Debate contribution: Direct Payments to Farmers (Cross-Compliance) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2024: Prayer of Annulment

Debate contribution by Miss Michelle McIlveen on 4 February 2025.

MLA

Miss Michelle McIlveen

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

4 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Committee Business

Heading

Direct Payments to Farmers (Cross-Compliance) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2024: Prayer of Annulment

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4779114

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member for his intervention. Obviously, that was the process that we worked with at that time. Subordinate or secondary legislation is hugely important as a delivery mechanism for a range of measures that are permitted under primary legislation. Such measures can be delivered and changed quickly without the need for new primary legislation. Given that, however — I accept what the Member said — there is a real onus on the Committee and the Department to be open in working on this type of legislation. That is the only mechanism that we have for scrutiny of the legislation, and the relevant Committee has a perfectly viable role to play in that. Recently, however, in relation to another SR, the Minister had the audacity to ask the Committee to consider legislation in private session. I find that deeply strange, coming from a party that persistently calls for openness and transparency. It is almost as if that is a slogan, rather than party policy. The Committee's role is to provide challenge and scrutiny, and, while we will all work constructively with the Minister and the Department, it is vital that we perform that role openly and effectively. The secondary legislation that we are debating today is hugely significant. When officials came to the Committee, it was hugely informative. The Minister would have us believe that the legislation is needed to tackle the problems in Lough Neagh and that failure to pass the legislation would be failure to address those problems. His colleague who sits on the Committee will, no doubt, castigate the rest of us for being anti-environment, which is not true. The legislation gives the Department power to treat as intentional cases in which there are more than three incidents of negligent breaches by farm businesses. That gives the Department power to reduce a farmer's subsidy by up to 100%. I asked the officials a series of questions about how many farms that would have affected and was advised that it would have affected about 613 farms in 2023, which is about 5·7%. I then asked, if we set this in the context of Lough Neagh, how many cases would have related to the protection of waters: the answer was three. The officials were clear that the Minister wanted the legislation to apply to all compliance cases, not just those that related to environmental protection. That would have included cases of animals that had lost their ear tags. The Chair gave a real example of that. This is a clear choice by the Minister. He had the option to address compliance as it would directly affect the environment. He says that it is about protecting Lough Neagh, but that is not what the legislation is really about. The Minister's colleague on the Committee made the point that we have not reduced fines for any other polluters. However, this legislation applies only to farm businesses. Those farm businesses are also subject to investigation and prosecution by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA). Other polluters are subject only to investigation and prosecution by the NIEA. With this legislation, the Minister seeks, in effect, to make farmers potentially doubly liable for negligence rather than intentional actions.

It comes at a time when the Assembly has recognised the pressures faced by farmers: the inheritance tax raid by the Labour Government; the impact of weather conditions; the targets set by the Assembly under the Climate Change Act, which need to be met from within existing budgets; the failure of subsidies to keep pace with inflation over the past 10 years; the failure to address bovine TB; the risks around maedi visna (MV), bluetongue and disease control; and the constraints of the Department's ammonia policy in stymieing the modernisation of farm buildings.

Farmers do not need to be beaten by a bigger stick. The legislation seeks to reimpose what was a flawed and problematic scheme that was in place previously. The Assembly should not be gaslighted into believing that the purpose of the legislation is to address the problems in Lough Neagh. By that logic, we will punish 613 farms for the sins of three. I support the motion.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:51 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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