Guernsey: States report £44m annual deficit in core services

The States of Guernsey's financial position remains "parlous", with a £44m shortfall in core services in 2024, according to Policy and Resources (P&R) President Lyndon Trott.This comprised of a £9m deficit in General Revenue, £13m in Social Security Funds and £22m in non-infrastructure project spends, such as IT transformation, elements of the revenue service programme and electronic patient records.Deputy Trott gave the update ahead of the General Election, with the total underlying structural annual deficit for 2024 said to be around £56m."In October when we published our 2025 Budget proposals I described the state of public finances as parlous and that remains the case," he said.
He said the States "cannot continue to rely on reserves built up in the past to fund the services of today and tomorrow".Deputy Trott said the new Assembly needed to "immediately focus its attention on the issue of improving public finances" adding "I cannot stress enough how important that is to the long-term prosperity of the island".Deputy Heidi Soulsby, Vice President of the Policy and Resources Committee, said the message was that "we are not raising enough through taxes to fund the services our community relies on"."The decision for the next States will not be whether something needs to be done, but what should be done to balance the books," she said.She said the value of investments was important, as was the financial performance of commercial entities under the wider States of Guernsey group, "but they don't impact the amount of money we have available to deliver public services and invest in much-needed infrastructure". "The bottom line is we had a significant deficit in General Revenue last year," she added. Deputy Soulsby said the work the States did earlier in the year "shows a looming need to invest in essential infrastructure projects with funds to pay for only a fraction of that".
'Investment growth higher'
News of the deficit came as the States of Guernsey investments were valued £130m higher at the end of 2024 than the previous year. A spokesperson said this did not mean that the public purse received £130m in 2024, but rather their value had increased by 31 December 2024. The 2024 States of Guernsey Accounts were set to be published on 23 June.In March, Deputy Trott said the provisional General Revenue results for 2024 gave a revenue deficit of £9m, which was a shortfall of £21m against the budget.A States spokesperson said the 2024 Accounts were the first to be fully compliant with International Public Sector Accounting Standards and to be given a "true and fair" view by the auditors.

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Times

an hour ago

• Times

The small boats crisis is out of control. This plan could solve it

In December 2018, Sajid Javid, then home secretary, cut short his holiday and declared a 'major incident' after 78 migrants crossed the Channel in small boats in four days. Since then six more home secretaries, and four prime ministers, have struggled with the same problem: how to stop the boats. All have failed. A record 17,000 have crossed so far this year. More than 900 crossed in a single day this month. There are some who argue that this proves, once again, that irregular migration can't be stopped and there is no point trying. This is wrong: the premise is false and the counsel unwise. Irregular migration can be controlled. There are plenty of examples of countries stopping or significantly reducing it. Australia has reduced it to almost zero: not once, but twice. It did so in 2001, and again in 2013, by shipping 'boat people' off to Nauru, a tiny Pacific island. Israel did the same in 2012 by building a fence and pushing migrants from Africa back across its border with Egypt. And, in the United States, President Trump is making a pretty good fist of it now: by strengthening border patrols and denying asylum applications at America's southern border, he has reduced encounters with irregular migrants to 12,000 in April this year, compared with 240,000 in April 2023. All these policies have three things in common: they are cruel and they violate people's rights. But they are also popular; or voters are at least prepared to put up with them if nothing else appears to work. In Australia, the 'Pacific solution' is now backed by both main parties. Trump is polling steadily on migration, even if the expansion of his deportation policy has dented support in recent weeks. None of this is lost on Nigel Farage, or his equivalents on the Continent. Seeing all else fail, voters are warming to Reform's promise to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and turn boats back at sea, using the navy if necessary. It is doubtful whether this very dangerous policy could work: you still need a place to push boats back to, and France is unlikely to be obliging. But it sounds simple and radical enough to tempt both voters and, it seems, the Conservative Party. This is a big problem for a Labour government that has promised to reduce migration but is reluctant to follow that path. Sir Keir Starmer's government desperately needs a humane, lawful, effective alternative. Is there one? More law enforcement is definitely not the answer. Close to £1 billion has been spent on boosting patrols in France; even more won't make much difference. A 'safe third-country agreement', with another faraway country that will admit and process asylum seekers, is perhaps an option. There is a version of this policy that could work, and could be lawful. The Supreme Court was clear on this, even as it scotched the previous government's half-baked Rwanda plan. But Labour criticised this policy so vehemently in opposition it would struggle to revive it now. • 1,378 migrants tried to cross the Channel in one day. France stopped 184 There is still one thing worth trying, however. It's also a safe third-country agreement, but not with Rwanda or some far-flung country. The deal the UK needs is with countries much closer to home: countries in the EU. From an agreed day onwards, the UK would agree with a group of EU countries, ideally including both France and Germany, to swiftly return almost all migrants who arrive irregularly across the Channel. This would reduce crossings to zero within a few weeks. As soon as it became clear that there was no prospect of success, the incentive to undertake a dangerous, costly journey would evaporate. After a few weeks, therefore, the number of transfers back to participating states would also fall to zero. The agreement would not be with the EU itself and would not replicate the unwieldy and unworkable system for intra-EU transfers known as the Dublin system, under which hardly anyone ever got sent anywhere. Anything that resembled this would fail — it is essential that asylum seekers do not suspect that there is a good chance of remaining in Britain anyway. Instead, it would be an ad hoc, one-off agreement with a coalition of interested EU countries, designed to ensure fast, efficient transfer for almost everyone within three or four weeks, with very occasional exceptions for people with the strongest family ties. The idea is not to turn boats around at sea. Intercepted migrants would be brought to British shores. They would be held securely and processed fairly. They would get a hearing, but unless they could present a credible other ground to remain here their claims would be declared inadmissible because there was a safe country to which they could be sent. There is no question that Germany and France — or Denmark, or Austria or the Netherlands for that matter — are safe. Their asylum systems are no worse, arguably better, than ours. Transfers would, therefore, be perfectly legal. There is an obvious question about such a deal. Why would European countries go for it? France and Germany have both had significantly higher numbers of asylum seekers per capita than the UK in recent years. They could not possibly agree to any arrangement in which the traffic was all one way. For this reason the UK would have to offer something in return: to take in, through organised legal channels, a fixed number of asylum seekers from the EU a year for the next few years: say 20,000 a year for four years, after which the scheme could be reviewed. A capped scheme similar to the Homes for Ukraine visa scheme would be set up to achieve this. This would be a good deal for Britain. Admitting 20,000 asylum seekers a year would be 30,000 less than are likely to arrive this year if nothing changes. Some would see this as an admission of failure, but a sharp reduction in numbers and, crucially, the restoration of control would quickly bring political dividends. A scheme such as this would almost entirely eliminate illegal migration. In comparison, the Darwinian lottery of the UK's current protection system, where over half of those securing it must have the strength and resources to undertake deeply hazardous journeys, is surely unsatisfactory. But what's in it for a Macron, or a Merz? Ultimately, something similar. Mainstream parties in Europe are leaching support to populists promising much more radical solutions to irregular migration. Right now, they have no policies of their own that credibly offer control. Nor are uglier ones that they are already endorsing (pushbacks at external borders from Greece to Poland, and deals with Tunisia and Libya to intercept boats and take them back before they even get there) working particularly well. This deal offers the outline of such a policy. Western European countries have every interest in showing their voters that migration can be controlled lawfully and humanely through safe third-country agreements. If they agreed this policy with Britain, EU countries would then need to invest in similar arrangements of its own, with partners it can find. For EU countries, finding (genuinely) safe third countries to transfer migrants to will be harder and will take time. But it is not impossible. Short of legalising the abuses occurring at their own borders, this is the only policy option they have. Developing this plan with the UK could quickly show that the model, control through co-operation, works. They would have a narrative and plan: two things sorely lacking right now. Like all good agreements, this one appeals to interests on both sides. It won't appeal to everyone. Participating states would be criticised from all sides: too generous for some, not generous enough for others. But if even closely allied, rights-respecting countries such as Britain and Germany cannot reach civilised migration control agreements, there is little hope for such agreements being reached anywhere. And little hope, therefore, for humane border control — meaning cruel ones will prevail. John Dalhuisen is a senior fellow at the European Stability Initiative. The ESI helped to broker the EU-Turkey deal in 2016, to address the migrant crisis caused by the Syrian civil war

Sky News

2 hours ago

• Sky News

US warplanes transit through UK: Here's what the flight tracking data shows

Flight tracking data shows extensive movement of US military aircraft towards the Middle East in recent days, including via the UK. Fifty-two US military planes were spotted flying over the eastern Mediterranean towards the Middle East between Monday and Thursday. That includes at least 25 that passed through Chania airport, on the Greek island of Crete - an eight-fold increase in the rate of arrivals compared to the first half of June. The movement of military equipment comes as the US considers whether to assist Israel in its conflict with Iran. Of the 52 planes spotted over the eastern Mediterranean, 32 are used for transporting troops or cargo, 18 are used for mid-air refuelling and two are reconnaissance planes. Forbes McKenzie, founder of McKenzie Intelligence, says that this indicates "the build-up of warfighting capability, which was not [in the region] before". Sky's data does not include fighter jets, which typically fly without publicly revealing their location. An air traffic control recording from Wednesday suggests that F-22 Raptors are among the planes being sent across the Atlantic, while 12 F-35 fighter jets were photographed travelling from the UK to the Middle East on Wednesday. Many US military planes are passing through UK A growing number of US Air Force planes have been passing through the UK in recent days. Analysis of flight tracking data at three key air bases in the UK shows 63 US military flights landing between 16 and 19 June - more than double the rate of arrivals earlier in June. On Thursday, Sky News filmed three US military C-17A Globemaster III transport aircraft and a C-130 Hercules military cargo plane arriving at Glasgow's Prestwick Airport. Flight tracking data shows that one of the planes arrived from an air base in Jordan, having earlier travelled there from Germany. What does Israel need from US? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on 15 March that his country's aim is to remove "two existential threats - the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat". Israel says that Iran is attempting to develop a nuclear bomb, though Iran says its nuclear facilities are only for civilian energy purposes. A US intelligence assessment in March concluded that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. President Trump dismissed the assessment on Tuesday, saying: "I think they were very close to having one." Forbes McKenzie says the Americans have a "very similar inventory of weapons systems" to the Israelis, "but of course, they also have the much-talked-about GBU-57". The GBU-57 is a 30,000lb bomb - the largest non-nuclear bomb in existence. Mr McKenzie explains that it is "specifically designed to destroy targets which are very deep underground". Experts say it is the only weapon with any chance of destroying Iran's main enrichment site, which is located underneath a mountain at Fordow. Air-to-air refuelling could allow Israel to carry larger bombs Among the dozens of US aircraft that Sky News tracked over the eastern Mediterranean in recent days, more than a third (18 planes) were designed for air-to-air refuelling. "These are crucial because Israel is the best part of a thousand miles away from Iran," says Sky News military analyst Sean Bell. "Most military fighter jets would struggle to do those 2,000-mile round trips and have enough combat fuel." The ability to refuel mid-flight would also allow Israeli planes to carry heavier munitions, including bunker-buster bombs necessary to destroy the tunnels and silos where Iran stores many of its missiles. Satellite imagery captured on 15 June shows the aftermath of Israeli strikes on a missile facility near the western city of Kermanshah, which destroyed at least 12 buildings at the site. At least four tunnel entrances were also damaged in the strikes, two of which can be seen in the image below. Writing for Jane's Defence Weekly, military analyst Jeremy Binnie says it looked like the tunnels were "targeted using guided munitions coming in at angles, not destroyed from above using penetrator bombs, raising the possibility that the damage can be cleared, enabling any [missile launchers] trapped inside to deploy". "This might reflect the limited payloads that Israeli aircraft can carry to Iran," he adds. Penetrator bombs, also known as bunker-busters, are much heavier than other types of munitions and as a result require more fuel to transport. Israel does not have the latest generation of refuelling aircraft, Mr Binnie says, meaning it is likely to struggle to deploy a significant number of penetrator bombs. Israel has struck most of Iran's western missile bases Even without direct US assistance, the Israeli air force has managed to inflict significant damage on Iran's missile launch capacity. Sky News has confirmed Israeli strikes on at least five of Iran's six known missile bases in the west of the country. On Monday, the IDF said that its strategy of targeting western launch sites had forced Iran to rely on its bases in the centre of the country, such as Isfahan - around 1,500km (930 miles) from Israel. Among Iran's most advanced weapons are three types of solid-fuelled rockets fitted with highly manoeuvrable warheads: Fattah-1, Kheibar Shekan and Haj Qassam. The use of solid fuel makes these missiles easy to transport and fast to launch, while their manoeuvrable warheads make them better at evading Israeli air defences. However, none of them are capable of striking Israel from such a distance. Iran is known to possess five types of missile capable of travelling more than 1,500km, but only one of these uses solid fuel - the Sijjil-1. On 18 June, Iran claimed to have used this missile against Israel for the first time. Iran's missiles have caused significant damage Iran's missile attacks have killed at least 24 people in Israel and wounded hundreds, according to the Israeli foreign ministry. The number of air raid alerts in Israel has topped 1,000 every day since the start of hostilities, reaching a peak of 3,024 on 15 June. Iran has managed to strike some government buildings, including one in the city of Haifa on Friday. And on 13 June, in Iran's most notable targeting success so far, an Iranian missile impacted on or near the headquarters of Israel's defence ministry in Tel Aviv. Most of the Iranian strikes verified by Sky News, however, have hit civilian targets. These include residential buildings, a school and a university. On Thursday, one missile hit the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, southern Israel's main hospital. More than 70 people were injured, according to Israel's health ministry. Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran had struck a nearby technology park containing an IDF cyber defence training centre, and that the "blast wave caused superficial damage to a small section" of the hospital. However, the technology park is in fact 1.2km away from where the missile struck. Photos of the hospital show evidence of a direct hit, with a large section of one building's roof completely destroyed. Iran successfully struck the technology park on Friday, though its missile fell in an open area, causing damage to a nearby residential building but no casualties. Israel has killed much of Iran's military leadership It's not clear exactly how many people Israel's strikes in Iran have killed, or how many are civilians. Estimates by human rights groups of the total number of fatalities exceed 600. What is clear is that among the military personnel killed are many key figures in the Iranian armed forces, including the military's chief of staff, deputy head of intelligence and deputy head of operations. Key figures in the powerful Revolutionary Guard have also been killed, including the militia's commander-in-chief, its aerospace force commander and its air defences commander. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that US assistance was not necessary for Israel to win the war. "We will achieve all our objectives and hit all of their nuclear facilities," he said. "We have the capability to do that." 3:49 Forbes McKenzie says that while Israel has secured significant victories in the war so far, "they only have so much fuel, they only have so many munitions". "The Americans have an ability to keep up the pace of operations that the Israelis have started, and they're able to do it for an indefinite period of time." Additional reporting by data journalist Joely Santa Cruz and OSINT producers Freya Gibson, Lina-Sirine Zitout and Sam Doak.

Times

2 hours ago

• Times

I'm grieving and I made a mistake, now my £8k inheritance is lost

My mother died recently, which was the last in a sequence of horrible events after the death of my son and my own cancer diagnosis. Mum left me a small inheritance of £8,370 which was sent to my NatWest account. I planned to transfer it to an account that my husband holds with Lloyds so that he could buy a new boiler for our house. We are both pensioners and the money from my mum's estate is a lifeline to us. I made the transfer through my NatWest banking app, but I wasn't thinking clearly when I sent it instead to my Lloyds credit card, which had expired years ago. I know there's no excuse for this error but my mum's death was a dreadful experience. I am also still unwell and undergoing a series of investigations, which I hope goes some way to explain why I wasn't thinking clearly when I sent this payment. I immediately realised that the money had gone to the wrong account and felt sick to my stomach. I was in tears and spoke to NatWest to see if it could retrieve the money from Lloyds. Dealing with various Lloyds call centres has also been an absolute nightmare. I have been promised return calls that never materialise. I have been on hold for hours at a time while the operators vary from being pleasant to rude and impatient. I admit I've become frustrated and tearful at times but I have always explained the background of my situation. I made the mistake 12 days ago and the funds have now disappeared into the ether. No one will tell me where the money is or when I will get it back. I just want the money returned to my NatWest account. The stress of this situation is having a serious affect on my already poor health. I am terrified I won't see this money again, which is sorely and address supplied I was so sorry to hear of the devastating series of events that had turned your life upside down and can totally understand why you were not thinking clearly when you made this payment. Usually when money is sent to an expired account, the payment is retrieved and returned to the source. But your case was slightly different because there was an outstanding debt linked to your old credit card account. You told me this amounted to £60 but you had long forgotten about it. The problem was that this debt had been outstanding for so long that Lloyds had passed the account's history to a debt collection agency. This made it harder for Lloyds to track down the account. Plus, as the account was no longer active it was difficult for it to match your details to the information it had in its system. Thankfully when I stepped in Lloyds found the payment, and a few days later the money was back in your NatWest account. You have now also repaid the £60 debt. I felt that Lloyds should have helped you sooner, instead of leaving you in the lurch and giving you conflicting information at a time of extreme distress. It explained that because of the different teams involved in locating and returning the money, the information you were given depended on which team you were talking to. Those teams were not linked up, which is also why you didn't get the return calls you were promised. Lloyds said: 'We're here to help customers during difficult moments and we're sincerely sorry the support we gave our customer was not at the level she rightly expected. We've returned her money and made a payment in recognition that our service wasn't good enough on this occasion.' It gave you £250 compensation and has told you about several charities that may be able to give you some extra support. You said: 'It's clear that this was resolved as a result of your intervention so I can't thank you enough.' • Read more money advice and tips on investing from our experts I work for a small business that sells memorabilia and over the past five years we have used a company called Bionic to manage our gas and electricity deals. When our contract is coming up for renewal, Bionic sends us quotes from suppliers and arranges the switch on our behalf. We had an email from Bionic last September telling us that our contract with British Gas was ending in May. We decided we would shop around and get our own quotes to see if we could get a better deal. I contacted Bionic online in September to say that we no longer needed its services. The agent said we should wait until the company had sent the next quote before opting out. When we got the quotes later that month, I got back in touch using its webchat service to confirm that we didn't want to go ahead with the renewal. I made it clear that we no longer wanted Bionic to act on our behalf and, based on this conversation, I assumed that our contract with the company had been terminated. A few months later I contacted British Gas to check when our energy deal ended, but was told that Bionic had already signed us up for another three-year deal with the company. We were not sent any information about this new deal and had given Bionic sufficient notice to terminate our contract, so we can't understand how this happened. I complained to Bionic but it said it had no record of the second webchat conversation in September where I had confirmed that we wanted to opt out. We have gone back and forth with Bionic to try and get it to cancel this contract that we never agreed to, but to no Lancashire • Compare exchange rates with our currency converter Bionic told me that it had sent you an email to confirm the new contract, but this was news to you and you said you never got the email. I was surprised that Bionic had signed you up to a three-year contract without you agreeing to it, but it explained that its digital renewal service is designed so that, unless a customer gets in touch to opt out, it assumes that they are happy with the quote and automatically signs them up. One Bionic email contained a quote and gave you three days to opt out. Once that deadline was reached, you were then locked into a contract and couldn't cancel. Three days seems like a very small window of time to opt out, which I imagine could catch out some people if they missed an email, yet Bionic said that suppliers can hold prices only for a short time. I also thought it was odd that Bionic finalised your contract eight months before your contract expired. It told me that it buys in bulk up to 12 months in advance and that, because of this, its customers get discounts on deals and are shielded from the price movements in the energy market. But regardless of this, you said you had made it clear that you wanted to cancel before the contract was finalised, so why didn't Bionic act on that? It showed me a transcript of the conversation on September 17 where you said you would like to cancel, but were urged to wait until the latest quotes had come through before confirming that you wanted to opt out. You said there was a subsequent webchat on September 26 where you had confirmed that you wished to cancel, but Bionic claimed it had no record of it. It also said that it has never lost a webchat and told me that it has 'complete and accurate records of all interactions'. • Online antique buyer lost my 91-year-old mum's treasures I could not work out why your version of events was different to Bionic's, but after I stepped in, it agreed to cancel your contract. Bionic said: 'Customers can choose to opt out of our digital renewal service at any time prior to finalisation of a replacement contract. As a gesture of goodwill and a demonstration of our commitment to ensuring customer satisfaction, we are prepared to arrange the cancellation of the replacement contract.' You have now arranged a contract directly with a supplier and said: 'This is the outcome that we wanted, but it is still very frustrating that we had to go through this ordeal in the first place. I believe this would not be resolved without your input, so thank you.' • £868,409 — the amount Your Money Matters has saved readers so far this year If you have a money problem you would like Katherine Denham to investigate email yourmoneymatters@ Please include a phone number