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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I am grateful for the Minister’s reply to this useful debate. I am grateful for the contribution of my noble friend Lady Byford. She has developed the arguments in a way that has allowed us to explore the localism approach, which, after all, I cannot really speak against. I accept the Minister’s argument about the efficacy of by-laws applying locally to specific situations over blanket legislation. It is extraordinarily difficult. Most of us would like to think that we knew a villain when we saw one, but it is difficult to actually describe one in legislative form. Some of the difficulty we are having with this is not in disagreeing about what we are trying to achieve, but about the nuance of trying to exclude innocence from punishment and, at the same time, identifying guilt and, indeed, recklessness.