In brief: Economic Development Minister Gerald Voisin has given his first sit-down interview since joining the Council of Ministers, reflecting on four months in office, a brush with the Ministerial Code over minimum wage comments, and his plans to grow Jersey’s economy through private investment and boosted tourism.
From Shop Floor to Council of Ministers
Gerald Voisin is not your typical politician. The fifth-generation owner of Voisins department store, who purchased the business from his father in 1992, topped the polls in St Helier North on 8 June with 1,572 votes, riding a wave of public appetite for the free-market, low-regulation message he championed as a frontman for the Value Jersey movement. His appointment to the Council of Ministers immediately after the election surprised even him.
“I knocked on an awful lot of doors and spoke to a lot of people,” he told the Jersey Evening Post. “I could see that people were struggling, and I thought that I could stand back and do nothing about it, or I could get involved, so I got involved.”
He also brings experience from a previous stint in the States Assembly between 1999 and 2005, when he served as president of the Economic Development Committee. Even so, the scale of the current portfolio has given him pause. “It is quite overwhelming,” he admitted. “Everyone wants a piece of you and your time, and you’ve actually got to be quite firm to say no.” He noted that the portfolio has grown considerably since his earlier tenure and now encompasses arts, culture and heritage alongside the core economic brief, as well as a range of arm’s-length organisations.
The Minimum Wage Letter and Its Aftermath
Deputy Voisin’s tenure has not been entirely smooth. In August, a letter he wrote to the JEP questioning the merits of the Island’s £13.59 minimum wage drew a sharp rebuke from Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham, who warned that a further breach of the Ministerial Code would be expected to result in his resignation from the Council of Ministers. An apology was drafted, issued and accepted.
Deputy Voisin is keen to set the record straight. “I was a bit disappointed that the editorial was hijacked as me saying I was to get rid of it,” he said. “I wasn’t. If you read my letter, it doesn’t say: ‘Get rid of the minimum wage.’ What I was saying is that we need a broader policy response to the cost of living, and the broader policy response is that we need structural solutions.”
He remains unapologetic about his broader economic outlook, however, arguing that governments around the world are “going wrong” by raising taxes at a time of rising interest rates and a higher cost of living. Asked whether his views place him outside the mainstream, he was characteristically direct: “I don’t think I’m radical, or outside of the box. I like to think that a lot of the sensible people in the world think the same way as me.”
Plans for Growth: Tourism, Investment and Immigration
On the policy front, Deputy Voisin outlined several initiatives already under way. A £400,000 events grant is being transferred to Visit Jersey with the specific aim of bolstering tourism in the shoulder months. “We don’t actually have much difficulty in attracting people in June, July and August, but other months, that’s when we need to get people in,” he explained.
He is also developing an investment fund that would draw on contributions from a network of high-value residents, rather than dipping into the Strategic Reserve. “The idea of taking money out of the Strategic Reserve was a difficult argument to run when you’re also saying that we need to live within our means,” he said. “So the next best solution is to attract private investors to do this.” The hotel sector is one area he has identified as being in particular need of capital, noting that investment in hospitality has a direct and measurable effect on productivity and room rates. He was careful to add, however, that the fund should not become a source of easy loans for businesses without genuine appetite for change.
On population and immigration, Deputy Voisin was equally forthright, arguing that both high-value residents and seasonal workers are integral to Jersey’s economic future. “My ancestors were immigrants, okay, we only came from France, but we were still immigrants at that time,” he said, “and I think we need to do more to make sure that we retain and attract young people in Jersey.”
As for the cost of living, he declined to use the word “crisis”, preferring to frame current pressures as a structural shift driven by the unwinding of globalisation, Trump’s tariffs, war and Brexit. “We can’t do anything about inflation that happens outside of the Island,” he said, “but we can do something about the inflation on the Island, and Jersey’s policies have got to really bear down on that.”
Source: Jersey Evening Post
