Tynwald Approves Island Plan

Tynwald has this afternoon approved the gov’s Island Plan.

Urging members to back the blueprint, Chief Minister Alfred Cannan pledged: ‘We can, we must, we will deliver.’

Many members were critical of the lack of detail in the plan and there were also concerns at the way
gov had sped up the process to bring it to debate, with the public being given fewer than half the six
weeks it would have had to consider the final doc if Comin had followed the normal process of the
Tynwald Register of Business.

But Mr Cannan was unrepentant over the timescale and signalled that gov was likely to do the same
on other occasions.

While the morning session of the debate was largely taken up with backbenchers’ expressing
concern at a lack of any costings or details in the Island Plan itself, the afternoon saw ministers speak
up to big up the value of the plan and also flesh out some of the ‘vision’ that was contained within it.

There were two amendments to the original motion to approve the plan. One, from Douglas East MHK Joney Faragher, places a commitment for Comin to publish details of membership and terms of reference of the Island Plan Delivery Board by the end of this month.

The second, by her Manx Labour colleague Douglas South MHK Sarah Maltby, states that Tynwald
‘expects’ Comin to organise each September a conference that will allow for ‘public interaction and
debate on key issues’.

The voting to approve the Island Plan, with those two amendments added in, was 21-3 in the House
of Keys and 9-0 in Legislative Council.

The three MHKs to vote against were Speaker and Rushen MHK Juan Watterson, Douglas Central
MHK Chris Thomas and Douglas South MHK Claire Christian. We’ll have more on this tomorrow.