Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

This amendment was tabled by my noble friend Lord Greaves, who has attached the name of my noble friend Lord Tyler to it; I do not know whether he was aware of that. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, has her name to it and to Amendment 92, I am glad to see. Amendments 93 and 94 are also in the group. The amendments are about a matter to which we have alluded before—the relationship between this legislation and the Planning Act 2008, particularly applications for development control for nationally significant infrastructure projects to be determined by the Infrastructure Planning Commission under the Act. The nub is to probe the relationship between applications for development consent determined by the IPC. As the Bill stands, it seems to my noble friend that there is a lesser test relating to the marine policy documents—the policy and the plan—when the application is to the Infrastructure Planning Commission than with an application for authorisation by the Marine Management Organisation. The IPC will be subject to a requirement to have regard to the appropriate marine policy documents, but in other cases—where we are dealing with an authorisation or enforcement decision by the Marine Management Organisation—the decision must be in accordance with the appropriate marine policy documents unless relevant considerations indicate otherwise. Amendments 91 and 92 remove that exception. Our other two amendments in the group are more specific. Amendment 93 is about offshore energy and would remove generation of more than 100 megawatts from the Infrastructure Planning Commission and put it into the marine regime. My noble friend describes this as a bit of kite-flying; he might not thank me for repeating that, of course. If there is to be a marine planning regime, it should cover everything. We had difficulty on the then Planning Bill in anticipating this legislation but, now that we have this large and generally admirable Bill, we find that decisions of the Infrastructure Planning Commission could ride roughshod over the new marine regimes. We know that the Government want to co-ordinate everything. Part of our task is to see whether it is co-ordinated. We accept the need for security of energy supply, but should it take precedence over other marine considerations and should it fall within this legislation and be dealt with in the way that this legislation compares and balances the different matters that need to be taken into account? We find ourselves in the ironic position where an application for a smaller development for generating less energy will be taken into the balancing judgment of the Bill but, with a substantial generation of more than 100 megawatts, you can somehow leave all that aside, at any rate so far as concerns this legislation. Amendment 94 is about decisions taken by the Infrastructure Planning Commission. It states that the marine policy statement and marine plans are the policies that should be relevant, rather than national policy statements. I tabled amendments referring to the potential conflict within the marine policy statement. This extends to the national policy statement. Again, the Government told us in effect not to worry because there will be proper co-ordination, but we are concerned about which should prevail if there is a conflict. I beg to move.