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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I would like some clarification on who says no. I understand the Minister’s argument but what I do not understand—it may be me being naive—is, if the Department of Energy and Climate Change is doing oil and gas installations at sea, the IPC is doing the over-100 megawatt installations and the MMO is granting other licences, who is saying, ““Hang on a minute. There’s too much activity in that part of the sea. Stop! The cumulative effect is too much””? The Secretaries of State in those three areas will not be saying that, but there is an EU directive that requires us to have this sort of break in place. That can only be the MMO, which would be looking at the overall effect of all these planning decisions at sea and would, therefore, presumably have to advise the Secretary of State at Defra that there is too much in an area, which is damaging the environment because the cumulative effect is too much. There must be a role for the scientists within the MMO to say that we must stop.