Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

Clause 30: Grants Debate on whether Clause 30 should stand part of the Bill. On the money front, I shall probe a little more into the Government’s intentions for funding the MMO. The impact assessment for the Bill puts the cost to the Government at somewhere between £751 million and £1.6 billion over 20 years. There is quite a spread between those two figures. The predicted benefits are even more startling: somewhere between £8.7 billion and £19.6 billion. However, I am particularly interested in the efficiency savings to the Government. We on these Benches are not generally over-enthusiastic about the creation of another quango. We support the Bill, however, because we have great hopes that the MMO will not merely duplicate existing bodies' responsibilities but go beyond them, incorporating them into the new MMO and extending good environmental practice. Also, the creation of the MMO should make it possible for some of the existing bodies to be better co-ordinated and managed, and to achieve savings on existing budgets. Streamlining the licensing system will reduce the administrative burden on regulators and advisory bodies. Can we assume that government funding for these bodies will therefore be reduced? What budgetary adjustments does Defra intend to make to account for these existing bodies’ reduced workloads?