Debate contribution: Green Growth: Removal of Barriers

Debate contribution by Mr John Stewart on 17 September 2024.

MLA

Mr John Stewart

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

17 September 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Green Growth: Removal of Barriers

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4537346

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Members who tabled the motion and the amendment, which helps it. I thank the Minister for Infrastructure for coming along. The issue straddles the responsibilities of two or three Ministers. I will speak from an infrastructure point of view about planning reform. The Minister will know that we have had a successful and balanced debate on planning reform, and we all know the impacts that it will have. Our party fully supports a green growth agenda and moving towards net zero. Undoubtedly, that has already benefited from having legislation in place. However, it is being hamstrung in two key areas. The first is a lack of funding, which has left many areas of development in Northern Ireland hamstrung. The second is planning reform and how difficult it is. Mr Brett referred to that and how difficult that was. We are all aware of people — locally grown businesses or outside investors — who have pulled the plug on major infrastructure projects here because they were so frustrated with the delays and bureaucracy that they saw in the planning system. That is lamentable, and everything must be done to reform that. There has been a series of reports, and we waxed lyrical about those in the previous debate. The Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry produced an important report on reform, and the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) did the same in 2022. I say that as a member of the Public Accounts Committee. That report is hugely beneficial, and I thank both organisations for those reports. Significant points came out of them. First, there are the delays. Statutorily, planning committees and procedures should be 30 weeks. Unfortunately, over a fifth of those are extending that, and that has more of an impact on the major significant projects that most affect green growth. I am interested to hear what the Minister thinks about that. Secondly, there is the impact of the silo mentality. It is nearly a decade since planning powers were handed down to local government. Unfortunately, although councils were statutorily required to have local development plans in place by 2019, many still do not have those published. That is not only frustrating; it is leading to a silo mentality. To quote the Audit Office report:

"In our view, the 'planning system' in Northern Ireland is not currently operating as a single, joined-up system. Rather, there is a series of organisations that do not interact well, and therefore often aren’t delivering an effective service. This has the potential to create economic damage to Northern Ireland. Ultimately, as it currently operates, the system doesn’t deliver for customers, communities or the environment."

That point is well made and should be remembered. On the issue of the local development plans, not only have they not been finished, but there does not seem to be an overarching Northern Ireland theme to them. We almost have 11 different strategies, but, when it comes to green growth and identifying major infrastructure projects, we fall between the cracks. We often talk about the variance in delivery and in the process, but we will also see, on the back of those reports, variance in how processes and policies are being implemented. When it comes to major, significant policies, that will obviously have a major impact. That needs to be looked at as well. To finish, I agree with and echo the points that were made by the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry in its feedback. It put forward two or three significant proposals, and one that I and my party agree with is reconstituting the regional planning commission. That would be significant, particularly by bringing experts in the field to contribute to it. The second proposal is a reform of the Planning Appeals Commission (PAC). The Northern Ireland Audit Office report talked significantly about that, and we need see it removed from the Department of Justice and brought under the remit of the Department for Infrastructure. We also need to see it recast in a similar vein to what was done in England and Wales, with full operational independence and top-level accountability that would be —.

That is a valid point and one that I was trying to get to. From memory, the Department required all those development plans to be ready by 2019. It is now 2024 and significant numbers of plans are still only at draft stage, so that is hugely frustrating. Next year, it will be 10 years since the review of public administration (RPA) began and those powers were handed down, and now is the time to see that happening. It also needs to happen as part of a joined-up strategy to make sure that areas and applications do not fall through the cracks and so that we do not have a geographical lottery depending on how different councils bring those reports together. That concludes my remarks.

819 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:11 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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