Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 50 and 51. We all want the Marine Management Organisation to be the single planning body for the marine environment and, to be honest, had we ganged together, we could have driven that through the House. That would have been a sensible outcome. But the Government appear to be very against it, so this group of amendments attempts to ensure that the MMO and the IPC really do stand shoulder to shoulder rather than as a superior and an inferior body. The reason I support Amendments 50 and 51 is that they lay out clearly that the MMO should be a statutory adviser to the IPC in development consents for those projects in energy generation and the larger harbour schemes that the IPC is responsible for, not just for land that has an impact on the marine environment, which I think is the purport of Amendment 49. Advice needs to be given on individual projects and not just on statements or plans. I am sure the Minister will tell us that the Government are currently consulting on the list of statutory consultees for the national policy statements, and I welcome that within the consultation it states that the MMO, once established, will be included as a statutory consultee along with the Secretary of State on those statements. I also welcome the Government’s proposals that, currently subject to consultation, the MMO will be on the list of statutory consultees that the applicant must consult before submitting an application to the IPC. However, there is a difference between being a statutory consultee for the MPS or for an applicant for an individual application and being a consultee to the IPC on the range of issues that it will be dealing with that impact on the marine environment. Amendments 50 and 51 take that forward. I hope that the Government will recognise that this simply brings the IPC and the MMO shoulder to shoulder in an amicable way, rather than as a superior and a subordinate organisation. A statutory consultee makes the MMO just one of a bunch; being a statutory adviser, which implies that advice has to be sought and reasons stated when it is not taken, is appropriate for a body that needs to have similar powers and similar clout to the IPC.