Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I tabled my clause stand part to raise many of the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has already raised in speaking to his rather more precise amendments. Although we would support sensible simplification of the licence regime and the resultant reduction in bureaucracy, cost and delay, we need to ensure that nothing slips through the net. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, is not in her place and will not therefore join in the debate. Her amendments, ensuring that exempted dredging does not breach any environmental objectives, seem very sensible. My Amendment A25 is designed to ensure that, too. I am sure that such maintenance dredging is environmentally unimpeachable but, given that these standards should not be hard for the harbour authorities to meet, does the Minister not think that an appraisal would be a useful safeguard? Amendment A63, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, would make the exclusions covered by Clause 98(5)(b) more subtle and less open to abuse. We would support it for that reason. On these Benches, we agree that it is important to exclude any information that could damage a proper economic interest. Nevertheless, for the purposes of transparency and to reduce the chances of corruption, we support the noble Lord’s attempt to reduce the amount of information that could potentially be covered by subsection (5)(b). Finally, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, and his amendment: if the Government intend this clause to cover only maintenance dredging, why do they not specify that?