by Sam McBride
In Stormont’s defence, that problem had always existed in GB where RHI was also deeply flawed. Ofgem’s inspectors had told it that in the first 18 months of the GB scheme there were multiple problems, including a Herefordshire farmer using eight boilers to heat one building – which had the door open. The GB legislation was deficient to the extent that someone enquired about RHI heating a lake for windsurfing. Another individual in GB successfully used RHI to heat a games room with a large hole in the roof because of a legislative ‘duty to accredit’, even if the application seemed nonsensical.
In February 2014, energy expert Neil Lawson told an audience at the University of Leeds that the GB RHI was paying 8 p/kWh for the first tier – double the cost of biomass, ‘so all the farmers are out there heating their chicken sheds with all the doors open, all their barns with no doors on – it’s a crop to them; it’s another way of generating income’. Warning that such perverse outcomes were ultimately not in the industry’s interest, he told how the previous week he had been informed of a group of farmers in the southwest of England who the previous year had clubbed together to buy 140 biomass boilers at an bulk discount. But, he said, ‘they’re taking them out; they’re throwing them away’ to buy better quality boilers. He explained: ‘Because the RHI’s so generous, they can afford to do that.’
The same month as Lawson’s talk, someone at an RHI event told a senior Ofgem manager that they knew ‘quite a few people in our local farming community who are saying they’re giving up sheep and just raking in the money from the RHI’. Nine months later, an Ofgem manager was told by a Scottish farmer that the GB RHI was so lucrative that he had sold his entire herd to install RHI boilers in the sheds which once housed cows – even though he had no current need for the heat.
CEPA’s retrospective analysis was that when the Northern Ireland RHI launched in 2012 the GB scheme was ‘much more generous’ and ‘only at high load factors would the NI scheme be more attractive … but this then fell rapidly (from c.£11,000 pa at 15% to c.£4,000 in roughly two years) as the [GB] degression mechanism kicked in’.
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On 18 December 2015, Crawford had been told clearly by a senior finance official that Stormont would have to pay for the RHI overspend. Yet weeks after that – and aware of how Moy Park had massively added to the first spike in applications – he tipped off Moy Park about the fact that RHI would soon be closing.
On 15 January, the new Finance Minister, Mervyn Storey, and his spad, Crawford, met with Moy Park’s chief executive, Janet McCollum, at the company’s head office outside Portadown. Civil servants were not present and no minutes were taken. Storey said that the meeting had been arranged as an MLA prior to his appointment as Finance Minister.
At the end of the meeting, Crawford told Moy Park that RHI was shutting. Storey said he had ‘no specific recollection about this aspect’ of the meeting. And, as was frequently the case in his evidence, Crawford told the inquiry: ‘I don’t have a clear recollection of the meeting’ but suggested it was unlikely that he had a clear idea of the RHI closure proposal at that stage – even though he knew the scheme was so far over budget that it would have to be shut.
The meeting took place on a Friday, and on the following Monday senior Moy Park executive Mike Mullen, who had been in the meeting, sent a confidential note to senior colleagues, saying that ‘we were unofficially briefed last week that the RHI will soon be closed’. The company immediately tried to get as many of its farmers into the scheme as possible. Moy Park manager Alan Gibson replied to say: ‘In absolute confidence. Final push needed on our own farms and contract growers in NI.’
Mullen the following day asked colleagues to ‘prepare where we are at, how exposed we are based on some scenario’s [sic] of what they might do and ideally what are [sic] would want them to do’. He ended the message with a clear indication of who the company saw as its most helpful Stormont source: ‘Then we could go up and see Mr Crawford!’
Two days later, David Mark told his colleagues: ‘I will organise a time with Andrew Crawford.’ When asked at the inquiry if Moy Park had then come to lobby him, Crawford said: ‘I don’t recall.’ Mark said to his colleagues that ideally the company would like RHI to stay open until August because ‘we would really sweep everything up in this case – but every month [is] a bonus’.
Crawford highlighted that DETI had received a message four days before the Moy Park meeting that the company was pressing its farmers to install boilers before the scheme shut, suggesting that it may have had another source for inside Stormont information.
But regardless of whether Crawford was the first or second source of Moy Park’s information, the impact of the leak was that not only did taxpayers now lose more money – but the vast poultry processor again had an unfair advantage over its rivals and anyone else wanting to install boilers.
Defending his interactions with Moy Park, Crawford said he had ‘concern about the wider implications for the [poultry] sector’ – but insisted there was ‘no malice’ in his actions.
Astonishingly, less than three weeks after warning Moy Park that RHI was to close, Crawford was giving the impression to fellow DUP spads that he was worried about another spike. He said in an email: ‘Should we be making some comment … that we will be carrying out a full audit [of] the scheme? This might limit another spike in applications before we get approval from the Assembly and will head off inevitable criticism that the scheme is being abused.’
Yet Crawford had already tipped off Moy Park. Was he trying to limit non-Moy-Park entrants, aware that a vast spike of Moy Park plus others would lead to scrutiny? Or was it that at this stage – after seeing the panic from McKibbin and others at the scale of the RHI commitments – Crawford was now panicking, aware that he had given Moy Park a three-week advantage over the public? Or was the thrust of his email actually designed to discourage non-Moy Park applications? After all, the poultry sector had a legitimately huge demand for heat, meaning that an audit process would not necessarily cut the bill to taxpayers – but might frighten unscrupulous applicants out of applying, leaving more of the pot for poultry.
Whatever his thinking, here was Crawford – who had been involved in the scheme from the outset – still playing a key role almost a year after he had left DETI.
Curiously, despite the fact that he had close associations with the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU), Crawford did not tip it off about closure, according to UFU policy officer Chris Osborne. Was that coincidence, or was it part of a more strategic effort to assist Moy Park in particular, rather than agriculture or even poultry in general?
The final spike is particularly suspicious because there had been negligible uptake after tiering of tariffs in November 2015. When Bell announced the sudden closure of the scheme in February 2016, installers and potential claimants argued that there were a host of businesses planning to enter the scheme only to be left with huge financial liabilities. Understandably, MLAs empathised with their constituents about what appeared to be uncaring government action. But the tiny uptake since November suggests that unless word of the impending closure had leaked out – via Crawford and perhaps others – few of those businesses would have been in a position where they were already in the process of installing boilers. Yet again, the DUP spad had contributed to the bill for taxpayers increasing massively.
It also may have been that there was still a lingering hope from some in the DUP that London would pay more of the bill. On 26 January, McCormick emailed Stewart and Sterling to say that RHI was being dealt with by Foster and McKibbin. ‘My impression [is] that the focus is on seeking a better outcome from HMT [Treasury].’
As Stormont moved towards closing RHI, it was boom time for boiler installers. Initially, they were terrified by the threat of closure within ten days because some of them had ordered stock which they feared would be unsellable. But with the two-week delay, and with Moy Park’s early warning of the closure, installers struggled to meet de
mand.
Such was the rush to complete installations before the deadline that installer Alan Hegan phoned his heat meter supplier in Scotland to ask if he could deliver heat meters to the ferry in Stranraer where a passing haulier would collect them, because he could not even wait on a courier. He said that he and other installers were putting up tradesmen from across the Irish border in hotels, with electricians and plumbers working through the night in a bid to beat the deadline – and individuals were willing to pay those additional costs, such was the lucrative nature of the RHI payments, even after the scheme had supposedly been fixed to prevent overcompensation.
Another installer, Neil Elliott, recalled that ‘there was desperation to get equipment’. Boiler manufacturers were increasing production to meet the sudden demand. He recalled how some customers were willing to airfreight a boiler from Austria rather than bring it in on a lorry to ensure that they got it in time. ‘It was, you know, whatever it cost, [they] didn’t care. This was the thing; it was incredible. I mean, we had staff working 24 hours a day to get them installed.’ He said that RHI had increased the amount of heat in Northern Ireland rather than simply replacing fossil fuel systems with greener alternatives. He said: ‘You know, the idea was to produce 20% heat by renewable sources: it wasn’t to add 20% heat onto the current heat load. So, what it’s done is now, you’ve spaces being heated. Now, some of them did need to be heated, but you’ve added more heat onto the heat load rather than taking away from it.’
CHAPTER 16
LET’S CLAIM IT WAS A SUCCESS
At 4.15pm on 15 February 2016, Jonathan Bell rose from the blue leather benches of the Assembly chamber in Parliament Buildings and began to mislead the Assembly at the request of his civil servants.
Just ten of the 108 MLAs were present as he began to speak with typical self-confidence. Bell was there to ask MLAs to pass legislation which would give him the power to close RHI to new entrants at the end of that month. But even at this late stage, he and DETI found it impossible to admit what they all knew: RHI had been calamitous.
Although Bell’s speech to the Assembly referred to ‘significant budgetary pressures’ and the need to close the scheme for financial reasons, he described it as ‘beneficial’ and denounced the criticism that ‘money has been squandered or investment lost’, saying plainly: ‘That is not the case.’
It was preposterous – and Bell knew that what he was saying was inaccurate. His spad, Tim Cairns – who over two days of evidence to the inquiry spoke frankly, even where that often meant portraying himself unfavourably – said that Bell’s speech had been prepared by officials who, like the minister and his adviser, understood that RHI was a disaster.
Over the preceding weeks, officials had finalised a regulatory impact assessment which had to accompany the legislation. That document, which Mr Bell signed to indicate his endorsement, set out four potential options for the future of RHI.
Even though the scheme was then being closed under urgent procedures due to being vastly over budget and amid allegations of gross abuse, the document set out a far brighter picture. It claimed: ‘All four options show that the RHI has a positive impact on the NI economy – i.e. the benefits outweigh the costs. The largest net benefit lies in keeping the scheme open.’ Cairns said that he did not recall reading the document, and said it was ‘certainly a remarkable paragraph’.
It was Stuart Wightman who prepared the false document. He admitted to the inquiry: ‘We should not have been framing the RHI scheme as a success … taking into account the overspend, overcompensation and concerns about gaming or fraud.’ However, he highlighted the document was ‘shared with and approved by senior officials’. Yet again, DETI seemed institutionally focussed on protecting itself from criticism rather than being honest not just with the public – but with the legislature. As Bell misled the chamber, Cairns, Wightman, Seamus Hughes and John Mills were sitting just feet away in the Assembly box for officials.
Cairns said that the document reflected a similar sentiment to that suffusing Bell’s speech and that he had been ‘somewhat uncomfortable’ about it. He said: ‘There kept on being references to how great the scheme [had been] … of course, the immediate political attack on that is: well, if it’s such a great scheme, what are you doing closing it?’ He said that the language jarred with the minister and himself because throughout Bell’s speech there was ‘positivity’ when in reality they all knew that there had been a ‘cloud of gloom’ over DETI because of the scheme. However, he said that although they raised their unhappiness with officials over what Cairns said was ‘a bizarre approach that was being taken’, with the need for urgency they went along with accepting the speech.
When asked if he and the minister believed what was in the speech, he said: ‘No. Absolutely not. No, no, no. You know the budgetary position – you scroll up [in the document] and it’s £95 million or whatever it is over five years, just on the page before. There’s certainly a disconnect between the two.’ He candidly admitted that both he, the minister and officials knew that RHI was ‘a disaster’. Inquiry chairman Sir Patrick Coghlin said: ‘This is again the creation of a document that you knew to be completely false – just like Mr Bell’s signing the letter [to appoint his Spad] that he knew to be completely false and that’s what you mean, I think, by “real politics”. If you need to do it, you need to do it.’ Cairns said: ‘You’re absolutely right. You know, I think to delay by a day or whatever at this point in time to debate the issues in that, I suppose you’ve got to pick your fights.’ Cairns admitted that what Bell had said was ‘crazy’ and ‘beggars belief’.
During the debate, Sinn Féin’s Conor Murphy said: ‘I would not like the suggestion that something untoward was going on to hang as a backdrop to or rationale for the decision taken today. There was a clear statement from the most senior officials in the department that they had heard no evidence that any abuse was going on.’
The DUP would later attempt to undermine criticism of Foster’s role in the scandal by highlighting that other parties voted to keep RHI open at this stage. Even based on Bell’s absurd claims about the scheme being ‘very successful’ and being ‘a positive news story’, it ought to have been clear to those parties that the subsidy was now simply unaffordable. But the misleading ministerial speech meant that they were at least able to argue that they had been actively misled.
It was particularly indefensible because the speech was not designed to win over MLAs. As with much Stormont business, a deal had already been done between the DUP and Sinn Féin to vote for the legislation, and they had the numbers to force it through. This wasn’t even some ethically elaborate case of the end justifying the means in order to protect the public purse. Rather, this was a straightforward attempt to deflect criticism – and scrutiny – of unjustifiable behaviour.
Bell also presented the decision to delay closure by two weeks as his – even though he later said that it was foisted upon him by Foster. When asked to reconcile that with his later claims, Bell told the inquiry that there are many things which happen in government ‘under protest’ where ‘it’s not … politically expedient’ to tell the full story.
Though the chamber had been sparsely populated for the debate, when the division bell rang to signal a vote, MLAs piled into the chamber. Foster, who had not attended the debate, came and sat beside Bell as MLAs waited to vote. A smiling and relaxed Bell chatted to his leader with no public hint of the paranoid rage he felt at what had been going on behind the scenes.
The legislation passed and on 29 February the RHI scheme closed to new entrants. By the time it shut, there had been 2,128 applications – the overwhelming majority of which were for biomass boilers.
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In farcical fashion, Foster and Bell’s relationship continued to deteriorate. On 29 February – the last day for RHI applications – London Mayor Boris Johnson visited the Wrightbus factory in Antrim. The celebrity politician was there to announce a £6
2 million order for Ulster-built Routemaster buses and local politicians were eager to bask in some of the reflected glory.
Bell had not been invited and he was livid. In the end, he just showed up unannounced and was included in photos as Johnson did pull-ups under the chassis of a bus. After the event, Bell demanded that his permanent secretary launch an investigation ‘in order to ascertain why he had not been invited to attend the visit’. Bell said that the Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers, had told him that an invitation to him had been issued. McCormick replied in writing to say that he had discussed the issue with the chief executive of Wrightbus and with the Northern Ireland Office, but ultimately advised Mr Bell ‘that no further action should be taken’. McCormick told the inquiry that he had been informed – either by Tim Cairns or by Bell – that Bell was ‘taking advice from Peter Robinson in this period’.
A week before asking McCormick to investigate the absence of an invitation to the event, Bell had emailed Foster to complain. He said: ‘I have major issues with the activities of DUP personnel and the behaviour of DUP SPADS. I am prepared to discuss these with you on a one to one basis at a time that is mutually agreeable to both of us.’
Later that month, Bell emailed Foster, DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds and DUP chairman Lord Morrow. Bell told them he had been ‘extremely hurt by the manner in which I have been treated’, and among his concerns he listed RHI, where ‘without consultation with me your SPAD advised mine that the scheme was to be kept open … There has been a number of allegations of fraudulent activity with this scheme and I have been informed that an official has claimed that the scheme was kept open to accommodate a family member’.