Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

Amendment A199 is in my name. The noble Duke who led on this group presented it for me admirably, but I should like to add a few things. In the draft Bill, the penalties for offences against by-laws or orders were the same as in Clause 136 and were as tough as the penalties already in the Bill for damaging protected features. Between the draft Bill and the Bill as introduced, the offence of breaching MCZ by-laws or orders has been downgraded. It was an either-way offence with a maximum fine of £50,000 in the magistrates’ court and an unlimited fine in the Crown Court. It has now been downgraded to a summary-only offence with a maximum fine of £5,000. I can imagine the Minister’s defence. He will say that these penalties for offences against by-laws or orders are merely intended for minor offences of the sort that by-laws might generally represent, and that there are other penalties for the much more serious offence of damaging protected features or offences caused and enforced by other bodies in line with the briefing that he indicated had been sent out yesterday, which gives in quite great detail who can do what to whom. But this is not the case. The reality is that contravening by-laws or orders can be extremely serious on occasions. Reverting to an either-way offence with a maximum fine of £50,000 in the magistrates’ court and an unlimited fine in the Crown Court would leave it to the courts to decide how serious individual cases are and provide a much wider, more flexible range of individual penalties for the by-law offence. That does not mean that the courts will necessarily hand out the maximum on every occasion. They rarely do. But £5,000 is hardly any deterrent for the sort of things that could be represented by by-law or order contraventions. I hope that the Minister, in whatever way he was swayed to accept the change between the draft Bill and this Bill, might now be swayed back to his original intent, which was by far the better one.