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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

This is not an inadvertent error by the Government—as if anyone could conceive of such a thing. There is an issue to consider here, and I hope to be able to convince the noble Lord that we have thought through these issues very carefully, and that where we differentiate from the CROW Act it is for good reason and not because of any slip on the part of the Government. We will be considering a number of general issues relating to the consultation on Natural England’s report, and I do not want to pre-empt those discussions now. This group of amendments specifically seeks to extend the definition of a relevant interest in affected land to include those with other interests. That is because, as the noble Lord has said, the CROW legislation provides for that, and this legislation should follow it. This is an important point because such persons must be consulted under new Section 55D before the report by Natural England is prepared, and are then able to make representations which go in full to the Secretary of State. However, the CROW legislation includes other interests inland such as rights of common, rights of grazing and sporting rights. These interests were particularly relevant to the types of land involved in CROW itself. They include open country, which is defined in the Act as mountain, moor, heath and down, as well as registered common land. The CROW land includes a number of grouse moors, which make shooting interests pertinent to the legislation, while rights of common were particularly important as the mapping process involved mapping areas of registered common land. The situation at the coast, which is what this part of the legislation is concerned with, and the implementation of the coastal access duty, is quite different. A great number of different interests—access interests as well as landed interests—are concerned with the coast. Moreover, the land types and the different interests which will be affected by the proposals for the coast are much less uniform than those identified for the CROW legislation. We believe, therefore, that it is appropriate to have a different definition of relevant interests which ensures that those likely to be particularly affected by giving public access to land at the coast are consulted and can make representations on the report, which then go in full to the Secretary of State. The Committee will recognise that these are very important provisions indeed. Thus it has been with great care rather than through inadvertence that we have identified and set out in the Bill the people who it is appropriate to include within the definition of those with a relevant interest in affected land. These are set out in Clause 287 and new Section 55J in Clause 292; namely, the owner of the land, a leaseholder and a person in lawful occupation of the land. I shall make a cardinal point in saying that this is the most appropriate approach to take for coastal land. I hope the noble Lord will accept that the Government have thought about these issues very seriously. In many ways what he suggests might have been looked on as the easier course of just following the definition in the CROW Act. But the coastal path and coastal land affect different interests and because of that difference I hope that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment, with the reassurance that the Government have considered this issue with the greatest care.