Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. When I hear him mention lights and signals, I immediately think that we are going to be dealing with railways, but we have just seen the width of his expertise and the areas in which he gets involved. I welcome this Bill and the way in which it appears at the outset to lay the basic framework for a UK policy in marine matters. Events that I have come across do not seem to reinforce that proposal and I am a bit disappointed to think that the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, was perhaps kept in the dark as to what was going on in negotiations with the various devolved Administrations. I became aware that in June 2008 this legislation was the subject of a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Council, where government Ministers met with Ministers of all the devolved Administrations. The Joint Ministerial Council was originally set up under the Memorandum of Understanding with the Scottish Administration after the passing of the Scotland Act. This Bill covers many aspects that may have devolved implications and seems to be a prime candidate for this kind of consideration. It is bound to have an important and necessary part to play. Can the Minister explain how this meeting came about? In the press release issued on 27 November by the Scottish Executive, the Scottish Government claim that they are due credit for resurrecting this forum. It would be of interest to the House to know how this body is constituted and how meetings are normally initiated. I draw the attention of the House to its terms of reference. It can consider non-devolved matters that impinge on devolved responsibilities and it has the power to consider devolved matters if it is beneficial to discuss their treatment in different parts of the UK, but I cannot find anywhere a reference to it having any powers to devolve further competences to devolved Administrations. After these meetings, the press release from the Cabinet Office that came out on the day that I mentioned was, on the whole, carefully couched as to what actually took place in June. It said: "““The UK Government and the devolved Administrations have reached an agreement””." However, it went on to state: "““As part of the agreement more functions will be devolved to Scottish and Welsh Ministers””." This appears to exaggerate the role that the council is empowered to carry out. Unsurprisingly, the press release put out by the Scottish Government was considerably bolder. It said: "““Scotland is to take greater responsibility for its coastal waters which will now””—" and I emphasise the word ““now””— "““stretch 200 nautical miles out to sea””." The Scottish press were quickly on to this and the news appeared in the headlines. This bears uncanny similarity to the issue of government policy appearing in the press before it has been brought before Parliament in Westminster. The Scottish Government have put out for consultation a paper called Sustainable Seas for All, which quite properly talks of the Scottish territorial waters limit. Presumably, however, following on from the Joint Ministerial Council meeting, the area within the 200-mile limit is labelled as ““Scotland’s seas””. This could be said to give the impression that there are no more UK competences left. Can the Minister tell the House whether the agreement of the Joint Ministerial Council is intended to be the settled policy in which we are supposed to discuss the Bill? I am all in favour of a rational distribution of powers. If there is not time today when the Minister winds up, perhaps when we are in Committee we will get a bit more detail on the rationale that is being followed in the proposal for a further devolution of powers and find out whether the Government have other areas in mind. The Bill has many overlapping competences. Like other noble Lords, I have received many briefings from a wide variety of interests that are likely to be affected. I was interested to see in a short briefing that the CBI is counting on the Bill to provide a coherent regulatory framework. I am sure that that is what we all desire. It comes then as a bit of a shock to find that the response submitted by the non-departmental body—Seafish—to the joint committee carrying out the scrutiny of the draft Bill states: "““The Scottish Government is not going to participate in the development of the Policy Statement””," because they are looking for further devolution of conservation powers. That is presumably the marine policy statement, which, in the terms of the Bill, is said to extend to Scotland. Will the Minister say how he considers this attitude will strengthen the overall success of the conservation proposals? Does it mean that large sections of the Bill before the House are due to see a great many government amendments reducing the scope of the areas that apply to Scotland? Apart from the issues arising over the coherence of the conservation measures, there are issues on how we hope to manage our relations in this area with the European Community. Noble Lords will be aware that at present, under a special EU derogation, the various parts of the United Kingdom have pretty comprehensive powers out to the six nautical miles boundary. Even as that legislation stands, the Bill recognises that the concept of marine conservation zones will have to extend beyond the six-mile limit to be meaningful. In the absence of that derogation, which is due to expire in 2012, any effective controls in our entire economic area to do with either fishing or conservation will first have to be drawn up and laid down by the European Community. Fishing or other boats with commercial interests from other EU countries will be bound by these regulations only. I was glad to hear the Minister describing this afternoon how plans for marine conservation zones are expected to follow and perhaps enlarge the European Community’s areas of special conservation. That will be a start. However, if the degree of devolution that is envisaged takes place, does the Minister expect that there will still be a united UK approach in seeking the extension of powers in any extended areas that will be required should any part of the UK wish these to be put in place? Perhaps a rather more serious issue, which, if it is not to appear in the Bill, will be absolutely key to securing the proper, just and fair economic and social consequences to which the Bill is committed to deliver in Clause 114—this is an area in which our fishermen’s experiences have evoked bitter feelings—is the regulations for the enforcement of what the EU puts in place. If this is to follow the pattern currently practised for fishing regulation, all the efforts that we may put together here, whether to devolved Administrations or otherwise, will be just whistling in the wind and we will land up penalising our own citizens while others once again get away with whatever they want. I have a serious question for the Government. Do they see themselves being able to continue working towards powers for a single policing force to operate in our own or even in all other European waters and to enforce the proposed regulations on all participants equally, or will we find that these moves towards the dividing of separate interests will dilute our effect within the Union? There are a great many other issues that we will face as we go further, but I look forward to following them up in the later stages of the Bill.