Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I thank the Minister, because I was just going on to say that the phrasing in Clause 42(1)(a)— "““contributing to the achievement of sustainable development””—" is the very wording that we condemned in Clause 2. We said that it was not strong enough and not what the Bill should be about. This is not what the marine planning statement should be about, either. It should be a bit more beefy. The idea behind the amendment derived from a concept that the Committee has accepted before, which is that this Bill is part of a daisy chain of legislation: the Climate Change Act, the Energy Act, the Planning Act and now the marine Bill all coming together. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, was concerned that the marine planning statement could not consider marine development over 100 megawatts because a national planning statement would deal with that. I would like the Minister to say, if he is able to, that the marine policy statement would have to incorporate even those things on which it did not make the final determining factor. Marine policy statements should have a policy on all activity. Indeed, Clause 42(1)(a) talks about, "““the achievement of sustainable development in the UK marine area””." I have read this carefully and I do not think that the fact that these matters are not within the competence of the MMO excludes the marine policy statement from considering them.