Northern Ireland Affairs Committee

This is our fourth session on economic growth, and I would like to welcome Sam Turner, chief executive of the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre, and Steven Morrison, the head of sustainable livestock systems at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute. Welcome to you both. Sam, what is the role of the advanced manufacturing sector in driving economic growth in Northern Ireland?

The advanced manufacturing sector is one of the largest sectors in Northern Ireland. It is a key area for productivity growth. It performs above the Northern Ireland average and has some huge strengths on a UK and global scale, particularly in aerospace. It would be one of three major aerostructure clusters in the UK. It is the only area where we have Boeing and Airbus on the same street, effectively. We have the ability to build and test full aerostructures in Northern Ireland, which is a real UK asset. We have a strong defence sector alongside that. Northern Ireland leads the world in aerospace interiors and seating. Around 40% of business-class seating is produced in Northern Ireland. There is also a very strong materials handling sector in Mid Ulster. Thus far, I have talked about the traditional heartlands in the east of Northern Ireland. In Mid Ulster we have a materials handling sector that produces 40% of the world’s crushing and screening equipment, with a very strong capability around fabricated products and a lot of innovation around design and make. These are businesses that traditionally get on and do things by themselves and have not had a huge amount of funding support delivered. In semiconductors and lasers, we have Seagate in the north-west, which is producing the read/write heads for its hard drives. It is currently the biggest producer of lasers in Europe and will be, within about 18 months, the largest producer of lasers by volume in the world. We also have a strong life sciences sector and a very strong cluster of cleantech companies, many of which have spun out of the universities, which perform very well in terms of spin-outs. Queen’s is in the top three in the UK, I believe, in terms of spin-outs. It is a vibrant sector that produces a lot of skills. A lot of the skills move across the UK as well. It is a key source of jobs that can provide opportunities for people who are otherwise economically inactive and reach communities that other sectors do not reach.

Steven, what contribution can agritech make to increasing economic growth in the agricultural sector?

Agritech is a massive opportunity because the agrifood industry, from food through to the beverage industry, is a huge part of the rural fabric and the economy in Northern Ireland. I think that the most recent report from NIFDA put it at £7.3 billion, so it is a big part of our economy and a catalyst for many things, but it has its challenges. It has its challenges on the environment side of how it is producing, because it has scaled up over such a period of time, but it also has opportunity, because interest in food security is growing. There are global shocks in our supply chains, and we need to be able to produce more of our food to support our local food security. The opportunities are huge, and there are challenges. When the opportunities for agritech spring out, they address those challenges. We need new innovations and technologies to help address those challenges.

Mr Morrison, I have a question about economic growth in the agricultural area. I represent North Dorset, so it is a key area for me. I think, instinctively, there would be support for Government initiatives in and around the SPS agreement and better trading relations with Europe as far as agriculture is concerned. Noting your biographical details—your livestock genetics work, et cetera—I wondered whether you could give the Committee your thoughts on the things that we should be alert to as we go down that road of curtailing the UK’s freedom for agricultural innovation. What might that mean to the economy of Northern Ireland and to the wider United Kingdom?

With Northern Ireland’s status, dual market access presents opportunities, and challenges as well. Moving into the agritech sector, and you specifically mentioned genetics, it is about ensuring compliance with the regulations in the different jurisdictions. It adds complexity. It adds that need for support measures for the top companies and providers that are developing in that space, so that they are not going on their own down that road—so that they have the support and the networks. That would be one of my comments. It is about making sure that the ecosystem for the agritech sector, and the sector in general, is very clear, open and easy to approach. That is a good route to entry in terms of support, financial support, advice, how to scale up the regulations and how to work through those regulations. The opportunities are very big.

Can you clarify this? If an SPS agreement curtails or constrains agricultural innovation in and around genetic improvements, notwithstanding Northern Ireland’s dual market access status—and I know we are slightly casting forward to think about what might happen—might there be the unforeseen consequence of a pause in agricultural innovation, just because of the size of the geography, and it would not give the wider benefits to the whole of the United Kingdom?

That is a question I will not be able to answer, to be honest, in terms of whether, if there are any challenges in that space, it will lead to a pause. It is one we can look at and come back to, if you wish.

That would be helpful.

Thanks, Steven. What barriers are there to growth in advanced manufacturing, Sam, and in the agritech sector?

On the last point I made on the growth opportunity, the areas I listed are areas of high growth where there are challenges for the UK to find supply chain capacity. Northern Ireland can provide that, but there are barriers. Many of those are infrastructural, so we have real challenges around planning, building that capacity out and water supply. Energy costs to businesses are the highest in the UK, and the UK, as we know, lags behind much of the rest of the world. Looking at opportunities: rather than trying to fix the grid and the fact that Northern Ireland prices are tied to those in the Republic, microgrids could perhaps be an opportunity to install green energy capacity. That would give a guaranteed cost base. Also, certified green energy could be a competitive opportunity for Northern Ireland manufacturers. Another challenge is skills. While we produce highly sought after and talented graduates and a very skilled workforce, there are challenges around accessing the volume of skills and reaching those economically inactive people. In Northern Ireland we do not see the apprenticeship levy returned to businesses. I was with some community groups yesterday from both sides of the communities across the greater Belfast area. It is difficult for young people to understand how to access the opportunities we are creating. That burden sits with businesses to fund apprenticeships. That is certainly one of the barriers we see.

I fully agree with Sam on the barriers. The other ones that jump out for agritech would be that a lot of those companies and businesses are SMEs. They are very small, so the pathway to getting on the innovation pipeline and treadmill to developing and producing products can be a challenge and can be daunting. That one-stop shop where you go to access the advice, information and financial guidance would be really important. Comments that have come to me in my research space have been about the ability to prototype, test and incubate our ideas around agritech, to prove it really works in its final intended setting before it gets released. One of the challenges with agritech is making sure you have that robust trust. If it moves out into the industry and does not deliver, you have lost the trust and the end users fail to go back into agritech again because they have lost the trust in the area.

AMIC was funded through the Belfast city deal. How effective is this type of funding for supporting regional economic growth?

It is very effective. It is an important part of the answer. We are establishing that this is not a project; this is part of the infrastructure of Northern Ireland for decades to come. The capital funding has enabled us to build the facilities, the capital assets and a statement of ambition. The revenue comes from businesses paying directly or from competitive grants that we seek, unlike the Catapult centres across the rest of the UK that would have some core funding to invest in those strengths for UK business as a whole. It means that we are responding to what Northern Ireland companies want now. We have less capacity to lead and build on those strengths across the universities and the innovative businesses we have in the tech community in Northern Ireland, but it has been very effective. The building we moved into six weeks ago is almost full. Demand is outstripping expectations and we have plans to increase the size of our AMIC Harbour, which was the NIACE facility down in east Belfast, to a similar size—10,000 square metres—to open up in two years’ time. That facility will be full, based on demand we are seeing from local aerospace and polymers companies and demand from other GB aerospace companies and US companies that want to come and access the Northern Ireland market. They have been very effective in putting capability in place, being a beacon and attracting investment and partners. They lack the long-term funding that means we can leverage the strengths that Northern Ireland has for the benefit of the UK to deliver the modern industrial strategy.

It is good to see you both. Thank you for having us at AMIC before your opening, when it was still a bit of a shell, but we could see the scale and impact of it. That was a good visit for us as a Committee. Mr Morrison, you have, fairly, talked about some of the barriers. This session is about economic growth. Within the agri-sector in Northern Ireland, there has clearly been some discord over the last year or more around NAP. Part of that incorporated stock reduction and concerns around productivity. From your perspective, are those discussions in a better place? Do you think you can attain economic growth from the agri-sector if it is predicated on stock reduction?

Productivity and efficiency is core to our farming systems. If you look at our sectors, they have continually improved. Particularly in our monogastric and dairy sectors, but there are challenges there. Our structures are very small family farm units, so trying to get those innovations and efficiency knowledge exchange across can be difficult, but it is moving in the right direction. In terms of sustaining that growth, the demand for our products keeps growing. We are producing a huge amount of agrifood products and beverages, with almost half of it being exported or transferred to GB. We are really part of that food security ecosystem. In terms of growth, the appetite for it is still there. The technologies can allow that growth to happen, particularly around our nutrient management, as you mentioned the NAP. The technologies to make our animals and our systems more efficient, and then also to use those products, such as our slurries and manures, the biogas sector, et cetera, all feed into that. Linking to what Sam was saying, the connections between different Government Departments, planning, et cetera, are all very much part of that puzzle to enable that growth to happen.

You are interested agritech. One thing that has been focused on recently is the Bovaer-type supplement that goes into feed for cattle. I am a layman, but it seems to me that it is a flatulence suppressant. It seems to stop the methane production coming from the cows. How do you measure the benefit of that?

Do you mean measure the benefit of an additive or a methane suppressant-type product?

Yes, and the material impact it would have on climate change.

Scientifically, you can measure the actual methane produced, and there are lots of techniques that you can use to measure a reduction in that methane produced. That reduction can be captured through a monitoring, reporting and verification process, or through an international inventory. If you have the activity data and the amount of the product or products being used out there, you can scale up and say that, at a national level, the amount of methane in the atmosphere is less. It can be scaled up, in terms of an MRV process.

That is positive.

Isn’t that great?

Yes.

Thank you for attending. I am sorry I have to leave in a few minutes, but I wanted to get a question in quickly. Mr Turner, I want to press you a bit on your initial answer. Notwithstanding the barriers to growth, you gave a very positive summary of advanced manufacturing. From the figures we have seen, jobs have gone down by 5% in computing electronics and by 8% in electronic equipment in the last five years. Should we be talking about barriers to growth, or are we talking about problems or reasons for contraction?

On the stats and sectors you have picked out, they are more in the electrical engineering and computer science domain, where we are seeing challenges due to AI. That is seen in the UK and wider globally. I was talking about the positives of the more traditional mechanical engineering heritage—“heritage” sounds like we are looking backwards. I was talking about the strengths and foundations we have in Northern Ireland, and they are growth areas. You could flip this around and say that the skills shortage we have—the access to skilled workers, which is a constraint to growth for many Northern Ireland businesses—can actually be overcome by harnessing that technology. For Northern Ireland, there is an opportunity to bring some of the digital talent into the manufacturing, mechanical engineering and industrial world to solve some of those skills shortages in other ways. I recognise there is clearly a challenge, UK-wide and globally, in some sectors, in terms of early opportunities for young people and contraction of growth in the tech sector. There is an opportunity to divert those skills to the more traditional industries.

That contraction is a UK and worldwide issue, rather than a specific Northern Ireland issue.

As I understand it, yes. I need to check all the data, but that is what I am seeing from other organisations that we are connecting with. The tech sector is a real strength in Northern Ireland, so it is a particularly acute challenge because it has been a source of growth and vibrancy. It is a concern that this tech community is shrinking. There is also a large dependency on US-owned businesses, so we are at the whim of global markets. Most mid-sized to large businesses in Northern Ireland end up being acquired by US businesses. Part of this is also a challenge around whether we can grow, retain and root businesses with UK ownership for scaling in Northern Ireland. Some of these vacate and move from Northern Ireland, so the more tech-rich, high-growth potential businesses. There is a challenge around retention, growing those businesses in Northern Ireland and anchoring them there and finding the funders, skills, resources and access to markets. Also, there is an opportunity to bring these two together where we have, on one side of the manufacturing and technology domain, a shortage of skills and, on the other side, we are seeing contraction. I believe there is an answer that looks at bringing that problem and need together.

It is good to see you again. Like Gavin, I have fond memories of walking through a big, pretty chilly building, so I am pleased to know that the heating is on and it is full of people. Thank you for coming to see us this morning. Sam, as someone who represents Newcastle-under-Lyme, a constituency where advanced manufacturing is massive to our local economy, I am particularly interested in your point about the importance of this particular sector to tackling economic inactivity. I was just talking to Ms Hanna about the recent NEET figures and the report from Milburn last week, which highlights the challenge both in Northern Ireland and across the country. Getting this right to make sure the sector is successful is really important, because it can tackle some of those challenges. There are a couple of questions from me. What is your assessment of the effectiveness and adequacy of the UK Government’s industrial strategy plan for advanced manufacturing? Do you think there is anything missing from it?

The plan has good coverage. It highlights all the key areas of need. From a Northern Ireland perspective, or maybe at a sub-sector level—manufacturing is very broad—there are actionable strategies that need to be shaped that sit perhaps at a sector level, so I talked about aerospace and semiconductors, or on a regional level for Northern Ireland. That is the bit that is lacking. In Northern Ireland, from a geographic perspective, I mentioned that the innovation centres are here as part of the long-term fabric. They are part of the continuation of the long-term investments the universities make to provide continuity and anchoring. We perhaps lack the long-term strategic planning that can be coherent for industrial strategy for the region. Equally, for some sectors it needs to be fleshed out further. What is the actionable strategy? How do we overcome the barriers I am talking about here? They are acknowledged, but there is another level of work to do to have a clear, actionable strategy that Government and the private sector can get behind to deliver, and that centres such as ours can help to enable.

We have heard previous evidence that issues such as infrastructure, a not massively effective transport connection system and all the rest feed into that inability to seize the potential, particularly if you think east-west, geographically speaking.

Yes, we need to connect. We cannot just talk about growth opportunities and not address the barriers. There need to be ideas and a real business case for how you could overcome some of those. The funding has to come largely from the private sector, but it is looking at how the public sector can seed and unlock private sector funding in things such as energy infrastructure. I mentioned microgrids as one opportunity we are investigating that could unlock some of the energy challenges. Things such as planning and water would need public intervention.

You have very nicely moved on to my next point. This is to both of you. Give us a view on the effectiveness of the relationship between the UK Government, the Northern Ireland Executive and the private sector, which Sam has just referred to? Give us a flavour of how effective you think that working relationship currently is and what we could do to make it better.

It could be stronger. We tend to find that businesses are interacting with either the UK Government or the Executive. It could be better co-ordinated in terms of operating together with a clear strategy. A clear Northern Ireland version of the modern industrial strategy would be a useful thing to have that everybody can understand and get behind. There is a sense from businesses that they could have more support in addressing their challenges in accessing skills and energy costs. Northern Ireland businesses are particularly self-starting and proud of going it alone. There is an opportunity to provide more support to them on the skills, energy infrastructure and innovation support we are here to do, so helping businesses develop new products, create capacity for new products in development and scaling that, so agreeing what those real strengths are, on the positive side, and making sure the funds are channelled there. That will give Northern Ireland, on one hand, its fair share of R&D funding, but, more importantly, for the UK to be able to leverage those really deep strengths that Northern Ireland has, where it punches above its weight.

There are probably tons of pillars, but another one would be the role of local government and how effective that relationship is. When we came to see you, Sam, we had the mayor of Antrim and Newtownabbey, as she was then. How much more do you think local government could do to be part of that solution-finding?

They have a huge role to play, because there is a kind of grassroots and a very clear understanding of the local need. There are varying degrees of engagement with businesses, I think. Some are better than others and they probably need to have some help in understanding what the business landscape is at the local government level, what the needs of businesses are and how to connect that with the communities, schools and opportunities. Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council has been phenomenal. It has made a very bold investment in AMIC, and there is really strong leadership and vision across the elected members and the leadership of the council. They play a really important role. AMIC may not exist quite as it does without that level of leadership and commitment, but there is more that could be done in helping those councils connect to businesses, as well as delivering the day job, so the things that come to their desk day after day, and council needs.

I am sure Mr Swann will take that positive message home with him tomorrow. Steven, what about you?

The larger organisations and companies are working both in Northern Ireland and at the UK level, and they are engaging with Government bodies in both. It is the smaller organisations, so those small SMEs, that are probably working more locally and are not sure of how to work into the wider UK landscape as well. In the science and academia space, there is a lot of UK-wide, north-south of Ireland and even global working. We are drawing in research funding from all around the world. You probably would say that there is opportunity to improve that to make it clear and a bit more coherent between all those parties. I am trying to think of the second question you asked and whether it was relevant to me.

It was about the relationship between the Executive and the UK Government, and I added local government as well. There is then the private sector, most importantly, but perhaps that was more directed to advanced manufacturing.

There are a lot of conversations and discussions at local level, 100%, on those local challenges. The bigger companies, as I mentioned, are reaching into the UK agritech funding space and putting proposals through to enhance their capabilities and technology. It is a reasonably good space. Sometimes there is a bit of reticence, or maybe reluctance, to reach out to the wider UK, because sometimes the calls are directed towards English farmers or English activities. Some of the challenges that English farmers are facing are very similar to what Northern Ireland farmers are facing, so it is equally applicable and they can apply for them. There is a wee bit of just building confidence to apply for those types of opportunities.

I will not go on, but my reflection from these answers is that we need more coherence, clarity, productivity and investment in terms of people and resources, and making sure that those who can help make that happen get on with it. Would that be a fair assessment?

Yes.

Yes, and I would say—naturally, given my role in innovation—support for businesses.

Yes, I agree. It is having that clear leadership to take a handle on all these things that are happening, because there are so many things happening. In the agritech sector in Northern Ireland, there is the proposal for an agritech centre in Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Council area, which might be the focal point that can attract, similar to what Sam said, as an anchor point for NI, which would be very good.

Public sector funding is very tight, UK-wide and particularly in Northern Ireland. A clear strategy would mean that, when opportunities arise for funding, we are really intentional and get the best return when we make those investments. Without that clear strategy, there is a risk that, for all the best intentions, we get something that is less than the sum of its parts, rather than greater.

Then you lose the public support and investment in it, the whole conversation becomes much more sticky and nothing happens.

Thank you for coming in today. The 2025 Budget gave confirmation that the focus of the enhanced investment zone would be on advanced engineering and manufacturing. What would you want to see included in the Northern Ireland enhanced investment zone?

I have some views on this. The way it is being planned is picking a couple of winners for large investment. One of those is photonics and the other is life sciences. These are huge areas of potential, building on Northern Ireland’s strengths, which is appropriate. In addition to that, there is then broader support for innovation, skills and technology adoption for broader manufacturing businesses, which is really important to help that broad SME base that Northern Ireland has. The photonics opportunity that is being developed is a really exciting one for the UK, not just for Northern Ireland. I mentioned that Seagate is soon to become the world’s largest producer of lasers. Seagate is a hard drive company, but it has produced a new technology—heat-assisted magnetic read/write heads—that uses nanotech lasers it has developed, which are going to be produced at high volume and affordable prices. It is looking at taking that to new markets. Taking that anchor, Northern Ireland will be the place where global companies come to access these lasers, and they will be developed in Northern Ireland. We are hoping to develop something around AMIC where we can have accessible facilities where we can develop new laser technologies and build lasers for companies coming in to partner with Seagate, but also to enable the spin-outs and the strong mid-sized companies, so people such as Raptor that we have in Northern Ireland already, to develop those technologies. Even exploring the ambition has started to attract potential spin-ins from Europe to come and access these facilities. It would be a place where the risk can be taken off businesses, in terms of the tens of millions of pounds of investment in facilities to build semiconductors, lasers and photonics-integrated circuits and doing that in a publicly funded environment. They can then turn that into real business opportunities and anchor them in Northern Ireland. We would be really excited about that. Alongside that is building the skills support and bringing businesses from across the UK, Europe and the rest of the world to something that could be a hub for laser production globally. That is a really exciting opportunity, I believe. That is the right kind of investment, building on strength and turning that into a huge growth potential for the UK.

Obviously, I am going to mention agritech there. It is not particularly strongly mentioned in the investment zone aspect, but the opportunities are huge. Northern Ireland is always seen and referred to as a powerhouse in agrifood production and systems. Those technologies that support the enhanced sustainability of those sectors are critical. In there, you have everything from agri-engineering to AI and data visualisation. Within the food-processing sector itself as well, there is a lot of space and scope. There is a lot of opportunity in the agritech sector to continue to support that main sector in Northern Ireland. As I mentioned at the very start, the challenges that Northern Ireland faces when it comes to agrifood are similar to other parts, so the opportunity for those technologies to scale up and be exportable is colossal. A stronger wording and focus on agritech would be very much appreciated.

It is important within Northern Ireland to look at the regional balance as well, in terms of the way the industrial strategy is delivered. Invest in and look at the strengths across the different parts of Northern Ireland. I know there is a look at how we put innovation support into the Mid Ulster cluster as well. Seagate is based up in the north-west, and broader engineering is in the east of Northern Ireland. That is an important balance to be brought to that investment zone.

Thank you again, both. Sam, that was a very useful exposé of Seagate. I met them for an hour, and their hard drive is a very fancy floppy disk, but you have done them great justice because it is much more technologically advanced than I can understand. Both of you have touched on the appropriateness or the benefit of specific Government support mechanisms. We are interested in whether there could be more done around relationships between businesses within Northern Ireland for collaboration, like AMIC or NIACE, which we have seen in the past. Sam, you mentioned Catapult, and it is probably a good opportunity to understand more about the Catapult provisions that there are in GB and whether they would be directly appropriate for Northern Ireland.

Just to disclose, I used to be the CTO of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and was seconded to Queen’s to establish AMIC four years ago, so I know the Catapult network very well. The High Value Manufacturing Catapults make up over half the total Catapults, so it is six centres across GB in England and Scotland, with satellite centres in Wales as well. These centres provide, as AMIC does, the infrastructure for businesses to not have to invest in capital ahead of the market, to de-risk technology, and to develop new products and processes. That is hugely effective, but the Catapult funding is core funding annually, which means that the centres can invest in those deep capabilities, specialise and serve the UK as a whole by getting ahead of the market and leading businesses, as well as responding to short-term needs. That requires the Catapult funding to do that, and also making sure of the mechanisms to respond to businesses to focus on scaling companies and building ecosystems, which is certainly the focus for AMIC, looking at that growth potential. Without that Catapult funding, centres have to be a bit closer to the market or to fundamental research. We are here to address the gap between those two things. We do not want to become a consultancy that is confusing and competing with the market. We do not want to become just another arm of academic research, which the university is already very successful at. We are there to bridge the gap in the middle. Without that core funding, it is difficult to bridge that gap because we are chasing funding that takes us to the other two extremes.

Do you see what you are benefiting from at the moment through the Belfast region city deal as being comparable to that seed funding to encourage collaboration, or is it completely different?

It is comparable in the start-up phase. Catapult funding also provides capital to establish the facilities and equipment that we have built, and that is creating huge opportunities for us. We do not have the long-term funding to invest in the deep strengths that Northern Ireland has for the benefit of Northern Ireland and the UK. Northern Ireland businesses lose out there, because we are having to develop our capability through the projects they are funding directly, rather than with government support as Catapults would be able to do. UK businesses are missing out because they are not seeing the investment to scale the real Northern Ireland strengths that they could come and access.

From our perspective, we need to hear what you think would be useful. Through this report, do you believe there is a need for considered work?

Particularly in the manufacturing Catapult, there is a need for AMIC to receive core funding and plug into that network. We have worked very closely with other innovation centres. We have good partnerships. We have active projects with them. Building AMIC is something that would be a strength for the UK, building on Northern Ireland’s strengths. Some core funding would enable us to deliver the industrial strategy mission for the UK and better support and scale those real high-growth potential businesses in Northern Ireland.

You could form part of somebody’s work in England that is funded through Catapult, for example, and work with them, but you could not benefit from the resource they get. Is that right?

We are partnering with other Catapults. We can work with other Catapult centres but we have to go and win competitive grant funding, or a business has to pay us to do the work. Catapult funding for other centres means they can invest in capability ahead of the market, rather than just responding to the market. It also means that we can focus and develop mechanisms for scaling businesses, so more the public role than perhaps you can do if you are entirely business‑focused.

Finally, do you feel that the Department for the Economy has understood that gap and the benefits that would be attained if it was to close it?

It has been articulated. The funding gap, I would suggest, should sit with the UK Government, with support from the Department for the Economy. It is not just the Department for the Economy, because it is not just about supporting Northern Ireland businesses. This is about UK assets we are building.

So far people have heard but may not have listened.

They may not have found the funding.

My question is about skills. What engagement have you had with the UK Government and the Department for the Economy on sectoral action plans for skills and workforce development?

Personally, I have had no direct engagement in that space.

Is that with the Department for the Economy or the UK Government?

I mean on skills in particular.

Do you mean with the Department for the Economy?

Yes.

Okay, so there has been no engagement with the Department for the Economy?

The engagements I have would be directly with the students, post-docs and master’s students, so that space, and bringing the undergrad students around for training and educational purposes, and training the trainers as well. We do a lot on that and training up the skills base in general. There has been no direct engagement specifically on skills.

You have had no meetings with officials or Ministers, or anything like that?

Not that I am aware of, no.

The reason I am asking is because skills and economy are largely devolved in terms of what we want to do in Northern Ireland, and the way forward. However, we have a huge issue with skills, particularly in manufacturing. The apprenticeship levy, as far as I am concerned, needs reviewing immediately. What is your understanding, particularly you, Sam, in terms of how the apprenticeship levy is actually used? For the businesses that you are potentially interfacing with through AMIC, and other businesses across Northern Ireland in terms of the supply chain, what is your understanding of how the money that is collected through the levy is put back in to support manufacturing to create the workforce for the future?

It is not directly. It goes into the broader skills pot.

Do you want to talk people through that?

In the rest of the UK, the apprenticeship levy is used to enable businesses to access and fund apprenticeships.

Just so people are aware, businesses in Northern Ireland that are eligible to pay the levy pay the levy.

Yes.

How does that money come back to Northern Ireland?

It does not come back to the businesses. To the point I made earlier, it means that investing in young people is a risk. They are a blank slate with no CV. The businesses have to take the whole burden of that risk to invest in young people. We have a challenge around young people. We have, on one hand, a shortage of skilled workers and, on the other hand, people looking for or needing work. The apprenticeship levy should be a bridge that solves that problem, and in Northern Ireland it entirely fails to do so.

Absolutely, and I could not agree with you more, Sam. I am really glad that we went through that iterative process to explain to people the problems that it is actually creating rather than enabling. I used to work in manufacturing. I am very passionate about it. You used the word “heritage” earlier, and you said that you do not want to use that word and think that we are looking backwards—absolutely not. We have a huge heritage in Northern Ireland that we should be proud of but, yes, it is about moving forward. That Milburn report last week showed that there are opportunities, particularly in Northern Ireland. I am concerned that there is not that linkage between the Department for the Economy and the UK Government more widely in terms of how we are addressing these issues. I think that Paul, in his earlier question, said that these are not just Northern Ireland-specific issues. They are UK-wide issues. Do you think there would be something to be gained by much more direct contact between the Department for the Economy, particularly on advanced manufacturing, for example, and the UK Government to seriously address, first, the levy and how that feeds into skills and, secondly, how we develop, as you said in response to an earlier question, infrastructure and skills, not just for one niche part of the UK but for the UK plc?

Yes, anything that could address the disadvantage Northern Ireland businesses have in terms of access to the levy would be hugely advantageous. Businesses have to take a huge risk, and young people do not understand how to access the opportunities. They feel completely out of reach for them. We are working with the Department for the Economy and the colleges to look at how we support training programmes for apprentices and both university graduates and postgraduates. There is still a real gap in businesses being able to take that initial risk and invest in young people. They are taking the whole of that on themselves.

I suppose that there is also a problem because you have the national insurance contributions. We have heard, certainly in my constituency—and I can validate that—that it has been a huge barrier to businesses wanting to invest. You have said that investing in young people is a risk for a business. I can understand the rationale for some of that but, unless we create the business and policy environment to help small businesses, innovators and entrepreneurs, they will be disincentivised from taking that. You have made that point really well. In terms of the city deals, there is always a conversation about people and how they ever fitted into the city deals in terms of a dedicated pillar, in a way. Do you think there is a conversation to be had on infrastructure around city deals? I am thinking particularly in my part of the world where we benefited in Lagan Valley, Lisburn, Castlereagh through Hillsborough. Obviously, that work is ongoing, but you clearly have a huge transport corridor there with the A1. Then you have the Dublin-Belfast economic corridor. Do you think there is a conversation to be had about how we also harness infrastructure projects to enable the growth of city deals and what they want to achieve?

Yes, I think so. It comes back to my point earlier around a coherent industrial strategy with all the elements considered and included. If you work on one strand and not the other, you do not deliver the benefits. On the innovation piece, we talked about additional funding for businesses in Northern Ireland to access innovation funding and do even more with that support. They have been able to achieve the great things they have achieved without it. Transport infrastructure is really important. I am seeing the barriers being around energy, planning and water if you are trying to grow facilities. We talk to people looking at foreign direct investment and they really like what they see in Northern Ireland. They see a “can do” and capable manufacturing and engineering workforce that is world class. Then they say, “Can you guarantee the skills pipeline and what do the energy costs look like?” and the conversation gets a little harder.

Yes, it is a real barrier. You have mentioned FE colleges. Do you think there is a disparity between schools—because it is post-primary—encouraging young people into the likes of manufacturing and engineering, as opposed to everyone just going down the university route?

This is a UK-wide challenge. Some very nice examples have been addressed in Northern Ireland. The Mid Ulster MEGA cluster is doing some very nice work at getting into schools and attracting people into engineering and manufacturing. It is probably working closely with schools and educating teachers around the opportunity that this is an attractive route. That is part of the reason we built our facilities. You are welcome to come back and see them again now that we are open and live. It is meant to be a beacon to attract people into manufacturing. As much as attracting businesses and foreign direct investment, and helping businesses to scale and grow, it is attracting the next generation of talent, parents and teachers to say, “This is where I want my kids to spend their life and their career”.

Do you think there is a level playing field at the minute between apprenticeships and higher-level apprenticeships compared with people leaving school in year 14 and going to university? Is it a level playing field?

I do not know whether “level playing field” is the right way to frame it, but there is certainly a bias. Success is seen as going on to university, generally. We need to do more work to make it really clear. It is difficult for young people to make a clear career choice at that age, perhaps, but if you know you want to go into manufacturing or engineering, going through an apprenticeship route, getting your education paid for and coming out with a degree, if that is appropriate, at the end of it is a phenomenal route. It is not well enough understood. University is seen as the successful route. We are based within Queen’s. It is a highly successful route, but we need to make sure that the vocational pathway is cherished and valued and people are excited to go on that route. There is a bit of work to reset the public message on that, and part of that is with schools and parents.

Steven, are there any comments you want to make on those questions about workforce and skills?

Sam has covered it really well. The skills are critical in the agritech world as well. Having the people who can develop but also use the technologies is critical. CAFRE has a growing number of students going through the course. It is in massive demand. Queen’s is setting up new courses in the space. The demand for the agri-sector, in terms of education and training, is growing and growing. It is about making sure we can get that out to the 26,000 farmers as well, because that is a difficult task. It is a really difficult task. The thirst for information, new skills and innovation is there. It is just getting it to the right people in the right way.

We saw a lot of that at the Balmoral show, which was a lot of fun.

Yes, through the rain.

Steven, Ms Eastwood was asking you about the interaction you have with the Department for the Economy with regard to skills. What interaction do you have with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs? AFBI is a natural fit there. You mentioned CAFRE and colleges as well. How much of skills training is, I suppose, a two-way street, with you informing on what it is doing in its curriculum and it coming to you to upskill?

A lot of the engagement between AFBI and CAFRE and DAERA would be around the training and education plans for farmers, rather than directly around students, but we have a lot of student placements. We have a lot of students come to visit. We have student projects, and we very much support the postgraduate pathways as well. I suspect that, whenever the new Queen’s courses come online, we will be feeding more information into those as well. The NI diamond, which has been talked about for quite a while, will also be a mechanism to create that even tighter engagement between CAFRE, the universities, AFBI, DAERA, et cetera. It is keeping those communication pathways really open and clear. From a selfish AFBI point of view, we want to make sure the world of science is open and you can see what science can deliver and the challenges we are trying to work out, and attract that new talent and those new students into the world of science. It is working. There have been some breakages in that pipeline over the years, but it is starting to work again. We are attracting students not just locally, but internationally as well, which is really important for Northern Ireland.

Sam, with regard to that skillset, you mentioned AMIC Global Point earlier—that is in my constituency—and the interaction with the council. How do you find it? You talked about it and how well it supports you. With regard to the promotion of skills or gauging where those gaps are in the skills pipeline, do you have any support from the council through that as well?

The council is helping us connect to local schools. We are just getting started. We have been in the building for six weeks. We are trying to get a footfall of schoolkids through the facilities. We are connecting with individual councillors around that and reaching out. It is being done on a relationship basis at the moment. One thing we are talking to the council about is how we do that in a more systematic way.

Morning again, gents. Thanks for coming in. Sam, I could not agree more with your comments about the value of vocational training and how we need to honour that more. That is not what my question is about; I just wanted to say that. You have both talked about the almost pregnant pause of interest and investment in Northern Ireland around advanced manufacturing or agritech. Perhaps there is a moment there where, say, US companies or GB companies want to invest in Northern Ireland. You talked about Seagate Technology and nanolasers, which sounds like something of the future. What assessment have you made of the ability for advanced manufacturing or agritech to leverage the dual market access? That is something that is supposed to be, in theory, the USP for Northern Ireland to have the best of both worlds. We spend a lot of time in this Committee talking about how it is often the opposite. It is the double challenge from a bureaucracy perspective. What assessment have you made of the opportunities there, and perhaps some of the challenges?

The opportunities are not really being well understood, articulated and therefore realised. We are not marketing and pitching them well enough. As you say, the challenges can be seen. If you took the status quo, businesses that have been trading with GB have now found it a little bit harder, so the status quo got harder with market access. There are opportunities for new growth, and we could do much more to articulate that. We are seeing interest from North American businesses—to come and access UK and EU markets is a phenomenal opportunity—and even some interest from businesses in GB, so English businesses, which are looking at early stages. They have a product or a prototype and want to look at where they can scale that. Northern Ireland looks like a great place to scale it, because you have the manufacturing infrastructure, assuming we can fix the pipeline of skills, and the access to both UK and EU markets. There is even an opportunity when we start to look at issues of sovereign capability and national resilience for the UK. We talk about things like carbon fibre in aerospace and defence, so looking at materials supply chains, where we do not have sovereign capability. I know there is interest from DBT to look at whether we can build that somewhere in the UK. Northern Ireland is a great place to put that. Large corporates might say, “We do not need to come and build a factory in the UK, because we can serve it from our European or US facilities”. If you are putting that in Northern Ireland and you can actually access the UK and the EU markets, the business case perhaps gets easier. There are huge opportunities there that we could do more to articulate and actively promote. A lot of that is going to be FDI. It is a chance to help, perhaps, to anchor and scale indigenous businesses in Northern Ireland by accessing both markets.

Steven, from an agritech perspective, is it similar in terms of that?

In my engagements with the agritech sector, it is largely at the science level rather than at the scale-up, manufacturing the products and selling the products level. At the science level, at the early stages, it does not come up in conversation that often, other than the question gets raised about, “Northern Ireland, you have dual market access. How does it work?” Then you try to direct them to the right people who may well be able to answer that question better. At the science stage, they see Northern Ireland as a place where we have good facilities and good expertise and that is a good place to develop and test their science and develop their product at that level. The dual market access is the next part of their questions. Sam touched on that really well, because it seems like an incredible opportunity. In conversations you hear people talk about the complexities of it and that scare factor of, “What am I going to do here? It is just too confusing. I am not even going to try to push that”. My interactions are at that first stage, really.

You hinted at this, Sam. This is a similar question in terms of how it is advanced or even explained and people are brought into the opportunity. Are the Department for Business and Trade or other UK Government Departments highlighting this effectively in Northern Ireland, the possibilities of dual market access? If they are not, what do they need to do more of? That is to both of you, but maybe Sam first.

I do not think that anyone is articulating it well enough. We need a coherent pitch deck that says, for different kinds of businesses, “Here is the opportunity”. For a Northern Ireland indigenous business that is scaling, here is what it means. For a non-European business looking to access UK and European markets, here is what it provides to you. Even for a GB company looking for the right place to scale, why might Northern Ireland be the right place? I have not seen that presented clearly. That is a thing for the Executive and DBT to look at and pitch together.

It is an opportunity being missed at the moment.

I believe so, yes.

To me, that would feed into the wider ecosystem of making how it works, what works, the investment opportunities and the skills very clear, open and transparent. Having that really clear shop window of what we have to offer and the opportunities it brings to you is really important.

Thank you, Sam, and thank you for our visit to your facility as well. It was great fun. It was lovely to meet you, Steven. We are going to move on to our second panel now. Thank you very much for your time. Witnesses: Shane Corcoran, Richard Williams and Simon Whittaker.

This is the second panel of the fourth session of our economic growth inquiry. I would like to welcome: Richard Williams, chief executive of Northern Ireland Screen; Shane Corcoran, head of NI policy at RenewableNI; and Simon Whittaker, the chair of NI Cyber, who is joining us online.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us today. This is a general question on what role your sectors have in driving economic growth. It is such good news. Interestingly, your joint industries are extraordinarily linked to the development of Belfast Harbour. It has announced £300 million for renewable offshore energy. That is part of a £1.25 billion investment over the next 25 years in that and our creative industries. How do you see your sectors as linked to that and growing the Northern Ireland economy?

In terms of the Belfast Harbour deal, it is definitely good news for Belfast and for Northern Ireland generally, and for the renewables industry and the offshore portion of that. At the moment, Northern Ireland renewables and offshore developers that are looking at Northern Ireland cannot really benefit from that. We do not have any offshore installations built in Northern Ireland at the moment. We do not have the seabed leases at the moment from the Crown Estate. That is all going to point back to the delay in policy implementation from DFE and others. At the moment, it is a very good investment for the harbour and for Belfast. A lot of the benefits for renewables are actually in constructing and exporting out to the North sea and Scotland. It is really the offshore industry in Scotland that is benefiting from the investment there at the moment.

We know that the last Government and this Government have parcelled up every square inch of seabed to lease, other than those that cannot be done because of wrecks or shipping lanes. When do we expect the leases for Northern Ireland to be released?

I know that the Crown Estate is constantly in talks with them. I know that it cannot really move until DFE moves on the installations Bill. I can follow up with more detailed feedback on that. At the moment, it is just waiting for progress on the policy front before it can move on the leasing side of things.

That might be something we should take up ourselves as a Committee.

Belfast Harbour has been enormously helpful to the screen industry, going all the way back to the securing of “Game of Thrones”, pushing towards, but not quite, 20 years ago. It is not the technical description, but you have a semi-public body that is entirely independent of public funding and has a lot of freedom as a result. It has been able to do things that neither the Northern Ireland Executive nor Westminster would have been able to do. Three times, it has invested very significantly in studio infrastructure. Going back to the start, it was first in collaboration with TQ. Then it built Belfast Harbour Studios, pushing 10 years ago, and when it extended Belfast Harbour Studios to include Studio Ulster, which is a city deal project under the BRCD. I think that other parts of the UK have looked with envy at our having that stakeholder in the sector. What it boiled down to is that it was able to invest without borrowing.

That is because it is a trust port.

Yes. The market has evolved since, and has now probably gone back, but for most of my career you would not have been able to secure bank investment for studios, even though they have been viable over all this time.

That is really useful and interesting. Thank you, Richard. “Game of Thrones” is always on our bingo card, so you got there first.

It was mine to take.

Simon, on cyber and software, in our brief today I was astonished by a report in 2021 that showed that 46,000 people were employed in software jobs in Northern Ireland alone. When we were in Dublin recently, we looked with envy at its trade surplus, which mainly comes from big pharma and IT. I was wondering what the alignment north-south is like in terms of IT and cyber for the economy.

The question is around north-south and how we all try to work together. One of the most important things to remember, especially in the cyber world, is that cyber threats do not stop at a border. They carry on regardless. At NI Cyber, we have really tried to work on this. We have a great partnership, for instance, with Cyber Ireland, which is the cyber cluster for Ireland based down at Munster Technological University. We work very regularly with lots of different organisations down there to make sure that we are aware of who people are so that, should an issue occur, everybody knows who everybody is talking to and who they should be talking to. We also see a lot of organisations that work both north and south. In the software sector, for instance, over the last few years Liberty IT has been a big employer in the north and the south and has had lots of success from that perspective. We try very hard to make sure that there are as many ways as possible for people to work together. For instance, at the NI Cyber cluster we are currently trying to work with NCSC Ireland to get it to have a conversation with us and express what it is up to. It has just released some great stuff around SMEs. We always work very closely with the NCSC in the UK as well. We are always trying to make sure that there is a great crossover between what we are doing up here in Belfast and what is happening over the border.

I have a quickfire question on the barriers to growth. This is to all three of you, starting with Simon. If you had a magic wand, in a Harry Potter style, and could zap something, which barrier would you get rid of?

I will give you one of the biggest issues that we see. We have some fantastic skills programmes. We have some really brilliant things happening from an education perspective. We have things such as CyberFirst, which is moving into TechFirst. We have various fantastic things happening at the FE and HE colleges. We have various things happening at QUB, UU and the Open University. What we are missing is that next stage into employment. “Carrot and stick” comes to mind. I was listening to some of the previous witness evidence. There were some really interesting things there about things such as apprenticeships. What is stopping there being a requirement for public sector contracts to have not just an element of social value but an element of employment, such as apprenticeships or other forms of employment that do not come through the traditional route. FIT.ie here in Belfast is doing Assured Skills Academies with Belfast City Council, and various other organisations are doing similar things. We would love to see those organisations really being asked, “What can you do to help support not just young people but people returning to the workplace and people coming into the organisations at a different stage and in a different direction?”

This would be publicly procured contracts that have an apprenticeship, skills or jobs element. Shane, I will ask the same question to you. Except for seabed licences, what would be a game changer?

We are talking about clusters, so I will cluster our three big problems into one and zap it that way. For the renewables industry, it is the lack of a route to market for renewables projects. We have been without a route to market for renewables projects in Northern Ireland for 10 years now, since the closure of ROCs, whereas GB and the Republic of Ireland have moved ahead with CfD auctions. We are still waiting on the legislation for the renewable electricity price guarantee. It is supposedly coming this month, before summer recess, but we are quickly running out of time. If that does not pass through in this mandate, it is going to be catastrophic for the investment case for renewables in Northern Ireland.

Who does contracts for difference sit with?

That sits with DFE. It has published multiple documents and timelines. It has consistently missed every deadline that it has had for consultations on terms and conditions and the introduction of legislation. The lack of sticking to timelines is endemic across all the bodies involved in Northern Ireland, from DFE to SONI, NIE or NIEA. It is endemic, and it makes investment unattractive. Apart from the route to market, we have issues with delivery of grid infrastructure. Again, that goes back to delays and slippages. SONI talks a good talk in terms of what it is going to do to build out the grid. It had six key projects to deliver to enable 80% renewables by 2030. Those six key projects have all slipped past 2030. I do not know how SONI can still say it is going to meet 80% if those key projects have slipped past 2030. Connected to all that is planning timelines. The planning timelines for Northern Ireland, not just for renewables but for everything, are the worst in these islands. I do not have the exact stat to hand, but I can follow up after. On average, it is about 852 days to get planning approval for a wind farm. In GB, it is probably around 200. It is almost three years compared with less than a year.

Planning and grid issues come up quite regularly. We hear your frustration. For you, Richard, what would be a barrier or an opportunity?

I am glad to go last, because that gave me an opportunity to think about it. For us, the silver bullet would be some sort of mechanism that effectively requires all the key stakeholders to think more energetically and more in terms of the long-term sustainability of the overall Northern Ireland screen industry. When I talk about stakeholders, I am much less throwing stones at either local or national Government than thinking about all the other stakeholders, particularly the public service broadcasters such as the BBC. The BBC does absolutely brilliant things in Northern Ireland, but it is critical to the sustainability of the sector and it does not think enough through that prism. Interestingly, the industrial strategy creates something of a platform for that because the creative industries, and therefore the screen industries, are one of the pillars that could be used, particularly as we come up to charter renewal, to drive more of a focus on bringing the BBC, Channel 4, us, skills providers, colleges, universities and cross-border stakeholders, including PSBs in the south and our equivalents in the Republic of Ireland, together to look at the ecosystem in a 10-year context.

Shane, you talked about SONI. What is the impact on your industry of SONI missing those projects? That is just something I picked up.

Tying it back to the inquiry and the point about economic growth, it sends out bad investment signals for new developers who are coming here and looking at the market. We have no shortage of interest from developers who are looking at Northern Ireland to develop renewables, but the lack of grid and the connection timelines because of the lack of capacity on the grid is making it completely unattractive. We can get into the physical capacity of the grid as well, in terms of being able to move an electron from A to B. We do not have the infrastructure at the moment to accommodate all that. That is leading to high constraints on the network, meaning that renewables—wind farms, solar farms and things like that—are being told to switch off when they could be generating clean electricity. When they are told to switch off, a gas plant is told to turn on. At that point, it again damages the investment case. When they are told to switch off, they are not making money.

Who holds SONI to account for that?

That is a question. That is one of the points we would like to push here and with DFE back in Stormont. It does not seem like anyone is holding SONI to account. These timelines have consistently slipped. They have slipped, and that is it. There are no financial repercussions for them. There are no fines or anything like that. It is just, “Well, they have slipped. We will try harder next time”.

To all three of you, what is your assessment of the adequacy of the UK Government’s current industrial strategies specifically for your own sectors? Is there anything missing in those?

The most important thing that we need to be looking at around this is investment in research and education. We need to make sure we have the right level of research and development taking place within Northern Ireland. We have had some fantastic successes over here. We have things such as CSIT and the Cyber-AI Hub. We have the AI Collaboration Centre, which is a joint venture between Ulster University and Queen’s. There has been significant investment in that. We have to make sure that strategy has a fantastic focus on research and innovation, because from that come the companies that will then take over the world. We have a unique thing here in Northern Ireland, where we have this collaboration. That collaboration is tough to write down in any strategy, but, in the cyber world here, most people know one another in one way, shape or form. It is a really tight-knit group. Our cluster and the community around that cluster really helps people to know who those people are. In any strategy that we have, we really have to make sure that we are also bringing the people and place idea around this as well and making sure we really enforce that collaboration, because the place-based growth that we have had has included NI Cyber, Invest NI, colleges, employers, Government, Queen’s University and Ulster University. They have all worked together to help create a globally recognised cluster. It is very difficult to bring that out in any sort of written strategy document. I would be keen to make sure that we are given a bit of freedom to be able to invest money in the way that seems useful for the particular place where we live.

You have talked about collaboration. Do you feel there is enough collaboration? I know what you are saying about that organic collaboration in Northern Ireland because of who we are, but is there enough collaboration between UK Government and Northern Ireland Executive Departments and the private sector? If that were constricted by a written document, would it be restrictive rather than helpful for those who are getting involved?

What would be beneficial would be having something to say to UK Government that there is life outside London and Cheltenham. Sometimes, especially in the cyber world, it can feel like there is a lot of focus on those areas. We have been able to punch above our weight because of the fact that we collaborate so effectively, know one another and do get on. Again, writing it down and enforcing something is complicated, but I would urge Government Departments, when they are looking for a test bed for something, to remember that we have a couple of million people over in Northern Ireland. We have some really fantastic organisations. We can try things out on a smaller scale and see whether they work. That is a really important thing to be able to do. Using the organisations and the people to try things out would be of great benefit to all of us.

I have said this to some extent already, but looking at it from the point of view of the screen industries, the first thing is that the creative industries are in the industrial strategy. That was not always so. That is important. Similarly, Belfast and Northern Ireland are in the industrial strategy. That also was not always so. On both fronts, that is very significant progress. Again, I have already made one of these points, but the real key drivers of the screen industry were in place long before the industrial strategy. I have mentioned the absolutely pivotal importance of the BBC. There absolutely has to be more work done by the BBC in terms of how it engages in Northern Ireland from a sectoral and industrial point of view. The other thing I would point out is the importance of tax credits. This is not exclusive to the UK. It is the same all over the world. Tax credits are the bedrock of the success of the screen industry. They are enormously successful. The high-end television tax credit has driven the UK to capture a huge amount of high-end television, which I am sure everybody on the Committee is familiar with. The point I would make is that the introduction of that HETV tax credit created a huge lever for growth right across the UK outside the south-east of England. Predominantly, that growth was outside the south-east of England. I am not sure that was well enough understood at the time. It was impactful. Over time, there has been a range of changes in market conditions, including a significant slump on the demand side. The value to the nations and regions, as the BBC would call it, everywhere outside of the south-east of England, has declined. There is nothing in the industrial strategy that really acknowledges that, never mind seeks to address it. It is difficult. Everybody wants increased tax credits or better tax credits. Everybody wants something from the Treasury all the time. The key point is that this is not special pleading for Northern Ireland. This relates to the whole of the UK outside the south-east of England. We need some sort of consideration as to how we get back to where we were when the high-end television tax credit was introduced. That could be by having some sort of differentiation uplift in terms of the rest of the UK or some other mechanism, but it needs to be considered. That important historical dynamic is not very well understood and, as a consequence, it has not been interrogated or considered.

That is a historical issue. I sat on the old DCAL Committee at that stage, a long time ago. Has that political or departmental impact been lost because there is not a specific focus on this within a Government Department in Northern Ireland? Is that still there? Is it too watered down?

The support for the screen industries from the Northern Ireland Executive predominantly comes through the funding of Northern Ireland Screen. Stormont is under considerable budget challenges at the moment. If we are looking at this in the round, Northern Ireland Screen has been very well supported by the Department for the Economy and the Department for Communities. We straddle both Departments because we are economic activity but also cultural and educational activity. We are well supported. It is more around the point that I made on the earlier question about how you can get all the stakeholders to push in the same direction at the same time. We have some very good examples of that at the moment. I have already mentioned Studio Ulster, the city deal project. There is local funding and public funding both directly into city deals and through Arts and Humanities Research Council CoSTAR funding. There are examples of good practice, but we still need to simplify things and have a greater and more straightforward focus. To be honest, this is less about the Departments, whether that is Westminster or the Northern Ireland Executive, and more about stakeholders such as Northern Ireland Screen, the BBC, the universities and the BFI. The BFI has been very good, certainly over the last decade, in terms of its engagement with Northern Ireland. There are a lot of stakeholders. Northern Ireland could really benefit from some sort of mechanism that drives them to consider the full picture over a 10-year period. The patronage of that could come from DFE or it could come from here, but it is really more about the stakeholders than the Departments.

I will keep it short and sweet in terms of collaboration between UK Government and the Executive on energy. Energy is devolved, so what can be done is quite limited. The UK Government have a Clean Power 2030 target, but they have no UK-wide climate targets and things like that. The Executive have their own Climate Change Act targets. There is a bit of a disconnect and there needs to be more emphasis on alignment and joined-up working between the UK Government and the Executive, just so that both are singing from the same hymn sheet and pushing in the same direction. As I have already said, in terms of GB and what you are doing over here, you are following through and putting things in place to achieve those targets, whereas in Northern Ireland—I sound like a broken record—there is talk, but there are no steps forward. In terms of collaboration, it could be in terms of city deals or funding that could be ringfenced for actual infrastructure delivery. Back to your point earlier on about who is holding someone to account for not delivering, if it is ringfenced, there would be a way to hold them to account. I am not sure whether that is too pie in the sky, but that is the way that I would see better collaboration between the UK Government and the Executive on the energy front.

This is about economic growth, so it should be positive, but it does not feel that way at the minute. Richard, you provoked me because you said earlier that it is great to see creative industries in the industrial strategy, but all that has been achieved positively over the last number of years has nothing to do with being in a Government strategy. I think that is right. I get annoyed whenever I see Government strategies that simply go around different sectors and say, “What are you doing at the minute?” They put that information together and they put a wrapper around it. That is not a strategy. That is just a recognition of what is happening. It is a bit like a tourism strategy saying, “We are going to increase the population of Portrush on a summer’s day, when the sun is out, tenfold” when that has happened for a century or more without any Government strategy saying that is what they are going to do. I find it really frustrating. What I really want to ask the three of you is this. You have your own circles of influence in Northern Ireland. You are engaged with DFE. You are engaged with other creative industries. You engage with HBO, other providers and all the rest. Who in central Government knows about you? Who are you talking to in central Government that understands that there are additional needs that you might have that they can help with? It is the same for you, Shane. You are in your own orbit, or your own windmill, on renewables in Northern Ireland. You are talking to people in Northern Ireland. You are frustrated by SONI. I get it. You recognise, like I do, that 2030 is not practically happening. It is not your fault, but it is not happening. When we think about what the UK Government are doing and how they are assisting in the economic growth associated with your sectors, are they even talking to the right people? Do they recognise your concerns? What do you need to see as the outworking of this economic growth report to assist growth within your sectors? I will start with you, Richard, because you got thinking time earlier; you are not getting any now.

In terms of my engagement and Northern Ireland Screen’s engagement with London, as I was saying before, it is the BFI, the BBC, Channel 4 and DCMS. The Chancellor came to Studio Ulster and I gave her my line on the need for differentiated tax credits directly.

Did you get any feedback, follow-up or engagement from officials, or was it just, “Nice to see you, Richard. That was very interesting”?

I got the indication that budgets were tight, and I was not surprised to get that, but it is a longer-term game. To be honest, it is critical. Again, I go back to the point that it is not only critical to Northern Ireland. It is critical right across the UK, outside of the south-east of England. My view is that it will happen. The question is not whether it will happen; it is when it will happen. I hope this is another staging post along the way. I also sit on the Creative Industries Council, which comes out of the industrial strategy. Again, it is pretty bolted into Government. There is another Committee looking at BBC charter renewal. In one sense, we are reasonably well connected, but to reshape the question, do I believe that the screen industry in Northern Ireland is ever in anybody’s top five priorities? No, I do not. It is a real problem. It is a challenge. As somebody who has been doing my job for a long time, it becomes challenging at times because you are saying the same things again and again. You end up feeling like a bit of an idiot. The challenges are still the same and the answers are still the same. At the end of the day, this is about interrogating the challenges and what needs to change. The screen industry in Northern Ireland is a massive success. Yes, it is. It is a success. It is an economic success. It is a cultural success. It is a soft diplomacy success. It is worth remembering that we are an industry that is basically 20 years old. In that time, we have gone from complete irrelevance to a significant global cluster that is consistently delivering across TV, film and new talent. It is in the top five in terms of projects that are of global significance.

Was Northern Ireland Screen involved with “Grace and Goliath”?

Not in a big way, no.

It does not get the recognition it deserves. Shane, what about you?

Just following on from your point about how well your sector is doing and to give you your optimistic slant, Gavin, the renewables sector is a very established sector in Northern Ireland. We have been contributing to the Northern Ireland economy for God knows how long. Ten or 15 years ago, we were leaders across these islands in terms of the level of our power that came from renewables, but we have slipped back. We can take all of this further if the conditions are right. That is the point. We are hopeful that we can be more optimistic in the future, if the conditions are right. In terms of collaboration and who in the UK Government knows about us and who we speak to, to be honest, it is very limited. We have the odd engagement with Ofgem, particularly around interconnectors and things like that. We have doors open into DESNZ through our parent organisation, RenewableUK. We do a lot of speaking there. Because a lot of the priorities that we are focused on are devolved at this moment in time, our doors into UK Government and different Departments over here are very limited.

Simon, I do not know whether you heard the question. We may have lost you slightly. I hope you were able to pick up the question. This is more about the recognition of need within your sector from Whitehall and central Government, and how central Government are assisting in collaboration with you or bringing forward proposals. It may even be that there does not have to be direct contact with NI Cyber, if at least Government Departments in Northern Ireland are feeding through to London and Whitehall.

We have good links with the Government in Westminster through DSIT. We are very privileged to have a fantastic representative from DSIT in Belfast. We have Jessica. She represents the Department very effectively. She brings forward opportunities. Whenever there is a trade visit or a visit from a Minister, she ensures that NI Cyber, the cyber-security cluster and the cyber-security industry are brought to the forefront. We also work with DBT as well. Again, we are very privileged to have some very great people who are working on that. There is fantastic collaboration between the NCSC and organisations, including CSIT. CSIT has a GCHQ-certified course and the Open University also has that now. While not a Government Department, NCSC is the technical authority for cyber-security within the UK. The NCSC is very linked in with us. We are always trying to increase that linkage to make sure it is aware of what we are up to and joins in with anything that is happening. We also have links with UKRI and Innovate UK. Nuala, who represents us in Northern Ireland, is absolutely brilliant at making sure that we are front and centre in anything that happens. We always struggle with the fact that funding can be complicated for various things, such as funding for the Cyber Local scheme last year. I believe it was a DSIT thing. Cyber Local did not apply to Northern Ireland. The answer that was given previously was that the money was wrapped up into the block grant and then taken back out. I am on the board for Byte Digital over here in Northern Ireland, which is a charity that works with young people and youth projects to get them into tech and cyber-security. I know that was a significant issue for them. Suddenly, funding that was due to be taking place was no longer taking place. We have those links with lots of different organisations. One of the things can sometimes be that it does not feel hugely joined up. There are lots of different people doing lots of different talking. That is one of the reasons why we exist: to get everybody in the same room talking about the same stuff. Anyone is very welcome to come along to one of our cyber-security breakfasts, which take place on the last Thursday of every month. We are very keen to invite anyone who would like to come along to hear from all those people about what we are up to and the challenges that real people and real organisations are facing.

Simon, we have a lot to learn from you on your excellent networking and collaborations.

There is one very quick question for me because we have an eye on time. I wanted to come back to skills. Each of your sectors is strong, strengthening and has huge potential for the region. I wanted to get your assessment of the skills pipeline. Are you getting the school leavers and graduates that you need? In particular, are you getting the engagement and exchange that you need with Government and particularly with the Northern Ireland Executive? They have the responsibility for this. Richard, I might start with you because it is a relatively recent flourishing in your sector.

We have had strong support from DFE in terms of delivering modern traineeships. We have been able to do that because the economic value of bringing in the production work that we do is sufficient that we can carve out a chunk of the funding for more future-oriented skills. Over the last three or four years, we have had 100-plus trainees on our books at all times. That is funded by DFE. I would echo Sam’s earlier point that the apprenticeship levy does not work for Northern Ireland. It has got a little better, but it is challenging for the screen industry and the creative industries generally. It works better for very big companies. That route of funding does not work, but DFE has supported us. It has allowed us to do something unusual, in the sense that our skills activities sit within our broader activities. We look at the whole ecosystem, rather than the skills being carved off into the skills section of DFE and funded through its standard mechanisms. What I am trying to say is that DFE allows us to deliver our own traineeships. Those are enormously expensive and getting more expensive with inflation, but they are critical, at the end of the day. The last thing I would say is that, because we do a lot of traineeships, we are subsidising the rest of the UK and, to a certain extent, the Republic of Ireland, which as a percentage is doing less. We are training a lot of really good people. We are keeping a lot of them, but we are also sending them all over the place because we are doing more of that.

Shane and Simon, I will come to you briefly, but the clock is ticking because we have NIQs in a few minutes. Are there any issues, separate from those that Richard has touched on, that are important for us to know?

For the renewables industry, DFE has this green skills taskforce. It is very active in that. I am sure Simon would agree that the Skill Up programme, which funded certain university courses, has been very helpful in terms of engineering and things like that. In short, the skills base is there, but, again, retaining those skills in Northern Ireland is tied to the project pipeline. We could develop them here, but, if the pipeline is not here, we will be exporting them.

This is it. They then probably will not come back, as we are finding.

From the cyber perspective, we have a lot of different routes in already. We are very privileged to have CyberFirst, for instance, which has raised the game in Northern Ireland. You could look at the CyberFirst girls event, which took place in March. There were 700 year 8 girls who were brought in to understand more about cyber-security and the industry. From that perspective, we have FE colleges; we have HE colleges; we have CyberFirst; and we have NCSC-certified undergraduate courses. We now need to link that skills policy more directly to employer absorption. It is not enough just to train people. We need more companies to be able and willing to take people into these real cyber roles. That means taking on apprenticeships, as I already mentioned, and work placements so people understand what a career in the cyber industry looks like. If we do not have companies that are able and willing to do that, we are on a hiding to nowhere anyway.

Thanks, all. That was really useful.

Thank you very much. There may be questions that we want to raise with you. We will do so in writing. If there is anything that you want to let us know, please do. Shane, Richard and Simon, thank you very much for your time today.