Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

Listening to this extremely interesting and important debate, my mind goes back to the wisdom in the earlier intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, when she talked about this body being a referee. The Minister said that that is not exactly what it is, but there is an element of that. The job will be the reconciling of conflicting interests. There was an earlier suggestion that the public interest and private interests were sort of opposites. That is not necessarily the case, but there will be all sorts of different interests. The important thing will be that this body is able to understand properly what those interests are and what they are saying, and come to a conclusion that works in practice. That must happen. As we all know, it will not happen if people are just sticking up for their own interests. Those of us who have chaired such bodies—and several noble Lords have spoken from that perspective—know that you need people who are good at reconciling interests and getting the necessary information, people who are good at identifying and understanding the interests and then discussing and reconciling them. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, had considerable insight into that. That would obviously happen more easily if the body was not enormous, but there must be enough people there to get an understanding. As one would expect, the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, was trying to visualise how the necessary information could be put before the board. It may be that it will have to bring people in when it is discussing the different interests. I have chaired a body that had to do that in a different context. The really important thing is that the membership must be capable of doing this job. As for size, that will have to take into account the quorum issue. The body will have to include a wide spread of understanding but also be able to bring in the necessary information. The Bill has not quite faced up to that, but perhaps this discussion will help the Minister to grasp the issue and improve upon it.