Martin Salter (Reading West, Labour)

I rise in the hope of teasing some response out of the Minister about the functions of Natural England. Before I do so, I should point out that last week I all but accused the Countryside Alliance of not lobbying us on a cross-party basis and of being the Tory party at prayer and field. That was monstrous of me. The Countryside Alliance did lobby me, but I completely failed to read its e-mails. I should like to put that on the record as a matter of good grace.

I am worried that we could be about to over-complicate the process for designating sites of special scientific interest or national nature reserves. The current arrangements with Natural England being the notifying authority have worked well for years, yet in the Bill we  are bringing in a new power for the Secretary of State to intervene and call in these notifications in sub-tidal areas. I am confused about how that process would work in practice. The Minister needs to explain that to the Committee and possibly to return to it on Report.

There are already more than 60,000 hectares of sub-tidal SSSIs, and the power we envisage will apply only to new or renotified SSSIs. However, the power runs the risk of confusing landowners and land managers, because it introduces an additional stage in the decision-making process. The Secretary of State is already a statutory consultee, which is a crucial point. The clause appears to take little account of the existing notification process, and we know that within its duties and functions, Natural England has a duty to notify a site of special scientific interest if it forms the opinion that the site is of special interest. Special interest relates solely to scientific questions or to biological or geological features, as laid down in the United Kingdom’s sites of special scientific interest guidelines. Legal precedent has confirmed that that decision can be challenged only on the grounds of special interest, but I, Natural England and others are unclear as to the basis on which the Secretary of State can intervene if the grounds for the notification process are so clearly laid out. We could end up with a slightly absurd merry-go-round of notification, denotification as a result of the Secretary of State’s intervention, then renotification, because whatever has been put in the Bill does not absolve Natural England of the responsibility to notify sites of special interest. I am not entirely sure that the Government have thought that through.

There is also uncertainty about how the time scale is affected. Currently, landowners, land mangers and land users have nine months from the date of notification to know whether an SSSI designation will be put in place. Does the Secretary of State who is calling in the process stop the clock, and if so, for how long? I can see a calling-in procedure locking a process in the bowels of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for months, and possible years, while it is considered. There is also the issue of what to do with the site, what can be done with it, and how it affects land values and future usage. The Minister was clear and helpful about marine conservation zones, and a 12-month timetable was put on the designation process.

I do not think that this issue can be dealt with today. It requires further consideration and thought on Report, because we need to be assured that there is some purpose in what the Government intend, and that they are not effectively driving a coach and horses through a system that works well, and that we will not build in unintended consequences purely because the Minister wants to be a backstop in the designation of SSSIs in tidal areas.

Another area of confusion—and this is another reason why I do not think that this issue can be resolved this morning—stems from the fact that the powers apply only to SSSIs in sub-tidal areas. There are many SSSIs that span non-tidal and tidal areas. Are we going to have one process for designation and notification when the tide is in and another when the tide is out? That has not been clearly thought through but, hopefully with the Committee’s support, we have picked up a potential  glitch in the system. I am sure that the Minister will have the good grace to enable us to bottom out the issue and resolve it on Report.

Huw Irranca-Davies (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Marine and Natural Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Ogmore, Labour)

This is a good example of a Committee really adding value to legislative scrutiny, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising his point. He is absolutely right that it is imperative that the Bill’s provisions provide an effective and efficient means of delivering our shared policy aims.

It is not clear to me whether there are any flaws in schedule 13, but I recognise my hon. Friend’s concerns and will look at the schedule’s provisions and engage with Natural England to ensure that we have got it right. We all want clarity and a Bill that functions well, and I will therefore take a further look. In light both of my hon. Friend’s comments and of similar comments made to us by Natural England about the clarity of the process of designating sites of special scientific interest and marine conservation zones in a sub-tidal area, we are currently engaged in a process called “process mapping”—by and large, I strenuously try to avoid jargon, and I promise that that is the one piece of jargon that I will use.

If I strip out the jargon, that means working with Natural England to try to see—on the rare occasions where this may overlap in decision-making—exactly where we can give clarity about how it holds together. Having said that, I am happy to look at this again between now and on Report to see whether it needs clarification or something else.

Martin Salter (Reading West, Labour)

Does the Minister agree that neither the Government nor his Department intended to introduce two entirely different regimes for the notification of SSSIs, depending on whether they are above or below the tide limit? If the Minister wants to get rid of jargon, I see no purpose in the word “sub-tidal”. It is either tidal or it is not.

Huw Irranca-Davies (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Marine and Natural Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Ogmore, Labour)

It may help if I expand on what we intend this part of the Bill to do. The Secretary of State is responsible in England for contributing to the network of marine protected areas, which will include all relevant areas. That means, in addition to marine conservation zones, sites of special scientific interest, among others. We must give the Secretary of State the ability to select sites that will form the network for which he is responsible. It would be wrong to make him accountable for a network and then deny him the right to designate the sites for it. There is no argument that the Secretary of State should be responsible for selecting the other marine protected areas in the network—marine conservation zones, special areas of conservation, special protection areas and Ramsar sites for important wetlands. On that basis, it would be odd to legislate for the Secretary of State not to have that power for the marine aspects of SSSIs.

We have to take account of the fact that biology, ecology and the vast variety of wildlife do not recognise those administrative boundaries. The problem is that habitats do not always fall neatly into terrestrial or marine areas, which is precisely what schedule 13 is about. We need to provide clarity and an administrative way to deal with that overlap. On the marine side, the  Secretary of State is responsible for delivery; on the land side, Natural England is. I am a little concerned about one potential way forward. If we were to strip out the Secretary of State’s role so that he does not have the power of direction, a non-elected public body would be placed higher in the pecking order of decision making in the marine area than the elected Minister of the Crown, whom Parliament had made responsible for delivery.

Martin Salter (Reading West, Labour)

I am sorry but I am struggling with the logic of this. We have already given Natural England that power under previous legislation on land. What is the difference?

Huw Irranca-Davies (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Marine and Natural Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Ogmore, Labour)

This is about clarity and my willingness to look at it to see that it actually works. I do not want to create the impression that this power will be used at every opportunity—we have to recognise that. We also have to recognise that the Government and Natural England will be working extremely closely together to create the marine network in partnership. Natural England and the Government will be working hand in hand on the marine aspects, while Natural England will work separately on the development of future potential SSSI sites. Those bodies will have to engage closely, through the necessity of the Bill and other legislation. As Natural England is intimately involved in both the land-based and the marine protected area regimes, I seriously doubt there will be any places where we will not be able to agree whether an area should be a site of special scientific interest or a marine conservation zone.

It is also worth noting that the Secretary of State has a duty in the Bill to report to Parliament in 2012 on progress in designating the network. We have to make the two processes work together. I am willing to have a look at the provision in the light of my hon. Friend’s comments to see what we can do. I also want to look at the process mapping—sorry for the strange jargon—on how the provision will work, so that we can achieve some clarity.