Clause 305
Marine and Coastal Access Bill [Lords]
12:00 pm
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.