Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken on these amendments. Of course we want the MPS to be a settled statement of our policies for contributing to the achievement of sustainable development in the UK marine area. We want industry and commerce to be able to rely on the MPS in planning their business and investments, and we do not want to undermine that trust by creating the impression that everything in the MPS is subject to revision every five years, which is what Amendment 85D suggests. That is also the reason why we do not want to create doubt over the status or future of the MPS by enabling all or part of it to be suspended indefinitely in the manner in the new clause inserted by Amendment 85DC. The Committee will appreciate that if these amendments were accepted, they would produce real uncertainty about a crucial area of policy. A policy may indeed be subject to review but there is a world of difference between it being subject to review and then possibly, after consultation, being improved, and a hiatus occurring in which the policy is suspended and everyone has to cope with what has gone by as being unsatisfactory and what is to replace it having not been agreed. Again, I emphasise that that is an unrealistic perspective to include in legislation. Of course we understand the necessity for revision. Of course we appreciate that changes will occur, but that is a little different from what would be required if the amendments were passed. I assure the Committee that the Government are committed to the concept of a regular review and report on progress in meeting the MPS objectives in two ways. First, the requirements of the marine strategy framework directive, which must be transposed by July 2010, include a duty on member states to report on progress towards achieving good environment status every six years. A separate report by the UK as a whole will inevitably cover much the same ground as any report on the effectiveness of the marine policy statement in achieving the objectives, especially as compliance with the marine strategy framework directive will be one of those objectives. So we are committed by external obligations to review the position every six years and make clear how policy is developing. Also, Clause 58, which the amendment closely mirrors, imposes a monitoring and reporting requirement on marine plans. It also requires those reports to set out the progress being made in the marine region towards achieving the objectives in the marine policy statement and for reports to be presented every three years. Of course the Government have taken into consideration the constructive intent behind the amendments: that there must be a clear strategy for review of the effectiveness of the MPS. It will be monitored and reported on directly in the way I described. On Amendment 85D, as I said, our primary concern is to preserve the confidence of decision-makers and investors in the MPS. I recognise the objectives and motivation behind the amendment based on Section 11 of the Planning Act, but national policy statements under that Act are different from what we are considering in the Bill. There is no direct equivalent in the MPS. National policy statements will be used primarily by one body—the Infrastructure Planning Commission—making its decisions on a small number of applications each year on nationally significant infrastructure projects. The marine policy statement will be relevant to any decision by any public authority capable of affecting the UK marine area. That is a very different concept. That is why drawing parallels from the Planning Act is not directly relevant. If we were indefinitely to suspend the operation of all or part of the MPS, we would create the very uncertainty that would be bound to be deleterious to the wider community. The danger would be that confidence in the whole MPS would be eradicated. Moreover, Clause 44 currently enables any policy authority that has prepared and adopted the MPS to review it at any time, although without affecting its operation. The amendment proposed by the noble Baroness would require the joint agreement of all the policy authorities to the suspension. As I have indicated, we see great dangers in the concept of suspension and wish to resist them. We are not unaware that the concept behind the proposal is that the policy must be subject to analysis and review. I have indicated how that will happen, and I hope the Committee will appreciate the administrative reasons why we find the concept of suspension difficult to accept. The noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, asked whether a review of part of the MPS would be possible. There is a duty to review the MPS if any change is considered appropriate. If that change had an impact on only part of the MPS, we would review only that part, so a partial review in that sense is possible. I hope that noble Lords will feel that the Government have considered the intent behind their amendments, and that they will accept that the structure that we have for review and the problematic aspect of suspension mean that the Government have got this particularly important issue right in the Bill. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.