Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is good to hear that the Minister and his team had a restorative time over Christmas and the New Year. Perhaps I may declare my interest merely in the welfare of fish in and around Scotland, which is relevant to the Bill. This group of amendments is a fine illustration of what it takes to keep everything as tidy as possible when you have devolution settlements at the core of your legislation. The Scots will be pleased to see Amendments 27 to 29 as they are anxious to maintain their own management of policy over the culling of seals. Amendments 30 to 32 deserve a prize for the man who managed to dig it up in the effort to produce legislation that will cope with future repeals of powers, as it will prevent Scotland losing out on its current blanket power over all electricity generation if there is any repeal of the legislation. The one puzzle to me around Clause 13 and Amendment 33 is that it is in the Bill to deal with safety zones, but Section 95 of the Energy Act 2004 deals only with safety zones around renewable energy installations. Scotland has powers to implement other types of energy generating stations, so these will not be covered by this legislation if they happen to be envisaged. Amendments 32 and 34 are linked, as they try to find the right placement in the Bill for the definition of "Scottish waters" and "the Scottish part" in relation to renewable energy zones. The Bill endeavours to emphasise that these phrases have the same meaning as in Section 95 of the Energy Act although, as far as I can see, that section does not, in itself, have any definition of those terms in relation to Scottish waters. This brings me to the puzzling way in which the Government have defined the marine areas up in the north. The Bill refers in the main to the Scottish inshore area and the Scottish offshore area, as if, at a certain level, they have an equivalence. However, this part has the much more definitive term "Scottish waters", which represents the fact that the inshore area is part of Scotland and is the term used in previous legislation. Surely the Minister must admit that consistency would be better served if this term were used throughout the Bill. This would also emphasise the very different framework that governs the Scottish offshore area and the Scottish inshore area and how it might be more appropriately labelled to demonstrate the difference. Can the Minister give us any explanation of why the Government have used "the Scottish inshore area" as a definition?