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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I am grateful that my noble friend and his officials have evidently begun to think hard about these important issues. What he said is encouraging. Can he give the Committee an assurance—or if he is not yet able to give an assurance, whether he will consider this—that the provisions of this legislation will be entirely consistent with the provisions that we look forward to seeing in the heritage protection Bill. This Bill is in draft and perhaps the relevant clauses are not fully formulated. I press my noble friend a little on this because we found when we examined the Planning Bill in the previous session that there was not complete consistency between the provisions of the Planning Bill and the provisions of the draft heritage protection Bill. It is important to be confident that the Government are at one with themselves and that Defra and DCMS are working so closely together that there is not so much as a hairline crack of difference between them.