Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I am very grateful to noble Lords for their amendments. I am sorry to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is unwell. We would much prefer him to be present. We know that even when he is not present, his ingenuity in bringing forward amendments means that he will raise issues that we have already discussed and that we will have to have another go. We always welcome his interventions. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, rightly seeks to probe these areas. My understanding is that the term, "““whose area adjoins or is adjacent to””," includes any area that partly adjoins or is adjacent to the marine plan area. The planning provisions in the Bill are written to ensure widespread consultation and liaison. Paragraph 1 of Schedule 6 continues this theme with a duty to notify a related planning authority, so it would be out of keeping if planning authorities were not notified because their areas were only partially related to the marine plan area. Amendments 89BZF, 89BC and 89BF come to the nub of the point that the noble Baroness made about the requirement to notify other planning authorities from the ones that adjoin or are adjacent to the marine plan area. She wants to change this to those that are ““contiguous with”” the marine plan area. My understanding is that an area that is contiguous is in contact with the marine plan area. We think that that is covered by the term ““adjoining””. My understanding is the word ““adjacent”” includes areas that may not exactly touch the marine plan area but are close to it. It is a wider definition, which would include notifying more related planning authorities. But there must be circumstances where it is right so to do. I hope that I have reassured the noble Baroness on that wording. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is right with his Amendment 89BA. He spotted defective drafting in this area because, as drafted, the Bill does not make the same provisions for notification of Scottish terrestrial planning bodies. More importantly, paragraph 3 of Schedule 6, which requires marine plan authorities to, "““take all reasonable steps to secure””," compatibility of their plans with these terrestrial development plans, also lacks a reference to Scottish development plans. We agree that this needs to be rectified, which we have done by reference to the relevant terrestrial planning legislation, as we have done in relation to English and Welsh plans. This will ensure that the notification and compatibility duties automatically adjust to any future changes to the Scottish terrestrial planning system or to local planning authority names or boundaries. On a more general issue, the noble Duke asked whether the Government’s thinking has moved on since we debated the Severn and the relationship between England and Wales. The blunt answer is that our thinking has not moved on, although I acknowledge that we had an interesting debate when we exposed some of the challenges of ensuring that, in what we have all already agreed is a complex situation, ultimately we get an integrated approach. I am sure that is the aim of all Members of the Committee. However, the issue is that we have to do this within the context of the devolution settlement. For instance, in our debate two weeks ago, we had an amendment designed to enable joint planning and a joint plan to be produced between two Administrations. Because of the different legal systems, particularly in relation to Scotland and the devolution arrangements, it is very difficult to have such a joint system. But of course we would very much encourage neighbouring plan authorities to co-ordinate planning timetables and make arrangements for collaborative working. Obviously, that would clearly help users of the sea, lovers of the sea and all those with an interest. Ultimately, we are dependent on the Administrations making this work together. We think that there are enough incentives to enable that to happen. I would go back to the discussions in the summer and autumn of last year. Because of the intent expressed by all the Administrations, I am optimistic that they can see it is in everyone’s best interest that we work together. But we have to work within the devolution settlement, which makes it difficult to accede to the intent behind the amendment that we discussed two weeks ago about having a joint plan between the two Administrations.