Official Report: Minutes of Evidence
Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, meeting on Thursday, 30 June 2016
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Mrs Linda Dillon (Chairperson)
Dr Caoimhe Archibald (Deputy Chairperson)
Mr S Anderson
Mr Maurice Bradley
Mr D Ford
Mr William Irwin
Mr Patsy McGlone
Mr H McKee
Mr O McMullan
Mr Edwin Poots
Mr Robin Swann
Witnesses:
Mr Patrick Casement, Northern Ireland Environment Link
Mr Sean Kelly, Northern Ireland Environment Link
Mr Craig McGuicken, Northern Ireland Environment Link
Ms Joanne Sherwood, RSPB NI
Ms Jennifer Fulton, Ulster Wildlife
Brexit and Strategic Priorities: Northern Ireland Environment Link, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Ulster Wildlife
The Chairperson (Ms Dillon): I welcome Patrick Casement, chairperson of NIEL; Craig McGuicken, CEO of NIEL; Sean Kelly, parliamentary development officer; Jennifer Fulton, chief executive of Ulster Wildlife; and Joanne Sherwood, director of RSPB NI. Thank you very much. We are tight for time, so I ask members to keep their questions brief and answers brief. We have 30 minutes for this, so if you can keep to five minutes for the presentation, it will give members as much time as possible to ask questions, OK?
Mr Craig McGuicken (Northern Ireland Environment Link): Thank you very much, Chair. We have actually brought a new briefing paper along. Sorry for that being late; you will understand, in the circumstances.
Thanks very much for having us here today. I will start by making a few general observations, and then I will move on to a few points. I am afraid to say that a lot of what we are going to say is really questions, because there is so much uncertainty. A lot of this is really about where we go next. It is the start of a discussion, I suppose.
We all work in the environment because we feel that the environment is essential for people. It underpins our society, our health, our economy and our communities. The EU, for whatever faults you make think it has, has set out a very wide range of environmental protection. There are two things that are crucial in this. Number one, it is essential that, whatever happens, Northern Ireland maintains the highest level of environmental protection possible. Secondly, the investment that the EU has put into the environment needs to be maintained. It is essential that the environment in Northern Ireland continues to receive at least that level of support. The last thing that I will say in this introductory section is that Environment Link as an organisation has around 80 full members, including Ulster Wildlife and RSPB. More than 100,000 members of the public belong to these organisations. We are very pleased to be here, and we want to work with the Committee in future.
I will move on and talk about a few of the issues and questions. You will see in the paper that we started off by talking about directives. EU directives are the cornerstone of environmental protection. That, in turn, is the cornerstone of funding for the environment. A recent review of the nature directives had the highest response ever: people in Europe, and in the UK in particular, are interested in the environment. The table from the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) shows the different eventualities associated with the UK being within the European Economic Area or with full Brexit. I will not go through the detail, but you can see the level of uncertainty.
In the absence of the EU directives, what will be the driver for environmental protection? How will the issues be prioritised? Similarly, what level of financial support will be available? Thirdly, the environment cuts across national boundaries. In the absence of EU membership, what will be the mechanism to ensure that we are still working together and getting the best outcomes for the environment? There is a huge amount of national legislation — 40 years' worth of legislation in the UK itself. How are we going to review that legislation? That is complicated by the recent central government restructuring. DAERA has lost around 400 staff, so there is an issue as to how it is going to be able to review all that legislation. In the future, will Northern Ireland be in a situation to devise legislation by itself? Will we work with the UK?
Many of the funding programmes run to 2020. Will this money be safeguarded? In many cases, the NI Government has agreed to provide matched funding. Again, will this be honoured? How do we ensure that it is? Given the importance of the CAP payments to the environment and farming, any decline in them would have a devastating social, economic and environmental impact. Again, how do we ensure that does not happen? There are certain measures that require investment in research in the Going for Growth strategy and the sustainable agricultural land use strategy. Environmental NGOs themselves have a key role in helping government to deliver on these objectives, so we need ways to lever in additional funds. If there is no EU funding, there is an issue there. The sector itself has been through a tough time, of course. This time last year, we were all facing big funding cuts. It is a particularly uncertain time for the sector.
I will finish with two practical points for your consideration. We are at the start of the Programme for Government consultation process. We now have Brexit. Does this mean that we need to reconsider the way that the PFG has been written? Do we need to lengthen the consultation time? Secondly, given the nature of this issue, there is an argument for the Committee's holding an inquiry into the impact of Brexit on agriculture and the environment. Thank you for listening.
The Chairperson (Ms Dillon): Thank you. As I outlined at the beginning, it is probably really very much a listening brief for us today in relation to what your concerns are, so that we can put questions to the Minister and the Department. We will be having the permanent secretary coming to present to us. Has the Minister been in touch with you yet about a meeting?
Mr McGuicken: We have written to the Minister.
The Chairperson (Ms Dillon): I think that the Minister should contact you and all organisations that will be affected by this under her Department. It is important that we acknowledge that this is no longer an agriculture Department; it now covers agriculture and the environment. We need to be very cognisant of that. I can assure you that members of this Committee will be, and we will do our best to make sure that both sides on this Committee get an equal hearing. I just wanted to reassure you on behalf of the Committee, and I sincerely hope that all the members will be of the same view.
Mr McGlone: Thank you for your presentation and for distilling it down pretty sharply. A lot of this stuff concerns me; we leapt over the cliff and into that big black void of uncertainty. You mentioned that many of the current EU funding programmes are due to run to 2020. Can you give us any indication as to the types of programmes and projects that you collectively or otherwise are aware of or involved in?
Ms Jennifer Fulton (Ulster Wildlife): I can give you an example from our own organisation and look across the sectors. At the minute, we are recruiting about five rural jobs from a LIFE bid that is matched by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), and we are hopeful that that will continue. The letter of agreement has been signed by Brussels, but we have asked for confirmation —
Ms Fulton: Those are for conservation officers in the field. We are hopeful that that programme will continue. The problem will be the exchange rate fluctuations, which are very difficult to manage because, when you sign up to a European programme, you are given money in euros, and the match then has to cater for any sort of exchange rate fluctuations. That is the challenge for all the NGOs. We have INTERREG, which has a large amount of money. There is about €30 million across the three streams of INTERREG. That will run to 2020. The money is not yet awarded but is in the process. We are all in stage 2 business plans. Some of the organisations, like the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute and maybe Queen's, will be availing themselves of that money. There is a lot of uncertainty around that. In the article 50 process, there is the opportunity that you can phase out any EU programmes, but, again, that is very uncertain and is for the negotiations. Then there is what happens after the end of those seven years, because all that money will disappear.
Mr Patrick Casement (Northern Ireland Environment Link): I will give you an example of an INTERREG programme. The Causeway Coast and Glens Heritage Trust is running a project called Drifting Apart, which is looking at continental drift. It involves three other European countries: Norway, Iceland and Greenland. Again, they are employing people to carry out this work and are leading the project across Europe. How they deal with that will be a real challenge.
Mr Casement: It is called Drifting Apart. It is a geological project, but it has environmental aspects. It is looking at our geological history.
Mr Ford: You suggested that the Committee consider an inquiry into the potential effects on agriculture and the environment now that the decision to leave has been taken, whatever exactly that means. I can see the merit in that, but where do we get the expertise to make an inquiry worthwhile at this stage, given that you and the farming representatives have said that you have lots of questions, but nobody has any answers yet?
Mr McGuicken: In the environmental sector, we have very strong connections across the UK, and I am fairly confident that the expertise is actually there in the UK. There are enough people there who understand the implications, and work was done prior to the vote. The experts are there, but you would have to look outside Northern Ireland.
Ms Joanne Sherwood (RSPB NI): A report was done by the Institute for European Environmental Policy, commissioned by some of the environmental organisations, before the vote, and I am sure that we will be collating further information. We are part of a worldwide network called BirdLife International, so I am sure that information will come along. It is a question of timing. It is very soon after the vote.
Mr Irwin: You talk about uncertainty. Will you accept that we are told that it will take somewhere between two and three years for the UK to actually leave Europe? Is it not the case that there is plenty of time to negotiate in that two or three years? I think that there is a lot of panic. Am I not right? You are panicking today. We will be in Europe for at least another two years, maybe three years.
Mr Casement: "Panic" is perhaps too strong a word for what we are describing. We are talking about uncertainty. A lot of organisations in the environmental sector have very small capacity to deal with what they are doing. They are struggling just to do what their core purpose is. To spend a lot of time looking again at things they had hoped and thought were settled is going to be difficult for them. Finding the capacity to do that is going to be a real issue. It is not just an issue for us; it is an issue for you and for Departments. You say that two or three years is a long time, but it will be gone very rapidly, I fear.
Mr Casement: You are quite correct that it gives us an opportunity, but it is going to put everybody under pressure to do that. The main thrust of what we are saying is that the uncertainty is going to be difficult to deal with for everybody in this.
Ms Fulton: In things like agrienvironment schemes, business continuity is very important for farmers and others. Also, as NGOs we manage some of those sites and avail ourselves of that money to actually manage on ground works, so those types of issues need to be part of any negotiation as we move forward. There needs to be a long-term view, because once things start to go downhill they are very difficult to retrieve.
Mr Irwin: You accept that there is time to do all this?
Ms Fulton: Look at the rural development programme negotiations. We are sitting in 2016, and some of it is still not up and running. They are very complex mechanisms and they take a lot of thinking time. If you are going to change things, you want to do it properly, once. So it may take longer than two years.
Mr Casement: Chair, I just wanted to add something to that piece —
The Chairperson (Ms Dillon): I ask that you keep responses brief because we are very tight for time. I am trying to allow as many members as possible to ask questions, if you do not mind.
Mr Poots: A lot of the environmental policies make sense: recycling of goods instead of casting stuff into a landfill, renewable energy and so forth. All that makes an awful lot of sense, so an awful lot of it should go forward. In fact, renewables like solar panels will actually benefit from getting out of Europe, because you can buy solar panels in from China at two thirds of the price, and you do not actually need to grant-aid it to ensure that more people install solar panels.
You mentioned the common fisheries policy in that paper. Sticking with that, has the common fisheries policy not been a complete and ultimate disaster for the fishing fleet in Northern Ireland in the first instance? Has it not been a disaster environmentally, in that many fish which would have gone for human consumption have been dumped in the sea? Has it not been a disaster scientifically because, every year in December, there has been a bartering session which has ignored the science and just sought to impose further restrictions without the backup of science?
Mr Sean Kelly (Northern Ireland Environment Link): I will answer that. In cases such as the fisheries policy, the environment sector did not necessarily champion everything that comes out of the European Commission and the European institutions. We are aware of the fact that, undoubtedly, one size does not fit all, and it has to be designed to be location-specific. As we have said, there is still the opportunity to look at everything again. It is just that there is this uncertainty. Where do we start to put some certainty into this? No matter what sector — fishing, agriculture — the question is what our starting point is. It will be interesting, because we have referred in one of our papers to the fact that one of the issues that we have to look at, in the absence of some of these directives that have come from Europe, is what our priorities will be. How will Northern Ireland decide what our priorities will be, and then what policies, legislation and support will we be able to put in place to drive those priorities forward?
Mr Anderson: Thank you for your presentation. My colleague talked about two or three years down the line, and others might have a different opinion. It might not be a long time. However, the referendum was called and was on the table for quite some time. David has talked about this inquiry. Did your organisation not say, "Look, what if the vote is to exit the EU?" Was no thought given at any time to the point that, if that was the result, you would need to move quickly in regard to funding and in regard to different organisations getting funding and getting it spent by a certain time? Or was it just left, in the hope that we would get the result that we want and things would be OK?
Ms Fulton: I will answer that. You have the report before you from Institute for European Environmental Policies (IEEP), which was written for that reason: to identify the pros and cons of Brexit and what would happen thereafter. The challenge that everybody faces now is that, even if we go into the European Economic Area (EEA), there will be quite a lot of the environmental legislation that will still apply, including some fisheries legislation. In terms of EU legislative competence, conservation of marine biological resources is still a regulated function; it is like immigration. There is some flexibility, in that you still apply your own common fisheries policy, but a large chunk of that will still be implemented and be part of any agreement, I would guess. It is going to be a very complex process as we move forward through the negotiations. It will be about working out what the regulated functions are and what impact they will have on Northern Ireland, what are the directives, and where the flexibility is in finding a way forward to meet our needs.
Mr Casement: I would add that, over the past 12 months, since the threat of major government cutbacks in funding for the environmental sector, everybody in the sector has been looking long and hard at alternative sources of income, and we have identified some. However, for a lot of us, the only other alternatives, so far, have been European funding; so, we are going to have to find other ways of doing this within the United Kingdom.
The Chairperson (Ms Dillon): Thank you very much. Given your response to the question asked, you are further down the road. You have done a paper and looked at what would happen after Brexit. Some of the people who campaigned to get out of Europe have not even looked that far, so it would be fairly rich of us to be criticising you on what you have done.
Mr McKee: I am from the Kilkeel area and am concerned about fishing. Obviously, fishermen felt for a long time that they were being over-regulated through EU regulations. In the run up to the election, I heard a lot of farmers also saying that there were too many regulations. It appears that, for those who wanted Brexit and whom I met for a month before the election, it was the over-regulation of, generally, everything that motivated them. Is it the case that you would expect a reduction in your type of work and that, other than that, things are going to remain the same? Those who wanted Brexit wanted deregulation, but you want to continue doing exactly what you are doing. In other words, there is going to be no change.
Ms Sherwood: I will pick that up. The issue is that nature is in serious decline. All the evidence points to huge reductions in nature in Northern Ireland and across the UK. Part of the regulation was put in to ensure that the environment is protected, because the environment and nature underpin our economy. They are of huge value to tourism, they attract people to this country and they are also very important for people's health. They are important for agriculture itself, for example, pollination. That is why regulation was put in place in the first instance. We have to make sure that we are moving to protect the regulation legislation that is there to protect the environment.
Mr S Kelly: Let me just add to that. As referred to in our paper, not all of the legislation we have to follow is EU legislation. There are also international commitments and stuff that have to be delivered. At this stage, all I can do is guess, but I imagine that in future legislation, whatever way you design it, especially for competing for world markets, there may well be environmental or sustainability standards to be met. I am only guessing, but we will probably be involved in that as well. As I said, we currently have to meet a number of national, EU and international standards, and most of our national legislation enshrines those policies and directives at different levels. It is not just as simple as saying that we do not have to do that any more. I imagine that this is the way it is going to be; once again, this will all be part of the debate and negotiations.
Mr Swann: I want to follow up on Sean's contribution. How many of our environmental regulations are actually governed by the EU, in comparison with those imposing national and international standards? I am trying to get at whether we are going to lose an awful lot by being out of the EU as regards regulations?
Mr Casement: This is a very complex issue because a lot of the legislation has been written to put the European directives in place, but has included stuff that is national legislation, if you like. It is not necessarily related to the EU. So, if a Bill goes to Parliament —
Mr Casement: Yes, well, Kyoto is an international agreement through the Convention on Biological Diversity, so that is outside this. Aspects of that agreement are written into legislation that are not part of the EU. Our legislation covering environmental regulation generally has a mixture of EU, national and international components. It will be quite a complex task to disentangle all that and work out what is and is not driven by the EU. That is one of the issues that we raise here. This is not just a straightforward case of going through the rule book and stroking our certain regulations.
Mr Swann: What I was trying to get at that we are not in Patsy's situation as regards environmental legislation. None of that legislation will disappear overnight because we are out of the EU. We are still governed by national and international law aspects.
Ms Fulton: Let us take the example of the EU. Two hundred pieces of EU legislation have been brought through since the 1970s. A fair chunk of that will probably have to be transposed into domestic legislation and that is likely to be part of any trade agreement with the EEA, based on the experiences of countries that are outside the EU but are trading within the EEA. We are not going to know that until we go into negotiations, so there is a lot of uncertainty. It is huge.
Mr S Kelly: There was an all-party group, which some members here were a part of, for which we did some research in 2014. That identified about 30 major European directives and subsections within those directives. The research looked at how those directives are applied in Northern Ireland. At that stage, we managed to put all the information into a brief summary, but that will all have to be looked at again to see how those directives are reflected in national and other legislation. One of the issues will be the resources that will have to be put in across all sectors of Northern Ireland society to look at the legislation and determine what it means now.
Ms Fulton: There is a paper on the balance of competences, which is available on the website and which DEFRA had prepared some time ago when the discussions kicked off. That would be worth looking at. It defines exactly what is and is not EU legislation and what is domestic legislation.
Ms Fulton: It is on the DEFRA website. I will get it and circulate it to the Committee Clerk.
Mr M Bradley: I want to make a comment rather than ask a question. It will be necessary to keep the existing legislation in place going forward. We have to maintain and enhance the environment and protect it for generations to come, and enshrining the existing legislation will be a priority.
Mr Irwin: One of the bullet points here says:
"Given the farming industry's reliance on CAP payments, a decline in farm payments (Pillar 1 and Pillar 2) would have a devastating social, economic and environmental impact."
Do you not realise that this is one of the reasons why many farmers voted to come out of Europe? It is because money is being taken away from productive agriculture and, in many cases, farmers with smaller businesses will receive a very small payment in four years' time? That is one of the reasons why many of those farmers voted to come out of Europe; it is because their subsidies from Europe are going to be decreased to such a level that it is not going to matter to them. This is one of the main reasons why many farmers voted to come out. On top of that, their prices are very poor. I think that your reading of the situation is wrong. I think that payments for many farmers with smaller businesses will be derisory at the end of this period.
Ms Fulton: The concern is that when budgets in Westminster are carved up, the same amount of money will not come back to Northern Ireland to be distributed amongst the agricultural industry. That is the main concern.
Mr Casement: Our fear is that, for Westminster, farming in Great Britain is a much lower priority than it is here in Northern Ireland. Therefore, there may be less money available. As Jennifer says, that is our main concern.
Mr Irwin: If there were less money available but it was targeted properly, it may still be OK.
Mr Casement: There may be serious environmental outcomes that fall out of that, however. Again, the uncertainty is the issue here.
Mr Irwin: The certainty for the owners of smaller farms is that direct payments are getting smaller each year and they realise that.
Mr Casement: Yes. I do understand.
Mr Irwin: A strong lobby to our UK Government may rectify that. Payments should be made to those smaller and more productive farm businesses.
Mr Casement: Time will tell. I wish that we could be sure about everything.
The Chairperson (Ms Dillon): I remind the member that we in the North did not vote to leave. The majority of farmers possibly voted to stay.
Mr Irwin: In all the opinion polls, the majority of farmers were voting to leave.
Ms Sherwood: I think it is very important that public money for agriculture helps agriculture, but it is also important that it helps the environment, because it should be public money for public good.
Ms Archibald: On the back of what Maurice said, I want to say that environmental protection remains a priority, regulations remain in place, and we have commitments in place for the reduction of greenhouse gases and things like that. There is also a Programme for Government outcome linked to protecting the environment. You should be reassured that that commitment is there. I suppose it is a matter of us taking that on board and making sure that funding is available to keep those types of programmes in place.
Ms Sherwood: That is why is it really important that the Programme for Government indicators measure the right things. My reading of the situation is that funding is likely to follow the things that get measured. I do not think that it is complete at the moment; I do not think that it covers all the things that it needs to cover to make sure that we get adequate protection for all aspects of the environment in the post-Brexit era.
Ms Archibald: On that, it is very important that we get as much consultation feedback as possible from people like you to inform that process.
Ms Fulton: One thing that is maybe largely missing from the Programme for Government is biodiversity, even though a biodiversity strategy has been signed off by the Executive. We have sustainability and tackling greenhouse gases, but there is really nothing there to address biodiversity.
Mr Casement: Again, that is subject to an international agreement that the UK signed up to: the Convention on Biological Diversity. The targets in that are very similar to the EU targets, and we have to honour them because we are signed up.
The Chairperson (Ms Dillon): In response to that, the Programme for Government is outcomes-focused this time. I think that there is room for manoeuvre on all those things. It will be about the outcomes and that is what we need to try to focus on. As Caoimhe said, if things need to be changed or looked at again, you should feed that into us. We would certainly be prepared to look at that.
Thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate you coming along today.
Mr Casement: Thank you, Chair, I reiterate our willingness and keenness to work with you to reach a solution on some of those issues. We are available at any time to comment or give our views to you.