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Broads Authority Bill

My Lords, I, too, apologise for not having my name down on the speakers list. I am afraid that I simply did not chase up the instructions that I gave to make sure that it was down. As one goes through the Bill clause by clause, one finds little to disagree with in each. For all my life until comparatively recently, I was at least based part time in East Anglia—usually Norfolk. I heard on many occasions reports of things going wrong on boats. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has just said, there are competing pressures on this unique ecosystem—I admit that it was man made a long time ago—and it requires a balancing act and its own special governance. This brings us back to the point about the democratic deficit—although it may be difficult to discuss in terms of local government, and may be something of a flexible subject, because we do not know quite what we mean by it. On a board of 21, finding a few people who are directly elected by those within it would not have been beyond the wit of man. So I would hope that that could be looked at further. With my admittedly not totally up-to-date local knowledge, I think that a tidying-up is needed here. That is something that should be periodically looked at. The existence of competing interests has been known about locally for a long time—the pleasure cruiser against the sailing boat, and so on. Something should be down there to look at and deal with that issue. With new forms of water activity, plus agriculture and environment, there should be a specific body there, but that body should make way for some form of directly elected local input because, let us face it, if it is a unique situation, a unique outlet is probably needed.