Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

Before I address the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, I should like to apologise for the rather confusing overlap not only between the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, and my own in this group, but also between my own amendments, which duplicate themselves. Amendment A232, my Amendment A232ZA and those to which my name is added, Amendments A233A and A233C, are very similar. They seek to ensure a fundamental cultural shift for the new inshore fisheries and conservation authorities. Indeed, a change is being made even to their name by the introduction of the word "conservation", which was absent from sea fisheries committees. We have spoken already about the difficulty that the IFCAs will have in reconciling the competing interests of fisheries and environmentalism. These amendments go a little beyond that and hope to establish the integration of two opposing sides. When one talks to different stakeholders, each with their own narrow agenda, it is easy to forget just how similar the essential objectives of the different organisations are. Indeed, one often has the impression that they, too, have forgotten. That is certainly the case for fishing communities and conservation groups During a recent meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Fisheries Group, the spokesman for the organisation Seafish talked at length about how one of the greatest challenges facing us over the next 40 years is food security. He rightly emphasised how valuable fish stocks within our territorial waters will become and how important it is to maintain the ability to fish them. The corollary of that concern, of course, is that there must be some fish stocks left to exploit, which is where the concerns of fishermen mesh entirely with those of the conservation bodies. The development of inshore fisheries that are truly sustainable, providing both for the recovery and development of fish stocks that have been depleted in the past and for the continued survival of the fishing industry and the availability of food in the future, should be the objective of these clauses and I hope will be the result of the new IFCAs. My remaining amendments would update and strengthen the existing duty on Ministers as regards sea fisheries. Given our debates on Clause 2, the Minister will not be surprised by our hope that the Government will be willing to replace the words "have regard to", which are generally accepted by noble Lords to be rather weak, with the much more meaningful "further" . The second of my amendments would also ensure that the conservation of the entire marine environment was considered as well as the marine flora and fauna. We feel that this is a much more appropriate approach to marine conservation and would ensure more consistency within the organisations that the Bill establishes.