Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

Again, I agree with the general thrust of these amendments and I hope that the Minister will carefully consider the noble Baroness’s concerns. Every five years is certainly not too often for the MPS to be reviewed. In five years, if everything has gone as the Government think it will, the MMO will be up and running, the marine plans should be rolled out, and the marine conservation zones will be designated by the time of the first review. Any mistakes in the Government’s policy, or corrections needed to the legislation, must be identified and fixed as soon as possible. The Government have made the point about the need for flexibility several times, and it is true that there will be many developments over the next five years, such as new marine conservation research, new European and international legislation or new technology for producing renewable energy, that could necessitate a rethink of the authority’s approach to marine planning. I hope that the Government already have the intention of reviewing the marine policy statement every five years, and if they do, I cannot think what possible objection they could have to putting the duty in the Bill. The Minister may say that the Government do not want to put too much detail into primary legislation. As it stands, Clause 44, entitled ““Review of Statement””, is a two-liner, but the Planning Act devoted a whole page to the review of a national policy statement. I am sure that the Minister would want to be as consistent as possible. I know that he was not involved in the Planning Act but, if he has not already done so, he might like to look at Section 6 of that Act. Does he envisage the possibility of reviewing only part of the MPS? Section 6 of the Planning Act allows for part of an NPS to be reviewed, so it should be made possible to review only part of the marine policy statement. After completing a review of all or part of the MPS, the Secretary of State must do one of the following things: amend all or part of the MPS, withdraw that statement’s designation as an MPS, or leave the statement as it is. That comes straight out of Section 5 of the Planning Act. The noble Baroness raised an interesting point about what happens to ongoing planning decisions in the event that the MPS is under review. The way the Bill is drafted suggests that the original MPS continues until the procedure for amending it is completed. That implies that in the mean time the flawed policy will continue to be applied, even though there is general awareness of its shortcomings. I look forward to hearing how the Minister envisages the statement continuing to operate when under review. Surely it would be preferable to suspend those activities affected by the review until such time as the matter has been resolved. By the same token, as I argued earlier, it should be possible to suspend only that part of the MPS affected by the need for change.