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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I listened with great care to the Minister but I do not feel he has dealt adequately with Amendment 101BZBA, which is the famous may/must dilemma. He needs to look carefully at Clause 66(4) because, frankly, it does not make good sense at the moment. It states: "““A licensing authority may from time to time consult any person or body it thinks fit””." There are two qualifications already. It is a very weak statement. If, as the Minister was saying earlier, it is so obvious that the licensing authority has to do this, why put the subsection in there at all? It is so permissive and obviously not mandatory that the licensing authority will, in these terms, ignore it. If it is going to be covered by secondary legislation, which the Minister implied in a more general sense about this group of amendments, why is it here as well? There may be a better case for making subsection (4)(b) permissive, but these qualifications in subsection (4)(a) offer a let-out for the licensing authority if the wording is left as vague as that. I do not think that is satisfactory. I acknowledge that the Minister’s response to many of the other points raised by my noble friend Lady Hamwee and others has been substantial, but on this amendment it has not been sufficient. Since it has the support, unusually, of both opposition Front Benches, I hope he will be able to give us a better answer or at least undertake to look at this again.