Debate contribution: Independent Environmental Protection Agency: Establishment

Debate contribution by Mr Tom Buchanan on 10 November 2025.

MLA

Mr Tom Buchanan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

10 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Independent Environmental Protection Agency: Establishment

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5225304

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am not as enthusiastic as others around the Chamber about how a new body will deliver what we are looking for. I note that those who tabled the motion claim to be the Opposition who hold Ministers, Departments and the Executive to account on delivering more effective, efficient and accountable governance. However, what they have brought to the House as a solution to our current environmental challenges are proposals for increased bureaucracy in the form of an environmental protection agency with powers to set its own enforcement policy. For me, that creates concern, as it should for everyone around the House. What role will the Minister with responsibility for the environment have in directing that policy? How much scrutiny will the AERA Committee have over such policy? The answer is none. The Committee will have no scrutiny powers over the policy that is set by that agency. Do people in the Chamber believe that that is good, effective and accountable governance? I do not believe that it is. How many environment agencies do we need to protect our environment? Let us examine what we already have. We have the Northern Ireland Environment Agency; the Shared Environmental Service; the Office for Environmental Protection; Waterways Ireland; and the Public Health Agency. All those agencies are already in place. Look at that list of environmental agencies: what is the justification for another agency that will be accountable only to itself? What will be its role and function beyond those of the agencies that are already in place? How much will it cost, and where will that funding be found at a time when all Departments are under such financial pressure? If the Department cannot adequately fund what is already in place, how is it to fund a new body such as this? Perhaps the Minister will provide clarity on those issues when he responds to the debate. Do those who tabled the motion and the other parties really expect the House to accept the addition of another independent agency and another layer of bureaucracy to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs without any scrutiny or indication of how it will be funded or how it will interact with the existing environmental bodies?

What causes me a problem is a new agency having the power to set its own enforcement policy without scrutiny or direction from the Minister or the Department. That is where the problem really lies. Would it not be much better practice for the Minister to review the effectiveness of all the current environmental structures to ensure that they deliver than to establish another agency that is neither necessary nor appropriate? The new agency could be detrimental to our environment rather than improving it. I will clarify that point. Placing more bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy always leaves a thing less effective. A few years ago, what were we doing in the House? We were fighting to cut red tape in the Department of the Environment.

Now what are we doing? We are adding more red tape to red tape and more bureaucracy to bureaucracy, which leaves the processes much less effective. We all want to see improvements to our environment and pollution issues dealt with, including those relating to Northern Ireland Water, but we need to see them dealt with in an effective way by bodies that are held accountable. That will not happen with the new body or quango that is going to be set up. At present, our farm businesses are hindered by an over-bureaucratic process that prohibits them from enhancing their farm buildings. Doing so would reduce ammonia levels and therefore pollution, but the stringent targets set by the NIEA, and the months of delay to the NIEA and the SES reaching a decision between them, mean that a farm business that could reduce its ammonia levels by perhaps 90% or more through new, upmarket buildings is instead compelled to work with its old system that results in high ammonia levels. Would it not be sensible for the Minister and the Department to look at those structures, free them up and get things more effective so that the farming community is able not only to make progress but to help to clean up the environment? We must allow our farm businesses to grow, where possible, while protecting the environment.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:45 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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