Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall also speak to the other government amendments in this group, but I shall hold my fire until the Opposition have had the opportunity to present their amendment before I respond to it. It would be unfortunate if I pre-empted what are cogent arguments on the Government’s side before we had heard the Opposition’s case, so I shall not comment on Amendment 83 at this point; rather I will concentrate on the government amendments, which I am sure will find favour. Amendment 68 is the crucial one in the group. It reflects the fact that, when we debated an amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, in Committee, it became clear that there was some ambiguity in the wording of the Bill on the timescale available to the legislatures to scrutinise the marine policy statement. We explained then that it was not our intention to curtail the time that the legislatures would have to consider the marine policy statement to just the public consultation period and we promised that we would look at this again. Amendment 68 and the other related amendments are a reflection of that further consideration. We have proposed amendments to Schedule 5 to make it clear that the period allocated to an appropriate legislative body or appropriate legislative committee for legislative scrutiny of the consultation draft will be specified by the policy authority. Amendments 67 and 69 make consequential changes to paragraph 9, while Amendment 64 makes a similar change to paragraph 5, as it sets out that the statement of public participation must state the period allocated for legislative scrutiny. I beg to move.