Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I welcome the following officials from the marine and fisheries division and invite them to brief the Committee: Colin Armstrong, deputy director of marine and fisheries division policy and legislation; Kelly Mills, deputy director of marine and fisheries operations; and Stephanie Bennett, principal scientific officer and head of marine licensing branch. Feel free to brief the Committee.

Mr Colin Armstrong (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity to provide the Committee with a briefing on the marine licensing clause in the Administrative and Financial Provisions Bill. I am joined by Kelly and Stephanie. When we get to questions, they will be able to provide answers on some of the more operational matters of the marine licensing system.

I will build on the background. We briefed the Committee on the policy proposals in November 2024 and provided a written briefing in March of this year. I will provide a recap of some of the context for the marine licensing system and its purpose. It is provided for in part 4 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and performs a very important role in our regulation of activities in the marine environment. It therefore supports sustainable development within the Northern Ireland inshore region. The types of activities that we regulate and that need a marine licence include the construction of jetties, extensions to marinas, dredging and the installation of coastal infrastructure. Other activities that are associated with the sea, such as fishing, do not require a marine licence because they are regulated by other means, and equivalent authorisation systems are in place that mean that they do not need to fall under the marine licensing system.

The context for this and the reason for our starting to look at the policy proposals is the increasing interest in the marine area and what it is used for, particularly its use for renewable energy, and the types of marine activities — their nature and their scale — that will be needed in the future to meet our climate change objectives and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the marine licensing system, it will be important to have an effective and properly resourced marine licensing team in DAERA to support achievement of the Executive's target of generating 1 gigawatt of offshore wind from 2030 onwards. Significant infrastructure projects, such as offshore wind projects, require a greater staff resource. Our Department's engagement with those projects and the various developers that will be involved in them commences at a pre-application stage. Therefore, significant work is involved before we ever get to the point of an application being made for a marine licence.

As highlighted in 2024, when we undertook the review of the marine licensing fees and first looked at the powers that we had, we identified that the fee-charging powers did not reflect the full scale of all the services that we provide. Those are things such as pre-application advice, environmental impact assessment, screening and scoping; then, when you get into the post-consent stage, the monitoring of compliance with conditions and any scientific monitoring, as a result, post consent, to ensure that conditions are being complied with; and then any applications to vary, suspend, revoke or transfer a licence. We did not have the powers to charge fees for those services, and, again, that takes up a significant part of the work that the marine licensing teams have to undertake.

I turn to clause 16, which proposes amendments to the Marine and Coastal Access Act to provide DAERA with fee-charging powers, which have already been provided to the other marine licensing authorities that use the Marine and Coastal Access Act. Those powers are, therefore, with the Secretary of State for marine licensing in the English waters and in the Secretary of State waters and with Scottish and Welsh Ministers. The amendments will enable the Department to charge a reasonable fee for the services and ensure that we have a more sustainable and efficient licensing system. That is very important, as we highlighted in the review of marine licensing fees in 2024, in that it enables us to comply with the principles of 'Managing Public Money', which states that, with some exceptions, fees for services should generally be at cost.

The insertion of section 67B will give DAERA the same power as that taken by Welsh Ministers to enable DAERA, as the licensing authority, to provide advice or assistance to prospective applicants before they make a formal application and then also to charge a fee for that. Examples of the types of activities that are currently provided free of charge include pre-application advice through meetings, travelling to sites, any work associated with site visits and attendances at them. That all takes a significant amount of time. For a large, significant infrastructure project, it is very time-consuming, and we cannot recover the cost for it.

I move to the amendment to section 72A. That gives DAERA the power to charge for monitoring activities authorised by marine licences, assessing or interpreting any of those results, and then dealing with any variations, suspensions, revocations or transfers associated with those licences. Those are all after a licence has been granted, and, hence, under our existing legislation, we are unable to charge a fee for that.

The amendment of sections 107A and 107B gives DAERA the power to require an applicant to pay a deposit on an account in respect of fees that are paid and gives the Department a power to recover any unpaid fees as a civil debt. That is important as it gives the Department an option — many of these things just give the Department an option — to require an advance payment before any of the marine licensing services are provided.

Finally, the amendment to section 108(2A) makes a very important provision to give a person a route to appeal any of the notices that are made against them. It is important to include those provisions in it.

It is important to emphasise that these are enabling powers. Subject to the Bill progressing through its stages, the Department will undertake a review of our marine licensing fees again, similar to the review that we did in 2024, to look at the new powers that would then be available to us and what the reasonable fees should be. Those would then follow the normal policy development and regulation-making processes. They would be subject to stakeholder engagement and, again, coming back to the Committee at the appropriate stages in the policy development and regulation-making processes and undertaking all the relevant impact assessments for each of the subsequent secondary regulations that would be made.

That is a brief overview of the clause. I hope that we will be able to answer any questions that will help you with your consideration.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Thank you so much, Colin. I will use my power as Chair — it makes me feel really important — to go slightly off-piste, if you do not mind, while I have you in front of me. I will return to the clause in a second, but we have a letter in our tabled papers from a community group in Donaghadee, which you may be aware of. I will ask for your guidance on it. Some of the Committee members from that area will be interested in this, because it is in the space of marine licensing orders.

The background is that the group meets once a year and runs horses on the beach with small structures. It has had help from the Department to fill out the licence applications. The group makes what seems to be a reasonable ask of the Committee to consider whether an amendment to the existing legislation would be possible. I will not go into the detail, but I will share it with you. It is a small community group that runs a once-a-year event, and it has been told that it needs to apply for a licence for that event. The group has asked for an exemption. Has the Department considered exemptions for such things in the past? I know that the legislation dates from 2011. Has such an exemption been screened out previously, or would the Department be open to it?

Mr Armstrong: I am aware of that letter. We received correspondence from you, and we will prepare a response to you on it. I saw exactly what the group was setting out. It really demonstrates the approach that is provided in the Marine and Coastal Access Act. The Act provides for a licence or, in some cases, exemptions that can be made. We last reviewed the Marine Licensing (Exempted Activities) Order (Northern Ireland) 2011 in 2022. Before we could add an exemption such as that, there would have to be a further review of the order. It is about finding the balance and deciding at what point, at what threshold and on what criteria an activity should be regulated. It is important to have those safeguards. We will come back to you in correspondence to set that out. That example sets out the nature of the marine licensing system when it comes to setting fees and setting exemptions. There are opportunities in regulations to decide where the reasonable place for regulation or what a reasonable fee should be.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I totally get that. It is about finding the balance between not stifling a community good that would probably bring immeasurable benefits and having oversight. I am happy to return to that, if that is OK. We will communicate with you. I am glad that you have seen that correspondence and are aware of it. I appreciate that.

I will move to your presentation. At this stage, has DAERA established whether, if clause 16 were enacted, any new resource would be required for DAERA, or does the provision exist in DAERA to manage that?

Mr Armstrong: The Bill will not require any additional resource, once the new power that is proposed, which is just an enabling power for fees, comes into effect. DAERA will not need any additional resource to use those powers. They will provide us with scope, for example, on significant infrastructure projects and projects that require significant pre-application advice, to start to improve the revenue that comes back in and to use that, possibly to have more people working in a marine licensing team, because we can recover the costs. The powers will allow us to balance the budgets, but no additional staff will be needed to use them.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): OK. In the same vein, the Department states that its aim is to deliver a more effective marine licensing service by increasing its cost recovery. That absolutely makes sense. Is the aim to see a measurable improvement in the service that is provided, or is it simply to balance the books?

Ms Kelly Mills (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): Potentially both, in that we would like to be assured that we have officers available to provide the service. At the minute, we provide it — for example, we provide a significant pre-application service — but we do not recover any cost. Even variations can take a great deal of resource. It is about prioritisation of the resource. Potentially, the powers will give us a revenue stream that will allow us always to be able to provide an effective and efficient resource and to be available. At the minute, because we do not get a revenue stream from that but we charge for marine licences, marine licences are the priority. However, we could get a lot of benefit from pre-application discussion (PAD) advice, for example.

It is about what we do going forward. We do not anticipate needing many more staff for that. It is about cost recovery to a significant extent, but having those powers would assure us that we will be able to provide that resource.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Has the green energy division quantified the number of anticipated applications for marine licences for, for example, wind or tidal energy? Is there expected to be an increase in the number of applications? That would mean that resource would be even more important in order to back that up?

Mr Armstrong: We are certainly expecting to achieve the 1 GW offshore wind target. A number of companies are engaging in pre-application, but there is no licence yet for anything, and there will not be in the immediate future, but the preparatory work has commenced. As those applications progress from the preparation stage to the licence stage and then on to the consenting stage, there absolutely will be new work. We can see that coming, so we need to do the preparatory work so that, once the applications are in, we are ready to deal with them and move them through to the consenting process.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): This question is again slightly off-piste. There is something rattling around in my head. We have just had a session on the Dilapidation Bill. I have a concern that a company will come in, make its application and start its works by driving big piles into the sea, only then, all of a sudden, not to deliver on the project through leaving something standing. This may be outside your vires, but have you any idea what the Department would do in that scenario, where a bond is paid and the licence fee is recoverable? Is there anything in the Bill about the length of a project? It is OK to get the licence to enable the works to take place, but what happens if the project collapses halfway through? Are there powers in the licence to address that should it happen? I get that it is an obscure question, but what happens if derelict infrastructure is left in the sea.

Mr Armstrong: There was a duty, and there will be a duty, to decommission and remove infrastructure in order to leave the sea as it was. Work will be taken forward on that at some stage with our colleagues in the Department for the Economy, which will have some responsibilities there. We need to tease out fully the decommissioning process. Is there anything general happening in marine licensing about that?

Ms Stephanie Bennett (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): We have to consider it, but no fees are yet linked to decommissioning.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I am thinking about the example of road bonds. If someone wants to break a kerb so that a vehicle can cross a pavement, a bond is held until the kerb is reinstated. If used well, that is a system that we should be using. It could be picked up through the licence fee. We have lots of investors that will make a good case for what they will do, and what they will do for all of us, but, inevitably, we are sometimes left holding the baby. Licensing is the place in which to do it. That may be something that you can investigate. The Department for the Economy might be looking at it, but if you could also investigate.

Mr Armstrong: There is work being done, although I do not have my lines on it with me. We have been in discussion with the Department for the Economy about decommissioning and having a decommissioner of last resort. If it will be helpful, we can come back to the Committee to provide a wee bit of clarity on that.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I would appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Mr McAleer: In your presentation, Colin, you spoke about charging reasonable fees to ensure that there is an effective licensing system. How are reasonable fees determined? Moreover, is there a possibility that such fees could deter people from applying for the necessary licences?

Mr Armstrong: The approach that we took in the previous review of setting marine licensing fees was to do some benchmarking. We looked at exactly what it was costing and at the staff resource cost of the marine licensing team and compared those with the equivalent fees that the other marine licensing authorities applied and what was paid for the equivalent consenting regime in Ireland. We did benchmarking as well. That was the approach that we took. It was the exact same approach that we would take to setting a reasonable fee if the new powers are provided to us.

Mr McAleer: That is fine.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Do members have any other questions?

Ms Murphy: I have a quick one, Chair, about the new powers. I note that, in the presentation, comparison were made with GB and the Republic. In the South, the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority (MARA) is the body responsible. How do the new powers that DAERA is proposing compare with the existing powers in the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021 in the Republic?

Mr Armstrong: I have not done a complete analysis of the contrast in fee levels. The approaches are broadly similar, but, given that the system in Ireland has been set up more recently than the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 came into effect, there will be some differences. I would need to get a bit more detail on exactly what level of fees are applied in the Republic of Ireland. That is the sort of stuff that we will be doing when we get to the stage of reviewing the regulations and the fees.

Ms Murphy: That is OK. You can perhaps come back to us in writing. It would be great to have that information. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): There are no further questions, so I thank you very much, and thank you for taking the curveball question from me. It turned out to be a good question, if I do say so myself. Nobody else is going to give me praise. Thank you very much for your time.