 House of Commons |
Session 2008 - 09 Publications on the internet Public Bill Committee Debates Marine and Coastal Access Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:†
Irranca-Davies,
Huw (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs) Chris
Shaw, Committee Clerk †
attended the Committee Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 30 June 2009(Morning)[Mr. Roger Gale in the Chair]Marine and Coastal Access Bill [Lords]10.30
am
The
Chairman: Before we begin, given the weather, hon. Members
may remove their jackets, or other such items of attire so as still to
allow a sense of decorum. I cannot speak for my fellow Chairmen, but
that ruling prevails while I am in the Chair. I have a few housekeeping
announcements. All Members should ensure that mobile phones, pagers and
BlackBerrys are turned off or switched to silent during Committee
sittings. I remind the Committee that there is a money resolution in
connection with the Bill, copies of which are available in the Room.
Adequate notice should be given of amendments if they are to be
eligible for selection: for a Tuesday sitting, amendments must be
tabled by the rise of the House the previous Thursday; and for a
Thursday sitting, they must be tabled by the previous Monday. As a
general rule, I and my fellow Chairmen will not call manuscript or
starred amendments.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs (Huw Irranca-Davies): I beg to
move, That— (1)
the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 am on
Tuesday 30 June)
meet— (a) at 4.00 pm on
Tuesday 30 June (b) at 9.00 am
and 1.00 pm on Thursday 2
July; (c) at 10.30 am and 4.00
pm on Tuesday 7 July; (d) at
9.00 am and 1.00 pm on Thursday 9
July; (e) at 10.30 am and 4.00
pm on Tuesday 14 July; (f) at
9.00 am and 1.00 pm on Thursday 16
July; (2) the
proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 44 to 47;
Schedule 5; Clauses 48 to 51; Schedule 6; Clauses 52 to 64; new Clauses
relating to Part 3; new Schedules relating to Part 3; Clauses 65 to 97;
Schedule 7; Clauses 98 to 112; Schedules 8 and 9; Clauses 113 to 115;
new Clauses relating to Part 4; new Schedules relating to Part 4;
Clauses 116 to 144; Schedule 10; Clauses 145 and 146; Schedules 11 and
12; Clauses 147 and 148; Schedule 13; new Clauses relating
to Part 5; new Schedules relating to Part 5; Clause 1; Schedules 1 and
2; Clauses 2 to 39; Schedule 3; Clause 40; new Clauses relating to Part
1; new Schedules relating to Part 1; Clauses 41 to 43; Schedule 4; new
Clauses relating to Part 2; new Schedules relating to Part 2; Clauses
149 to 179; Schedule 14; Clauses 180 to 188; new Clauses relating to
Part 6; new Schedules relating to Part 6; Clauses 189 to 196; Schedule
15; Clauses 197 to 227; Schedule 16; Clauses 228; new Clauses relating
to Part 7; new Schedules relating to Part 7; Clauses 229 to 243;
Schedule 17; Clauses 244 to 271; Schedule 18; Clauses 272 to 289; new
Clauses relating to Part 8; new Schedules relating to Part 8; Clauses
290 to 296; Schedule 19; Clauses 297 and 298; Schedule 20; Clauses 299
to 304; new Clauses relating to Part 9; new Schedules relating to Part
9; Clauses 305 to 309; Schedule 21; Clauses 310 to 315; Schedule 22;
Clauses 316 to 319; remaining new Clauses; remaining new Schedules;
remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(3) the proceedings on the Bill shall (so far as
not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on
Thursday 16 July.
May I say,
Mr. Gale, what I delight it is to serve under your
stewardship on such an important Committee? The Bill has been long
awaited by many, not only in this House, but in the other place, where
it has progressed and been improved through several months of intense
scrutiny. The Programming Sub-Committee’s debate on agreeing the
way forward for scrutiny of the Bill reflected the collaborative
approach that was adopted in the other place and that, I hope, will
prevail in the Committee as we proceed with the Bill. We have tried
strenuously to avoid the necessity of putting in knives and guillotines
in order to have a free-flowing debate, and I think that we now have,
in a much improved Bill, ample opportunity to get right to the core of
what it is about.
I
particularly welcome the agreed approach to getting to the meat of the
Bill and to the planning, licensing and conservation aspects before
proceeding to other matters. We also plan to reserve sufficient time
towards the later part of our discussions in Committee to look in depth
at coastal access. I hope and anticipate that the spirit of
constructive engagement will continue throughout our
deliberations.
I
would like simply to reiterate what the Bill is about: our relationship
with the seas and the coastal environment. That is critical to us as a
nation, but it also sets the scene on how we as a nation intend to lead
in what we do for our marine and coastal environments. I would like to
repeat my thanks not only to Members in this House and in the other
place who have contributed to an excellent debate so far, but to the
15,000 or so members of other organisations who responded to the
consultation on the Bill, for which they have been waited for some
years. We could say that it has effectively taken six years of
pre-legislative scrutiny to bring us to the Committee today.
I look
forward to a constructive engagement through the course of our
deliberations and hope that we can give the Bill a good debate at all
stages. We on this side of the Committee are certainly willing to give
it extra time and to go late into the evenings, with your approval, Mr
Gale, to ensure that we have adequate time for
discussion. Mr.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con): I would like to echo the
Minister’s welcome to you, Mr. Gale, and look forward
to your help and guidance throughout this process. As he said, there
have been lengthy discussions on the Bill in another place, but I hope
that the programme motion will allow us to tease out a few key areas of
debate to improve the Bill. For many people who have contacted us, the
key aspect is the establishment of marine conservation zones and the
nature conservation elements in the Bill. We obviously welcome some
changes made in another place, such as the inclusion of the words
“ecologically coherent”, if not in the Bill itself, then
in the statement laid before the House. Such changes are most welcome,
but there are areas where we need time to clarify just how those
conservation zones will be achieved and in what time scale. There are
many other aspects of the Bill that we will cover in the meat of our
debates, as the Minster
said. We
have concerns about the provisions on coastal access, although not
about the principle of achieving greater access to coastal Britain, on
which there is much agreement. We will be seeking time to secure a
better balance in certain areas. We will seek clarification on privacy,
liability and biosecurity. We have introduced
and will continue to introduce a range of amendments: some probing, some
seeking to underline and secure concessions in another place, and
others to make more fundamental changes to the Bill. As I said on
Second Reading, we seek, in all cases, to adopt an attitude of
co-operation and consensus, as was the case in another place. There
will be times when we will not agree but, let us be frank, if the
marine part of the Bill were to go on to the statute book today it
would be a giant leap forward in marine conservation and would create a
framework to address an area of our environment that has waited too
long for the protection it
deserves. Andrew
George (St. Ives) (LD): May I, too, welcome you,
Mr. Gale, to our proceedings as one of our Chairmen until we
rise on 16 July, as I assume we will use all the time available to us?
Although I entirely agree with the Minister and the hon.
Member for Newbury on the need for further probing and fine tuning,
basically we are pretty happy with the Bill and its general direction.
If it were implemented tomorrow, we would be pleased and proud with
what we already
have. However,
a number of issues need to be teased out further. I am sure that the
Minister accepts that industries with interest in the marine resource
and conservation bodies want reassurance on a number of issues that
need clarification. I hope we will retain the co-operative and
consensual approach which has been a feature of the debates on the Bill
so far.
The Minister
and I have a great deal in common. We are both Celts and we share a
medical condition in which we take an interest. The Minister also owes
me a favour because I helped him out when he was found without any
trousers one day—more of which we will debate as the Committee
proceeds. Beyond that, Mr. Gale, I hope not to take
advantage of the favour the Minister owes me.
I hope we
will persuade the Minister on a number of issues during debate on the
Bill. I also hope the Minister will not approach the measure with the
intention—as is often the case with Government Bills—of
defending to the hilt the Government’s red lines, irrespective
of the strength of the arguments. I hope rather that he will approach
it with an open mind, listen to the strength of the arguments, be
prepared to compromise and accept that fine tuning might result in
further amendments to the
Bill. Martin
Salter (Reading, West) (Lab): I was going to say how much
I was looking forward to serving on the Committee but the prospect of
continued medical bonding between the hon. Member for St. Ives and the
Minister is too horrible to contemplate. I hope that is the last we
hear of it, Mr. Gale. I am sure you will clamp down on that
kind of
nonsense. I
reiterate that this is an excellent piece of legislation, and I welcome
the commitment to the broad principles given by both Opposition
parties. Many other Members and I worked closely with the Minister and
his predecessor Ministers to see the legislation reach the stage it
does today. I put on the record a slight concern, for the
Minister’s ears in particular. A number of
us—particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton,
Test and for Plymouth, Sutton, the hon. Member for Broxbourne and
myself—worked long and hard on the Joint
Committee.
The Bill has been the subject of extensive scrutiny, and the work of the
Joint Committee must not be mothballed, it has to be a point of
reference. There might be times when, on an all-party basis, we will
come up against Whitehall red lines, but going back to some of the
deliberation that took place in the Joint Committee might give the
Minister strength to push back some of the red lines that need to be a
little less starkly drawn, particularly on nature conservation and sea
fisheries issues that we will discuss. However, the programme motion is
broadly sensible, and I think that we can meet the timetable we have
set ourselves, precisely because of the extensive scrutiny that both
Houses have already had the opportunity to engage
in. Question
put and agreed
to.
The
Chairman: Before we proceed, there is another
housekeeping issue, mainly for the benefit of the Officers of the
House. I am conscious that there is considerable public interest in the
Bill, and, as always, we have managed to find the largest Committee
Room with the smallest Public Gallery. I am also aware that there might
be some people representing lobbying organisations who will wish to be
here for most, if not all, of the Bill proceedings. If those people
would quietly identify themselves to the Officer on duty—I am
not allowed to see the Gallery from here—I personally have no
objection to their sitting in the Press Gallery, which, as you will
note, is
unoccupied. Resolved, That,
subject to the discretion of the Chairman, any written evidence
received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for
publication.—(Huw
Irranca-Davies.)
Clause 44Marine
policy
statement
Mr.
Benyon: I beg to move amendment 9, in clause 44,
page 27, line 2, leave out
‘contributing to’ and insert
‘furthering’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: amendment 29, in
clause 44, page 27, line 16, at
end insert— ‘(4A) In this
Part “sustainable development” means the maintenance or
enhancement of the purposes underlying the designation of the MCZ, in
accordance with section
117.’. Amendment
1, in
clause 2, page 2, line 5, leave
out ‘making a contribution to the achievement of’ and
insert ‘taking
reasonable steps, consistent with the proper exercise of its functions
to further’. The
purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the MMO has a duty to
‘further’ sustainable development. This gives the MMO a
sufficiently robust objective to be responsible for
‘furthering’ and not just ‘making a contribution
to the achievement of’ sustainable
development. Amendment
2, in
clause 2, page 2, line 24, leave
out ‘contribution to the achievement of’ and insert
‘furthering of’.
The purpose of this amendment is to
ensure that the MMO has a duty to ‘further’ sustainable
development. This gives the MMO a sufficiently robust objective to be
responsible for ‘furthering’ and not just ‘making
a contribution to the achievement of’ sustainable
development.
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