Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, for bringing us back to this topic, because a great deal needs to be settled and it will cause great anxiety among the people that he mentioned. I shall also speak to Amendments 119 and 120, both in the name of my noble friend Lord Taylor. This group of amendments refers to an issue that was labelled in Committee as the whale in the Jacuzzi. The Minister tried his best to answer our concerns but, as is so often the case where EU or international law is concerned, he was reduced in the last resort to saying, "We just don’t have the power". The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, returns us to the uncomfortable fact that the network of marine conservation zones from six nautical miles to the outer limits will be ineffective without EU approval. Not only will any marine conservation zone outside that six-mile limit be unable to achieve its objectives, since no restrictions can be imposed on foreign fishermen that breach the fisheries agreement, but it is likely that—somewhat as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, was explaining—they will instead put UK vessels at a disadvantage compared to their EU colleagues. They will also have to bear a disproportionate amount of the burden of restoring our fish stocks. The Minister and his officials, in their draft strategy which at the moment applies to waters adjacent to England and Wales, have given us a very useful update on how EU and UK negotiations are progressing. Can he tell us how many UK representatives are involved in those negotiations and how they are dealing with devolved issues? Is it a requirement that the UK should draw up the EU zones according to the rules, which I gather are laid down and well understood, and submit them for acceptance by the European Community or do we expect the Community to designate further zones? Although I cannot entirely follow the exact wording of the amendment, because of my concerns about the ineffectiveness within the offshore zones, I do not think the inshore zones should wait for the very slow wheels of the EU to turn. I would appreciate any information which the Minister can give the House about how long he expects the current situation to stand. I would particularly welcome a rough idea of how long it will take to get zones between the six and 12-nautical-mile boundaries agreed under Council Regulation 2371/2002, which we discussed in Committee. We also tabled Amendment 119 to probe a little further what the Minister said in Committee about the extent of sea fishing defence. I understand from the debates in Hansard that the defence covers only legal sea fishing and that subsection (3)(b) would kick in and disallow any use of that defence if the common fisheries policy were ever changed to allow for sea fishing outside the 12-nautical-mile limit to be restricted at a national level. Amendment 120 raises the concern from the Royal Yachting Association, which felt that the Government were being rather timid in their interpretation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Its interpretation of Articles 56 and 58 would suggest that we are able to regulate all vessels, not just UK registered ones, for the purpose of conservation or preservation of the environment as long as such regulations do not impact on navigation. I hope that the Minister has looked very carefully since Committee stage at this point and will be able to respond more favourably this time.