Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said that there was a gap, and he is perfectly right. This is one of the strangest parts of the Bill. Ministers in the Scots Parliament decide things and Westminster legislates, as I understand it—that is the problem. One has to realise that, when you move out into offshore waters away from Scotland, you come to areas where energy comes into it—where actual and potential oil fields exist. There could be a conflict of interest between, say, the excavation of a potential oil field and the need to protect natural diversity at sea. It is very important that the same legislature should be legislating for those two things. As it stands, it is the Westminster Parliament. We must be very careful about this. Already the Scots Parliament and Ministers are referring to offshore as well as inshore waters as "Scottish waters"—they are blurring the distinction. If we blur it further, we may be in trouble. For the United Kingdom, oil is a very different matter from biodiversity in those parts of the sea. It is a very important issue that could affect devolution and whether Scotland one day might become independent. We have got to be very careful about this. I can understand that this may be a solution to the gap, but I am afraid that the gap must continue to exist, inelegant though it is in the context of arrangements in the Bill.