My hon. Friend might well be right and I look forward with interest to what the Minister has to say on that point. I do not doubt that the Minister is a good man, and very sensible, and I am sure that there are particularly good reasons why the clause is necessary. I am not saying that the Minister has got this wrong and that we should delete clause 5 as a result. My amendment is a probing amendment, as I suggested at the start of my speech, to identify why we need the clause. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North is more of an expert on these matters than I am—I am a mere layman, but as a layman it was interesting to me that these provisions already seemed to be in place and it seemed that we were, in effect, double legislating and reinventing the wheel.
The advice on environmental impact assessments that is already on the Foreign Office website states:
“Please note we will not normally authorise activities for non-scientific purposes which are likely to have more than a minor or transitory impact on the Antarctic environment.”
The thrust of my argument is that the measures in clause 5 are perhaps already in place. Let us look at what is already in place. Annex I to the protocol is already in legislation as part of the 1994 Act. It is all about environmental impact assessments—that is what it is about. When we talk about how important they are and say that that is why clause 5 is necessary, it seems to me that that argument is based on the fact that we are starting from scratch when we are not.
I do not intend to read out annex I—I am sure, Mr Speaker, that you would neither wish me nor allow me to do so—because it would take an awful lot of time, which I would not want to take. If anyone were to read annex I to the protocol on environmental protection, they would see that it is pretty comprehensive. It states that itself and I am not in a position to doubt it.