Stormont-funded report warns about big business unduly influencing energy policy

Academics from the University of Exeter interviewed serving civil servants and staff at public sector bodies as part of research which had been funded by the Department for the Economy (DfE) – the department which oversaw the RHI scandal – as part of its planning for a new energy strategy.

Their 53-page report makes several radical proposals, including the creation of a new department to handle energy matters. But it is in the body of the report that concerning claims are contained.

Dr Richard Lowes and Professor Catherine Mitchell said they had been told that DfE was not “seen as a competent authority on energy matters” and that “frankly, one person explained ‘when you see things like the RHI debacle you can see how bad policy can really have far reaching consequences’.” The academics went on: “Concerns were also raised that because of the perceived lack of leadership, it may be easy for companies to slow or influence the introduction of policies which could affect them with ‘building’ companies and ‘agri-food’ mentioned specifically.

“One interviewee suggested that this issue may become particularly acute if the energy transition requires policy ‘that the industry might not like so much’. The relatively small nature of the NI energy policy community was also suggested to mean that ‘vested interests have a more direct line into government and can make things more difficult if they are against something’.”

The RHI Inquiry revealed how Northern Ireland’s biggest private sector employer, agri-food giant Moy Park, had extraordinary access to government and was receiving inside information on a preferential basis not only from Arlene Foster’s then special adviser, Andrew Crawford, but also from civil servants.

The academic report said that one interviewee had told them: “The people who are ministers and in government don’t have the expertise. They listen to experts and the experts they are listening to are people who are currently employed in industry”.

Elsewhere in the report, the academics quote someone telling them: “It’s a fiendishly complicated set of governance relationships to try and do anything quick and easy” and another person said that policy around heating buildings was “an unholy mess in Northern Ireland”.

The report said: “There has been no reform of energy governance since before 2010 and while NI is working towards anew energy strategy for 2020 onwards there are currently no live strategies or targets despite considerable change in wider UK policy over that time, including legislating for a net zero target at the end of 2019.”

DfE closed the RHI scheme to new entrants in 2016 and is now attempting to throw out of the scheme all those who remain as claimants, even though their payments have been slashed to a fraction of those in GB and the Republic of Ireland. The academics highlighted that “no polices currently exist to promote new renewable and low carbon energy capacity in NI”.

Stormont should create a new department – the Department for Climate and Energy Transition – to handle energy, the University of Essex report recommends.

The academics accepted that their proposal “may seem extreme” but said radical change was necessary because of the extraordinarily complex way in which energy policy was spread around various Stormont departments and bodies.

Curiously, they suggested the department could be “a fully new department or should be formed from an existing department” – something which by definition would not be a department. New departments can be created by the First Minister and deputy First Minister bringing a bill to the Assembly.

The academics highlighted that the strategic objects of the Department for the Economy include the promotion of gas – but not decarbonisation or climate change.

DfE said it would “consider the findings as part of the wider evidence base when developing the new strategy” but that “it would not be appropriate, at this stage, to comment on the views presented in individual reports”.

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