Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

In that case I will certainly rise to support my noble friend’s two amendments. While I accept the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on lists, it is important that this Bill has regard to some things that are crucial at the moment. One of these is climate change and the other is security of supply. When the Joint Committee took evidence, I questioned the then Minister for Energy and the Defra Minister about the way the Government’s thinking was going. We had talked about being able to get energy from different sources, including wind, wave, tide and all the others that go with them. I questioned the Minister at that stage on the role that nuclear power could play. This is hugely important. Clearly, if nuclear energy came in more quickly, we would not be faced with some of the very difficult choices that the Government currently face. In other words, would a Severn barrage be necessary if there were enough nuclear supply? Would more wind farms be really necessary? As the Minister knows, I raised in this House about a month ago the question of production from wind farms. During the winter, over Christmas when it was so cold and there was very little wind, the person from the association acknowledged that wind power needed back-up. It could not produce the energy that we needed at that time. Although the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is not minded to support this amendment—perhaps because of the list—it is enormously important that we consider it in the overall context of climate change and energy security. I may be misjudging the noble Baroness, but perhaps she is trying to reconcile the balance between that and the protection of wildlife and the environment. She and I—and, I am sure, my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach—are very conscious of the needs of wildlife. All of us on the Joint Committee particularly tried to strike a balance on that. I am perhaps slightly promoting nuclear because that in itself does not raise the difficulties that, for example, the Severn barrage would for wildlife and conservation lower down the river, or some of the enormous wind farms that are proposed out at sea, which could affect wildlife in its entirety. I am not wedded to one particular way, but my noble friend’s amendment has given us a chance to think a little wider, and would be a welcome addition to the Bill by making us think again about our responsibilities to our communities. I still think that the Government’s main responsibility is to defend them and to feed them and, having done that, to make sure that communities have enough energy to be able to have a daily living. That is the reason for these amendments at this stage of the Bill. The Minister may not be able to take them on, but I hope that he takes the drift and the thrust behind them, because we clearly have responsibilities to ourselves as humankind and, as I would put it, to God’s creation, the natural life. There is a balance to be struck somewhere and I commend my noble friend on his amendments.