Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

In moving Amendment 85DD, I will also speak to Amendments 85E to 85H and 89C to 89F. My noble friend Lady Miller also has two amendments, and there is a government amendment, in this group. Amendment 85DD would amend Schedule 5 by extending the statement of public participation provisions to a revision of the marine policy statement. The words ““relevant document”” are defined in paragraph 2 of Schedule 5, which includes amendments of an MPS. Assuming that a revision leads to an amendment, revision is a distinct step. The word ““review”” might have been better for the purpose of the amendment. Making that distinction has led to my amendment to the Bill. On the back of that, I should like to ask the Minister a question about paragraph 1 of the schedule, which is relevant to understanding what we will be debating. I noticed this only this morning. Paragraph 1 states: "““Before any policy authorities publish a relevant document, they must comply with the requirements … of this Schedule””." In this modern usage of the words, ““any policy authorities”” and the word ““they””, is ““they”” singular in this case? I assume that it does not mean that if, "““any policy authorities publish a relevant document””," all policy authorities, "““must comply with the requirements””." A definition of ““relative authorities”” kicks in further on. I was a bit confused by the wording at the beginning of the schedule. My other amendments in this group come from the Link Coalition. I hope that it is not thought that we are in any way in its pockets or are just acting as a mouthpiece. We happen to share most of its views, but Members of the Committee will not be privy to a few exchanges where, on this Bill and on other Bills with the same organisation, we have said ““Sorry, we do not agree with you. These are our amendments now””. The Bill leaves open the details of the public participation process and allows for flexibility. But the UK is under an obligation to make specific provision for public participation in respect of environmental plans and so on under the Aarhus Convention, including the following requirements: reasonable timeframes for different phases with sufficient time for effective participation, early public participation when the options are still open and due account to be taken of the outcome of public participation. Whether or not those requirements were in the Aarhus Convention, which this country has ratified, it is all a good thing. An obligation to produce guidance on minimum requirements might also be desirable to ensure that there are minimum standards and consistency in this area. There should also be an obligation to have public meetings and a requirement to include information about public meetings in the SPP—I am doing what I hate in that I am being reduced to acronyms because it is too tempting—and a provision for interested persons to object to the statement if they think that the process of developing the marine policy statement and the involvement of the public is in some way unfair. There are similar provisions relating to marine plans. The Planning Act 2008, which we will inevitably pray in aid on many occasions during this part of the Bill, has extensive provisions about public participation, albeit that they are not precisely in the form we would have liked to see. So the overall question is: why not here? I welcome government Amendment 89CC, but it is quite limited compared with the amendments in my name. I beg to move.