Clause 123
Marine and Coastal Access Bill [Lords]
6:30 pm
Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat)
I am sure that you, Mr. Pope, will notice—I am sure that the Minister will have noticed—that I put forward amendment 40, which has not been selected. Perhaps it was tabled too late for consideration. The amendment achieves what, I hope, the hon. Member for Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire was asking for—that the network should include highly protected sites.
There may be a debate around the extent to which such sites might be designated and what provisions might apply to them. There are a lot of conservation bodies—not just conservation bodies, but others—who are concerned that what we may end up with is mediocre protection, which does not give the highest and strictest levels of protection to some of the most fragile, sensitive sites of marine biodiversity. Some are concerned that within the proposed MCZs—rather than separate from them—we need sites offering the strictest protection for our most vulnerable wildlife habitats and to allow damaged and degraded areas to recover. Currently, fewer than 0.001 per cent. of the UK’s sea area—all of the territorial area—is fully protected from all damaging activity. Such a network of highly protected sites should include sites where all extractive and constructive uses are prevented. They could be used for long-term monitoring and benchmarking and act as control areas, unaffected by many human activities, where such levels of protection are required to promote the recovery of green eco-systems. So a case could be made for a higher level of protection within some parts of the proposed MCZs.
The Minister will say that the problem with that proposal is that it would create a two-tier conservation system and degrade the effect of the MCZs. But in my view that is sophistry. It is a debating point. My problem with the argument advanced by the Government in defence of their position is that it does not apply to other areas of regulation. For example, different grades of heritage protection apply to the schedule of ancient monuments, but that does not diminish the protection of areas not given the highest level of protection. It also applies in different areas of planning and the environment. The impact of MCZs will be diminished only if the MMO, and the bodies supporting it, do not have the authority of those with an interest in marine conservation and the impact on the marine environment. That relates partly to the resources that the Government invest in the organisation and the respect that it commands among stakeholders with an interest, from any angle, in marine conservation and the recovery of resources from the sea—all those industries with an interest in the marine resource.
I hope that the Minister will reflect on my proposal. No amendment is available on this matter for us to divide on, but given that it is one of the totemic issues for many conservation bodies, we might well return to it on Report. Even though he will have the opportunity to bat it away today, given that no amendment is available on which we can divide, I hope that he will reflect on the matter. He should recognise that such highly protected areas need not be separate from MCZs, but contained within them, which might encourage him to allow them to feature in the Bill.