Assistant Minister standing for election with skills pledge

Tuesday 08 February 2022

The Assistant Minister for Economic Development has officially confirmed he is standing for election again, with a plan to create ‘Lifelong Learning Accounts’ for all islanders to help address Jersey’s skills gaps if he gets in.

Having served as St. Lawrence Deputy since 2018, Kirsten Morel says he will stand in the newly formed district of St. John, St. Lawrence and Trinity.

Deputy Morel was Chair of Jersey's Economic and International Affairs Scrutiny Panel until November 2020, when he was appointed Assistant Economic Development Minister, taking over from Deputy Montfort Tadier after he resigned to support a vote of no confidence in the Chief Minister. 

If he is re-elected, Deputy Morel said he hopes to continue his work in the area of Economic Development – “preferably as a Minister” – but would also be happy to serve on Scrutiny.

“My time in Scrutiny was incredibly important and the main reason I took the job of Assistant Minister was to understand how government operates and build more relationships with the Government, so if I am back in Scrutiny I would be even better.”

Should he be successful, Deputy Morel says a key aim would be to work towards a “much more sustainable economic model”, noting that the current one, which relies on more people coming to the island, is not suitable.

Pictured: Deputy Morel hopes to return to his role in the Economic Department after the elections.

He says he wants to build more links between businesses, and find ways to revive Jersey’s enterprise spirit.

“It’s now more and more difficult to set up your own business, especially where premises are needed. The Government needs to work to make premises available,” he explained.

“You could put aside some units in the market for use with very low rent for new businesses to rent out. We apply regulations for all businesses of all size in the same way, we need to look at if they can be modified so that small businesses can grow and thrive.”

He also says he wants to see a diversified economy, noting that, since the financial crisis, Jersey's largest sector has somewhat stagnated.

“We have talked about diversifying the economy, but we have not done it. In the last 20 years, the best performing sector has been rent - that’s not a healthy economy. We need to be investing a lot more to help islanders build digital businesses, but equally I am just as happy for an hotel to open. This is one of the massive challenges I am really keen to try to overcome.”

A key challenge, he argues, is ensuring that the workforce is ready for the challenges of the future - which is why he is standing with a policy pledge to help islanders 're-skill' and change sectors if they want.

Pictured: Deputy Morel would like islanders to be able to choose what they want to study. 

His plan is to create 'Individual Learning Accounts', funded through a fraction of Social Security contributions that would be available to islanders for life to fund training of their own choosing. The Government could add funding to the courses it feels are more needed, as well as top up the accounts of islanders on lower wages.

“The Government is not best placed to understand which skills it should be focusing on,” Deputy Morel said. “Individuals are much better placed to think about what industry they want to go on, we should have control of our own destiny and choose what we want to study.”

This also would overcome the issue of employers only wishing to fund courses that are relevant to their business.

Deputy Morel explained that 0.5% from each contributor (employee and employer) would see an average of £26 per month being paid into the individual learning account, meaning that, on average, islanders would see £312 per year available to fund skills training.

He says he acknowledges that using Social Security contributions in this way would mean around £16m less going into the Social Security Fund, but that the initiative should "pay for itself because a more highly skilled workforce would see fewer people out of work and more people receiving higher pay."

Deputy Morel says he will be standing as an independent and does not want to "go down the party route at the moment", but he would be happy to serve in a Government alongside anyone with a similar economic outlook.

“We need to change the dogmas we have had since the 1960s because they are not really suitable to deal with the challenges of the 21^st century,” he said. “I would not support a government that is unwilling to look at the economic challenges we have and not prepared to look at innovative ways to solve the problems we have.”

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