Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for, and congratulate him on, this group of amendments. It is fair to say that he has gone almost all the way in response to the matters that we raised with respect to scientific evidence. We have reached Report, and it is now the tradition of your Lordships’ House that a speaker who has an interest to declare should declare it at each stage of the Bill’s progress. In Committee, I declared that I was the chairman of the board of trustees of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, an unpaid post. Since February, I have ceased to be its chairman—not, I add hastily, because I have been summarily dismissed, but because my term of office of seven years came to an end. However, I have found myself quickly accelerated to the post of chairman of the Plymouth Marine Sciences Partnership, also unpaid. I welcome Amendment 5, which requires the MMO to appoint a person to be its chief scientific adviser. That goes further than was required by many of your Lordships in Committee and I am delighted that the Government have reached that decision. The Minister also referred to the establishment of a scientific advisory committee, about which I am also delighted. That does not appear in the Bill, but I understand that it will be a requirement to be included in subsequent guidance issued to the MMO. I also welcome the change that the Government have made in Amendment 7 by inserting a third stipulation in the clause designating general objectives. New paragraph (b) requires the MMO to take account of, ""all relevant facts and matters"." My only hesitations relate to government Amendment 9, which seeks to elaborate on new paragraph (b) in Amendment 7. In order for me to clarify my two amendments, Amendments 10 and 11, I need to read out Amendment 9, which inserts new subsection (1B) into Clause 2: ""For the purposes of subsection (1)(b), the facts and matters that may be taken into account include each of the following— (a) scientific evidence, whether available to, or reasonably obtainable by, the MMO; (b) other evidence so available or obtainable relating to the social, economic or environmental elements of sustainable development; (c) such facts or matters not falling within paragraph (a) or (b) as the MMO may consider appropriate"." I am puzzled about two things. The first is that the word used in the introductory part of the amendment should be "may" rather than "shall". I have tabled Amendment 10 because, if the MMO simply may take into account scientific evidence and, ""other evidence so available or obtainable relating to the social, economic or environmental elements of sustainable development"," what is the point of stipulating them at all? It clearly may take them into account under the general objective in paragraph (b) in Amendment 7. Surely new subsection (1B) will bite only if the MMO must take those matters into account and must regard them as relevant. Of course, the weight that it gives those relevant matters is entirely within its discretion. It may give them very little weight or in certain circumstances none at all, but they will plainly be relevant. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that the correct verb is not "may" but "shall". My second quibble is on paragraph (c) in new subsection (1B). I remind the House that new paragraph (c) refers to, ""such facts or matters not falling within paragraph (a) or (b)—" those are the paragraphs that cover scientific, social, economic and environmental matters— ""as the MMO may consider appropriate"." The word "appropriate" appears there for the first time. It is not defined anywhere. What happens if a matter is relevant but the MMO does not consider it appropriate? Surely the better word to substitute for "appropriate" in new paragraph (c) would be "relevant". Finally, I entirely concur with Amendment 18. The Government propose to define "evidence" as including, ""predictions and other opinions resulting from the consideration of evidence by any person"." It is well known that, in terms of hard evidence, we have knowledge of only about 2 to 3 per cent of the waters that the Bill seeks to cover. The only way in which we can come to sensible scientific conclusions about the other 97 or 98 per cent is by using scientific models to make predictions from the little evidence that we have. It is, therefore, absolutely essential that these modelling procedures should be included in the definition of "evidence" and I am delighted that the Government have done so.