Information given to Chief Minister (FOI)

Request

On 15 July 2021 the Chief Minister appeared before the Safer Travel Guidelines Review Panel. I have watched the recording of this on the States website.

In an attempt to appease the panel concerned about the high number of Covid-19 cases discovered in arrivals at the Ports he said that he had to balance the health effects of Covid-19 against the mental health of Islanders. He then went on to try and justify the situation by claiming that at the moment most travel is Islander related.

I was very surprised, so I looked at the Covid-19 figures on the Jersey website: I have attached a picture of the figures below:

Jersey arrivals July 2021

Far from the majority of arrivals being by Islander related people in fact the number of non-Islander related people arriving was 31% more than Islander related ones. 25,537 non-Islander related against just 19,500 for Islander related.

I would like to know who provided the information to the Chief Minister that resulted in him misleading the panel.

Response

The information on passenger reason for travel is taken from the online pre-registration passenger form and is reliant on passengers completing the fields accurately; variations in travel volume are also seasonally dependent.

Based on this information, through the course of 2021 to date 43% of passengers entered their reason for travel as leisure / holiday to Jersey. The remaining reasons given were varied with the majority being as returning residents or to visit family and friends or for employment/critical work purposes.

As such the Chief Minister’s comment in relation to the volume of travel was accurate in articulating that the majority of visitors have string connections with the island either through residence, family connections or employment.