Clause 1 - Marine sites of special interest
Marine Wildlife Conservation Bill
10:30 am
Mr Simon Thomas (Ceredigion, Plaid Cymru)
I seek to make a small improvement to the Bill, and I hope that the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), the Bill's promoter, will accept it. The Bill's wording follows the procedure for dealing with sites of special scientific interest—that is land sites in England and Wales—under which interested parties have one month to make representations and the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales has up to six months to make a designation. I want to change that to three months for the consultation and for the decision-making process.
I seek to make those changes in response to concerns raised on Second Reading—for example, the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir S. Chapman) suggested that the consultation period was too short. The suggested change is also based on my experience. Two or three years ago, before my election to the House, I was involved in consultation on the candidate marine site of special interest at Penllyn ar Sarnau in north Wales; I was working with the Countryside Council for Wales in putting together the public consultation exercise for that site. My experience is that a month is not sufficient, and I therefore seek three months' consultation.