---

Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, on introducing the amendment. I urge my noble friends to take it seriously in their response. I am sure they will. I should declare an interest as vice-president of the Council of National Parks. I remind my noble friends that one of the great achievements of the Labour Government after the Second World War was to introduce the national parks and put them into legislation. Central to that was a concern with landscape. The Bill is immensely important. It is a very good Bill, which I have warmly welcomed—any deliberations that we have had have simply been about how to improve it even further. It is an historic Bill. It would be very sad, when we are passing such an excellent Bill that has so much to be said for it, if we missed this opportunity of recognising seascapes. We talk a great deal these days about what it is to be British and about Britishness. The great thing about Britain is that it is a group of islands. Characteristic of that group of islands—its reality—is the interplay between land and sea. We have a tremendous opportunity to get that reality—that creative, imaginative reality; that wonderful dimension, which is unique in some ways to the United Kingdom—into the heart of the Bill. I hope that my noble friends will take seriously the arguments that have been put forward so well and I look forward to their response.