Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, like most noble Lords, I welcome the Bill. Others have said it has been a long time coming, but it is worth it. We have had from my noble friend the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, a vision of how we need to manage the coastal and marine environment and also a reflection of the complex eco-systems involved and the many pressing, different requirements that we are placing on them from renewable energy through to the need for recreation. This is an area where there are conflicting pressures and we need institutions which can balance and reconcile those pressures. In some cases, difficult and often unpopular choices may have to be made. Just to confuse my noble friend the Minister, I am going to work backwards through the Bill and my points and focus first on Part 9 on coastal access. I do so largely out of nostalgia. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, many noble Lords in the House today are survivors of debates on the then CROW Bill. I was the poor Minister who had to steer that Bill through those difficult days. I never let on to the House but I had been instructed by the business managers not to lose a vote during the Bill’s passage because we had run out of time in another place. That meant that some rather odd compromises were established in the Bill, with some consequent inconsistencies in the legislation’s delivery and application. I hope that the same does not apply to this legislation. However, I think that the general welcome given to this Bill indicates that we are in a different era. As noble Lords will recall, a number of vested interests opposed aspects of the earlier legislation, and many of them had valid arguments. We have to recognise that the interests of conservation and habitat as well as those of agriculture and other businesses have to be taken into account when we are defining access provisions. However, those interests must not be allowed to override or detrimentally compromise the clear and visionary objective of providing access to our coastal paths. We in the south-west have led the way in establishing a path around almost the entire south-west coast, and that has not proved all that difficult or conflictual. We have to extend that to the rest of the country. I therefore congratulate the Government on this aspect of the Bill. Like other noble Lords, who are rather closer to fishermen than I am, I have a number of points on fisheries, which present some difficult jurisdictional issues On balance, the Bill’s institutional provisions probably improve the current confusion about responsibilities, but they by no means entirely remove it. I would prefer the Environment Agency—although this is not necessarily its view—to have a larger role in overseeing all aspects of fisheries, estuaries and inshore seas. However, I recognise that, in default of such a change, the Bill makes some useful proposals. The first is to modernise the sea fisheries committees whose performance has been differential across the country and jurisdictions often unclear. The new IFCAs, with enhanced duties, should cover the effective monitoring and management of stocks. It is vital that their formal membership and staff are sufficiently on the ball to contribute to proper ecosystem-based approaches in this area. There are also demarcation issues. There will have to be proper working arrangements between the new IFCAs and the Environment Agency, particularly with regard to fisheries and estuaries, so that there is a clear boundary upstream, where the EA is the responsible body for all fish species, and downstream where the IFCAs manage the sea fisheries. It is important that the IFCAs, like the EA, should have an explicit duty to promote sustainable development. I think that that requirement runs through the Bill as a whole. Although it is difficult to define sustainable development, that is a clear theme and context in which all the organisations should work. That should be consistent across all the organisations on which the Bill lays down duties. I should like to raise another issue which may not be within the direct scope of the Bill, and I apologise to the Minister for not raising it with him in advance. One aspect of sea fisheries responsibility and some failures of the regulatory framework were brought to our notice by the tragedy in Morecambe Bay. There was confusion about which authority was responsible for regulating cockle-picking activity. The sea fisheries committees had some responsibility, as did the Health and Safety Executive, the police, the local authorities and, in a minor capacity, the Environment Agency. The totality of that operation clearly failed in that case. There have since been better efforts at co-ordination and enforcement has improved. However, does the Bill make clear where jurisdiction for regulating mud-flat activity now lies? If not, what regulation covers it? More generally, I welcome the measures to modernise legislation on migratory and freshwater fisheries legislation. It is some time in coming. Like other noble Lords I can recall discussion of the salmon and fisheries review eight or so years ago, which is when I first realised how much fisheries expertise there is in this House. I hope that we can draw on that expertise in considering this legislation. However, jurisdiction issues arise even in this Bill, and I am not sure that the fish completely understand that. One example which has been drawn to my attention is that the Bill will extend the Environment Agency’s responsibilities to lampreys and smelts but not to shad except in various minor capacities. There is a broader confusion about who manages the various flows of fish. I hope that the flexibility which the Bill provides on future jurisdiction changes is sufficient, because we are unlikely to get further primary legislation to correct it. Co-operation between the authorities is important, but it is even more important to set out clear responsibilities in the first place. My last group of points relates to the Bill’s planning provisions and the potential conflict with renewable energy, a point on which the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, has just spoken. I accept that the creation of a new Marine Management Organisation is probably sensible. That organisation will need both a clear demarcation and close working partnerships with other organisations, including the Environment Agency, Natural England and the sea fisheries bodies. That is obvious. However, it will also need close relations with the planning authorities on land. One planning issue where such controversy and lack of jurisdictional clarity may well arise is renewable energy installations. A clear reference to the climate change objectives has been omitted from the Bill. There have already been objections to offshore wind farms from, on the one hand, conservation bodies, and, on the other, shipping, fishing and MoD interests. That is partly why such a limited number of wind farms have been commissioned. Admittedly, those objections and inhibitions are greater on land than they have been offshore, but nevertheless the degree to which we have been able to invest in renewable energy has fallen foul of our planning system. That will be even truer in developing tidal and wave-based energy generation located at sea. Although, on balance, I agree with my noble friend Lord Davies of Coity in his scepticism of the Severn barrage, I think that we need greater clarity in how we deal with such major propositions—which have an immense impact on the ecosystem but which could also make an immense contribution to greener energy. I am not sure that the Bill fully achieves that clarity. Conservation and other issues are clearly important in the siting of wind, tide and wave installations, but, again, it is a question of balance and how the balance is achieved. The same applies to a limited extent to some of the aspects of installations designed to adapt to climate change, in particular flood defences, as well as to aspects of installations meant to mitigate climate change. We will therefore need to clarify a number of jurisdictional issues during the Bill's passage. Other noble Lords have already referred to pollution controls; I would also include waste controls as an example of where it is not always clear where the geographical or jurisdictional dividing line arises. Those, however, are essentially matters of detail which the Government already have in their sights. We in this Chamber may be able to contribute in that. I think that all noble Lords should be able to support the Bill’s vision and the work which has gone already into it through the pre-legislative process and consultation, albeit the time for that has in some ways been curtailed. It has led to a much better Bill than would otherwise be before us, but we can make it better still. I congratulate the Government on having got so far, but this House will have quite a job to do in later stages in tidying up these untidy points.