Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): I welcome Mr Simon McDowell, the chairman of the Mineral Products Association (Northern Ireland) and, no stranger to Committee members, Mr Gordon Best, the regional director. Gentlemen, you are both very welcome to the Committee this morning. If you would like to open with a statement, members will follow with some questions. Thank you.

Mr Simon McDowell (Mineral Products Association Northern Ireland): I am Simon McDowell from Kilwaughter Minerals Limited, but I am also chair of the Mineral Products Association Northern Ireland. I will just give a brief overview. It is a trade association for the aggregates, asphalt , cement, concrete, dimension stone, lime, mortar and silica sand industry.

Northern Ireland needs a secure long-term supply of quarry products to enhance sustainable development, and the member companies manufacture about 95% of the mineral products supplied to local construction and infrastructure sites. We represent 82 companies in Northern Ireland, which is more than 5,000 employees and 160 extraction sites, and we deliver 22 million tonnes of material each year. It is important to note that the association is made up of members who are significant rural employers, and that, in turn, helps numerous small communities across the country. The industry is well respected and helps the members with environmental and health and safety management; we are constantly trying to improve those. That lets us provide quality products to Northern Ireland and further afield. We have an excellent, first-class record of service, delivering the supplies wherever and whenever they are required.

There are two main issues that I will point out before Gordon comes to his report. One is the challenges of Brexit. Hopefully, as an industry, we can work with all the political stakeholders to make that transition as smooth as possible. The other issue, as we know, is the COVID-19 pandemic, and it has left us all in very uncertain times. There are signs. We have customers and markets that are open today. We are back to nearly 70% to 80% of where we were pre-COVID, but we are not sure what will come towards the back end of the year. We may just be finishing projects that were already started. We hope that the Government can help with some economic stimulus, whether that is in infrastructure spend or the housing market. That might help us all to get an economic recovery.

We are really pleased to have the opportunity to brief the Committee for Infrastructure today. It is vital that we all work together and effectively progress our economy. Thank you.

Mr Gordon Best (Mineral Products Association Northern Ireland): It is great to be back; it has been a long time. On reflection, this morning, I thought that, while we all face the COVID pandemic in business and in our lives, there are many positive things to report today, particularly our work with the Department, not just on COVID-19 but on maintaining our infrastructure. We have made great progress, and it is good to hear the Executive announce that this is the final year of a single-year Budget. That is something that we have been calling for for a number of years, so that is welcome.

I will give you some perspective on the impact of COVID-19 on our industry, what steps we have taken and what we are doing now. Obviously, in March, when COVID-19 hit, our members took the appropriate and sensible step of withdrawing their work — voluntarily, in many cases — and services in order to protect and allay the fears of our employees. At the height of the lockdown, we had fallen to probably about 15% of normal activity.

Almost 80% of employees were furloughed, with 10% working from home, and the remainder working to provide essential supplies to the farming industry, ongoing health and COVID-19 projects, utility repairs, road maintenance and water treatment, for example. Lime is important for water filtration.

The shutdown time was not wasted by many. Collectively and individually, the industry set about reviewing risk assessments on every activity and developing new, safe working methods. After what has been a very gradual and staged return to work, levels of activity across the sectors are back to between 70% and 80%, as Simon highlighted.

In April, at the request of the Department for Infrastructure, our road maintenance contractors returned to work, again in a staged and careful process, to complete existing works orders that had been there before COVID-19. That covered resurfacing works, minor works and patching. On 19 May, we were delighted that Minister Mallon gave her approval for the issuing of new works orders, resurfacing work and the important summer surface-dressing season. I am delighted to report that works orders are flowing, surface dressing is well under way, all under very strict COVID-19 social-distancing requirements. I have had no negative reports, and, by all accounts, it works very well.

When I sent in the updated briefing paper, we were still waiting for confirmation of this year's budget, but it was good to hear the Minister announce that she would continue the levels of maintenance. That is a good sign, because, over the last couple of years, we have started working on an indicative budget of around £75 million, which has ended up with an annual out-turn of in and around £105 million or £106 million. That has enabled money to be spent during the good weather — the summertime — when, as I have often said, the industry pump is primed. That is important at this stage, with what we are looking forward to into the later part of the year. It is important that Departments surrender any unspent money to the centre so that it can be reallocated. Traditionally, the maintenance of roads and water and sewerage infrastructure are areas where we can get that money spent. Another important aspect is that it is employment-generating activity. As Simon says, that is critical.

Some of my colleagues from the Northern Ireland Construction Group are meeting Minister Murphy this morning. One of the things that we are asking for — it is relevant to the Committee — is clarity from all government construction clients and funding for construction projects in 2020-21. How much has been spent to the end of May or June, how much is left for the rest of the year, and how will that be allocated in areas of work or projects? It is good to hear Ministers Mallon and Murphy calling for schemes to be brought forward, but we need action.

We had our online AGM yesterday, and quite a number of members spoke of their fears for the fourth quarter of the year. The construction industry has returned to work, but it is completing work that was already there. I have used phrases about the need for the conveyor belt of decision-making to run and the pipeline of infrastructure work to flow. It is good to see that council planning is up and running, although it is very varied across the Province, that the Planning Appeals Commission (PAC) has now introduced virtual hearings, and that Land Registry and estate agents are up and running. This is not just in the UK: I was talking to my colleague Gerry Farrell of the Irish Concrete Federation, and he concurred that getting the housing market going will be key for our industry. It is good that builders are back completing work. People need to have confidence, and that is a difficult thing to secure, given the background and people's fears over job redundancies etc. Getting the housing market flowing is key. Before COVID-19, the Committee was very focused on the water and sewerage capacity issue, and that is a critical issue that we need to sort out.

Turning to planning, as you know, we have a long working relationship with the Department. In our previous briefing paper, we highlighted our concerns about the planning system in Northern Ireland, particularly the need to improve minerals planning. We continue to work with the Department and with councils on those matters. The COVID-19 emergency had a major impact on the delivery of the Planning Service. Understandably, the safety of employees and preventing the spread of the virus took precedence. We are pleased to see, from the feedback from our members and from planning consultants, that planning decisions are being made, and, as I said, many of the agencies and parts of the planning system are up and running again. Still, the planning statistics on major projects show that, against a 30-week target, it takes 54 weeks to deliver major projects.

Turning to our general relationship with the Department, we have regular quarterly meetings with senior officials. We also have a very effective health and safety working group with the Department that looks at all aspects of road worker and public safety, including travelling public safety, around signage and traffic management. I do not know whether you remember them, but we had a couple of very effective social media campaigns in partnership with the Department and the PSNI about driving safely through roadworks and showing respect to road workers. I have absolutely no doubt that that has saved lives and prevented major injury to our workers and, indeed, to the travelling public.

I do not need to speak to members about the network itself. Many of you have been at Infrastructure Committee and Regional Development Committee meetings and heard about the value of the asset that the Department manages. It is now worth some £40 billion. There have been a number of independent reports, including the Snaith report of 2010, the Barton report of 2018 and the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) report of 2019. Basically, they say the same thing: we need to look after what we have. Road maintenance is not just about looking after the travelling public in the car. It is about looking after cyclists. It is about looking after public transport, because our buses still have to travel on the roads, and about motorcyclists, etc. We have no issue with the importance of public transport. In fact, in the greater Belfast area, public transport has to take priority; there is absolutely no doubt about that. It is not a them-or-us situation; it is about the priorities in certain areas. We still have not completed our strategic roads network in rural areas. The A6 is ongoing, but a number of the strategic bypasses round some of our towns cannot be forgotten about, The priority has to be public transport and pedestrianisation in Belfast and cutting emissions in Belfast. There is absolutely no doubt about that.

At the minute, the structural maintenance funding plan stands at approximately £140 million. Over the past two years, as I said, we have spent around £105 million or £106 million, thus adding to the shortfall. However, one of the things that the Department's figures show is that every pound we spend below that structural maintenance funding plan costs the Northern Ireland taxpayer £1·26, because unmaintained roads run a greater risk of having to be reconstructed. As I said, I think that there is universal agreement that the introduction of multi-year budgets would go a long way to delivering much better value for money.

It would facilitate better planning and investment, and that would result in a better road network.

I know that the Committee has looked at water and sewerage in depth. The water strategy was published last year. MPA believes that a solution to averting a funding crisis for that vital infrastructure must be identified. It is
simple: if we cannot connect the pipes to the water infrastructure, we will not be able to build the new homes, the new hotels for tourism, the new schools and the new health infrastructure that society needs. The capacity crisis, if not urgently addressed, will definitely impact on the delivery of city deals. The well-known phrase from NI Water is, "No drains, no cranes".

We need to do better when it comes to delivering outstanding projects such as the A5 and York Street junction and completing the strategic road networks. I firmly believe that the decision-making process in Northern Ireland is not working. You will see in our paper that, along with the Construction Employers Federation (CEF), we call for an independent strategic delivery unit for Departments, similar to the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) in the South and the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT). The Northern Ireland Audit Office report on capital projects certainly identified major problems in the procurement and delivery process.

We are calling for a review of planning. We opposed the giving of mineral and waste planning to councils. We felt that for a specialised, expert unit of 15 people in the Department — the Department of the Environment at the time — to be diluted among the 11 councils would result in problems. Those problems have now manifested themselves in many respects. After almost six years, it is maybe time for a review. We would like to see mineral and waste planning be given to a shared service in the councils, in the same way in which environmental services are dealt with through Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. Despite the work that we are doing with councils, we can see that there is a lack of expertise. I do not think that they have one qualified mineral planner. That is vital. Our aggregate resources and our vital metals are critical to the economic future of the country. In the context of Brexit, we are a few months away from becoming an "independent country" outside the EU. If COVID-19 has taught us one thing, particularly when it comes to personal protective equipment (PPE), it is that, when there is a crisis, you are on your own.

For example, we probably have copper resources in the ground, but there is no copper mining in the UK. For our fossil-free, zero-carbon future, the likes of copper, lithium and zinc are critical. As we move wind power offshore, we will need more and better copper. We will need lithium for our electric vehicles. If we get into another crisis and do not have our own access to those metals, we could have problems.

That leads on to our request — we have been pushing for this for a number of years — for a Northern Ireland minerals forum, on which mineral planning and resource identification issues can be addressed. It would be similar to the UK Minerals Forum (UKMF), which has been going for about 10 years. I sit on that forum, as does a representative from the Department for the Economy, and also around the table are industry representatives from the aggregates sector and other mineral sectors and from the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB and Natural England. While the minerals industry and those organisations will not see eye to eye on everything, we can at least sit around a table, discuss the issues and meet in the middle, which is what we need. In Northern Ireland, far too many issues are addressed on social media. We need to have proper engagement with all interests. We are all caretakers, and we should leave this place in a better state than we found it. I am a great believer in that. Having the structures to debate issues that, at times, can be contentious is the way forward, so a minerals forum would be a great addition to that debate.

We are very supportive of the introduction of the review of mineral planning permissions (ROMPPs). I have raised the issue of ROMPPs with the Committee and with you, Chairperson, in the past. It is in the Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 but has never been enabled. We have to put our hands up and say that our organisation lobbied against ROMPs at the time. We did not feel that ROMPPs was appropriate, because, if you recall, we had been hit by a recession. We had lost 50% of our employees, production had dropped by 50%, and the introduction of ROMPPs at that time could have been a sledgehammer to crack a nut. In the time since, however, we have taken the opportunity, through our planning agents and members, to get the industry, when putting in for an extension, to draw a red line around the whole site and get it environmental impact assessment (EIA)-compliant in order to meet future ROMPPs requirements. Most planning applications in Northern Ireland from our industry are for small extensions. We thought that it would have taken two or three years to get ROMPPs brought in: never did we believe that we would still be waiting for it in 2020.

Unfortunately, with the recovery of the construction industry, the failure to introduce ROMPPs has created a situation in which people who have never been associated with the industry have gone into disused quarries that have an old permission, perhaps going back to the 1960s, with no environmental conditions and been able to operate. In a number of areas, that has caused consternation among neighbours, and I can understand exactly where they are coming from; in fact, I met the neighbours at one of the quarries. We are supportive of the introduction of ROMPPs, because the situation is totally unacceptable. For example, the Dungiven to Drumahoe section of the A6 uses material from one of the reactivated sites for the job, yet in fairly close proximity are two of our best quarries with health and safety accreditations, environmental accreditations and biodiversity action plans. Yet, they see material going to the A6 from a site that has no modern environmental conditions. That is unacceptable.

We want to see the transport hub in Belfast fast-tracked, because its sustainable procurement plan is based on BES 6001, which is the standard for responsible sourcing. It is our belief that every load of aggregate or concrete going to any project, particularly public-sector projects, should come from a responsible source.

That is me. We are happy to take any questions.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Thank you very much. That was very thorough. In some ways, you have covered quite a lot of what we wanted to explore.

You said that, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, quite a number of your contractors voluntarily left jobs and contracts.

I know that you are very positive about your relationship with the Department, but I also know that there was probably a lack of communication, at the early stage, about guidance from the Department. Had that guidance been earlier in coming and had contractors been more aware of the health and safety risks and of the restrictions that they could put in place to allow for work to continue, would more contractors have been able to remain on-site and continue with their jobs?

Mr Best: Going back to the start of March, I am loath to criticise anyone. The crisis hit the Department in the same way as it hit our industry. We did not know anything about the virus. The one thing that we were sure of, with our employees and from the feedback that I got as director of the association, was that the fear in the community was palpable. Workers on the road-surfacing squads or in the quarries had young children at home or had a spouse or relative who was vulnerable. They did not want to run any risk. The companies took the right decision, which was that they needed to step back and assess where this was going.

One thing about our industry is that health and safety is the top priority. I would argue that, in the wider construction industry, the mineral sector leads the field in health and safety. To us, the pandemic was another major health and safety issue, in the same way as we need to protect people from dust or while moving machinery. We had to step back, risk-assess and develop new working practices.

The Department realised that there was unfinished work and budgets that had to be spent, and there are many aspects of road surfacing that can be done safely, such as the laying of asphalt or bitmac, particularly bitmac, because you do not have a chipping machine or many people around. Social distancing can be delivered very effectively when laying blacktop or even when patching. When those risk assessments were done, the guys were in touch with the various sections and divisions. The new risk assessments were assessed, and, at our last meeting with the Department, the chief health and safety manager said that the new safe working methods were excellent. Steps were taken to section off and compartmentalise the vans. Each compartment has its own air circulation, which is a change from the early days. A lot of innovation has gone on, such as the use of PPE. I may have sent you copies of the guidance that our industry developed. It has been recognised as some of the best guidance of any business sector.

A lot of work has gone on with the Department to assess risks and the new safe working practices. I talked earlier about feedback: we have been back three weeks, and, generally, there has been no negative feedback.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): It has all been very positive to see men back at work and progressing with contracts. I passed a number of sites on my way here today. I noticed a reduction in the number of personnel on some of the sites, which is part of the changes.

Budget is an issue and will continue to be. The Minister announced some of the projects that she has committed to over the next year, which will be of benefit to you. Setting aside the flagship projects, which have their challenges, such as judicial reviews, we have other commitments such as rural roads and park-and-rides that will require considerable work.

The discussion around multi-year budgets has been going on for a considerable time. Single-year budgets and particularly monitoring rounds set challenges for you. You wait, and then, in a very short period, you have to adapt practice.

Obviously, we are still in that cycle. What notification do you need to be able to complete a project? I think, around this table, we maybe have unrealistic expectations of when works should be carried out and how quickly they should be done.

Mr Best: We have always been of this view, and we have communicated this many, many times. I think that the permanent secretary and the director of roads and rivers, having seen for themselves and visited the production sites and the quarries, fully understand the capital investment that goes into producing the materials and for training skilled workers. There is a need for certainty of budgets going forward so that companies can invest in new plant machinery, in new products and in training and skills.

We have always argued the point that the sooner we get surety at the start of the year, the better. I talked earlier about the need to front-load the budget and get as high as possible an indicative budget at the start. In these times, the likelihood of achieving that £140 million is questionable, but, if you get the budget front-loaded and the money spent during the good weather through the summer and into the autumn, that can deliver as good value for money as that £140 million.

This year, we hope, if money is surrendered in a timely fashion, it could be a good year for roads maintenance, if we can reallocate money into that. We can make a major input into addressing the underspend over the years. If you were a private business and had an asset worth significant millions of pounds and were not properly maintaining that asset, your shareholders would have something to say to you at the annual general meeting.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): You mentioned the specialised construction project delivery unit, and, obviously, that was a recommendation from back in 2012. No doubt, you have had numerous conversations about that. What has been the resistance to it?

Mr Best: I think, in the past, it has maybe just been down to our political system here, where each permanent secretary works with a Minister from a different party in a certain Department. There is an assumption that, by surrendering the right to procure and deliver the construction phase of a hospital or a school, you are somehow losing responsibility for that. That is not the case at all. If it were an Education Minister or a Health Minister, that Minister would still decide when, where and what type of facility you were going to build, but, when it came to the actual procurement and the construction delivery of it, it would be handed over to a specialised expert construction delivery unit that is populated by people from a construction background. That is how it works in the South and in Scotland.

Mr Boylan: Thank you very much for your presentation, Gordon and Simon. You are very welcome. I have three main points to make. Gordon, your industry definitely has an opportunity to kick-start the economy again and to play its part in that. There is no doubt about that.

The structural maintenance budget remains at the same level as last year. Can you dig into a full assessment of that? You mentioned the Snaith report, and we have been going on for a long time about identifying especially the rural roads maintenance programme. Whilst good work has been done over the past number of years, there is still a lot to be done. What is your overall assessment of that?

One of my other two points is about the ROMPPs. I am bit concerned about the opening of quarries. I am not challenging the people in doing that. I think that you mentioned that councils have the powers, and it is just not working. It is not a blame game. We fought very hard and your organisation, through the years, has fought very hard to introduce the environmental standards and has worked to try to get the balance to bring forward those standards. I am a bit concerned about that. With regard to your overall assessment of the number of sites, does that present a big challenge for us around the old sites being opened up and the cross tie with the council on how the council and planning are dealing with that?

Finally, you said about the 4,000 lorry loads per day. I have an interest in the decarbonisation. Will you talk about how we can take that process forward with regard to HGVs? That is my three key points.

Mr Best: With regard to the budget, the £10 million allocated to the rural roads project is excellent. When Chris Hazzard was Minister, he introduced a rural roads fund and that was very effective. That money was spent very quickly and made a big improvement to the condition of many of our worst rural roads. Of 27,000 kilometres of roads, 25,000 kilometres is deemed to be rural roads. It was interesting that the Audit Office report highlighted the fact that the trunk road network condition had improved but the rural road network had continued to decline. There could be an argument about whether £10 million is enough. It will probably need another injection of £10 million in another rural roads initiative before the end of the year.

As I said, roads will always come behind health and education, and we have to accept that. However, we need to look after the network; it is as simple as that. As I said earlier, if we are not maintaining it, it will turn into a reconstruction, which, by all accounts, is about five or six times the expense.

As for the ROMPPs, some of the old sites that have opened up have created a lot of opposition in local areas. The councils have the powers through the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 to act on it. There is a hesitancy, in many areas, around the type of permissions. The records on some of those old sites probably do not even exist. We need a clean slate, to be totally fair. Any of the old sites that are reactivated should have to follow the same steps as any other, whether that is an environmental impact assessment or the application of modern, up-to-date environmental standards. It is about having a level playing field; we are in the business, as a trade body, to ensure a level playing field across the country. We do not have that at the minute. That needs to be addressed urgently.

Mr McDowell: There is not a large number, but the small number creates this unlevel playing field. The compliance cost for the good operators is there, but, for these, it is maybe not there. It upsets the market badly for a very small number.

Mr Best: That is a very important point. I said earlier about the capital investment that goes into running a proper and compliant operation. As Simon rightly said, the guys who open those old sites do not have that, and it is just not right. It is as simple as that, and we need to address it as soon as possible.

I am glad that you raised the point about the decarbonisation. Across the UK, our industry moves about 1 million tons a day. Northern Ireland moves about 80,000 tons a day; that is 4,000 lorry loads. If you parked those together, it would stretch from Belfast to Dungannon. That gives you an indication of the importance of our industry in keeping the economy going. However, that obviously has a major environmental impact in terms of climate change. Transport is around 24% of Northern Ireland's carbon emission figures. We are in conversation with the likes of Phoenix Natural Gas about transitioning to compressed natural gas.

One thing that really excites me is the drive towards hydrogen. There is a real opportunity there for our industry. Most of you know what a quarry is like. We have huge resources of wind and water. A number of our quarries have wind turbines, which is unique in the UK. When we had people from the Treasury over here last year, they remarked that they never saw wind turbines in any of the quarries that they had visited in England. A number of our members have wind turbines, and those are generating about 50% of their energy requirements to crush and screen the stone, but they have to sell surplus renewable energy to the grid at about a third to a half of what they are buying it for.

When the discussion around pillaging came in, we thought, "Here is an opportunity". We have huge resources of wind and water. If we put in electrolysers, we could start to create our own hydrogen. Discussions are going on with plant manufacturers to see how quickly they are moving — the likes of Caterpillar, JCB, Hitachi and all those suppliers of large quarry plant.

You can picture a scenario whereby quarries could become hydrogen hubs in rural communities, using those resources of wind energy and water that we have to generate zero-carbon fuels. Think about the impact that would have not just on our carbon emissions as part of that 24% transport emissions but from us using clean, green energy to manufacture our construction products. Think about what that would do to the carbon footprint of our built environment as well. It is an exciting opportunity. It is in its early days, but we are fully committed to it.

Mr Boylan: You mentioned a forum to deal with ROMPPs. Who do you see as being the players on that forum, apart from, obviously, government?

Mr Best: I see it being similar to the UK. Wildlife and green NGOs would be part and parcel of that forum, as would we, as the industry. There would be others from the construction industry, which depends on our products, and representatives from the Assembly.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Gordon, I have had a conversation in relation to ROMPPs, and I am aware of a site. We have a ridiculous situation whereby planning permission was given for new-build properties on the periphery of a disused site. The site has reopened, and blasting and so on has caused structural damage, and residents have difficulty getting insurance. There is a lack of thought and long-term planning around this. I am very supportive of that review.

Mr Hilditch: Gentlemen, you are welcome to the Committee. It is not often that we have two east Antrim men before us, so you are very welcome indeed.

I would like to start by paying tribute to the industry and the workers in general through a particularly difficult time. The workers in the industry have always been to the fore and, obviously, will play a major part in us getting up and running again as we try to get back to some normality.

You said, Gordon, that planning was, maybe, not working in your favour. As you indicated, we are five or six years down the road from planning going to the councils. It is worrying to hear about your fears of the watering down of the expertise. Is there anything on the periphery that you see in how things could change? Maybe universities could look into potential jobs in that sector if there is a lack of expertise.

Mr Best: As an association, we have not been sitting on our hands on that, Mr Hilditch. In the past, we have been in discussion with the Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA), for example, and the Institute of Quarrying in the UK. The Institute of Quarrying has a mineral planning course that was delivered to planning officers in the local authorities in England. That course was delivered in Northern Ireland back in 2016-17, and we had 31 local planning officers who went through it. The course covers all the aspects of the industry: why it is important, the importance of EIAs, habitats and the contribution that industry can make to biodiversity. That was successful.

I am a great believer that, if people are making decisions on your industry, they are part of it, whether it is on planning, health and safety or whatever. We all have an obligation to make sure that the people making decisions are doing so on the basis of professionalism and competency. We look forward to further discussions with NILGA, particularly about awareness training around our industry for local elected representatives. I know that the Institute of Quarrying is developing an awareness training course to be delivered in GB. From talking to colleagues in the South, I know that this is not unique to Northern Ireland; it is all over.

Mr Hilditch: If it drifts, it will just get to a point of stalemate with backlog after backlog of applications.

Mr Best: That is always a worry. I am aware that the Department has taken steps over the last year and a half to address competency issues in local councils. I know it is working closely with NILGA on that, which is very positive. Hopefully, that will show in the future. Statistics do not lie; as I highlighted earlier, decision times are far too long and need to be addressed. Even at a lower level, we are constantly in conversation with the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) and Roads and Rivers Group about their responses to planning applications. We ask whether the people making the responses to these planning applications have the proper qualifications and experience to do so. If they do not, that slows up the whole process.

Mr Hilditch: I take it that the situation has been even worse in the last three months? There has probably been very little movement.

Mr Best: Absolutely. In the early days, there was the whole issue of people working from home getting access to the planning portal, and that caused a lot of problems. To the best of my knowledge, that has been addressed.

Mr Hilditch: Thank you.

Mr McDowell: One of the issues is that different councils seem to work at different speeds and put on different conditions. Within Northern Ireland, which is a relatively small country, we have members with differing issues through similar planning systems.

Mr Hilditch: Basically, seven different versions.

Mr McDowell: Yes.

Mr Hilditch: Good point.

You also referred to the Audit Office report on the delay in the delivery of capital projects. I know that the Public Accounts Committee — I declare an interest — is currently looking at that and is about to pick it up again after a bit of a break due to COVID. There are a lot of criticisms within the report, and a specialised construction project delivery unit is probably something that, hopefully, will come out of it. Do you feel that the industry, or the sector itself, has something to learn from that report, particularly on late delivery? Does the industry think it can play any part in that?

Mr Best: To be honest, I have not given it much thought. There is always the question that, with many of these delays, industry is responsible for taking legal action.

Mr Hilditch: I was going to raise that.

Mr Best: Exactly. Legal action is not a step which —. As a trade body — I do not want to speak for the CEF, but it will be the same — we have no control over what a private company does. That is its decision. However, looking from the outside in, taking a legal challenge is not a cheap road to go down. In Northern Ireland, we still labour to get a fair, transparent, clear procurement system, and that work continues. Until we get that, you will always get the risk of legal challenge.

Mr Hilditch: You get all these ducks ending up in a row, like the planning delay and the legal delay, and it just all keeps pushing down the road, should I say. You mentioned a fear for the fourth quarter of the year. What is your view of shovel-ready projects at the minute? Are they very few and far between?

Mr Best: There was talk of the A5 maybe kicking off in the latter part of this year. People talk about the big projects, and they are important. However, even the likes of DFI Roads and Rivers small-scale minor works, which are employee-intensive, are critical. Simon and I were just talking about that before we came in. The discussion yesterday at our meeting was that we need to bring forward employment-generating projects in the short term, because we are going to hit a rough time come the autumn. As I said earlier, the industry is back, completing work that is already there and for which planning permission had been obtained. How many builders do you see at the moment opening up new brownfield sites? They are finishing their old sites. I was talking to an estate agent last week. There is a great fear out there because of the threat of redundancies and job losses. People are hesitating.

Mr Hilditch: Is there some sort of worry, come the autumn and winter?

Mr Best: There certainly could be.

There is another issue around insurance. I cannot say definitively whether it is a direct effect of COVID. In the likes of trade credit insurance, the Treasury has had to step in to give a £10 billion guarantee. There are a number of underwriters whom many people see as acting unscrupulously. People ask whether there is a new breed of people in the insurance industry who have lost the plot and do not realise that risk is their business. It seems that a lot of people in the insurance industry do not want to price risk. For example, suppliers in GB are supplying people here, who then pass on materials to contractors, particularly in the construction and engineering sector. They are being hit with their credit terms being wiped. A company in Northern Ireland may be asked to put money up front before it supplies a contractor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has had to dip into its reserves to keep the company going. On the trade credit issue, there is a real risk developing that the rug could be pulled from under any green shoots that could come out in the short term because of this. This is maybe one for MPs. Pressure needs to be put on Government to make these underwriters, who are underwriting the risk for the construction industry, stand up and do what they are supposed to.

Mr Hilditch: Just one final point, then. You mentioned the supply of lime for water and sewerage. A lot of this sort of stuff is under the radar of the layperson on the street. Can you tell us a wee bit more about the supply of the lime to the water industry?

Mr McDowell: For Northern Ireland Water, mainly hydrated lime is supplied. You take calcium carbonate, burn it and add water, and you create a hydrated lime to change the pH. The producer of hydrated lime is in Carlow, in the Republic of Ireland. That product is brought up and used by Northern Ireland Water for pH correction. That is one of the main ones.

Mr Hilditch: Is that the only supplier of it?

Mr McDowell: There is only one supplier in the island of Ireland. You can either bring in a truck from England or buy it in Carlow.

Mr Hilditch: That is an interesting point. Thank you.

Mr Best: For 25 years, our industry and association have been wanting to highlight making the link and the essential nature of our industry, and I think that this crisis has made people realise that supply cannot be assumed and that our industry is a key. We were on the Department for the Economy's essential activity list, which I think is reflective of that.

Mr Beggs: Again, I pay tribute to your members and to their responsible actions. I agree that there are key areas that you produce that people take for granted. Toothpaste, food additives — there is a wide range of products that are required to meet the consumer's requirements.

Going back to the planning legacy issues, a degree of unfair competition was highlighted that allows the irresponsible old quarry to be reopened and undercut the other quarries that are operating to higher environmental standards. Can you illustrate the sort of short cuts that can occur or the damage to the environment that results from such old legacy quarries reopening? What sorts of things are happening there?

Mr Best: It all stems from the application of proper, modern environmental standards on water management, dust management, screening, operating hours and visual impact — the normal stuff that you get with modern planning.

Mr McDowell: Fuel bunding.

Mr Best: Fuel bunding is an example. That type of thing.

Mr Beggs: You indicated that there has been a dilution of specialist knowledge with the decisions going to each council. Is it because of a lack of expertise that some of the councils may be reluctant to take action, because they do not perhaps know their powers as well as they might do if there were a specialist unit? Do you think that having a specialist unit would help — a concentration of expertise in this area?

Mr Best: I certainly think that a specialist unit would help in that it would have knowledge of the industry and knowledge of environmental requirements — for example, the habitats directive. It would help with general experience. It is like any role, Roy. If you are confident in what you do, you will make a decision. People who are not confident or do not have enough experience in what they do will delay or will pass the buck to somebody else. That is the problem.

Mr Beggs: You referred to a mineral planner. Does the Northern Ireland Civil Service have a mineral planner?

Mr Best: Minerals policy — responsibility for mineral planning — has been handed over to the councils. Now, I have to say that we have had excellent engagement with the councils, particularly around the areas of safeguarding and identifying future reserves and identifying proper policies going forward. That has been very positive. This is not just a problem in Northern Ireland, but, to the best of my knowledge, there is no officially qualified mineral planner. I think that the last one we had was Geoff Harbinson back in the 1990s, and Geoff is retired now. It is an issue in GB, and I know that the industry in GB is taking it up with the likes of universities and organisations such as the Royal Town Planning Institute. It is critical. We are a supply sector to the country and to the economy, and it is vitally important that we have competent people in key decision-making areas. At the end of the day, the country depends on these supply chains.

Mr Beggs: Finally, as Mr Hilditch said, the specialist construction project delivery unit is an issue that is coming up in other Committees, and there is a push towards this direction. What are the benefits to your members of having such a unit, and what benefits do you see to the public purse?

Mr Best: The obvious benefit is speeding up delivery to reduce delays. Delays cost money. I would like to think that a specialised unit would procure and deliver in a way that would reduce the likelihood of legal challenge, therefore you would save money in that regard.

Mr Beggs: Some have indicated that, if there was a specialist unit, there would be more consistency in tendering, and tendering costs would go down and legal challenges might go down. The risks to all involved would go down. The safety margin does not have to be built in for those tendering, so the cost to the public purse might go down. Does that ring true?

Mr Best: All the points you make ring true. I am sure that this Committee or the Public Accounts Committee could look at the costs of delivery for Northern Ireland compared with regions such as Scotland and the Irish Republic, which have a centralised delivery agency.

Mr K Buchanan: Thanks, Simon and Gordon. You referred in your document to the Lough Neagh sand decision coming up. Moving on from that, you referred to CDE Global, in Cookstown, manufacturing sand from waste. What is that materialising as percentage-wise? Is that a new technology? How far developed is it, and is it actually out there?

Mr Best: CDE is a local company. It was one of our first affiliated members in the early 2000s. It has developed into a world leader in resource efficiency and circular economy. I would recommend anybody to get in touch with the company and see its headquarters. It is more akin to Google than something in the engineering and minerals-related sector.

CDE is a reflection of the engineering skills that we have in this part of the world, particularly in mid-Ulster. Around 60% of quarrying, concrete and recycling plant and equipment in the world is designed and manufactured in County Tyrone. CDE has developed that expertise around the world. It has introduced screening and washing systems for waste. Companies in Australia, for example, use CDE plant to mine old landfill sites for copper and other metals. Thirty or 40 years ago, we were throwing away TVs, radios and things like that. It supplies equipment to the mining industry in South Africa. When the technology was not available, diamond and gold mines had huge piles of overburden. Now, with that new washing technology, they get nearly a 2% return on the diamonds and gold from simply washing that material. In South America, CDE supplies equipment to copper mines etc, where, traditionally, they built up big tailings dams. We heard last year of the disaster in Bolivia, where a tailings dam burst and killed a significant number of people. Its equipment and technology is now reducing the need for tailings dams by about 90%. That is a wonderful technology, and the centre of it is here in Northern Ireland due to our engineering skills.

That technology has an application in Northern Ireland, and a lot of companies now wash waste material. There is a concern about the shortage of sand around the world. A lot of companies here wash the dust that they create in quarries to make what is called "concrete sand". In one case — I do not want to mention the company's name, but it is in County Tyrone — 30% of the aggregate extraction in the quarry is now dust, and 30% of that material is sand derived from the dust.

It is all due to the new technology. For example, it means that the company will not need to buy a new site as their sandpit was exhausted. The industry is using a lot of innovation for resource efficiency.

Mr K Buchanan: Simon, you referred to the 160 extraction sites. I do not want to take the ROMPPs issue much further, but are those sites inclusive of the 160, or do you just keep an eye on 160 sites? Are the other sites over and above the 160 figure?

Mr McDowell: We have 160 members. The other sites are not members. Honestly, you can count them on one hand.

Mr Best: I am dealing with about five sites.

Mr K Buchanan: It is a small number, but it can still be a problem.

Mr Best: It is a small number with a big impact.

Mr McDowell: It is a big problem.

Mr K Buchanan: You referred to the A5 project and the materials that will go into that road. How can that happen if fill is coming from those unregulated sites?

Mr Best: I was going to raise that, and it is a good point. A lot of it comes down to the way our construction industry works in Northern Ireland. Over the last twenty years, construction has developed to the point where some main contractors are just project managers, and they subcontract everything. If a main contractor is given a job, he subcontracts the earth moving to somebody and they subcontract the supply of stone someone else, the main contractor has no clue about where the aggregate comes from. For example, a couple of years ago, work was done on the railway line between Coleraine and Derry — the section at Bellarena, which was opened by the Queen. I contacted the company that was doing the work, because the aggregate was coming from a reactivated quarry that the council had an enforcement notice on. The company was not aware of that. To be fair, they took action straightaway, once they became aware. That has happened on a couple of occasions. I pay tribute to those contractors for taking action, but the system is wrong. I come back to the need for responsible sourcing requirements to be inbuilt in every public sector contract. It is not rocket science for a project manager on a construction site to ask for copies of the delivery dockets and to check where the material comes from when a lorryload of stone comes onto the site.

It is a construction procurement requirement that all concrete going to public sector jobs in Northern Ireland has to come from a quality assured site. Again, it comes down to asking for the docket to check where the concrete came from. It is easily done, particularly in this day and age, when a lot of information is online. It comes down to monitoring where materials come from. As I said, we look forward to the start of the transport hub and to see how adherence to the responsible sourcing standard is met.

Mr K Buchanan: Thank you.

Ms Anderson: I hope I am not too loud. Am I OK?

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): You are fine.

Ms Anderson: Simon, I want to pick up on something you said in today's briefing, and I went back to a previous briefing that the Committee received on 18 May. Given that two of the major problems you face are Brexit and COVID, I am surprised that the Committee has not had a written briefing from you. I would find it helpful to receive a written briefing from you on the implications of Brexit.

You mentioned the long-term supply of quarry products and the 5,000 people. Cathal, Liz and I — I am sure that the other parties are doing the same — have had meetings with different sectors. There is widespread dissatisfaction at the insufficient time being given to plan and prepare, given that the clock is ticking towards the end of this year, to get their systems in place to deal with two different VAT systems, customs declarations, a harder border and border posts in the Irish Sea.

Have you fed in your concerns about how all of that will impact on your sector to the Minister and the Executive?

Mr McDowell: Thank you. That is a good question. I will ask Gordon to answer that.

Mr Best: Martina, you are probably not aware, but I have been part of the Northern Ireland Business Brexit Working Group, chaired by Aodhán Connolly. One reason why I am on that group is that we, as a construction materials industry, depend very much on supplies into the GB construction market, and quite a lot of precast concrete and high-quality aggregates go across the Irish Sea into Scotland and the GB market. Long-established supply chains have been developed over the past 34 years that are now in grave danger, and we have depended on the backload principle, which, I am sure, you have heard of many times. The competitiveness of our construction materials supply into the GB market depends on those supply chains, and, obviously, the increased friction across the Irish Sea that will be created for our agri-food sector and other sectors is a real threat to the competitiveness of our industry. We have already seen Stena Line and P&O reducing sailings, and that will result in increasing costs etc.

The other big concern that we have — it is one of the things that I keep raising at the group — is the need not to forget about the labour and human aspect of Brexit. That includes issues such as mobility of workers and recognition of qualifications, and that has been somewhat lost in the debate at the minute because of the discussion about goods. Rightly, that is taking priority at the minute, but, as Stephen Kelly, who you know well as a good colleague of mine, keeps saying, we need clarity, we need mitigation and we need compensation. Clarity, I think, is critical at the minute, and you are probably all aware of the paper that the business group produced last week. I am aware that further discussions are taking place. We are concerned mainly about that supply chain and how the frictions that will affect the supply of goods across the Irish Sea will then impact on the goods that are going the other way into the GB market. I hope that that clarifies it for you.

Ms Anderson: Yes. We have heard a lot about unfettered access from here into the British market. That will have its own complications as it unfolds, particularly for trade at the other end and traders feeling that maybe there is unfair competition.

Leaving that aside, you talked about the paper that has been developed. We know that the majority of the parties in the Assembly are calling for an extension, as are Scotland and Wales. In the time that is left, given what you will face and what you are already suffering because of the difficulties that we know that COVID has caused with the backload, have you been quite strong in firming up your position? Is there a uniform view in the group that there should be an extension? The clock is ticking, and it will be almost impossible to have not just your industry but all trade that takes place across the Irish Sea prepared and ready and able to deal with the impact of what is coming at them.

Mr Best: I cannot speak for the others on the group, but most people to whom I have talked said that they would like an extension. I do not want to delve into politics here, but the reality is that the Tories will get it through Parliament. I do not think that there is anything that we in Northern Ireland or the Scottish or Welsh Governments can do to stop that. Our priority at the minute is getting clarity for our members so that any who are involved in the export of materials across the Irish Sea can make decisions that will benefit their business.

Ms Anderson: We know that it will happen. There will be two VAT systems, and there will be customs declarations. On the customs declarations, we were hoping that, if there were to be an extension, all of that would resolve itself, because the last thing that we want is a crash-out Brexit. We know that there will be border posts to facilitate checks. It is about the industry being prepared for that, because none of those will go away. There may be lesser degrees of application, but the implications are there, and we have known that for a long time. I do not want to and am not trying to drag you to one political side or another. It is just that it makes sense for an industry to try to be prepared for all of that.

Many people hear what you say about a crash-out Brexit, and we need more people in Europe to understand that view. Of course, the Government have a majority, and it will go through Parliament, but it is not the majority view of the sector here. We need the kind of appeal that was made in the past to Europe, which was heard very well. It was about ensuring an all-island economy, ensuring that the Good Friday Agreement was protected and ensuring that there would be no hard border on the island of Ireland. We need to make sure that the concerns of the industry are heard there as well, and I am sure that Stephen Kelly and others are doing that.

Mr Muir: For the record, I declare that I was —.

Ms Anderson: Sorry, may I ask just one more question? It is difficult not being there, Chair. I know that I am not making it easy for you, but I have one question on roadworks. How much did the road maintenance work have to adapt to COVID-19? Has the work slowed due to taking the necessary precautions? Last week, we had a briefing about money for the A6 having to be surrendered because of COVID. What provisions were put in place or have been needed for PPE for the workers who continued to work and the workers who are coming back on stream?

Mr Best: Martina, I said in my presentation that most road construction companies voluntarily withdrew their services when COVID-19 hit because of their concerns — the uncertainty over COVID. They wanted to allay the fears of their employees. Basically, old risk assessments and old working practices were ripped up. New ones were developed and have been agreed with the health and safety arm of the Department. As I said earlier, as an industry, we have developed guidance for our members and for their employees. There are many different aspects to road maintenance. In certain parts of it, social distancing is very easy because it mainly involves men being in machines. In other areas, such as handling and footways, people move close to one another, albeit for very short periods, and that is where the need for PPE comes in.

I do not think that any other industry or sector in construction leads in the way that our industry does on health and safety, and I certainly have not heard any negativity over the last three weeks. In fact, I have been out on a couple of sites and spoken to workers. They are content that their views and concerns have been taken on board. Let us all hope that we are not too far from coming out of this. Many tributes have been paid, and rightly so, to many workers involved in delivering essential services. Our members have also been working over the last couple of months, delivering essential supplies to farming, utilities and other essential services. I pay tribute to them as well.

Ms Anderson: I would add our tribute, and you should pass that on. What you have said is reassuring.

I have a final question on the recommendations from the Audit Office report. Are they being taken forward?

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Can you make that question more specific?

Ms Anderson: The briefing mentioned the Audit Office report and its recommendations in relation to delays. I have heard that other Committees are dealing with this, but I just wonder whether the recommendations have been taken forward. Is the industry working on those recommendations, as well as the Department?

Mr Best: The report talks about the need for multi-year Budgets, which we have been calling for. That decision has been made. All Departments, particularly the Department of Finance, now recognise that the Audit Office report, the Barton report and the Snaith report all say basically the same thing: we have a valuable asset, and we need to look after it within the budget that is available. The fact that the Department front-loaded its budget over the last three years is evidence of the commitment to do all that we can to ensure that, within the resources that we have, we maintain the network and the asset to the best of our ability.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Thank you. I am sorry, but I will have to move on. Three other members have questions, and we are limited for time.

Ms Anderson: OK. Thank you.

Mr Muir: For the record, I declare that I was previously an employee of Translink, I am a former member of Ards and North Down Borough Council, and my stepfather is the quality manager for the A6 project at Dungiven bypass. I think that I have declared everything.

I agree that the infrastructure that you have put in place is not just for vehicles; it is also for cycling and active travel. It is important that that is understood. We discussed the potential impact of Brexit, which should not be underplayed. It will have a significant impact.

I have a couple of questions. Has resurfacing work in urban areas been in any way impeded as a result of the social distancing requirements? It is likely, and I am hopeful, that the UK Government will bring forward a stimulus package in the autumn. That is what we hear. Barnett consequentials will arise from that, and there will be a monitoring round in October. To what extent is your industry ready to deliver on the projects should the money be forthcoming in the autumn?

Mr Best: You make a critical point about Translink and public transport. We supply Translink with materials such as railway ballasts and concrete sleepers. As I said earlier, public transport also depends on the materials that we supply. The COVID-19 experience has highlighted the need for a green recovery, and we hope to play an important role in that.

Sorry, what was your other point?

Mr Muir: The infrastructure is used for cycling as well, which is important to understand. Cyclists are going along roads that are not in a great state. They are quite dangerous.

My question was how social distancing requirements have impacted on works in urban areas.

Mr Best: You are absolutely right. When we were discussing this at the start of the return to work, concerns were raised in the industry, and additional measures had to be put in place.

For example, we now appoint a COVID-19 officer in a squad for traffic and pedestrian management, particularly on housing estates, to make sure that people follow the allocated pedestrian routes and do not come on to the roadworks or into closer contact with work personnel. Extra resources have had to be put in.

To be fair — I should have said this earlier — I pay tribute to the Department for its support for the industry during this time. When the procurement guidance note for devolved Administrations came out from the Cabinet Office, DFI quickly sent out a letter to the industry about supplier relief. We are working with the Department at the minute to identify areas in which additional support is required. Additional resources have had to be applied in urban areas to ensure proper social distancing, with a focus on interaction with the general public.

Mr Muir: Has some work been unable to proceed because of the requirements?

Mr Best: I am aware that, in the early stages, a couple of specific projects were delayed until the challenges around them were looked at in depth, but, as far as I am aware, those then went ahead.

Mr Muir: I mentioned the October monitoring round and Barnett consequentials. Will you have the ability to progress projects at pace?

Mr McDowell: The industry has capacity at the moment, but this goes back to what the Chair said earlier. If we could have consistent spend over 12 or 24 months, that would be better value for the taxpayer. There is capacity today, however.

Mr Best: I have used this argument consistently over the years. Members will remember a couple of years when we were down to £50 million or £60 million. We had to lay off part of a skilled workforce. We are now in a situation in which we are up at a £75 million or £80 million indicative budget. As I said earlier, it is like keeping the pump primed. If we operate at that level now, and in the next couple of months the Department comes to us with an extra £20 million or £30 million, it is very easy for the industry to gear up, because we are at a certain capacity. When we are at a very low capacity, it is almost impossible to gear up. Indeed, that is reflective of the resources that the Department has. Remember that people in the Department have to put the schemes together, develop the works orders and deliver the schemes. It is not just about the resources in the industry but about the resources in the Department.

Mrs D Kelly: Thank you very much for your presentation. May I go back a wee bit and ask about apprenticeships? I was wondering how the apprenticeship levy rolls out across the industry.

Mr Best: That is a very good question. You are probably aware of our position on the apprenticeship levy. We are very sceptical of it, owing to its origins. It was a back-of-a-cigarette-packet job before the election. In Northern Ireland, apprenticeships were working well at the time, but the levy threw a spanner in the works. The frustration of the industry at that time was that the apprenticeship levy was coming back, unhypothecated, in the Barnett consequentials. There was no real evidence, yet companies here and many parts of the public sector were paying money in but were not seeing the detail.

It is something that we are very focused on, Mrs Kelly. Our industry has a very high age profile, and we are carrying out a survey, which we do every couple of years, on the age profile. This time, we are also looking at diversity in the industry. We want to increase female representation. We work closely with the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and the like of Work+, with Richard Kirk. A number of our members, particularly in the roads sector, have taken on road maintenance and highway engineer apprentices.

Mrs D Kelly: From what I hear across the sectors, the apprenticeship levy is not delivering. The Economy Minister and others, particularly given the recent news, are focused on how young people will be the most adversely impacted on by any oncoming recession. Some verbal commitments have been given about the industry working alongside further and higher education. What engagement, if any, has your sector had in that debate?

Mr Best: We are part of the built environment sector partnership (BESP), which is facilitated by CITB, and we have been part and parcel of an apprenticeship review that is going on at the minute. We also have good links with the South West Regional College (SWRC) in particular. We work regularly with the college, particularly on the areas of engineering and the decarbonisation agenda. It is a difficult one, because, traditionally, the nature of our industry is that we are up early in the morning and home late at night. It is hard work, in all types of weather.

Mrs D Kelly: I know.

Mr Best: Given the choices that young people have now, we have a challenge. That is important, and it is one of the reasons that our executive committee is totally committed, as Simon says, to improving the image of the industry and to improving investment in technology.

We have to change as an industry. We are now looking at artificial intelligence. On the engineering side of the industry, our precast sector, which now comprises the three largest precast manufacturers in the UK, has a relatively low age profile, because it uses CAD technology, is office-based and is all about off-site construction now. The core of the industry — road contracting and the quarrying and extraction end — still faces a challenge to attract young people.

Mrs D Kelly: I know of some who have gone to England with logistics degrees and all sorts of things, and it is the much higher salaries that seem to be attracting them. If you had a particular ask of the Committee, what would it be?

Mr Best: On the planning front, grants. On the procurement side of things, it is about the single delivery unit. On an ongoing basis, it is completely about recognising the importance of our industry to the economy, given that it covers so many aspects, including housing, leisure and sport. It is about supporting us in future to attract young people into the industry and to promote the decarbonisation agenda, which is critical. Government in Northern Ireland purchases 45% to 50% of all the materials that we produce. There is a real potential incentive there to ensure that materials come from responsibly sourced sites and that rogue operators are stopped from competing against responsible operators.

Mrs D Kelly: That is something that we might take up with NILGA and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) and their enforcement officer teams.

Ms Kimmins: Thanks, Chair. Before I start, it is important to note that you are chairing the meeting. It is very disrespectful of Committee members to tap their watch at the Chairperson to hurry along a member, particularly when that member is not even in the room and other members do not take their own advice. I just wanted to make that point. I am happy to wait until it is my turn to make my contribution. Each one of us has the right to make our points, and members need to be aware of that.

Thank you, Gordon and Simon, for coming today. It has been very informative. This is my first time meeting you both, and a lot of the points that I was going to raise have been covered. I want to ask about planning. We would be very supportive of a review of planning, because there are issues to address. I come from a council background, so I am well aware of them.

Other than the points that you have made, is there anything in particular that you as an industry would like to see come out of a review?

Mr Best: Mineral and waste planning is a shared service. We do not really take anything to do with waste. Those are two specific types of planning. The number of quarry applications each year compared with the overall number of applications is very small. The applications can be controversial at a local level yet are vital for the economy's supply chains. That goes back to my point that we need to improve the knowledge, experience and competency of the people making those decisions in councils or in any agency.

Ms Kimmins: We talked about delays and barriers to larger applications. Given that there has been almost a complete stoppage of construction etc, would an extension still be useful at this stage, coming out of COVID-19, for planning applications that are due to lapse or that have not been able to get off the ground? I have mentioned that to the Minister on a number of occasions. What is your view?

Mr Best: Other sectors have raised that issue. Processes in many other areas, be it MOTs or training, have had to stop during the pandemic. It is right and proper that extensions should be given.

Mr Hilditch: We have talked a lot about regulations and the ROMPPs issue. I will turn that around a little and be a gamekeeper turned poacher. I was dealing with an issue locally last autumn where one of your well-known companies was dumping in an unlicensed landfill site. It then came to light that a local council was doing so as well. What should that company have been looking for? What is the process? The company should not have just turned up at the site without somebody telling it. Should there not be some verification of documents?

Mr Best: Absolutely. As an association, we will not stand by any member that steps outside the law. They have to take it on the chin. If any member goes against our policies or the core values of our articles of association, there are procedures in place for that member to be suspended or chucked out.

Mr Hilditch: Yes, but there are regulations around that. There is a paper trail for doing it legally.

Mr Best: I would have thought so.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Mr Boylan, you can ask a very brief question and get a very brief answer.

Mr Boylan: I will be quick, Chair. The witnesses do not even have to respond. Gordon, you mentioned the audit report, and one of my colleagues talked about it. The three key points that came up were multi-year Budgets, procurement processes and planning. Especially for the major capital projects, I am sure that you are keeping a focused eye on those three points. I wanted to raise that.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): A final comment?

Mr Best: We greatly value the opportunity to come here today. It is always good for us to keep you abreast of what goes on at ground level in the industry and, as I said at the start, for us to have regular communication with departmental officials so that things are done efficiently and we continue to deliver value for money.

The fact of the matter is that the Department still gets the best value for money out of construction materials of any region in these islands. We look forward to that continuing over the coming years.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): I thank both of you very much for coming this morning to present and take questions. I value the communication that we have, and hopefully that will continue. You have raised points that we will follow up on. Thank you very much.

Mr Best: When the COVID-19 pandemic is over and social distancing is a thing of the past, I would like to invite the Committee to one of our modern sites to look at some of the innovations that are going on and to check on how we are getting on with the decarbonisation and energy transition agenda.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): We look forward to that, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.

Mr McDowell: Thank you for your questions. I was impressed by them, and they have given us some food for thought. When we go back to our members, we will have more discussion.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Thank you very much.