No-one expresses any objection to the Waste (Fees and Charges) regulations and Declan McAleer wraps up the meeting for today.

With all the SRs needing to dealt with, the members will be back on Thursday for another gallop through three years of accumulated paperwork.

We'll be back tomorrow morning for live coverage of the Education Committee - the members will be having a briefing from the minister, Peter Weir.

The meeting starts 11:15 - be sure to join us.

In the meantime, have a very good evening.

Small increases to fees for agriculture students are next on the agenda.

Sinn Féin's Philip McGuigan points out that there's been talk at Stormont about increases to tuition fees as a way of raising revenue and he wants to be sure these increases are inflationary only.

Image source, Getty Images

"This isn't per se a huge hike in tuition fees - this is an annual increase in relation to inflation?" asks the North Antrim MLA.

Daera's Norman Fulton confirms the fees will remain "constant in real terms" and such small increases have happened every year since 2007.

He also reveals there are "fairly well advanced" plans for a student exchange between Northern Ireland and counterparts in Hong Kong.

Agriculture Committee chair Declan McAleer says the need for new legislation to pay subsidies to "springs from the Brexit debacle".

He wants to know of there will be any changes to the application process or the inspection regime for direct payments in 2020 and what the future will be for funding rural communities beyond that.

Daera official Norman Fulton says in 2020 there'll be a rollover of the 2019 arrangements.

Image source, Getty Images

The legislation applies to 2020 only, he explains, and as to the future beyond that: "We are at the start of a new era, a new journey."

Alliance Party MLA John Blair asks what preparations are being made to ensure Northern Ireland can keep pace with changes made by other devolved administrations.

Mr Fulton says that now the UK is leaving the EU's Common Agriculture Policy, agriculture is a fully-devolved matter and the administrations in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will be fully autonomous from each other in terms of their policy agenda.

Norman Fulton from the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) outlines the Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill, external to the committee.

He explains that under the Brexit deal the EU direct payments regulation, which provides the legal basis for support to UK farmers, ceases to apply after the end of the 2019 scheme year.

The reason is that 2020 scheme year payments will be made out of the EU 2021 financial year budget, to which the UK is not contributing and therefore the UK needs to step outside the EU direct payments scheme.

Image source, NI Assembly

If nothing was done to replace that, there would be no legal basis to make direct payments for UK farmers so the bill being discussed today corrects that. It’s envisaged that the Agriculture Bill will provide powers for 2021 onwards.

Legislative consent from assembly has been requested and there'll be a chance for debate on that in the assembly next Monday.

The committee is asked to provide its view on the legislation to inform the debate on Monday.

During the Infrastructure Committee hearing this morning, Ulster Unionist Roy Beggs said MLAs had been given too little time to scrutinise hundreds of detailed statutory rules, many of which are on important issues.

The committee chair Michelle McIlveen agreed everything was being done "in great haste".

Mr Beggs' comments have provoked reaction from his party leader Steve Aiken, who said it shows lessons haven't been learned from the cash-for-ash debacle, while independent MLA Claire Sugden has this to say...

There's not quite the same lengthy list of topics to get through for this committee as the Infrastructure Committee faced this morning.

Image source, Pacemaker

Nevertheless there's plenty to get on with, starting with a briefing from civil servants about legislation to allow subsidy payments to continue to be made to farmers after the UK leaves the EU.

The full agenda can be found on the assembly website by clicking here, external.

Image source, NI Assembly

Declan McAleer runs through some procedural business before getting into the main agenda for the day.

The committee is due to sit until about 16:30 - you can watch it live at the top of this page.

The first meeting of the new Agriculture Committee has started - it's in private session at the moment but will open up for public viewing shortly.

In the meantime, let's look at who makes up its membership.

Sinn Féin MLAs hold the top two posts - Declan McAleer is the chair, Philip McGuigan is the deputy.

The new faces to the assembly who take their seats on this committee are John Blair of the Alliance Party - he replaced David Ford as the party's MLA in South Antrim - and the DUP's Harry Harvey who replaced Simon Hamilton as a Strangford MLA last year.

The rest are familiar faces - Clare Bailey (Green Party), Rosemary Barton (UUP), Maurice Bradley (DUP), John Dallat (SDLP) and William Irwin (DUP).

Jayne McCormack
BBC News NI political reporter

Enda McClafferty
Political correspondent

MLAs are set to get a £1,000 increase in their annual salary, the BBC has learned.

They were due to receive the extra money over the past three years but the rise was blocked by former Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley.

Image source, Getty Images

She was asked by the Assembly Commission to withhold the money because Stormont was in suspension.

But assembly members will see more money in their first pay packet since Stormont returned, with an increase from £49,500 to £50,500.

Read more here: £1,000 pay rise for MLAs

Conor Macauley
BBC News NI Agriculture and Environment Correspondent

Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots is to step back from farming in order to prevent any perception of a conflict of interest in his new role.

The DUP MLA says he's finalising the paperwork to give effect to the decision.

Mr Poots' responsibilities also cover the environment, which has been under pressure from things like agricultural emissions.

The new minister says climate change adaptation was the biggest single challenge he faced.

He says he want to find ways to let farms flourish while while cutting agricultural emissions of ammonia and greenhouse gases.

A busy session, that one, and the committee has only got part of the way through its lengthy agenda.

It returns tomorrow at 10:00 to finish off what it started.

We'll be back in a while with coverage of the Agriculture Committee - it begins at 14:00 for an hour in private session so we'll pick it up after that.

Quadbikes and crash helmets are being considered by the Infrastructure Committee now.

A Department for Infrastructure officials explains new rules were introduced after a number of deaths, including of young children, due to crashes involving quads on public roads.

Image source, Getty images

Keith Buchanan of the DUP and Sinn Féin's Raymond McCartney want to know about the position of farmers using quads for work.

In short, farmers have to wear helmets on the public road but not on private land and training is available for them.

The Irish government had agreed to contribute money towards the cost of the A5 road project, Ulster Unionist Roy Beggs reminds the Infrastructure Committee.

It was initially a £400m offer but was subsequently reduced in 2011 to £42m before being increased to £75m over three years.

Mr Beggs wants to know whether - given "we're in a time of austerity" - the Irish government has stumped up any of the cash.

A DfI official appearing before the committee says he's involved with the legislative side of the scheme and the funding question is one on which he can't comment.

Committee chair Michelle McIlveen tells members that Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon is due to appear at the committee in a couple of weeks' time and members can raise the matter with her then.

The committee moves to another long-running major road project saga - the A5, linking counties Londonderry and Tyrone, which has been dogged with problems since its inception.

After a legal challenge in November 2018 a judge quashed the Department for Infrastructure's (DfI) decision to proceed.

Image source, NI Assembly

A department official says DfI is carrying out the necessary work to enable a new decision to be made and a public inquiry is scheduled to open in February.

He says the court's decision took the department back to the stage where it's preparing the necessary papers for it may be taken to the new Minister Nichola Mallon.

"We need to wait for the outcome of public inquiry to be complete," he adds.

Senior managers in Stormont's Department for Infrastructure (DfI) are considering the likelihood of obtaining funding for the long-awaited York Street interchange project, according to a civil servant close to the scheme.

The procurement process for the delayed interchange remains "stalled" due to legal challenge, Basil Hassard of DfI tells the Infrastructure Committee.

The scheme was designed to ease congestion at the junctions of the city's M1, M2 and M3 with a new bridge and underpass.

But it's been held up, in part due to a legal challenge over the process for appointing a contractor.

The High Court found in 2018 that there were mistakes in that process.

There are no plans to change the scheme, adds the official.

Back in action again, with a few more road abandonments to consider before moving on to issues including rules on everything from taxi licences to motorways to motorcycle helmets.

The committee members have been sitting about 90 minutes so Michelle McIlveen announces a 10-minute break.

John Campbell
BBC News NI Economics and Business Editor

Finance Minister Conor Murphy has said he is not "actively pursuing" a cut in corporation tax for Northern Ireland.

Cutting the tax, which is applied to company profits, was for many years a key economic policy shared by the Stormont parties.

Image source, PA Media

The power to cut the tax was devolved to Northern Ireland in 2015.

Mr Murphy said a change in economic and political circumstances means the issue has now "receded".

Read more here: Murphy 'not pursuing' corporation tax cut

There's a bit of confusion for the UUP's Roy Beggs, though it soon becomes clear it's all down to a lack of colour printing.

In discussions about an abandoned area of land, the "poor map" Mr Beggs has been given means he can't see where a boundary is.

Image source, NI Assembly

An official from the infrastructure department explains the area delineated in red is the only area to be abandoned.

However, it transpires that the committee members only have a black and white copy of the map, hence the confusion.