Jersey's cost-of-living crisis deepens as 82% of residents struggle with rising expenses
Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham and Health Minister Tom Binet were joined by Jersey Consumer Council chair Carl Walker and Channel Islands Co-op chief executive Mark Cox.
Hosted by JEP deputy editor Fiona Potigny at the Pomme d'Or, the All Island Media event saw the conversation led by the 80-strong audience.
An at-times heated discussion - with both current and prospective States Members in the audience - saw them try to tackle some of the areas where we are feeling the pinch the most.
We're all feeling it...
But some of us are feeling it a lot more than others.
Carl Walker, who has been at the head of the Consumer Council since 2018, started by taking the room through some polling.
In 2022, he said, 34% of islanders had the cost of living at the front of their minds. Last year, that number had risen to 64%, and in January, 82% said their main concern was the cost of living.
"That was before this latest crisis," he added.
Caritas and the St Vincent de Paul Society both saw huge rises in demand.
"In 2022, they were helping 195 families a month. Now, it's 650. For every bag of donated food in, they were giving out 10 bags in 2022. It's now 50 bags. So they're having to make up the 49 bags out of their own funding."
Most of these families had a working adult, he added.
He, as well as a charity worker in the audience, highlighted the number of people who were above the threshold to receive income support and other benefits, but weren't earning enough to sustain themselves.
What's impacting supermarket prices?
Freight was the first contentious issue, after DFDS introduced a flat rate that supermarkets say harms them. Mr Cox maintained that the volume rate card was "a mistake", but Deputy Binet said the government had found itself facing an impossible choice after Guernsey selected Brittany Ferries.
A particularly sticky point came out of a question from the audience: what, a student asked, is Jersey doing to ensure young people aren't stung extra hard? Where are the Lidls and Asdas and the opportunities for nightlife?
Deputy Binet argued that budget supermarkets' margins may be too tight to take on the expense of coming to Jersey.
Economic Development Minister Kirsten Morel - chipping in from his front-row seat in the audience - said that negotiations with a French supermarket collapsed because of a planning issue, while German giants Lidl and Aldi couldn't find the sites they needed.
So, could that mean slashing planning "red tape" and re-examining the Island Plan?
Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham suggested the government would be pleased to find ways to accommodate them.
"If Lidl or Aldi want to come here, we welcome them with open arms" he said, adding: "...Sorry Mark!"
Housing
A theme throughout the night was that it's not just the shops that cost us more. It's the rent, the mortgage and the cost of the care home.
Andium needs to be "unleashed", while unfair mortgage rates put Islanders at a particular disadvantage, according to Mr Walker.
Mark Cox asked how many one-person and small flats we have with not enough demand - and why aren't we getting older Islanders to downsize?
Asked if he could make one change, the Chief Minister said: "It would be for one person for now and for evermore to be able to own a home."
Shop around...
One piece of advice from Mr Walker was that Islanders need to look at other shops than what they're used to.
Jersey has long been an "affluent society", he said.
"We need to wake up and think there is a cheaper alternative around the corner."
Not being able to shop around causes problems, he said later.
Families in a crisis looking for a care home space find themselves paying more than the "price of a five-star hotel", the consumer champion noted.
Takeaways
The biggest recurring question was around planning ahead: what didn't the government do 10 years ago, and where does it want to go in the long term?
While there may be some "quick wins" here and there, both panellists and commentators noted that cost-of-living had long been a "crisis" in Jersey, suggesting that the response to it must be systemic.
Exactly what should that systemic change look like? For now, it seems, the question is still too difficult to answer...
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