In brief: Deputy Max Andrews is pushing for home ownership to be written into Jersey’s Common Strategic Policy for 2026 to 2030, arguing that education reform and higher-paid jobs are the real long-term answer to housing affordability. He warns that government financial schemes alone are neither sustainable nor sufficient, and that Jersey’s 54% home-ownership rate will not improve without structural change.
The Amendment: What Deputy Andrews Is Proposing
A backbench amendment to the government’s Common Strategic Policy could, if passed, commit ministers to explicitly prioritising home ownership as a goal for the next four years. Deputy Max Andrews, who the Jersey Evening Post reports stood for election on a mandate to increase Jersey’s home-ownership rate, says the Council of Ministers’ proposed policy currently lacks detail on how it intends to support people buying their own homes.
His amendment would require ministers to “prioritise home ownership in Jersey to support the economic wellbeing and social mobility of Islanders.” The two main levers he identifies are education reform and the creation of higher-value, higher-income jobs. The amendment itself would carry no direct financial implications, though Deputy Andrews acknowledges that Education and Lifelong Learning officers would need to investigate reforms to deliver a more inclusive curriculum, and that further work would be required to develop better-paid employment opportunities across the Island.
Why Financial Schemes Are Not Enough
Jersey’s home-ownership rate stood at 54% in the 2021 Census, according to Deputy Andrews’ accompanying report. That figure sits against a backdrop of property values that have, for many Islanders, simply outpaced what average incomes can support. Deputy Andrews argues that the gap between earnings and house prices is not just a financial inconvenience: it is actively driving people off the Island.
“We need a long-term plan to increase the homeownership rate,” he said. “We cannot fulfil this objective via government funding alone to support Islanders entering homeownership.” His concern is that relying on state-backed financial assistance, such as the existing First Step Scheme, is not financially sustainable and does not address the root cause of the problem. His report does, however, say that support for the First Step Scheme could continue where spare funding was available, so he is not calling for it to be scrapped outright.
The broader point is one of principle: propping people up with grants and subsidies is a sticking plaster, not a cure. If Islanders are earning more because they hold better-skilled, higher-value jobs, they need less help from the public purse to get onto the property ladder in the first place.
Education as the Foundation
Deputy Andrews’ argument places education at the heart of the solution. He contends that there is currently no comprehensive, joined-up strategy linking education to improved lifelong outcomes such as home ownership. “There remains no comprehensive and joined-up strategy linking education to the promotion of improved lifelong outcomes such as increasing homeownership,” he said.
Crucially, he frames this as a question of fairness and social mobility. Education should give every Islander the best chance to succeed regardless of their family background, he argues, and the government needs to improve opportunities across society rather than simply helping individual Islanders move into better-paid work on a case-by-case basis. The ambition is systemic change, not targeted intervention.
Whether the Council of Ministers will accept the amendment remains to be seen. The proposal does not commit to any specific spending, which removes one obvious objection, but it does ask ministers to sign up to a set of priorities that go well beyond what the current draft policy apparently contains.
Source: Jersey Evening Post
