Good morning. Thank you for the invitation to speak at this excellent event. It is an honour to be here among so many people dedicated to protecting and improving the environment.
Now, more than ever, it feels like there has been a change in urgency for those of us passionate about doing better for the environment. An ever-growing recognition that a healthy environment is essential for our health and future prosperity. Increasingly, we are challenging ourselves to be the ancestor that our children and future generations would want us to be. That our legacy is one of environmental recovery, of turning the curve back to abundance, and away from a path of deterioration and irrecoverable loss.
Much is being done, which fits with this growing sense of public expectation that there must be change. But the challenge is great. Change is hard. But it is essential.
There is an opportunity here, now, for Northern Ireland to reset its relationship with nature. To harness that public mood and deliver tangible change that works for the environment as well as for wider society and the economy.
The Office for Environmental Protection may be a relative new-comer to this scene, but from day one, we committed to playing our full part.
Our remit covers England and Northern Ireland, and I am based most of the time at our office in Worcester. I have become a regular visitor to these shores since the Assembly gave its approval for us to be the independent environmental oversight body here. About a fifth of our staff live here in Northern Ireland and they have made sure that all of the OEP leadership team have been able to get out to see the range and diversity of the landscapes and to experience the strength of connection of the people here to the land. This is a unique and special place and protecting nature here is so important – in terms of biodiversity, the fight against climate change, and to people’s health and well-being.
But we all know that all is not well. Our recent assessment of the drivers and pressures affecting biodiversity concluded that we are asking too much of the environment. The pressures, from multiple sectors and sources, are unsustainable.
More must be done to protect these landscapes if we are to turn that picture around. The OEP has a role to play, as does everyone here today. I would like to take this opportunity to briefly introduce us, our role and our work.
A Brief Introduction to the OEP
We were established under the 2021 Environment Act. This put in place four cornerstones for environmental governance:
- Environmental Improvement Plans, or EIPs, which set out how a government’s in England and Northern Ireland intends to improve the natural environment;
- In England, but not Northern Ireland, there are statutory targets, to which that government is legally committed, and which set the specific states and timelines for improvements to be made. We have called for the EIP here to include comprehensive targets for each of the six Strategic Environmental Outcomes and for consideration to making targets legal commitments;
- an Environmental Principles Policy Statement, or EPPS, to which all public authorities must have regard when making their decisions; and
- us - the Office for Environmental Protection, to oversee and make sure that this new system works.
Our mission is to protect and improve the environment by holding governments and other public authorities to account against environmental laws and commitments. We pursue this mission through a number of functions, including:
- Independently reporting on government’s progress towards delivering the EIP alongside advice on how progress could be improved as well as monitoring environmental states and trends;
- monitoring and reporting on how well environmental law is working and delivering in practice;
- receiving complaints about pubic bodies compliance with environmental law, investigating and where necessary enforcing compliance through the Courts; and
- providing advice to government on new environmental laws and more broadly when asked.
Our focus is on the strategic, systemic level issues, we do not seek to address every complaint directly, we prioritise those areas where the risk of harm to the environment or to people is the greatest and where we think our involvement can make the biggest positive difference.
We were empowered to start work in England in January 2022 and in February 2022, the Northern Ireland Assembly gave its approval for the OEP to become the independent environmental oversight body for Northern Ireland too.
We have been busy. There is much to do.
Establishing the OEP in NI
We started by building the knowledge, expertise and capacity we need here in Northern Ireland. We have not built separate Northern Ireland and England teams, we have built one joined up organisation that delivers for both Northern Ireland and England. So far, we have recruited 15 excellent staff here.
In taking this approach we can make most efficient use of our resources to benefit both regions, while remaining sensitive and responsive to their differences. Each region requires its own approach, but there is much that each can learn from the other.
I would like to take some time now to talk about some of the work we have undertaken through the functions I mentioned earlier, starting with our role to monitor environmental progress by reporting on the Environmental Improvement Plan.
The Environmental Improvement Plan
The Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), a legal requirement under the Environment Act 2021, was due to be laid before the Northern Ireland Assembly and published by 25 July 2023.
We were deeply concerned when this deadline was missed. The EIP has a vital role to play in driving the delivery of how Northern Ireland’s environment is to be significantly improved.
We launched an investigation into that delay, and, as the Minister is aware, were preparing to take enforcement action further.
So I am very pleased to be able to say here today that we very much welcome the recent publication of Northern Ireland’s first EIP. This is a big step forward. A big step forward on a long journey. With the EIP’s adoption, our role now moves on to assessing its implementation and effectiveness. We look forward to the publication of DAERA’s first Annual Progress Report in January 2026. We will publish our first annual progress report six months later, which DAERA must then respond to within 12 months.
We also welcome the launch of the public consultation on the draft Environmental Principles Policy Statement, or EPPS, another of the cornerstones of the new approach to environmental governance I mentioned earlier. We have previously provided advice to DAERA on this and are pleased to note that many of our recommendations are included. The EPPS can be a powerful tool to put EIP delivery at the heart of policy-making across all Departments, and we would encourage its support by the Executive. Once adopted, we will maintain an active interest in how the duty to have due regard to the EPPS is implemented.
We understand there is more to follow, that the EIP does not stand alone. It is vital that it be supported by ambitious implementation plans and strategies that provide the detail for how protection and improvement of the environment will be realised in practice. This includes the likes of the Nutrients Action Programme, River Basin Management Plan, Nature Recovery Strategy, and Farming with Nature scheme. We also await the carbon budgets and Climate Action Plan, which will help to complete the picture of environmental governance for Northern Ireland and are so critical in our preparation for climate change
Drivers and Pressures Report
In order to measure the progress of all these efforts, it is first important to understand the truth of the current situation. This is why we published our report, The Drivers and Pressures Affecting Terrestrial and Freshwater Biodiversity in Northern Ireland.
Our assessment concluded that more and more has been demanded of the environment over many years, and it is now clear that more pressure has been applied than the land and water can bear.
The two principal pressures causing biodiversity loss are land use change and pollution, closely linked to agricultural intensification. Excess nutrients, in the form of fertilisers and animal wastes from farming and from sewage, are the main forms of pollution. The report finds that the agri-food industry in its current form is making unsustainable demands on the environment.
Alongside agriculture and sewage management, other issues contributing to on-going biodiversity loss include waste management, resource extraction, urban development and chemical pollution.
There are difficult messages there. And no easy fixes.
Government must act urgently and decisively, not only to reverse a lifetime of environmental degradation and to restore the diversity of Northern Ireland’s habitats and species, but also to ensure a sustainable agri-food industry and wider economy. This is why the EIP and the supporting strategies and implementation plans are so important.
Monitoring Environmental Law
Another of our functions is to monitor and report on environmental law. Protecting and improving water bodies is obviously a crucial part of protecting and improving our landscapes. So, under this function we undertook work to review the key legislation regarding water quality – the Water Framework Directive (WFD) Northern Ireland (NI) Regulations – and how they are being implemented by DAERA and the NIEA through River Basin Management Planning.
Our report found that although the approach of the WFD is broadly sound, it is not being implemented well.
In particular, we identified a real need for DAERA to publish the latest River Basin Management Plan and put it into action. The WFD Regulations require DAERA to develop and roll out River Basin Management Plans every six years. The latest was due by December 2021, but this draft plan has yet to be finalised.
DAERA has until December to respond to that report.
Staying with water, we are also looking at the environmental laws relating to bathing waters. Such an interesting area, with the increase in use of our water bodies for leisure and recreation. I have a personal interest as I am a keen open water swimmer myself. I swim marathons which means I spend many many hours in different rivers, lakes and the sea – I have seen the hugely variable conditions out there – and although have not had the opportunity to indulge that passion here I am very keen to.
Like me, many people look to spend their time in our blue spaces. It is timely therefore for us to look at whether the regulations around bathing waters have kept up with society, so we have been looking at the guiding principles shaping the regulations, their technical implementation and their coherence with relevant water policy and law. We aim to report next month.
The final piece of work under our monitoring function I would like to flag, is one which I know will be of particular interest to this audience – our work looking at the implementation of laws for the designation and management of sites protected for nature on land and freshwater. We aim to report on that work in the Spring, and hope to be back here to talk to you about that work then.
Enforcement and Complaints
Another important aspect of our work is receiving complaints from the public, which can lead to enforcement activity. Our complaints function is designed to help us identify those strategic and systemic issues. We can take forward enforcement activity where there has been a significant breach of environmental law by a public body and the impact of that breach is serious. We will always seek to resolve issues through discussion and agreement, but ultimately we can take public bodies to court where this is necessary to get the best outcome for the environment.
We can’t act on every complaint we receive, but we do consider all the information provided, and that can feed into other areas of our work. So we may not launch an investigation, but it may help us identify a focus for our monitoring work, for example. I am sure that many people here today are aware of issues that could be suitable for our attention. I would encourage you to consider us a route to raise those concerns.
Indeed, it was a complaint from a member of the public that led to our first investigation in Northern Ireland, which was into whether DAERA had failed to comply with environmental law in relation to its ammonia emissions advice for planning matters, known as the Operational Protocol.
We have now closed that investigation as, following threat of legal action from us, that advice has been withdrawn and replaced with an Interim Framework, ahead of new advice being put in place.
While our investigation confirmed that there had been a serious failure to comply with environmental law, the breach is no longer on-going, so we are not taking any further action. We have published a report on that investigation – actually our first investigation report – so I would encourage anyone interested in this aspect of our work to seek that out on our website.
We do have another investigation running at the moment, considering possible failures by DAERA to comply with environmental law in relation to Special Protection Areas for wild birds.
As you will see, both of those investigations are directly relevant to systemic issues potentially affecting protected areas.
Conclusion
That is a whistle-stop tour of some of the OEP’s work. I hope that you can see how our areas of focus align with some of your interests, and how our specific role and remit can help achieve progress.
Our work is focused on environmental law, and it is easy for us to get lost in the detail. But I do want to stress to you that we never lose sight of the big picture - the importance of our landscapes. Not just from an environmental perspective, but also because of what they mean to us as people, and for our communities. They provide us with inspiration, beauty, and give us our sense of place, of identity.
We must do more to protect them, and I am looking forward to speaking to many of you here today about how collectively we can achieve that.
