Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that interesting and informative reply, some of which requires further study and thought. It ranged all the way from the nature of the royal prerogative through Orders in Council to how to deal with wrecks in disputed waters. I look forward to the next occasion when a wreck is discovered just off Gibraltar, and the Spanish, Gibraltarians and Moroccans dispute exactly who is responsible for raising it. There are a whole range of areas to be covered. My concern, as the Minister will know, is that historical processes do not entirely move at the speed at which we are now having to deal with marine resources intergovernmentally and globally in terms of international law. When I first raised the question of the Crown dependencies some years ago, a group of executive officers of the Government of Jersey came to see me. Their opening question was whether I understood what the Duke of Normandy had promised the Channel Islands in 1204. However, the world has moved on since 1204 and we are dealing with rather different problems. Indeed, we are dealing with very different problems from the ones that we had in the 1970s. I mark that as important because we will find ourselves coming back to climate change, marine pollution and a whole set of other problems in an area in which Her Majesty’s Government, for historical reasons, find that they are responsible for large parts of the world’s marine territories. I thank the Minister for that lengthy and useful reply, but it raised a number of questions that many of us will want to explore further on other occasions. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 126D withdrawn. Amendments 127 to 129 not moved.