Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, always speaks good sense, and we listen to what he says with great care. His arguments are reinforced on this occasion by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. I acknowledge the good intention behind the amendment in trying to provide a mechanism, in support of the marine policy statement, whereby UK authorities can work through any difficulties that they may have. However, I have difficulty with the concept of putting into the Bill an express power for one UK Administration to call a meeting in order to hold another to account. That would make it explicit that one Administration had taken the initiative by calling the other to the meeting. I am not sure that that sends out the right message about how our colleagues in the devolved Administrations are expecting or are expected to work together; nor would it send out a good public message to dramatise things in quite this way. In any case, we do not need a specific mechanism in the Bill. As the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, will know as well as anyone in the Committee, there already exists in the concordats that the UK Government have with each devolved Administration a mechanism for resolution of difficulties such as this. Beyond that is the joint ministerial committee, which has an express remit to consider disputes between UK Administrations. It is an accepted agreement that all the UK Administrations will generally support the positions reached by the joint ministerial committee. We are not talking about a trivial matter. When we debated the concept of withdrawal from the MPS earlier, I emphasised—I am sure that the Committee agrees with me—that it would be a matter of last resort and certainly significant enough for us to expect it to be resolved through the mechanisms that are crucial to the resolution of significant issues between the devolved Administrations and the Government. If one of the Administrations, in their capacity as a policy authority, no longer supported a particular policy in the MPS, and no agreement to amend the MPS could be reached, we would have to bear in mind the primary responsibility of devolved legislatures and Administrations in those fields that are devolved to them. We cannot tie an Administration into conformity and compliance with a document designed to implement a policy that they have indicated they no longer support—hence the difficulties envisaged by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, in his amendment. For the MPS to work, we need to be supportive of the independence that exists throughout the UK Administrations, which is why the Bill states that policy authorities have to be notified before a notice of withdrawal is published. We would expect this notification to enable a period of negotiation if appropriate, which might indeed involve what the noble Duke suggests; that is, meetings and correspondence between officials and Ministers to resolve matters where possible. We have the mechanism for resolving an issue that would have real substance to it if it meant withdrawal from the MPS. The amendment’s limited framework would risk damaging the good-will basis on which the MPS is agreed. It could make it more difficult to negotiate in relation to the MPS in future, because we would be telling the parties what they must do. The conduct of negotiations between the UK Administrations and the process by which they may come together to resolve any difficulties are matters of judgment and policy related to the nature of the problem, public interest in it and its significance. We should not prescribe them in primary legislation. If we had no mechanism at all for resolving an issue of this importance, that might be required, but, as I have indicated, the wisdom with which the devolution settlements were constructed means that there is provision for how matters need to be worked through. Putting an injunction in the Bill is not conducive to the good relationships that we need continually to work through in the devolution settlement. I hope that the noble Duke will therefore withdraw his amendment.