Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the Minister for what he said about our amendments. I shall refer his comments to my friends in Scotland and Wales and take further advice. What he said was helpful. I have one further question, however. On marine plans and the role of the Assemblies and Parliaments, that role might be different in some respects in Wales and Scotland than in England. There is no reason why they have to be identical. One reason is that we in England expect a number of marine plans for different parts of the coast, but there may be just one marine plan each for Scotland and for Wales. That is highly likely in Wales and quite possible in Scotland, I would have thought, so perhaps the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly could get involved without necessarily having a final veto or having to give their approval. They may want to be involved in the process of developing marine plans, and there is no reason why they should not in a way that would probably not be appropriate in England because of our different circumstances. On the other matters, we look forward to the Government’s amendments on Report. On the scrutiny of the marine policy statement by this Parliament, I can only echo the words of my noble friend Lady Hamwee for the second, or perhaps the third, time this afternoon. It would be extremely helpful if, again by Report, we could have the sort of information about national policy statements that we had during consideration of the Planning Bill.