From Patrick Ryan.
IN your article (23 February) regarding chairmanship of the Consumer Council, Senator Breckon is quoted as saying of me: ‘He was there for three years (in the Industries Committee) and did nothing for consumers or for the cause in general’ . . . ‘He achieved absolutely nothing’. I would assert that the reverse is true.

There are four laws that now form the basis of a robust framework for consumer protection in Jersey. The Consumer Safety Law, the Distance Selling Law and the Supply of Goods and Services Law were recommended in the Boléat Report published in 2001. The other one is of course the Competition Law.

With the exception of the Competition Law, no work was initiated to bring forward these laws until I took over the responsibility for consumer affairs in early 2003 as a new member of the Economic Development Committee. I was told that they had been sidetracked by the previous Industries Committee’s decision and budget preference for a Competition Law ahead of more general Consumer Laws in the queue for new legislation.

The Senator seems to have a poor or selective memory, for with my new responsibilities I came personally to several Consumer Council meetings in 2003 that he chaired. At these meetings I explained to the council that as far as I was concerned the three pieces of important consumer legislation that were recommended by Mark Boléat would now be progressed.

I also chaired the competition policy sub-committee of Economic Development with responsibility for agreeing the final design and draft of the Competition Law. This was no mean task, as disagreement over some major points had stalled the process.

Eventually I was able to orchestrate agreement between Deputy Voisin and Senator Ozouf, and by late spring of 2003 the Competition Law final draft was agreed. I had also recommended and won EDC backing by this time to bring the three Boléat consumer law recommendations back on to the front burner.

Of all people, Senator Breckon should know that major new legislation takes time. Although very frustrating, it typically takes about two to three years of concerted effort to bring a new law from scratch to the States, no matter how hard you try to speed it up. I have to say that I am still not entirely sure why it takes that long, although I have my suspicions that work priorities for law drafters can be sometimes manipulated in the background without your knowledge. Even the Competition Law took until 2005 to arrive when the draft was agreed in 2003 according to my notes.

I brought the first Boléat recommendation, the Consumer Safety Law, to the States on 27 September 2005, just before handing over the reins of the other two laws to the new Economic Development Minister in December 2005. By this time they were well on their way to a first draft, and the second Boléat recommendation, the Distance Selling Law, came on 4 July 2007. Finally, the States approved the more complex third tranche, the Supply of Goods and Services Law, in September 2008.

The convoluted journey through the sausage machine of Jersey’s legislation processing for all three of these laws was started and progressed as far as possible during my tenure in charge of consumer affairs between 2003 and December 2005, in stark contrast to their progress in the previous three years. I believe that I also made a significant contribution to the pro-cess of agreeing the detail of the Competition Law when it was in difficulty.

If Senator Breckon’s assertions were to be correct, I suggest that the Island would still be waiting for the consumer protection legislation it now finally has, and as always there is little connection between political noise and political achievement.

I have often been chided by my PR and politically experienced friends for failing to correct false statements, pre-ferring instead to let actions speak louder than words. Whether it’s because I am no longer in a position to put actions before words, or just simply professional pride, I am not sure, but I hope that you will forgive me reacting to this one.
Rievaulx,
Rue de Sorel,
St John.