Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

The noble Lord will recognise that I am arguing that national parks are bodies with such a proud record of defending our heritage, the beauties of our landscape, the views to sea and—it goes without saying as far as the national parks are concerned—the views from the sea to land that it would be absurd for it to be contended that they need this defence in the Bill, which is primarily directed towards other objectives in conservation, or that their interests would not be taken into account. It is obvious that we cannot develop the policy without having due regard to the land authorities that are contiguous with the sea. I am merely saying that in areas of outstanding natural beauty and in the parks, it is not conceivable that a proposal could come forward for a conservation zone that did not take into account the interests of the national park. My noble friend was right, as he usually is on these matters, when he said that these issues were mentioned in earlier marine Bill documents, especially the marine planning and marine nature conservation sectors when we dealt with the White Paper a few years ago. They may not be mentioned in the Marine and Coastal Access Bill, but the Bill derives from the White Paper, and they will be part of the Marine Management Organisation when it starts to develop its marine plans. I want to give the Committee every assurance that it is not conceivable that the Marine Management Organisation could do its job properly without them.