Clause 305
Marine and Coastal Access Bill [Lords]
11:45 am
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.