Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I am grateful for that response and I am satisfied. I was also satisfied with the Minister’s answer on at least one other of my amendments. I am less concerned about the size of the body than is the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, whom I thank for his comments on this group of amendments. There is an obsession with the idea that the smaller a body, the more efficient and more effective it is. I do not believe that that is necessarily the case. Big bodies can run effectively; they just need different ways of working. I am not too bothered about the fact that some of these bodies might be quite large. An answer to the problem of 48 representatives would be to have an IFCA for the Bristol Channel and an IFCA for the south coast. Without going over this again too much, that would avoid the ludicrous position in which, for example, the representative from the Isle of Wight is involved in what happens in the Bristol Channel, which would be a nonsense. But we have gone through that already. Finally, I was fascinated, while listening, to begin thinking what reason the Government might have not to take out the words that they say will not be operative. The Bill clearly says that some local authorities as defined—that is, top-tier and unitary authorities—may not be members of the IFCAs, yet the Government say that that is not the case and that they will all be IFCA members. Why, then, are those words in the Bill? The only argument being put forward is the extraordinary one that some new type of local authority might be invented in the future to which the Bill might not refer. For some of us who have been involved in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill and in other discussions with the Government about the future structure of local government, that only increases our suspicions that the Government are messing about wholly unacceptably with local government and intend to do more. I am sure that the Minister does not intend to do that. The Government are clearly not going to invent new local authorities that would make nonsense of this part of the Bill. Hundreds of statutes, right across the board, would need consequential amendments if the local government structure were completely changed; this would be one of them. The Minister’s arguments, therefore, are pretty weak. It is a bit Alice in Wonderland to say, "We agree with you, but we have to find some excuses why we cannot make the changes that you want". Can the Government think again about this? If they are going to have no authorities unrepresented, why does the Bill say that there may be some? It is nonsense and we ought to be stopping the Government making nonsense legislation. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment A230A withdrawn. Amendments A230B to A231 not moved. Clause 147, as amended, agreed. Clause 148 agreed.