Concerns have been expressed about the lack of financial planning around new laws to address crimes associated with violence against women and girls.

As the package of five new laws was brought to the States Assembly by Home Affairs Minister Mary Le Hegarat this morning, the previous holder of the same ministerial role said she was very worried about funding.

Deputy Helen Miles, who was Home Affairs Minister for 18 months following the 2022 election, said she feared that the new laws were being created in a vacuum as part of a “patchwork” response.

The proposed legislation will criminalise cyber-flashing, revenge porn, deepfake sexual images, stalking, strangulation and threats of sexual violence.

Introducing the package of new laws, Deputy Le Hegarat said the intention was to strengthen the criminal justice system.

It was important to be transparent about the cost of the new laws, she added, especially given the strain that parts of the justice system were already under, with no capacity to absorb further increases in caseloads.

The Home Affairs Minister estimated there would be a total cost of between £3 million and £5 million per year, comparing this with the costs associated with the Misuse of Drugs Law, which she estimated to be £2.5 million annually.

But Deputy Miles said a recent report had given a cost of between £3 million and £7.9 million to cope with a predicted surge in reported crimes of between 169 and 369 per year.

Insufficient regard was being shown, she argued, to the pressures on Jersey’s prison, already at 92% capacity, as well as the impact on the police, courts, probation service and support organisations.

“I am very uncomfortable about this ‘legislate now and worry about the cost later’ approach,” she said.

Ministers moved to answer Deputy Miles’s concerns. Treasury Minister Elaine Millar said there had already been additional funding for the police in 2026, and that moving forward, there would be a demand-led funding model, with money available as required from the government’s central reserves.

Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham said he was disappointed by Deputy Miles’s comments.

Action on VAWG had been a priority for the current government, he added, expressing the hope that the next administration would take a similar approach.

The first of the five laws to be debated was the Draft Sexual Offences (Jersey) Amendment Law, introducing seven new offences targeting intimate-image abuse, including the non-consensual taking or sharing of sexual images, threats to share such material, cyber-flashing and the creation of sexually explicit deepfake images.

Jersey had fallen behind other jurisdictions, Deputy Le Hegarat warned, with a reliance on seeking prosecutions under the “outdated” legislation covering improper use of telecom systems.

“It’s time we modernised our legislation to protect Islanders against the new sexual harms that have emerged in the digital world,” she said.

Children’s Minister Richard Vibert said the new law “sent a very clear message that these forms of abuse will not be tolerated and the perpetrators will be brought to justice”.

The sexual offences, and harassment and stalking legislation were both supported unanimously – with attention then switching to the remaining three components of the package.