Gef’s Keys and LegCo Preview

We’re down in the basement playing with the gov’s train set this this week as both Keys and LegCo take their seats for a hotly anticipated morning of cut and thrust politics.

In Keys we have everything from questions about the speed of steam trains and how many times they blow their whistles right through to the more frivolous questions about schools, teaching unions and sex ed.

However we’re going to focus on LegCo first, where recently reappointed member of the half-round table Tanya June-July-August-Hanson is seeking leave to introduce a rather important Bill.

She will seek to move that: ‘That leave be given to introduce a Private Member’s Bill to make certain new provision in relation to fertilisation, embryology and surrogacy; to make new provision about the persons who in certain circumstances are to be treated as the parents of a child; to amend the Civil Registration Act 1984 consequentially in relation to registering births; and for connected purposes.’

We have seen a similar move from TAH before. Last year, she told Gef: ‘Presently, female-female partners could become parents but only the female that carried the child would be the mother. So the second female parent would be the legal parent and that’s just not an acceptable situation. On the other side of the fence, male-male partners, they need to use a surrogacy arrangement and to apply for a parent order to become a child’s legal parent, only heterosexual and married couples can actually do that.’

Keys

Meanwhile downstairs in the Commoners’ Bar, MHKs will be grilling ministers on a range of issues, with all 14 questions coming from just two members, Jason ‘Starter for 10’ Moorhouse and David ‘The Chase is on’ Ashford.

Mr Ashford’s first two questions focus on local authority rates, who collects them and why a consultation has been launched into them.

This will give Mr Moorhouse time to complete his vocal exercises before asking the DESC Minister Julie Edge for an update on talks with unions, before switching to a question on whether a) teaching staff, b) support staff, c) child witnesses, d) the guest presenter and e) others were questioned as part of the independent review of relationships and sex education referred to in her Tynwald statement of March 21 2023; and when they were questioned?

He’ll then ask questions about the housing market and how many non-residents have bought one or more residential properties in island in each of the last three years and what impact a new charges order will have on said market.

Mr Ashford will then turn our attention to our four legged friends, as he asks DEFA Minister Clare Barber what is being done to help with the lack of vets on the island.

As the titanic back and forth continues, Mr Moorhouse will DoI Minister Chris Thomas ask how successful the £2 bus fare trial was, given it looks to have been dropped like a dodgy kebab on a wet and windy night on Douglas Prom, we’re gonna take a bet on not as good as they’d hoped.

Tagging himself back in, Mr Ashford will give Mr Moorhouse a breather as he seeks answers about cancelled flights and what support is given to departing or returning patient transfer passengers whose flight is cancelled or delayed by more than two hours before he puts the Home Affairs Minister Jane Poole-Wislon into his crosshair, asking what plans she has to revise the Firearms Act 1947, Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1963, the Shot Guns Air Weapons and Cross-Bows Act 1994 and related regulations and procedures.

All three of the final questions relate to the island’s glorious and totally value for money (back off haters) heritage railways with both men asking about changes to Go Gold Passes and how these changes will lose people free travel on the trains and trams.

Question time will pull into its final station as Mr Moorhouse asks whether there are any restrictions or recommendations about a) the maximum speed of a steam train and b) the use of a steam train whistle.

After that, the Income Tax Bill will receive it’s third reading and MHKs will consider LegCo’s amendment to the Trust and Trustees Bill 2023.

ALL ABOARD!