WHAT is it that turns some issues into ’causes celebres’ in the States? There are two main factors. The first is that they are inherently important matters, worthy of long and spirited debate in our community and the States. The second is that our deputies simply can’t make up their minds over the matter and so it becomes a long, drawn-out saga with numerous debates over many years. Some issues tick both boxes.

Examples of the first category include abortion, defence contributions and long-term-care insurance. Each of these issues raised strong feelings, opposing views and vigorous lobbying. All of them culminated in major States debates but in each case, once a decision had been reached, that was the end of the matter. Of course many islanders, including some deputies, still opposed those decisions, but they weren’t constantly revisited.

In the second category we have electoral reform, Sunday trading and paid parking.

We could well have fresh instalments of all of these long running soap operas over the next few months.

The first of them is hardly surprising, as constitutional reform tends to be gradual and evolutionary in nature. I made my own views known in this column recently. With seven roughly equal constituencies, we have got it just about as right as we can within a non-party system, where nearly 100 independent candidates usually stand for election. The only real change that is needed is a radical reduction in the number of deputies. We now know that a proposal will come forward very soon for island-wide voting and I have no doubt it will receive significant public support. I also have no doubt that, if approved, it will prove to be an evolutionary cul de sac and be abandoned quite soon as impractical.

Sunday trading is once again making headlines, with garden centres complaining that they are not able to sell their full range of items. There is some hypocrisy in those complaints. I’ve always been an advocate of total deregulation. I’d leave it to the market place and to islanders’ freedom of choice to decide how much Sunday shopping takes place in Guernsey. However, I lost that argument and the compromise was that only shops below a certain size would be free to open on Sundays. An exception was made for large garden centres because gardening was deemed a ‘leisure activity’. If they are now allowed to sell goods that have no real direct link to gardening and where they compete directly with other stores, that would be deeply unfair. I’m not saying it’s sensible that garden centres should be prevented from selling some of their stock when opening on Sundays but rather that it’s now clear the only logical solution is to finally scrap this outdated law.

Finally we have the old chestnut of paid parking, an issue on which the States have voted both in favour and against on several occasions.

I am sometimes asked why I am ‘in favour of paid parking’. Well, I’m not ‘in favour’ in the sense of being deliriously happy about the idea. Of course I like Guernsey’s free parking system. I would also like not to pay income tax, property rates or duty on my red wine. The fact remains that the island needs to raise revenues from its citizens to provide public services. The States’ job is to decide the fairest and least objectionable way to do just that. In my opinion, charging for long-term parking on States-owned land is one of the better ways to raise that revenue. That doesn’t mean we should be cheering wildly at the prospect, but simply that most alternatives would be worse.

States-owned car parks are valuable pieces of real estate. They are owned by all of us but the long-term parking zones are habitually used by a relatively small percentage of the island’s population. Yes, some workers elsewhere also enjoy free parking, but that is usually provided at their employer’s expense, on their own land, not by the taxpayer.

The side benefit of paid parking would be to encourage lower car use and more use of alternative methods of commuting, such as our excellent bus service. Are those alternatives suitable for everyone? No, we live in an imperfect world. After many years of life on a gravy train provided by the finance industry, Guernsey has come to believe that any tax or charge that is unpalatable is automatically unacceptable. Those days, alas, have gone.