Members of the agriculture committee at Stormont have refused to green light a change to cross-compliance penalties, despite the issue being brought to them by DAERA for the second time in the last number of months.

At the end of November 2024, following a briefing from DAERA officials, a majority of members had voted against an amendment of regulations which would have reversed changes made by previous Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots.

In 2022, Minister Poots had decided to put a 15% cap on penalties for someone with repeated negligent breaches of cross-compliance rules. To that date, a farmer with a number of negligent breaches of the rules ran the risk that it would be deemed as intentional, thereby potentially attracting much higher penalties of up to 100% of farm payments.

“This is a much fairer approach to our hard-working farmers,” the former DAERA Minister said at the time.

However, the change drew criticism from the environmental lobby and last summer, Minister Muir confirmed he planned to reset the penalty regime back to how it was.

Low numbers

At a committee meeting in November 2024, Dr Jason Foy from DAERA revealed that the new penalty cap for minor breaches affected just 35 farms in NI during 2023. Of these, just three related to rules about the protection of waterways.

At the time, no members, – bar John Blair from the Alliance Party – supported the legislative change.

Despite that, the same legislation came before the committee last Thursday for approval, when it was met with the same response.

“I want to note that we did raise concerns at the last meeting, which don’t seem to be taken on board,” west Tyrone MLA, Declan McAleer, said.

“The department should have gone back and reflected on this,” added mid-Ulster MLA, Patsy McGlone.

Substantial fine

Newry and Armagh MLA William Irvine pointed out that a 15% fine is still substantial in many cases.

“There already are stiff penalties in place,” he said. “It’s not the department, it’s the minister who is behind this. We won’t be supporting it as it stands.”

Countering that view was John Blair, who argued that the legislative change was simply reinstating a position that prevailed until 2022.

“There are those of us who unashamedly believe that fines should be more substantial and more regular. I believe we need to get tougher on environmental actions because of the state of our rivers and waterways,” he said.

Following the vote last Thursday, a prayer of annulment was to be tabled by the committee chair, Robbie Butler.

It effectively means that if Minister Muir wants to press ahead, the legislation will have to go before the Assembly chamber. Given the opposition from all other parties, the Minister is unlikely to be successful.