To ask the Minister for the Economy to detail (i) the reason for the £22.2 million underspend relating to the Annually Managed Expenditure for the Renewable Heat Initiative; and (ii) how farmers are being supported in place of these subsidies.

i) In early 2015 the projections of the cost of the NI RHI Scheme rose above the available budget for 2015/16 and future years. The Department has taken a number of actions since then, including suspension of the Scheme to new applicants in 2016, extension of the tiered tariff structure and annual usage limit to all small and medium biomass installations in 2017 and a revision of small and medium biomass tariffs in 2019. I acknowledge that at present not all of the budget made available from HM Treasury to fund RHI tariffs is being drawn down however, we cannot simply adopt a tariff that maximises use of the available budget. This was an attitude and approach that was rightly criticised by the Public Inquiry. As Minister I have a responsibility to all taxpayers.

ii) The RHI Scheme is not a farmer subsidy scheme, it is an incentive scheme designed to increase the proportion of heat generated from renewable sources by payment of a tariff. It was open to applications from all business and domestic sectors.