States agreed:
- the election day will be 18 June 2025
- nomination period will be 12-14 May 2025
- the spending limit for individual candidates will remain at £6,000, not increase to the proposed £7,500*
- the spending limit for political parties will increase from £9,000 to £12,000, not the proposed £15,000*
- the £500 campaigning grant will be discontinued
- a by-election won’t be triggered until three vacancies have occurred, rather then one.
*The States asked SACC to look at potentially lowering these limits. SACC will return by the end of September with a new policy letter.
Spending limits
Setting the limit on how much candidates can spend is always contentious. On the one hand, the limit needs to be high enough that a candidate could mail all of the electorate, if they wished. On the other hand, too high a limit runs the risk of wealthier candidates being able to ‘buy’ their way into the States.
After the last election, the Registrar-General analysed the link between the amount spent and electoral success (page 28 of the Report of the Registrar-General of Electors). The average spend by those who were elected was £2,242, while for those who were not elected it was £1,178. However, spending the maximum did not guarantee success.
Currently, only the Registrar-General has access to candidates spending since it is her team that verifies – after the election – that no candidate overspent. But thanks to a successful proposition earlier this year, candidates will need to publicly declare their expenditure after Election 2025.
Prior to Island Wide Voting, candidates only needed to reach the voters in their district and the maximum spend per candidate was £2,300. In 2019, SACC proposed increasing this to £9,000, basing this limit on an estimate of the cost to send a 4 page personal manifesto to every voting household in the island. This was reduced to £6,000 by a DeSaus/Tooley amendment.
[If you want to read the 2019 debate on spending limits go to page 3005 of Hansard 11 Dec 2019. Debate continues at page 3072 of Hansard 12 Dec 2019.]
Campaign grant
In 2020, each candidate received a grant of £500 towards their campaigning expenses eg printing leaflets, designing a website etc. It was a retrospective grant – the candidate needed to spend the money first and then claim it back after the election.
In this second policy paper SACC proposed getting rid of this grant, on the grounds that it cost £50k in total in 2020 and the States already provides the manifesto booklet, videos, the Election website and the Beau Sejour ‘Meet the Candidates’ event. An amendment to reinstate the grant was defeated and the proposition was agreed 19-12.
Amendments
Amendment 1 – Roffey/Bury – to keep the maximum individual spend at £6,000, rather than increasing to £7,500. And to only increase the party spend to £12,000. CARRIED 24-9.
In the policy paper the SACC argued that the spending limits should increase in line with inflation. Deputy Roffey’s amendment didn’t include an explanatory note but he told Bailiwick Express that he felt that £7,500 was ‘obscenely high’. Deputy Roffey was unwell on the day of the debate so the amendment was proposed by Deputy Bury and seconded by Deputy Gabriel. It was successful, with a vote in favour of 24-9. So successful, in fact, that it prompted two additional amendments to reduce the spending limit further, see below.
Amendment 2 – Queripel/Bury – to retain the £500 grant and uplift it for inflation. LOST 12-19.
Deputy Queripel told IslandFM: “Someone who cannot afford £500 for their campaign may have some really good ideas on how we can diversify the economy, save money and make money – so the whole community will lose out if we remove the grant”.
Amendment 3 – De Sausmarez/Mahoney – to reduce the campaign spending limits to either £2,000 for individuals and £4,000 for parties. Or £3,000 for individuals and £6,000 for parties. WITHDRAWN after discussion in the lunch break with SACC. Replaced by Amendment 5.
Amendment 4 – Gollop/Gabriel – to trigger a by-election if two vacancies occur, rather than the proposed three. LOST 12-21.
Amendment 5 – Meerveld/De Sausmarez – to direct SACC to investigate lower candidate limits and bring a policy letter to the States by end Sept latest. CARRIED 19-11.
The votes on the amended propositions can be seen here.
January 2024 proposals
This is the second set of election proposals from SACC. The first set were voted on by the States in January 2024. First policy letter.
Those proposals were:
- election expenditure will be published. Currently only the Registrar-General’s team sees it.
- the regulated campaigning period will start six weeks before nominations begin. The campaigning period is when expenditure limits apply. In 2020, money that candidates and parties spent on activities completed before nomination didn’t count towards the expenditure limit.
- a recount will be triggered when the difference between votes for the last successful and first unsuccessful candidate is 1% or 50 votes, whichever is the lower. In 2020, the recount margin was set at 2% of the total number of ballots, which was 493 votes. Four candidates were within this margin and three asked for a recount.
- people convicted of an electoral, fraud or corruption offence in the last five years will be banned from standing. Historically, people have been ineligible to stand if they have had any conviction of six months or more in the UK, CI or IoM in the last five years.
The proposal relating to convictions was overturned by a Prow/Ferbrache amendment. In addition, Deputies Bury and Oliver successfully placed an amendment to instruct Home Affairs to investigate DBS checks for candidates.
Media
Election candidates may have to fund their own campaigns (10 Apr, Guernsey Press)
“Obscenely high” election spending uplift faces opposition (1 May, Bailiwick Express)
Candidates in Guernsey’s 2020 election may not get campaign grant (15 May, IslandFM)
Deputies challenge States to keep election grant in place (16 May, Bailiwick Express)
Mounting opposition to plans for controls on by-elections (17 May, Guernsey Press)
“Astonishing number” of handwritten manifestos (17 May, Bailiwick Express)
SACC won’t roll over on 2025 election plans (18 May, Bailiwick Express)
Date set but deputies fail to agree election spending limit (24 May, Guernsey Press)
Election date set but spending rules remain up in the air (24 May, Bailiwick Express)
More information
There’s more detail about Guernsey’s elections in our Island Wide Voting Review briefing sheet.
