Debate contribution: Green Energy Transition

Debate contribution by Mrs Deborah Erskine on 24 March 2025.

MLA: Mrs Deborah Erskine
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 24 March 2025
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Opposition Business
Heading: Green Energy Transition
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4865305

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. To ensure that green energy transition does not create shocks in our system, it is important that we have such a debate in the Chamber. Our amendment pinpoints where we need to do better in order to have a true just transition. We have included in it the need for Departments to work with the Infrastructure Minister. I will focus briefly on the impact that our inefficient and ineffective planning policy has had. It has been mentioned a number of times already, but I will add some figures. It is no surprise that our planning policy creates a delay to further decarbonisation of the network, which my colleague Mr Middleton mentioned. The scale of the problem is huge and was laid bare in various pieces of written evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee inquiry. The RenewableNI report indicated that, on average, it took 1,136 days for onshore wind projects to gain planning permission in Northern Ireland between 2020 and 2023. That compares with 217 days in England and 413 days in the Republic of Ireland. In its written evidence, SSE warned:
"Planning policy will play a key role in delivering renewables targets and is a significant barrier to deployment in NI in our view."
A stark reality is also painted in KPMG's 'Accelerating Renewables in Northern Ireland' report, which surveyed developers. Some 82% of them said that Northern Ireland was currently not an attractive place in which to invest and that that was because of the lack of planning support that they felt that they received. That leads me on to a matter that was raised earlier. I will use the example of Encirc, which is a business in my constituency. I have met Encirc representatives a number of times, as well as along with my party leader. It wants to continue to move to a greener form of manufacturing by investing in cleaner energy such as biomethane, which is now three times more expensive than natural gas. That would lead to increased costs for our businesses, which, ultimately, would be placed on customers, given that that company makes bottles for a range of companies and household names. A pricing policy framework needs to be introduced so that businesses in Northern Ireland do not become uncompetitive. Whilst that company welcomes the Department's recent call for evidence on biomethane, it wants to see that policy area progress. I commend our amendment to the House.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.95).
No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.02	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.02	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.01	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.02	No
Controversy escalation	0.02	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.95	Yes
Overall judgement	0.03	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	1.00
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.00
Adopts it	0.00

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
No identity-related subject	1.00
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.00
Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy	0.00
Sport (including the GAA), the arts and cultural bodies	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:13 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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