Treasury stands by binned £466m hospital funding plan

Tuesday 04 July 2017

The Treasury Minister has maintained that his plans to fund the £466 million future hospital were the “correct strategy” – more than a month after he scrapped them.

Plans to fund the future hospital – the Island’s largest ever capital project – have been subject of much debate in recent months, with Treasury Minister Alan Maclean warning in January that every moment spent without having agreed a funding plan, which he said should be a mixture of borrowing and using the States’ rainy day fund, would mean lost money.

His actions therefore shocked States members in late May, when an eleventh hour U-turn saw Senator Maclean announce via email that the plans would be scrapped – little more than 12 hours before the debate. 

The proposal’s withdrawal, it emerged, came following a meeting between Treasury officials, members of the Treasury Advisory Panel, the Chief Minister, and a “private individual”, which Express learned was Peter de Putron, a local financier and brother of Conservative Party Chair Andrea Leadsom MP.

Senior States sources told Express that Mr De Putron had put together an “alternative funding option”, sparking pressures for Senator Maclean to withdraw his own.

But when prompted yesterday by Deputy Simon Muir Brée, Vice Chairman of the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel, Senator Maclean declined to reveal the names of any individuals or organisations behind alternative proposals, nor would he reveal detail of the nature of those proposals. He claimed that it “would not be constructive” to do so, and that each idea would be subject to assessment by internal and external experts.

Pictured: Treasury Minister Alan Maclean refused to give details of other hospital funding proposals and the parties behind them on the basis that it would not be "constructive."

Throughout, he insisted that he had, “…no advice currently to suggest a change” in his original strategy, adding that the proposal had been withdrawn not due to doubts in the Treasury's proposal, but because some members of the Council of Ministers were “not convinced” about the strategy – despite being supportive of the proposition when it was initially lodged.

“A project this size requires the unanimous support of the Council of Ministers,” Senator Maclean said.

Debate over the subject has now been postponed until November, which saw the panel raise concerns that interim funding allocated to the project could run out. But the Minister was adamant that it would be sufficient to last until the end of the year.

If November’s debate successfully sees Jersey politicians agree on a way to finance the new hospital build, Treasurer Richard Bell said that the Treasury team would look to secure a bond in the New Year.