Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I rise to speak briefly to my amendments grouped with those of my noble friend, and I am grateful to her for raising the profile of this issue. My amendments seek to address the really quite odd words used by the Government in paragraph 4(3), which states: "““The relevant authorities must publish the SPP in a way calculated to bring it to the attention of interested persons””." My proposal is to substitute the phrase ““in a way calculated”” with ““so as””. The Government’s phrase seems a little mealy-mouthed. Does it leave some form of loophole so that if they do not bring the SPP to the attention of interested parties they can say, ““Well, we calculated it would, but actually it did not””? I am concerned that this is quite a difficult area in terms of public participation because it concerns the marine environment, one where people do not actually live. That is wholly different from an SPP in the terrestrial context; it really is a bit of an unknown quantity. My second amendment asks for an, "““assessment of the effectiveness of the methodology adopted””." I am not sure that that would need to go on for ever, but at the beginning of the process it would be useful to know that the way in which people were consulted on the SPP has been properly evaluated and that any changes to improve the process have subsequently been made. That is the purpose of this amendment.