Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, on his excellent work with his committee. I declare an interest as a commissioner of the harbour authority in the port of Fowey in Cornwall. I welcome the little bit stuck at the end of the Bill—Schedule 20 —which, if enacted, will bring into force changes to the Harbours Act 1964 in respect of harbour revision orders. I have made several attempts to promote a Private Member’s Bill to get that changed. Your Lordships have always been very kind and passed it, but it always got stuck at the other end. It is good to see that those provisions are now in this Bill and I trust they will stay there. I shall focus on two specific issues: offshore energy and marine navigation aids. On offshore energy, the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, spoke about the planning issues, but it is worth reminding your Lordships that the government target is that 15 per cent of all our energy requirements by 2020 should come from renewables. At the moment, I think that the figure is 2 per cent. It looks as though much of the difference between those two figures must come from offshore energy. Although welcoming the Bill, the energy producers are worried about whether the proposed marine planning framework will take full account of sustainable development needs. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, the word ““sustainable”” has a very wide definition. If the Marine Management Organisation is to act as a marine planning authority, it will need not only an effective remit, but a necessary level of energy expertise. The Minister has said that it will be the strategic delivery authority, which is good. To do that effectively, however, it needs to have teeth and expertise in energy. Will the MMO be fit to deliver? Clearly, it should have conservation expertise, but it also needs to have experience of energy and to be committed to tackling climate change and promoting sustainable development to that end. I do not think that any of these major offshore or less major offshore developments for energy will happen without that. I am unclear about the relationship between the independent planning commission and the MMO. I trust that they will be able to draw on the same advice and expertise. Perhaps my noble friend could explain how the two fit together. The same issue cascades down to the national policy statement for renewable energy, which we debated at length under the Planning Bill, and the marine policy statement. I hope that they will have similar policies and that the marine policy statement’s objectives will not be too vague. I suggest that they must provide enough certainty for companies to wish to invest and to have some comfort that they will be able to get a return from their investment. I look forward to comments from my noble friend on that issue. I turn to something that is not in the Bill but which I think should be, although I have not worked out how; perhaps it could be added to the functions of the MMO in Chapter 2. This concerns lights and navigation aids to ships using UK ports. Such ships pay into the General Lighthouse Fund for the maintenance of the lights in the UK and, of course, they contribute to the cost of maintaining lights in the waters of the Republic of Ireland, which is an anomaly dating from when the Republic gained independence in the 1920s. However, under that principle, I do not see why ships coming into UK ports do not contribute to the maintenance of lights in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany or Norway. If our shipping lines are going to act as charitable institutions, why stop at Ireland? I have raised this issue once or twice before in this House, as have other noble Lords. It is good that eventually the two Governments—the Government of the Republic and our Government—commissioned the Brooke report, which was published on 3 March 2008. The Review of Funding for the Commissioners of Irish Lights concluded: "““The analysis of the impact of the current funding arrangements and the findings of this report suggest that the GLF””—" the General Lighthouse Fund, to which all ships coming into UK ports contribute— "““may be contributing around £8.5 million per annum to the funding of lights in the Republic””." The review concluded: "““The key next step is for the Governments concerned to enter into urgent negotiations … with an aim of making early decisions and a lasting funding solution which meets these needs””." These urgent negotiations are welcome. Several months later, I asked a Question about what the Government were doing to pursue those negotiations. My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe replied on 14 May that the Government had accepted the recommendations of the review and had had one constructive meeting, but he said that it was too early to say when negotiations would be completed. Since then, various things have happened to the economy and the rate of exchange for the euro. It now looks as though the contribution that the Brooke report suggested would be £8.5 million will increase to £15 million or £16 million in the next few years. Perhaps my noble friend can confirm those figures. In these difficult economic times, why should the UK shipping business contribute to maintaining the likes of the Republic or any other member state? A further issue is that the General Lighthouse Fund made a loss of something like £22 million last year. With this subsidy, will the Government put up charges to ships to come into this country to balance the books here? Is there any legal or constitutional reason why the UK Government cannot give the Republic immediate notice that it will withdraw from the 1985 agreement and no longer wishes to subsidise navigation aids in the Republic? One solution is to amend the 1995 Merchant Shipping Act; I would be very pleased to put down some amendments if it was thought possible to achieve this. Also, before the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, discusses this in his contribution, let me say that any change to the subsidy would not require an end to the integrated aids-to-navigation services. It is a question of making sure that the contributions to Irish Lights, for example, reflect the proportion of lights in Northern Ireland and the Republic. I hope that my noble friend can suggest how to take this forward. One idea that I had was to add it to Chapter 2 of this Bill. The MMO could be the authority to deliver some cost-effective and safe navigation aid services but with firm geographical limits. It is time that the Government became the champion for the UK economy in shipping and got on with this. It is worth mentioning that the General Lighthouse Fund is wonderful for the Government because the Government do not pay; they just receive the money and hand it out to other people, so there is no incentive to save money or be efficient. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say on that issue. To conclude, like other noble Lords I will be interested to see how the Planning Act and the Marine and Coastal Access Bill fit together in the policy statements and in relation to the independent planning commission and the MMO. It would be nice to see the MMO as a good one-stop shop. I worry about its relationship to the MCA, which has had some serious industrial relations problems recently. Do we need both? My noble friend Lord Hunt of Chesterton mentioned this. I hope that the MMO will have a more successful birth and growth into full adulthood than the MCA has had.