Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I thank the noble Duke for tabling the amendment because it raises important issues. The noble Duke talked about some of them, such as the nature of the coastline, the size of the area covered and how far it extends out to sea, but there is also the issue of local accountability, particularly to and through local authorities. It goes without saying that the bigger these areas are and the fewer they are, the more local authorities will be covered by them. As the Bill stands, some local authorities will not be represented on their local IFCA, which on the face of it seems to be undesirable. Two of the areas in the option to reduce to six should have huge question marks over them. One, the north-east option, covers the whole north-east coast from the Scottish border down to the Humber. I can see that there may be some operational or marine justification for it, but when we consider the size of the area, which is about 200 miles long, and the number and variety of communities along that coastline, there must be a serious question mark over it. There is an even bigger question mark over the southern and western area, which includes both a large area of the south coast, from the Devon-Cornwall border to the border between Hampshire and Sussex east of the Isle of Wight, and a substantial amount of the Severn estuary and the Bristol Channel. That is not a single area and if the Government are going for the large option they should seriously consider splitting it into two and have one area for the Severn and one for the south coast. This might create a potential difficulty in that the county of Devon would be in two areas but it would not be a serious matter because that county has two coasts, a north coast and a south coast, and the management of inshore fisheries in those two areas is different; they are separate areas. There may be an argument that Devon and the Isle of Wight should be in the same IFCA area along the south coast, but I can see little argument that the Isle of Wight should be in the same area as the north coast of Somerset. These are important questions. Are the Government consulting on the two options of six or 10, or are intermediate and different options possible because, at the moment, neither option is ideal?