Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, I echo a great deal of what the Minister said—I was going to make the six-month point before he pre-empted me. I think that we have had 17 sessions, and there has hardly been a sitting week when there has not been a day on the Marine and Coastal Access Bill. It has been an extraordinary marathon. During the passage of Animal Health Bill the Liberal Democrat Front Bench consisted of my noble friend Lord Livsey of Talgarth and me, so I hope that the Government do not bring along any more Bills for us in the near future. I understand that the Minister is moving out of Defra and is taking on greater responsibilities in DECC. We congratulate him on that and thank him—I believe, on behalf of the whole House—for his work during his time as a Defra Minister, which has not been as long as some. During my time here this House has benefited from some really good Defra Ministers, regardless of politics, and the Minister will go down in the record book as one of them, if only for this Bill if for nothing else. I thank all Members of the House for their co-operation, which has been so important. That includes the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and the Conservative Front Bench as well as old sparring partners such as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. The Bill came to the House with great hope and expectation, but quite a lot of fear that the Government really did not mean what they had said while the Bill was in gestation. It had a huge amount of work done on it during the years before it came here, including in the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, on which I was privileged to sit. I believe that while it has been here, we have given it a very thorough scrubbing down. It has also been significantly improved, which is a tribute to the whole House. I am very pleased that we on the Liberal Democrat Benches have been able to contribute to that. I am very grateful indeed for the support I have had from our team, which has made my life a great deal easier. I include my noble friend Lord Tyler, who abandoned us after Committee stage for other places, as well as my noble friends mentioned by the Minister. I refer in particular to my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, whose expertise on the conservation side I found very valuable, and to my noble friends Lord Livsey and Lord Wallace of Tankerness for their Welsh and Scottish input. I will not say that my noble friend Lord Wallace is the predominant expert on Scotland in the House; I will say that no one is better than him. He knows as much about Scotland as anyone for obvious reasons. The ministerial team, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, who has entertained us on a number of late evening sessions with his wit and his ability to talk about anything at any time of day or night in the hope that the rest of us go to sleep and do not pursue it further—I say touché to that—has been combative, has discussed and argued the case, and has then listened, understood and come back with compromise and consensus and understanding and explanation. They have been absolutely wonderful. Finally, I should like to say that the Bill team has been brilliant. Of all the Bills I have been closely involved with in the nine years that I have been in your Lordships’ House, this is the best Bill team I have ever come across. It is a huge team obviously, because it is a huge Bill—but they really have been good. The amount of work, effort and discussion that they have been prepared to put in—beyond the call of duty, outside the formal sessions—has been superb. That has been a major contribution to the fact that this Bill really is a good Bill leaving this House. When this Bill finally gets through the House of Commons and becomes law, perhaps the Bill team leader, Mrs Linskey, might take six months off and write the definitive work on the relationship between devolution and the maritime environment. We send this Bill to the House of Commons with continued hope and expectation. All we can do is hope that the House of Commons will improve it further and then send it back to us for our final approval.