Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I welcome the representatives to the meeting to brief the Committee. Good morning to Rod Cappell from Aquaculture NI; Bram Verwijs from Premier Seafarmers/Emerald Mussels; and Raymond Mairs from Glen Oak Fisheries. You are very welcome this morning. I invite you to provide your briefing to the Committee, please.

Mr Rod Cappell (Aquaculture NI): Thank you, Chair. Good morning, and thank you for inviting us to give evidence on the Bill. I am Rod Cappell, facilitator for Aquaculture NI, and I am representing Northern Ireland's fish, shellfish and seaweed farming businesses. I am joined by Bram Verwijs, a mussel producer, and Raymond Mairs, a trout producer, who will give their views on the Bill.

In 2024, Northern Ireland's fish and shellfish farmers produced over 4,000 tons of food worth £13 million and employed more than 80 people. Those figures are slightly down on previous years, mainly because of reduced mussel tonnage, which Bram can go into in a moment. When we last briefed the Committee in February 2025, we said that DAERA and its agencies were regulating the sector in isolation, disproportionately and without a policy to support sustainable growth. That remains the case, and I draw the Committee's attention to Mowi's letter, which was submitted as part of our evidence pack. It gives a very worrying insight into the unacceptable delays that operators face in the Department.

We hoped that this once-in-a-generation Bill would help to address the problems by providing legislation that is fit for purpose. Instead, producers believe that it will worsen the situation. They engaged with DAERA's co-design process, but that focused only on Part 5 of the Bill, "Aquaculture Licensing". Unfortunately, most of the concerning provisions lie outside that Part and relate to inland fisheries and the expanded departmental powers and penalties. Those issues were not addressed in the co-design process. DAERA intends to align Northern Ireland's inland fisheries policy with the UK Fisheries Act 2020, which is a marine-focused Act that gives little detail on how the numerous objectives will be delivered. Uniquely, Northern Ireland shares freshwater catchments with an EU member state, and not accounting for that risks creating a two-tier system. The Bill repeatedly seeks to manage the negative impacts of fish and aquaculture activities, yet shellfish and seaweed farming have proven, positive ecosystem benefits. That should be actively encouraged. I invite Bram to give a statement to illustrate that.

Mr Bram Verwijs (Aquaculture NI): Thank you. I am the fifth generation of our family seafood business, which was founded in 1880. Today, we farm mussels and oysters in five countries and process over 20,000,000 kg of shellfish each year, most of which is mussels. I manage those farming operations, including our Northern Irish operation, which was established in 1990.

Northern Ireland has substantial potential to produce more mussels, support coastal employment and attract investment, but far too little of that potential is being realised. The benefits extend beyond food production and employment. The 2026 Seafish report on bivalve ecosystem services estimates that, currently, our farm in Belfast lough removes over 50 tons of nitrogen and around one ton of phosphorous annually. [Interruption.]

Those findings reinforce earlier modelling by Northern Ireland Water that showed that farmed mussels make a significant contribution to controlling excess algal growth in Belfast lough. Mussel farming can therefore complement pollution-reduction measures while producing food. Policy should explicitly recognise that contribution.

With reliable seed supply and sustainable management, Northern Ireland's 2,000 hectares of bottom mussel ground could make it the second largest producer of bottom grown mussels in north-western Europe. Based on our farming experience, annual production of 15,000 tons is a realistic ambition, but that is more than 10 times the recent average.

The main constraint is seed supply. Until around 10 years ago, the industry could rely on the Northern Irish mussel seed fishery. Since then, that supply has gone from unreliable to effectively non-existent. Fewer surveys are carried out, results are less transparent and industry-led surveys are not permitted. As security of supply has deteriorated, farmers are left with less information and fewer opportunities to locate seed. Relying on seed from abroad leaves Northern Irish aquaculture exposed to more risk and uncertainty. Changes to fishing access, seed allocations or export policy can prevent us from stocking our beds or, as we experienced in 2024, from accessing supplies altogether. Local production, jobs and investment should not depend so heavily on another country's policies.

Floating mussel seed collectors offer a proven alternative that has been used successfully for decades, including in our operations elsewhere. They collect seed in the water column for transfer directly to mussel beds, reducing and, potentially, eliminating reliance on fishing wild seedbeds. Different DAERA policymakers have told us that that is exactly the direction in which the industry should be heading. It is therefore difficult to understand and deeply frustrating that, after four years of licensing discussions, there is still no clear path to commercial operations. Traditional supplies have disappeared, yet the alternative that we are encouraged to pursue remains stuck in trials and licence applications.

The Fisheries, Aquaculture and Water Environment Bill does not do enough to unlock that opportunity. Updating licence definitions and transfer arrangements does not resolve licensing delays or create a duty to support sustainable aquaculture development. The Bill requires an inland fisheries policy statement, but it has no equivalent aquaculture development policy statement. I ask the Committee to secure a duty for DAERA to prepare, publish and implement an aquaculture development policy statement covering marine and freshwater aquaculture with specific commitments for bivalve farming. That policy statement should set a measurable development objective for each sector; prioritise a secure domestic supply of mussel seed; recognise ecosystem services; and establish a clear route from trials to commercial operations. Licensing must have clear decisions, timescales, adequate resources and accountability to this Committee. We support robust environmental assessments and proportionate regulation. We also need DAERA to take responsibility for enabling sustainable development. Northern Ireland has the ground, the expertise and the businesses that are willing to invest. The Bill must help to turn that potential into production, jobs and environmental benefits.

Mr Cappell: Thank you, Bram.

Our freshwater trout producers also depend on and help to maintain good water quality. They are suffering from pollution caused by other human activities. An ecosystem-based approach, which is referenced multiple times in the Bill, should address the collective pressures of all activities, not just single out aquaculture. The Bill's sustainability and national benefit objectives rightly mention economic, social and food security benefits, but those aims are not reflected in the operative provisions of the Bill. The Bill risks regulating freshwater aquaculture out of existence.

Chapter 2 greatly expands the Department's regulatory powers, while Part 4 extends fixed penalties to aquaculture licence offences: neither was discussed during co-design. No evidence has been provided that additional powers with a more punitive regime for aquaculture are needed. Giving wider powers to a Department that already regulates aquaculture disproportionately is deeply concerning.

Part 5, on aquaculture licensing, offers little substantive reform. Just renaming the fish culture licence an aquaculture licence and routing freshwater and marine applications through the marine licensing system may help DAERA but does not remove requirements, accelerate decision-making or reduce uncertainty for applicants. It is more likely that transition to aquaculture licences will cause further delay and see inland fisheries trying to introduce unworkable conditions, as Raymond has experienced. I will ask Raymond to make his statement now.

Mr Raymond Mairs (Aquaculture NI): Thank you, Rod. Good morning. My business is called Glen Oak Fisheries. We have been in business for over 50 years as a small family business in Northern Ireland. We operate from sites in Crumlin and Kilrea. We employ six people directly, but more than 20 rural jobs in processing and transport are included, and we export most of our produce to GB, Ireland and mainland Europe.

On the co-design process, freshwater producers operate very differently from marine operators. We own permanent sites. We have planning permission. The councils and the DOE have issued licences through planning for us to operate our sites. As Rod said, the marine licensing team has put in place a new licensing regime, which was not discussed, and claims to be the planning authority to cover all of that; that is arrant nonsense, yet that claim exists in writing. Furthermore, we live on-site and our staff live on-site. We are classified as agriculture in planning terms.

Trout producers were invited to join the co-design process for the Fisheries Bill. I say "Fisheries Bill" because the water environment component was not added until our co-design process had been completed. We were told that the Bill would contain only primary legislation, with details from the Fisheries Act (Northern Ireland) 1966 being moved to secondary legislation. We were told that the Act was much too complicated and that the Department did not want to make the same mistake with the Bill. The discussions covered only streamlined licensing, and we were told that later legislation for abstraction licensing, discharge consents, animal health regulations etc really meant that the fish culture licence served no purpose and was redundant. Inland fisheries and the water environment were excluded from the discussions, and despite the sector's extensive knowledge of the water environment in Northern Ireland, going back literally decades, it was not even a subject for conversation.

The proposal to remove the freshwater fish culture licence requirement remained until days before DAERA published an amended consultation response. In my briefing notes, I have given you a curious timeline for that. The Bill's contents were not disclosed until June 2026, which means that we have had little time to deal with what is in it as opposed to what we thought was going to be in it. It is very different.

A fish culture licence requires both parties — the vendor and the purchaser — to give 28 days' notice to the Department. That is written as a condition in fish culture licences in Northern Ireland. As you can see from the Mowi submission, however, the Department is delaying and refusing that notification and other requests to deal with it. That has gone on for 18 months, not 28 days, with no reasons given. The Bill would allow the Department to require an application, assess the transferee and change licence terms without a deadline, which is completely disproportionate to how we would look at moving our business on. If I wanted to sell my business, the Department would control whether it wanted somebody to take it over. It would determine whether my business was profitable or whether somebody could even buy it at the end of the day. That is overreach.

Assigning freshwater aquaculture to the marine licensing team compounds the problem. In my submission, you will see exactly why. During the consultation on the Fisheries Bill 10 or 12 years ago, the Department acknowledged that it lacked the staff, the skills and the knowledge to implement many of the proposals that it put forward at that time: nothing has changed.

On the inland fisheries side, although sector compliance is high, producers experience excessive regulation and frequent, unnecessary inspections, particularly from Inland Fisheries, whose staff are up for knocking on your door at 2.30 pm on a Sunday to have a little chat with you on more than one occasion.

In the Bill, the Department seeks sweeping additional powers, despite concerns about its capacity and expertise. More worryingly, we have no confidence that the additional powers will be used fairly or proportionately, because correspondence from the Department frequently quotes legislation and leaves a key word or phrase out of the contents, and that completely changes the purpose and the meaning of what is being said. However, with or without a draft Bill, there are some things that need to happen. An inland fisheries policy should be developed and introduced in tandem and be compatible with an aquaculture development policy. It is strange that, in the 60 years since the Department was enabled to promote, develop and sustain aquaculture and fisheries, a Bill has never been produced. Again, that is odd.

Decisions by the Department need to be time-bound and relevant. In every other sector, the application process for planning has the ability to deal with things on a time-bound basis. A shellfish producer, who is not here today, made an application and got a decision 15 years later — 15 years. How do you run a business? How do you invest? How do you bring investment into Northern Ireland, if the people who want to come here are not given the opportunity to have a timely decision? It makes things impossible, but maybe that is what it is all about.

Licensing should be proportionate and provide aquaculture with a level playing field. It is unfortunate but noticeable from the two versions of the Bill that were produced earlier this year that the level playing field element was removed. I wonder why. I have probably said enough.

Mr Cappell: Thank you, Raymond.

In summary, the Bill is missing an aquaculture development policy. There is a commitment to an inland fisheries policy, but there is still no commitment to an aquaculture development policy. A genuinely streamlined licensing process is needed, and that is not evident in what is presented. Recognition of the environmental benefits of aquaculture is not present; there is mention only of negative impacts. We have waited 60 years for the new revision, and there should be future-proofing. Land-based aquaculture is a huge growth industry, and there needs to be enough flexibility in its definitions and the terms to enable that. We know that Northern Ireland is well placed to grow marine and freshwater aquaculture: it has disease-free status, it has access to UK and EU markets and it is less exposed to marine heatwaves and droughts that are affecting producers elsewhere.

Realising the potential requires a clear signal that Northern Ireland is open for sustainable aquaculture investment. In summary, the Bill does not deliver that, and we cannot support the Bill in its current form. We also note that the regulatory impact assessment that was undertaken in May 2025 examined a materially different draft of the Bill and failed to assess the effects on aquaculture businesses. A new, comprehensive regulatory impact assessment is required before the Bill proceeds. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you for your presentations this morning. You have answered my first question, which was about why the current proposals fail to achieve the objective to streamline aquaculture licensing. You have suggested where those need to be corrected and given your opinion about how to streamline aquaculture licensing.

Your submission recommends the inclusion of the aquaculture development policy. What elements would you expect such a policy to contain, Rod?

Mr Cappell: As we mentioned, licensing is just one element. In other countries, they have provided genuine support to encourage aquaculture development. They have helped to identify areas that are more suitable and could have a fast-track process for licensing aquaculture development. They also have genuine support for and promotion of sustainable aquaculture development. The word "support" is used frequently, but we do not see that support in practice. Those are definitely such areas.

When it comes to licensing and streamlining that process, accountable and time-bound decision-making processes need to be in place. Nothing in the Bill removes any requirement, and there is no commitment to making time-bound decisions. As Raymond and Bram said, it is difficult to encourage investment when those potential investors do not know when a decision will be made and there are constant delays.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you. That is noted.

Mr Mairs: It is not apparent that the Department has any staff engaged in the process. Unless you put staffing resources into how you will take forward and develop something, it will not happen.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I think that the intention in the Bill is to give an overview of what it is about. We can certainly take evidence on and ask about the resources that are needed to support the work of the Bill. Thank you for that.

You also stated that the Bill does not adequately provide for land-based aquaculture. What amendments are required to future-proof the legislation for land-based aquaculture?

Mr Cappell: The Department amended and updated the definition of aquaculture, because it realised that the definition did not include, for instance, seaweed farming, which has huge growth potential. Northern Ireland already has a seaweed producer, so that in itself did not stop the sector from developing and growing. Quite rightly, it has addressed that.

Defining aquaculture as being something within marine, coastal or inland waters does not recognise that aquaculture is increasingly land based. There needs to be a new definition and a recognition that what is being proposed for inland and marine aquaculture developments is also appropriate for land-based developments.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I will open the floor to Declan, the Deputy Chair, to ask any questions.

Mr McAleer: Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much for taking the time to brief us and for providing a helpful and informative written briefing.

Rod, you said that you cannot support the Bill in its current form. Have you collectively considered any key amendments to the Bill that you would like to see? Hearing about those would help us in our deliberations.

Mr Cappell: Absolutely. Certainly, we want a commitment to an aquaculture development policy. We had discussions with DAERA officials, who stated their intention to develop an aquaculture policy. We keep stressing the word "development", because it should be about the sustainable growth of the sector. Our concern is that, without the Bill containing the same commitment to an aquaculture development policy as there is to the inland fisheries policy, DAERA could change its mind, as we saw with licensing, meaning that it does not happen or go forward. We do not really see why there should not be an equal commitment to aquaculture development policy and the inland fisheries policy, which is a stated commitment in the Bill.

Mr McAleer: What would be the key components of an aquaculture development policy?

Mr Verwijs: As I mentioned, one of the key components in our industry is the source of seed. The source of seed exists in the wild mussel seed fishery, which takes place in the Irish Sea on both the Northern Ireland side and the Republic's side. That seed fishery has been reduced because of multiple new regulations that came in over the past 20 years. The regulation concerning the movement of alien invasive species was a major one. Therefore, the source has been reduced over the past 20 years, but that is not unique to Northern Ireland; that has happened throughout Europe. There is no movement to work towards a new source of seed, even though technically those new sources of seed would exist if they were to be developed in the same way that they have been developed elsewhere.

When we propose in a licence application or any other form to move to a new form of seed source, it is never done in balance with what source of seed we once had. Compare that with, for instance, the Netherlands, where we also farm mussels. The wild seed fishery was source of seed as well. There was a realisation from government, NGOs and industry that that was not a sustainable source for the future. A development policy and, later, a covenant was written in 2008 to phase out the fishery and to develop an alternative seed source from 2010 to 2030, which will be in fours years' time. That is taking place, and the source of collected seed in Holland is now 90% more sustainable. For that, a long-term policy is needed. Now, we put in a licence application, which is purely tested on navigational and direct environmental impacts. It does not take into account that, were we to go ahead with the new source of seed, it removes a lot of wild fishing practices and, therefore, a lot of pressure on the external environment. You need a broader policy to bring all that together.

Mr Cappell: We talk about aquaculture all the time, but, as you are hearing, the needs of the mussel sector are quite different from, for example, the needs of the trout and oyster sectors, so an aquaculture development policy needs to recognise the specific development needs of each subsector. As Bram set out, that seed supply is critical there. On the trout side of things, it could be about ensuring sustainable freshwater supplies. Across the board, there are cross-cutting issues such as climate change mitigation strategies to enable each subsector to thrive. A development policy would look quite different depending on the subsector dealt with, but it can be encompassed with an overall aquaculture development policy.

Mr Mairs: As I said, freshwater is very different from marine. We own the sites. We get planning permission, but, in getting planning permission, consultations take place. Therefore, we will have made an application for a discharge consent, an abstraction licence, an aquatic business and health regulation support. Who decides on consultation whether a project should go forward? Therefore, a policy needs to have a clear statement to the 11 councils as well as to the Department as to the direction of travel of future policy.

As Rod indicated, land-based aquaculture has moved on significantly since it was started, which was basically taking some water out of a river and putting it through a pond and so on. You are looking at multimillion-pound land-based recirculation hatcheries. As an indication of how far that technology has moved, 10,000-ton land-based salmon production facilities are being built in Miami and in Saudi Arabia, where they control the environment completely. That is land-based and not related to the broader environment because it is self-contained, and it is where massive investment is taking place at the minute. In fact, when I say millions, hatcheries being built for the salmon sector run into hundreds of millions for a single facility, because that is the opportunity.

Aquaculture took over from fisheries in terms of fish protein about 10 years ago. With wild fisheries being reduced, aquaculture is the only future source of fish protein for the whole world.

Why has that not happened in Northern Ireland? I do not know — well, I do. Northern Ireland used to lead what was going on in the UK. In the seventies and eighties, we were considered to be a model of how the aquaculture sector had evolved and developed. There were people who were interested in taking the sector forward. We retained disease-free status, because we realised how important it was. The sector did that with the support of the Department; it was not the other way around.

There are tremendous opportunities here, but we are being held back. Every time you look at it, you see regulation, regulation, regulation. If you are a family business and you are concentrating on regulation, you are not concentrating on making any investment. Unfortunately, we have had situations in which major investment was planned for Northern Ireland but the investors went away. That is why the Mowi letter is so significant. A major organisation with a site in Northern Ireland wants to know how to develop that properly and has all the resources to do so, but it cannot get even a single name change for the same person in a different limited company after 18 months. It is mad.

Mr Wilson: I want to tease out that delay. It seems bizarre for something like that to take so long. Maybe you cannot say it here, but what is the sole reason behind such an excessive delay? It is surely not a good look for the Department for such a straightforward thing to take such excessive time.

Mr Mairs: The Department has been reorganised to a huge extent. As I understand it, the marine licensing division covers all forms of marine licensing, which include harbours, cables, dredging and navigation. I am not sure whether the Department has the resources and the skill set to take that under its wing. Its throwing aquaculture licensing into the mix means, basically, that people are not paying attention. They do not have the background knowledge, which people might have had in the past, to take a view and say, "There's no problem here".

A licence was issued on 5 January 2025 to a named person who operated with a particular limited company. Months later, that company was purchased by a second company, and the same person put in an application to be the responsible person. That is an administrative job that would take somebody a week to do. On the licence that was issued on 5 January last year, a specific condition requires that, for the transfer of the licence, which is a legal responsibility of the person whose name is on it, the vendor and the purchaser, or the transferor and the transferee, simultaneously write to the Department, giving it 28 days' notice of who the new responsible person is. The condition does not do anything other than that, but, for some reason, the people in the Department who are trying to make a decision are blowing it up into something completely different and, to be honest, confusing themselves.

Mr Wilson: What is behind their reticence? What reason do you detect for their expanding that?

Mr Mairs: The reorganisation of the Department is such that it operates by committee. It does not operate with a front-facing individual. Despite the fact that, probably about a year ago, we were told that we would have a point of contact — a name, a telephone number — that we could go to for answers, that does not exist. As producers, we are actively encouraged not to contact individuals in the Department and told that contact should be via an email to a general email box, which somebody will pick up. It does not make for good governance.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): That is the purpose of our being here this morning.

Mr Mairs: In reality, aquaculture has dropped between the cracks in the floor.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you, Raymond. The Committee's purpose is to take evidence and to listen. It is important that we reflect the evidence that we receive. Thank you for that.

Mr T Buchanan: You mentioned the general email box and said that you cannot get to talk to a person. Have you had face-to-face meetings with anybody from the Department about your concerns?

Mr Cappell: Yes. One of the benefits and requirements of having Aquaculture NI is to provide that link between operators, who are quite often resource-stretched, and the Department. I provide that link. I meet individuals in the Department, and they attend Aquaculture NI meetings to update us on various things. It is the transactional elements that seem to be missing. It seems that, when there are actual decisions to be made, either there is not the resource within the Department to deliver that decision on time and as expected, or there is a lack of policy to inform them of what decision they should be moving towards. There are other elements within the Department that would be happy to put the brakes on aquaculture development. There are multiple reasons why those things do not happen in the time available, but it is deeply frustrating for the operators.

Mr T Buchanan: Is there a lack of confidence amongst staff to make a decision? It seems that the delay is in the decision-making. Is that down to a lack of confidence of the staff?

Mr Cappell: I think so. As well as that, there is probably a reticence to make a decision, because, as soon as someone says yes, they have put their head above the parapet to be noted and shot down. To be honest, it is easier to prevaricate and not make a decision than it is to make a decision either way.

Mr T Buchanan: Where a decision would previously have been made by one person, it is now going to seven, eight, nine or 10 people.

Mr Cappell: Yes, and without having an aquaculture policy to refer to in order to say, for example, "OK, there's a presumption towards sustainable development", they can look at multiple other policies and say, "OK, well, let's think about these elements", and not actually make a decision.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Your recommendations could be included in amendments to the Bill further in the process to ensure that the provisions are prescriptive and put in place to develop a aquaculture development policy.

Mr Cappell: Absolutely. Like I said, we have had, and continue to have, discussions with DAERA. We try to maintain a constructive relationship with DAERA in order to move that forward. DAERA has commented that it intends to get a policy together. We have seen multiple changes to the Bill as it has been drafted, and we do not know why it is not stated in the Bill but that instead there is to be a policy statement. For safety's sake, it would be best if it were in the Bill.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much.

Mr Mairs: On the subject of confidence in the decision-making process, it is interesting to note that, in March of this year, following an aquaculture group meeting, the people from the Department who had attended provided a written document setting out the Department's position. That indicated a process whereby the response to the consultation from last year was taken to the Minister, to the Executive and, in February, to this Committee. That confirmed in writing from the Department, on 9 March 2026, that, going forward, there would be no requirement for a fish culture licence for freshwater farms. Somebody changed that later, but nobody has ever come back to our group to say why that was done, and nobody has ever explained who made the decision. To get a briefing note from the Department after it had been to the Minister, the Executive and this Committee, and for it then to be changed, makes it seem as though somebody feels that they are more important than everybody else and that they have made a completely different decision. We do not know who made the decision, but it was certainly not what we were told it was.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): We will take that on board, Raymond. There are no further questions. Thank you very much for coming in and presenting to us. We have your evidence, which we will use as we scrutinise the Bill and look at what amendments can be tabled. We appreciate your contribution.

Mr Cappell: Thank you.

Mr Verwijs: Thanks for your time.

Mr Mairs: Thank you very much.