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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I echo the thanks and appreciation expressed to the Minister and his departmental officials for a very helpful meeting yesterday, but it only underlined the complexity of the issues which we are facing and the geometry or the interaction of different responsibilities in different areas. For that reason, perhaps more than any other, the importance of ““co-operation””, which is the word mentioned in the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Tyler, is vital. I declare an interest as a member of the Commission on Scottish Devolution. I chair within that commission a small task group looking at intergovernmental and inter-parliamentary relationships. In our first report we highlight the need for improved relationships and better understandings where there is cross-border activity. Obviously, as has already been said by my noble friend Lord Tyler, when dealing with the marine environment, you can put boundaries on a map but it does not necessarily affect what will happen at sea. There are clearly interactions in different parts of the marine environment and therefore, again, co-operation is vital. If the Minister was minded to accept this amendment or if a similar amendment was brought forward, in the interests of comity it would be important when the Scottish Government bring legislation before the Scottish Parliament, as they indicated they intend to do, that a similar duty of co-operation is placed on Marine Scotland. It is important that we get that mature relationship between the various bodies that will have responsibility. I note that in their response to the Joint Committee report, which was referred to by my noble friend Lord Tyler, the Government suggested that the British-Irish Council might be an appropriate forum. I see some advantages in that in as much as it brings together the Administrations not only Scotland, the United Kingdom and Wales, but those of the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, not to mention Jersey and Guernsey. However, in a previous incarnation, I took part in a number of meetings of the British-Irish Council and unless it has materially changed in the past two and a half years, I do not get the impression that that body could get down to the kind of detail that would be required in dealing with this. Therefore, I very much support the thrust of what my noble friend Lord Tyler and indeed the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, said about co-operation and I hope that the Minister will be able to say something in response about the importance of that and how it might be embodied in the Bill.