Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

We become so involved in the Bill as we read it that it is irresistible. But it is not that; I think that the order of the zeds and so on has changed. I am getting support from behind me. Amendment 101BZZA aims to strengthen the duty to protect marine biodiversity when issuing a licence. There is a duty to have regard to the need to protect the environment, but that is a broad term. Again, this is an amendment that we tabled following an approach by the Wildlife and Countryside Link. We share its concern that a broad definition could result in every project trading off site-specific biodiversity against some more general, indeterminate global environmental gain. Amendments 101BZAC, 101BZBA, 101BZBB and 101BZBD all deal with consultation on licences. I apologise to your Lordships that I did not take these at the same time as the other amendments to Clause 66. The first of these would impose a requirement for the authority to consult all interested parties—and please do not tease me about the use of the word ““interested””. The authority would be required to seek and take account of advice from the statutory conservation bodies and all who know about these things. The detail of mitigating impacts, of imposing conditions and so on is so much within the expertise of a number of organisations that the Government, I am sure, would want them to be consulted in the application procedure. The Government’s response to the Joint Committee’s report focused on why a list of statutory consultees was not desirable, but we think that a simple requirement to consult without naming bodies or persons would meet the point. As in the previous amendment, electronic communication could be a blessing, not just a curse. There is also a proposal to change ““may”” to ““must””—a familiar amendment—and to strengthen the Bill by leaving out ““from time to time””. As for the other amendments in this group, Amendment 101BZAZA is consequential—or pre-sequential, if that is possible. The other one, Amendment 101BZZB, would take from Clause 66 the words, "““and such other matters as the authority thinks relevant””." However, I have made a note to ask the Minister whether that in any way links to a provision in Clause 67 that puzzled me, albeit too late to table an amendment. I am sorry not to have given notice of the question; he may feel that he cannot deal with it this evening. Clause 67(8) allows the Secretary of State to certify that it would be contrary to national security to hold an inquiry, or for the public or particular people to be admitted to an inquiry. I thought that that was—let me use a neutral term—an interesting provision. On these Benches, we have an instinctive reaction against holding an inquiry in private or excluding certain people from an inquiry. I find it particularly curious that an inquiry could be public but that certain people could be kept out of it, unless of course they were causing a disturbance and, after due warning or whatever, the chairman of the tribunal or whatever it might be ordered them to be excluded. I do not know whether there is a link; I admit that this is a little tenuous, but I did not want to let the Committee go by without raising the matter to see whether we could explore why it is necessary. I am grateful for your Lordships’ indulgence on that long group of amendments.