Clause 127
Marine and Coastal Access Bill [Lords]
6:45 pm
This amendment aims to minimise the cost of environmental impact assessment and subsequent monitoring.
This is a short but important amendment. The text is there for hon. Members to see. It aims to minimise the cost of environmental impact assessments and subsequent monitoring. The key sentence is:
“The costs of this monitoring should be reasonable and proportionate with respect to the scale, costs and environmental benefits of the project.”
One of the marine renewables industry’s greatest concerns is the cost of environmental impact assessments and the subsequent monitoring of them, as it could potentially destroy the UK’s wave and tidal energy sector. In my opening words this morning, I said that it was important that the Bill stand the test of time. Developing technologies are going to be fundamental and vital in how we progress our approach to climate change and development of renewable energy systems. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) spoke about the situation in Strangford loch. The marine current turbine development in Strangford loch provides a concrete example of the disproportionate costs for small firms, with £4 million attributable to the stipulated environmental monitoring programme for a project with an initial budget of less than £10 million. This is a really important emerging technology. If we constrain that kind of development and technological advance through prohibitive costs we have a problem.