Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

Schedule 13 is about an important issue which we keep coming back to: the boundaries between land and sea. It amends the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in relation to marine boundaries of SSSIs and national nature reserves. Part 2, in which lies paragraph 9, refers to SSSIs. Paragraph 9 of Schedule 13 amends Section 28D of the Wildlife and Countryside Act to cover the denotification of a SSSI on designation of the same area as an MCZ. In other words, the proposal is that the same area cannot be part of both a SSSI and an MCZ. Where SSSIs and MCZs overlap, the overlap between the features of these two designations may be only partial such that some SSSI features of national importance may not be features of the relevant MCZ. In addition, it is not clear whether the features of Natura 2000 sites, special protection areas classified under the birds directive and special areas of conservation designated under the habitats directive will be eligible as features of MCZs. Natura 2000 sites on land and inter-tidal areas are underpinned by SSSIs, with the lists of operations requiring consent associated with those SSSIs providing the mechanism by which the effects of management operations of Natura 2000 sites are regulated. There is concern that the prospect of denotification of SSSI land, whenever an MCZ is designated over the same area, may well raise a number of legislative complications and confusions. If MCZ designation over an area of SSSI led to the denotification of that part of the SSSI, we believe that sites could be left vulnerable in several ways. The first of these is that beaches hitherto protected might be left unprotected if the SSSI was denotified but the MCZ in its place was not designated specifically for the same features. Secondly, SSSIs and their features offer protection from developments on land and in inter-tidal areas due to the explicit link between the SSSI system and the terrestrial planning system. Indeed, SSSIs are a material consideration in the terrestrial planning system. There is no explicit link with the MCZ system and the planning system, so if a SSSI area was designated as an MCZ and the SSSI was denotified as a consequence, some clarity of protection from development under the terrestrial planning system would be lost. The third area of concern is that, where a SSSI underpins a Natura 2000 site, the ability to regulate management activities that may adversely affect that Natura 2000 site would be lost if the area, or part of the area, were to be designated as an MCZ and the SSSI were to be subsequently denotified. Where a SSSI underpins a Natura 2000 site, the route by which the habitat regulations are applied to activities that do not require any other form of consent—these include bait digging, cockling, wildfowling, grazing and other forms of salt marsh management—is via the list of operations that require consent and the explicit link between the habitat regulations and the CRoW Act. There is no explicit link between the habitat regulations and MCZs. There are very clear areas of concern about what happens to the regime that operates on a SSSI if the SSSI is denotified as a consequence of the creation of an MCZ. This is clearly a very technical matter. Indeed, it is one of the many important matters that we have been discussing in our debates on the boundary between the land and sea: that is, the coast. I am not sure whether the Minister will be able to give a clear and comprehensive answer to all these questions this evening, but I will listen to him with interest. If he cannot, I will be very happy if he will write to me and explain it all. Then we can decide what to do about it at a later stage. Meanwhile, this is an important matter, and I beg to move.