Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I am very grateful to the Minister for repeating that, because that was a particular thing that he said that I picked up and want to come back to in a minute. I thank the Minister for treating the amendments with great care and for the detailed answers that he has given. We would expect the quorum to be a third, which is normal in most public bodies. Again, that is a concern if the body is too small, but I accept what the Minister said, that the organisation will decide for itself. As for the expectation that there will be nine members, including the chair, that is a valuable statement from the Minister, because to some extent it sets aside some of the concerns. I say to the Government—the Minister said that he would reflect on this—that if it is their intention that it should be nine, it would be sensible, if they are putting a range into the Bill, for their expectation to be at the centre of that range. Who knows what circumstances might occur where it would be valuable to appoint an extra person, or to reduce the size, if the size was at the bottom of the range? There does not seem to be much sense in saying that the range would be five to eight, or six to nine including the chair, and then saying that the expectation is that the body would be at the top of that range from the very beginning. The sensible thing to do would be to put a range in the Bill in which what the Government want to do is at the middle of the range. Perhaps we can have some discussions and think about that. That seems to be the common sense thing to do; to allow flexibility without having to go through the whole rigmarole of the Government coming back with an order and having to present it to Parliament and so on. The assurances by the Minister on Amendment 9 about scientific and conservation expertise are valuable. We will come back to this issue as the Bill goes through Committee, and I think that the Minister will be pressed to give these kinds of assurances on several more occasions. It may be that we will want to find a form of wording that is appropriate to legislation, which I am sure could be found for a later stage. We will consider that and reflect on it. On the remuneration question, the Bill says that the MMO ““may”” pay and the Secretary of State ““may”” decide what it will be. The Minister has made it absolutely clear that the MMO is going to pay its members and that the Secretary of State will decide what the remuneration is, so I do not understand why the Bill does not say what is actually going to happen. Perhaps expecting legislation to say what is going to happen is an idealistic point of view. The Minister will do a bit of reflection, we will do some reflection, and Members of the Committee will do some reflection on these issues, some of which may come back for further debate on Report. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 6. Amendment 6 withdrawn.