Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I thank Jason Foy for staying with us, and we also have Ms Audrey Henderson, grade 7, area-based schemes operation policy branch at DAERA. Would you like to give us your briefing?

Mr Jason Foy (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): Thank you for the opportunity to brief the Committee on the regulations, which will be made under the negative resolution procedure.

The regulations make three minor technical changes. First, regulation 2 simplifies the existing regulations concerning the quality assessment framework that we apply to our land parcel identification system (LPIS). That is the mapping system that we use to determine the fields that are being claimed for payment, the field boundaries and the eligible areas in each field. As an EU legacy, the current regulations contain a lot of specific details on how the assessment must be carried out. That no longer fits with our current schemes and our reformed land eligibility rules, and therefore we intend to simplify the requirements whilst retaining the overall requirement to annually assess the accuracy of our mapping system.

Secondly, regulations 3 and 5 bring about the same amendment to transfer responsibility as competent control authority from the former Department of the Environment and the Health and Safety Executive to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. That brings the regulations up to date with existing practice.

Thirdly, regulation 4 extends the deadline for applications to transfer payment entitlements from 2 May to 15 May, to align it with the deadline for single applications. Although we did not undertake a formal consultation on the change, we discussed it with the Ulster Farmers' Union and the Agricultural Consultants Association, and both organisations are fully in favour of the change.

I apologise to the Committee for some drafting issues in the statutory rule (SR) before you. They have been corrected for the final version to be made. They relate to the dates inserted for validation purposes and one word that was incorrectly omitted. It does not change the meaning of the regulations or the amendments in any way.

In summary, those are the three minor technical changes to the regulations that bring them into line with current and future policy. Audrey and I are happy to answer any questions the Committee might have.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Thank you so much. I have just one question. The briefing states:

Is the methodology currently under development? If so, is there anything more you can tell us about it?

Mr Foy: Yes. Our intention from 2026 is to make all agricultural land eligible for payment except hard features. The methodology as prescribed in the current regulation does not fit with that. We are required to identify and measure ineligible vegetation, which will not be ineligible in the future. Therefore, we are changing the regulation to align it with a simpler set of rules for land eligibility, and the regulation does that. However, it still requires us to undertake the annual assessment of the system's accuracy.

Mr McAleer: Jason, I welcome the industry's welcome of the extension of the transfer window. Out of curiosity, if transfers come in very close to 15 May, will the Department be able to turn them around in time so that farmers are not penalised for late submission of their single application forms?

Mr Foy: Yes, the transfer of entitlements and the single applications are separate. There is no penalty for late applications for transfer of entitlements; they just cannot be accepted in law after the date. For the past number of years, we have had an online transfer system that has accounted for at least 97% of transaction volumes going through the Department. The transfers are done very simply by farmers or by auctioneers and agents. That system is available and will be available right up to midnight on 15 May.

Mr McAleer: If a farmer wants to activate entitlements in the same year as they are transferred, is that possible, even if it is very close to the deadline?

Mr Foy: Yes.

Mr McAleer: In the past, the LPIS had around 750,000 land parcels across the North: is that still the case?

Mr Foy: Yes, it is. What is claimed for payment is around 936,000 hectares, but we have other land parcels in there to make sure that we prevent farmers from claiming land that is not in agricultural use. There are probably around a million hectares, all told, in the system.

Mr McAleer: Thank you, Jason.

Mr McGlone: This may be a nerdy question, but how is that done? Is there satellite involvement?

Mr Foy: Yes.

Mr McGlone: Do you liaise with Land and Property Services (LPS) on land ownership?

Mr Foy: No, we do not liaise on land ownership, because it is not a requirement of our schemes for land to be owned. Who owns the land is not really a factor for us.

We work closely with LPS on the mapping technology that we use. LPS gathers the orthophotography for us. We refresh LPIS for a third of Northern Ireland every year using a sophisticated digital camera on an aeroplane. We supplement that with satellite photography. For quality assessment, we take a sample of fields and check the photographs to see how accurate they are. We use sophisticated software to do that assessment. It is performed for us by the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), which means that the Department is not marking its own homework. We require a bit of technical expertise, which AFBI has, to do the assessment and give us the result each year.

Mr McGlone: That is grand. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Good question, Patsy.

Mr Irwin: At a recent meeting, we were informed that a large number of farms, perhaps 4,000, would be deemed "inactive". Those farmers will have to sell or move their entitlements before the 2026 scheme year. There is new land coming in, of course, but I am concerned that it could be difficult for those people to sell or transfer their entitlements in time. They have a short window in which to do that.

Mr Foy: They have the opportunity to transfer their entitlements at an early stage, if they wish, like any other farm business. We are extending that by two weeks. This year, we will launch the single application and the entitlement transfer service together on Monday 3 March. That is our intention. Farmers have 10 weeks or so in which to make transfer applications online, but arrangements can be made through auctioneers significantly in advance of that. That is just the facility to put through the transaction. Farmers can make arrangements through auctioneers or agents to transfer their entitlements long before that. We intend to write to those businesses as early as we can to afford them the maximum time to make whatever arrangements they see fit as a farm business.

Mr Irwin: I suspect that some of those farms will want to appeal the Department's decision. They will claim that they are still active and that you are making the decision that they are not active.

Mr Foy: We are making a decision that they are not entitled to the farm sustainability payment on the basis of historical information from, I think, 2020 and 2021. That is on the basis of factual information. They have no crops, for example, declared on the single application, and they have no animals in their business. It is really on a very factual basis. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that there is some error in a change in the way a business was structured at a given time. If a business thinks that we have made that determination on the basis of incorrect information, we have plans for a rapid review of those cases rather than having to go through a full review of the decision process.

Mr Irwin: I suspect that there will be those who will want to contest that.

Mr Foy: It will be interesting to see on what basis those challenges might be made. We have plans to deal with them if they arise.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Are there any further questions on this matter? No.

Thank you very much for your presentation and for your attendance.