Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I shall speak also to Amendment 85DC. I cannot claim the credit for the drafting of either of these long amendments. The first comes from Link Coalition and relates to the timetable for the review of a marine policy statement. It would leave out the moderately open-ended and brief provision that the policy authorities, "““must review the MPS whenever they consider it appropriate to do so””." The amendment replaces that provision with a longer one providing for a periodic report on the matters kept under review, the first report to be published within five years of the MPS and then at five-yearly intervals thereafter. This is because of the desirability of a long-stop date for a review rather than the open-ended term ““periodically””. The amendment would add the same provisions for monitoring, review and update as are included for marine plans in Clause 58, although after a five-year rather than a three-year period. Amendment 85D is lifted from Section 11 of the Planning Act 2008, which deals with the position after a material change that was not anticipated when the statement was created. The Planning Act provides what should then happen as regards the NPS—the national policy statement. There should therefore be a similar provision in the case of an MPS—a marine policy statement. The terminology is as exact as it can be, changing ““N”” for ““M””. I beg to move.