Wreck Removal Convention Bill

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in this short debate. I shall not try to respond to all comments, but one or two things come to mind. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, both suggested that the biggest problem that I was concerned about was the GLAs. That is not the case any more. If it was thought that the GLAs were going to spend too much money on recovering a wreck and would have a serious financial problem as a result, there are enough Members of your Lordships' House who have some relationship with Trinity House who would sort it out by asking questions here. That may well be the case; it is the way the political world works. For a small harbour authority, it might be slightly different. If it were an enormous wreck, I am sure that the Government would see to it that there was some financial settlement. However, there is something in the middle that could just happen, although it is not very likely. I was grateful for the Minister’s response, because it went a long way towards satisfying many of my concerns. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, mentioned Trinity House marking wrecks. That is part of its job, and I said so in my opening remarks. I would not want to see that changed; it is terribly good at what it does. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, whose Bill this is, for her response. If the wording of the amendment is defective in some way, then it needs looking at, but perhaps that will not be necessary. I need to reflect on what she and the Minister said. I was particularly pleased that he mentioned the idea of MOUs with harbour and conservancy authorities, because they are just as important as MOUs with the GLAs. However, he was quite right: the thought of having 30, 40 or 50 different MOUs with every harbour authority around the country cannot be very attractive to him or his officials. I shall certainly try to encourage the representative bodies of the harbours, of which there are two, to try to come together and come up with something based on the principles which he so clearly outlined. I again thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate and beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 1 withdrawn. Amendment 2 not moved. Clause 1 agreed. Clause 2 agreed. Schedule agreed. Bill reported without amendment.