Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on finding things to say while noble Lords left the usual suspects to it, but that is the extent of my congratulations on this amendment. I speak on behalf of my noble friend Lord Greaves. I am sure that noble Lords will understand how devastated he truly is not to be fit enough to be with us this afternoon. He has put so much effort into the issue of coastal access not just in this Bill but at the pre-legislative stage and throughout the years since the Countryside and Rights of Way Act was passed. I fear that I will not do him justice on his amendments. On this amendment, I do not regard the second objective as separate in the way that the noble Lord described it. It seems to me to be an aspect, a limb, of the single duty described at the start of the clause. It is not something that can be extracted or separated but something that must be read alongside the first objective. At first reading, I thought that this was a moderately benign amendment giving an exception but, now having read it three times, it seems to me that it would give all landward owners and others who fall into that category what amounts to a veto. As I read it, that would wreck the coastal duty. Therefore, we on these Benches cannot support the noble Lord.