FIVE States Members – including the one in charge of States procedures and discipline – did not declare their ownership of overseas homes during a debate about ferry routes.

And the former president of Privileges, who proposed the new rules for the register of interests when they were approved by the House, forgot to register his French home entirely.

Earlier this month the States debated a proposition from Deputy Fox about service level agreements for the UK and France ferry routes.

At the end of the debate Deputies Fox and Andrew Lewis declared that they had an interest because they owned property in France, but the remaining six Members with property in France or the UK did not do so.

Of those six, Deputy Roy Le Hérissier, who proposed the new rules on the register of interests when he was in charge of Privileges, had failed to include his French property in the register entirely.

He conceded that he had made a mistake, saying: ‘We have to be extra-scrupulous and I think clearly we have reached the situation where if in any doubt, one should declare.

I think this is a salutary lesson.’