With more than 55 amendments proposed to Policy and Resources’ (P&R) tax reform policy letter how quickly would deputies need to debate and vote on each one?
Just over 25 minutes – and that’s without debating the main tax policy letter itself.
When the assembly last met in July, it managed to crawl through just 14 of more than 20 amendments before running out of time.
Since then, deputies have been able to raise new amendments, with more than 55 lodged at the last count.
Now, as the States prepares to resume the marathon session, the mathematical time pressure is extreme.
Six hour days
Under standard rules, the States of Deliberation (as it’s officially known) sits for six hours a day – from 09:30 to 17:30 with a two-hour lunch break.
Across a full three-day sitting, deputies have a total of 18 debating hours on the clock.
Even with a slight extension, that means debating more than 40 amendments in three days.
Politicians would have to clear more than two amendments every single hour just to finish the list before the final gavel falls.
That leaves an average of roughly 25 minutes and seven seconds per amendment – a tight window that must cover opening speeches, cross-chamber debate, P&R’s right of reply, and the electronic vote itself.
If we allow one three hour session to debate the main policy letter (which may still be optimistic), it’s closer to 20 minutes and 56 seconds each.
If politicians spend the entire 18 hours bogged down in the amendment gauntlet, they risk running out of time before they even get to debate the core policy letter- leaving Guernsey’s tax restructuring hanging in the balance once again.
