Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA Diana Armstrong is the new Chair of the Assembly's Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee, succeeding Robbie Butler following his appointment as Minister of Health.

Diana Armstrong MLA said:

"It is a privilege to take up the chair of the Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee, and I want to thank Robbie Butler for his work in the role. This Committee's job is scrutiny: to hold the Department to account and make sure it works for the industry and the people it exists to serve.

"Agriculture has shaped virtually every aspect of my life. I grew up on our family farm near Ballinamallard and I am married to a farmer, so I know the realities at first hand. When my father, Harry West, was Minister of Agriculture, he worked to three guiding principles: investment in farming, education of young farmers, and affordability. Sixty years on, those are still the right tests.

"I take up this role at a difficult moment. Fivemiletown is in my constituency, and I have spoken to farming families there. Confidence between farmers and the Department that regulates them has been badly damaged, and rebuilding it will take more than time passing. Nor have the other pressures gone away: the cost of fertiliser, the basic affordability of farming, bovine TB running through herds, and continuing uncertainty over nutrient rules and farm support. We should also speak far more openly about mental health in farming. Resilience should never be mistaken for an absence of need.

"The Committee's work goes wider than farming. The Dilapidation Bill is something I am particularly interested in. Derelict buildings blight communities and hold back investment, and with the Bill at its final stage my focus is on seeing it through and then making sure councils have the resources to actually use these powers. On the environment, there is a difference between partnership and prescription. Climate targets should be revised, not abandoned, and on Lough Neagh, wastewater infrastructure must face the same scrutiny as farming. What I will not accept is our farmers carrying that burden alone. They manage our land, and they should be central to the design of policy rather than the people it is done to.

"Our farmers get on with the job quietly and without fanfare. They deserve a Department that understands them, not one they experience only through inspection and enforcement. That is the test I will apply, and I am ready to get started."