Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. I entirely understand why he has raised that point with me. We would usually want the enforcement authority to be able to require steps aimed towards restoring the site of damage to the state it was in before the harm occurred. This might consist of measures such as the dredging or capping of unlicensed deposits. One has to accept that taking such active steps to restore a condition at sea might not be possible; or it might cause further damage in taking the steps to do so; or it might be expensive relative to the gain achieved; or it might be a case where the best course of action is to rely on natural recovery rather than active steps for primary remediation. However, if the harm is such that the site itself cannot or should not be restored, should that mean that an offender cannot be made to make some redress for the harm they have caused? We do not think that that is right, which is why my amendments allow for remedial steps to be ordered at a place other than where the harm occurred. In effect, these are steps taken at one place to compensate for damage caused in another. Such steps might be the installation of artificial reefs to make recompense for the damage to the seabed; or the case might be such that the authority wants the offender to make recompense the other way. I do not know whether that reassures the noble Lord, but the aim is to have a practical approach, starting from the premise that we want steps taken to restore the site of damage to the state it was in before the harm occurred. But there might be some circumstances where that is not entirely appropriate, and I aim to give those. That is why my amendment is worded as it is. We have to develop enforcement guidance which will provide greater clarity for operators and allow for what, after all, is a developing area to be incorporated into practice. If the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, is not satisfied, I would have to say to him that I believe that there is some room for a degree of flexibility here.