Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I shall speak also to my other amendments in this group: Amendments 230B to 230E. The group also includes Amendment A231 in the name of my noble friend Lady Miller. This group of amendments probes the relationship between local authorities that are members of IFCA and—the Minister tells us—represented on it, particularly in terms of their representation. Amendment A230 is a probing amendment that would ensure that representatives of local authorities must form a majority of the IFCA. The Minister has already told us that in practice they will form one-third. That is the factual answer to my question in the amendment, and I look forward to an explanation of why that is thought the appropriate proportion. These bodies will in fact be joint committees of local authorities; indeed, there will be committees of local authorities if there is only one. On the 10 option that could be the case in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, but everywhere else there will be a joint committee of the authorities. If that is their status, the question is whether one-third is enough. This also bears on the question already discussed about the size of the IFCAs and the representation on them by local authorities. I turn to Amendment A230B. The Minister has already told us that each local authority which has a coast that forms part of the IFCA will have a representative on the IFCA. However, Clause 147(5)(b) clearly states that the order setting up the IFCA will state, ""the number of members to be appointed from each council (which may, in the case of any particular council, be none)"." My amendment A230B seeks to delete those words so that the Bill will state what the Minister has said will happen. If I move the amendment, I take it that the Minister will support it. He shakes his head. That is interesting. We will come to discover why he will not support it even though it states what he says will happen. I wonder if we are coming on to Alice in Wonderland legislation here. I will say no more about that and will listen to what the Minister has to say with interest. However, if we have an IFCA that consists of one representative from each of the authorities, and if it is the 10 option as set out and we are talking about the southern and western IFCA with its two different coasts, there would be 16 authorities on the IFCA, which means that the IFCA would consist of 48 members—unless Devon has two, because it has two coasts, in which case it might be 51. That is quite a large body. It is not a totally unmanageable body: it can make arrangements; and in the case of southern and western, if that came about, it would have to function as two separate IFCAs and might have separate meetings of the people from the two coasts. It would be rather like having an IFCA for the Irish Sea and the North Sea in the north of England. It would require very special arrangements. Therefore, the intention behind Amendment A230B is to probe why the Bill does not say what the Minister says will happen. With Amendment A230C, councils would appoint their own representatives. I suppose that the amendment should simply have changed "from" to "by" so that the number of members would be appointed by each council. That is what I wanted to say. The intention behind the amendment is to ask the Minister whether councils will appoint their own member or members or whether someone else will do it for them. Amendment A230D is really a probing amendment to question who is to appoint all the other members or representatives. We have come close to discussing that but it will be interesting to have a clear statement from the Government about how it is to happen. Finally, Amendment A230E in my name is quite different. It is intended to question why "physiographical" suddenly appears in this part of the Bill to describe the physical features of the area on the seabed rather than "geomorphological". The word geomorphological appears quite a few times in the Bill but I think it is used to cover what the Government mean by physiographical. I have a series of references to where the word appears but I shall not bore the Committee by reading them all out. Everywhere else in the Bill, the word geomorphological is used . Geology is of course the science of rocks and geological is taken to mean the features and structure of rocks, whereas geomorphology is the science of land forms and is taken to mean the land forms in an area. I question why we suddenly have the very old-fashioned word physiographical. I beg to move.