Clause 197
Marine and Coastal Access Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Huw Irranca-Davies (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Marine and Natural Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Ogmore, Labour)
I am glad to return to the Committee to pick up where we left off this morning on shellfisheries. It might be helpful at this juncture to pick up on one point raised about the timeline. A genuine concern was aired about the nature and extent of the discussion and dialogue. Not many of us had a lot of time to see the word-by-word detail of the amendments, but the fundamentals of what is being proposed have been around for some time, and I will sketch them out briefly.
The Shellfish Association of Great Britain was working in 2007 on a memorandum of understanding with the Crown estates that featured most of the elements now contained in these clauses. The association has had a lot of opportunity, with my officials and others, to shape the proposals that have ended up in the Bill. Officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have met on numerous occasions to discuss potential solutions to the Crown estate problem. However, it was only with the resolution of a court action, which concluded on 14 May, that negotiations could commence in earnest and in detail with interested parties, in particular the Crown and the shellfish industry. After that point, we could move from the entrenched positions that had had to be adopted while the court case proceeded.
The solutions proposed in the Bill—I shall turn to them in a moment, as I want to explain in detail how the package works—aim to put the relationship between the shellfish industry and landowners on a more commercial footing that is based on agreements, with mechanisms for developments to take place, but with compensation and the removal of consent, which everybody has wanted. Those proposals all come from the industry. If the Committee will bear with me, I will sketch exactly how the process will work in practice.
Government amendments 56, 57 and 62 will amend the Sea Fisheries (Shellfish) Act 1967 to remove the need for consent of the Crown estate or the duchies to be given before an order affecting any part of the sea shore on their land can be granted. Removing that requirement will give the Secretary of State the power to grant shellfish orders without Crown consent, removing a potential obstacle to granting new orders. Such a measure is sought by all parties, and I hope that it will be welcomed by all parties.
The removal of that procedure, which all parties consider to be outdated, will thus allow us to overcome the current impasse, in which a number of several and regulating orders are not being given. At the moment, shellfisheries cannot obtain certainty for long-term investment, despite the best efforts and good will of all parties. The amendments will allow us to overcome the impasse and start granting new several and regulating orders. Both the Crown estate and the shellfish industry support the proposal.
As the amendments all link together and come as a package, I will turn to amendment 58, which requires the appropriate Minister, when considering an application for a several and regulating order, to have regard to the powers and duties of the Crown Estate Commissioners. That is important because those powers and duties come from the Crown Estate Act 1961. The Sea Fisheries (Shellfish) Act 1967 already contains a statutory duty to consult the commissioners as land owners when considering an application for an order that will affect Crown land.
It is important that we recognise that the Crown Estate Commissioners have specific powers and duties that require them to act in a particular way. I must make it clear that the amendment does not grant the commissioners any extra powers, nor does it give them anything with regard to shellfish orders that they do not currently have. Having regard to the Crown estate’s powers and duties simply means that we must take account of them when arriving at a decision on whether to grant an order. We are not bound to accept any objection that they raise, just as we are not bound to accept any objection from any other landowner. The commissioners are constrained in what they can do with regard to the Crown estate in a way that other landowners are not. Our proposal merely acknowledges that difference.