Jersey politicians vote to bring back senators

Jersey politicians have narrowly voted to bring back senators with 25 members voting in favour of the plans and 20 against.

Senators were politicians elected on an island-wide basis but the States Assembly voted in 2021 to remove the role to simplify the electoral system.

Deputy Elaine Millar brought forward plans to reinstate them because she said people at the last election told her they did not want to vote because senators had been removed.

A deputy in each of the nine voting districts will be replaced with a senator who will be elected on an island-wide basis.

Millar said: "I'm delighted it has the support of the assembly, it's clear there have been throughout this term people who have wanted to bring it back, we have had two previous attempts and I'm really pleased this one has been successful."

She added that the return of senators would address "feelings of disenfranchisement and disengagement" among voters and Deputy Malcom Ferry described it as "giving power back to the people".

However, several politicians said Millar's plans would compromise voter equity- the principle that all votes have equal value regardless of where people live.

Deputy Alex Curtis said by removing a deputy from each district, the votes of people in urban parishes would be worth less than those in rural areas.

He said: "Right now each states member represents 2,500 people in their district, but if we remove a deputy from each district the remaining representation would be really skewed between districts.

"Some districts would have over 3,000 members of the public represented by one person, whereas others would have less than 2,000 members of the public represented by one person."

Deputy Sam Mézec, the leader of Reform Jersey, said it was "a step backwards for the island".

"We spent decades trying to make our system more equal and fair, I think most islanders are happy with that and I think the politicians who think there is mass unrest amongst islanders about that are deluded."

Follow BBC Jersey on X and Facebook. Send your story ideas to [email protected].