‘No overspends on my watch’

Saturday 5th July 2008, 9:29AM BST.

CHIEF Minister Lyndon Trott yesterday poured cold water on a petition seeking to scrap student loans. He called on States members to show restraint when it came to spending.

‘What I will resist as chief minister is an attempt at relaxing our spending controls,’ he said. ‘That is where our economic difficulties will lie, if we go back to the years when spending was increasing year on year. That’s an unsustainable policy.’

Deputy Trott (pictured) said one example of that was student loans, with 23 members having signed to support Deputy Matt Fallaize’s requete to reverse the previous House’s decision to introduce them.

He suspected that the requete would succeed, but doubted whether members had fully considered the financial aspect of that decision.