My Lords, I congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord on moving the amendment. It is a very useful probe; I shall probably have some more probes later. I have a copy of the code of conduct, which, as he said, was agreed yesterday lunchtime. That probably shows, but at least I understand that it has been agreed. It is unclear to me who makes the order designating a harbour authority as having the powers for general direction. Is it the Department for Transport? From reading the code of conduct, it seems to me as if the harbour authority makes its own designation, which I am sure is not right. It does not sound right anyway. I believe that the designation is under Section 40 of the Harbours Act, but what criteria will the Department for Transport, which I presume it will be, look at when deciding whether an applicant is a fit and proper organisation for having harbour direction powers.
The purpose of the code of conduct and probably of Clause 5 is to enable harbours to be able to make directions without having to wait sometimes several years for the Department for Transport to approve them. I hope that the department, if it is to be the approving body under the new arrangements, will be a lot quicker than that. How long will it be and, as the noble and right reverend Lord asked, what enforcement will there be if things go wrong? I look forward to the Minister’s response.
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