Debate contribution: Legislation Programme 2025-26
Debate contribution by Mr Tom Buchanan on .
- MLA
- Mr Tom Buchanan
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 13 October 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Executive Committee Business
- Heading
- Legislation Programme 2025-26
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5176087
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I will focus my remarks on the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. It is disappointing that the only legislation in the Executive legislation programme for 2025-26 that the AERA Minister has brought forward is the fisheries and water environment Bill. Although that is important legislation, the Committee is looking at other issues, which the Chair of the Committee outlined. There are issues of equal and greater importance that still appear to be sitting on the shelf rather than being included in the legislative programme. I refer, first, to the bovine TB crisis. That is still a huge burden on the agriculture industry, yet it is somewhere in the abyss, costing the Department in excess of £60 million a year, which is increasing year-on-year, with Northern Ireland facing one of the highest rates of bovine TB in Europe. A new TB partnership steering group has been established to explore proposals to eradicate bovine TB, but it has no powers. In fact, it is just a further stalling exercise.
What is required is for the Minister to bring forward a delivery plan and legislative proposals that will reduce the high level of bovine TB in Northern Ireland and the associated cost incurred. Not to have such legislation is therefore a failing on the Minister's behalf.
We then have the ammonia issue, which is a serious hindrance to farm businesses expanding or upgrading their buildings, and all because no balanced approach has been taken or common sense applied and unachievable targets have been set by the Department. Rather than farm businesses being able to upgrade their buildings and, by doing so, significantly reduce their ammonia levels, they have to continue with outdated buildings, thus creating much higher ammonia levels. It is time that the AERA Minister took a common-sense approach to the issue and put forward balanced and workable legislative proposals that will see a significant reduction in ammonia levels, rather than working with unachievable targets that are causing untold delays by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), as it grapples with planning applications that seek to provide consultation responses based on such unworkable targets. The Department really needs to begin to focus on what is achievable, workable and important to the agriculture community. The just transition for agriculture raises huge concerns about value for money. With climate change targets set at a level that not only is unachievable and unworkable but has detrimental consequences for large capital infrastructure projects, such as the A5, which was mentioned, and all future infrastructure projects, it is disappointing but not surprising that the Minister has failed to bring forward legislative proposals to reduce those targets, which were set by all parties in the Chamber apart from ours and the TUV. We need targets that are more realistic and achievable and that do not have detrimental consequences for infrastructure projects that are so important to the people of Northern Ireland. I hope that the AERA Minister is listening and will begin to focus on the issues that matter rather than on the continual rhetoric of climate change that cannot and will not deliver the positive outcomes that we, the people of Northern Ireland, require.
529 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
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: 0.04 (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 (0.94).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.99).
- 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
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.04 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.03 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.06 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.94 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.04 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.99 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.01 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.97 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.02 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:28 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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