Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Duke for that comment; he raises a very interesting point. Before I come to that, perhaps I could give the background to reciprocal licensing of fishing vessels. Normally, the port letters and numbers given to a fishing vessel on original registration remain with it for life. Thus the registration of a fishing vessel originally registered in Penzance will start with the letters PZ, while that of one registered in Peterhead will start with PH. In a similar way to car registration, the licence number of a fishing vessel remains the same when the vessel is sold on. Therefore, there are now a number of fishing boats that were originally registered in an English port but which now belong to Scottish owners and operate out of Scottish ports, and vice versa. From a practical point of view, it makes more sense for vessels to be administered and licensed by the port office close to the port out of which they fish. A Scottish vessel was defined in the devolution settlement as a fishing boat whose entry in the register specifies a port in Scotland as the port to which the vessel is to be treated as belonging. I am sure that the noble Duke will remember our debating that point during the devolution Bill.