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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I have always believed that, in politics, if you stand in the middle of the road you get run over. That is why it has never been my political position. You might keep out of the gutter, but there is no point if you are then run over. When I look at the political scene nowadays, wherever the Liberal Democrats stand, it is not in the middle of the road, and it is not half way between two right-wing parties. However, I will not pursue that further as we are discussing one of the rare Bills where I am willing to heap quite a lot of praise on the Government for what they are doing and trying to do. I will not be provocative any longer. When I moved the amendment, I said that the debate would not take as long as that on dogs, and I was wrong; we are now beating dogs, and I wonder why. I thought that I was moving some probing amendments. The problem with probing is that sometimes you find that, in the area you are probing, the Government have got it wrong. That is the case in this instance and I will explain why. The Minister said that the Commons EFRA committee had said that it wanted a review within one year of the establishment of rights on the ground. That seems a tenable position. The Government might come back and reword this so that the review of the national scheme takes place after a year or two years, or whatever is thought to be the appropriate period of time following the establishment of a new coastal path and new coastal access rights in the first tranche—I am trying to stop using the word, but will use it now—of the scheme. However, that is not what the Bill says. It says clearly that at least one review—which I suggest should be the first review, but heavens, perhaps there will be more— ""must be completed within the period of 3 years beginning with the day on which a scheme is first approved"." How long will the review take? Will is be a year? Will it be six months? Certainly it must be completed less than three years after the day on which a scheme is first approved. The question that I asked when I moved the amendment was: do the Government believe that this review should take place in the light of experience on the ground? It seems—this is the point that my noble friend Lady Hamwee made—that it is not a review of a national scheme in a vacuum, but a review of the effects of that scheme as implemented. So how long will it take? I do not want to slow things down at all. I particularly do not want to slow down the implementation of the new coastal access rights. I refer again to the very useful coastal access draft scheme that Natural England has published. I have here one of the rare glossy coloured versions. Section 3.1 on page 8 sets out the implementation process. There is a very useful chart entitled, "Overview of the implementation process". Stage 1 is "Collection and analysis of relevant information"; stage 2 is "Walking the course"; stage 3 is "Draft proposals"; stage 4 is "Consultation on draft proposals"; and stage 5 is "Final report". That is the report that goes to the Secretary of State. Putting aside any new appeal or review system that might be added to the Bill as it goes through Parliament, there is still the opportunity to make representations, at stage 6. Stage 7 is "Submission to Secretary of State", and stage 8 is "Preparation and commencement of rights". The final report is dealt with at stage 5. I quote paragraph 3.1.7, because it is important. It states: ""We estimate that it will take 2 to 2 1/2 years to prepare a final report for submission to the Secretary of State (stages 1 to 7). Following the Secretary of State’s decision, we estimate that it will take a further six to eighteen months for establishment works before the access rights can commence ... These are early estimates which we will test and refine as we develop our operational plan"." I suggest that the timetable is likely to stretch if, as seems likely, some rather more comprehensive appeal or review systems and rights are inserted as the Bill goes through Parliament. That means that if a series of pieces of coastline are chosen for implementation immediately after the scheme is approved, it will be two to two and a half years before any of them get to the Secretary of State and another six to 18 months for establishment works to commence. That means that it will be two and a half to four years from the approval of the national scheme before anything happens on the ground. There is no point in reviewing what has happened on the ground until there is some experience of how it is working, so I would add another year to that. We are then saying that it would be three and a half to five years before anything is worth reviewing and before there is anything on the ground to review that has been in operation for a reasonable period of time; say, 12 months. That brings us to five years. Putting in legislation that the review has to be completed within three years is a guarantee that there will be nothing on the ground to look at and to use as experience while that review is taking place and when it is finished. That seems to be the incontrovertible arithmetic of what is written down here. The Government have got it wrong, and they ought to go away and look at it again and go back to what the EFRA Committee in the House of Commons said, which was 12 months after implementation on the ground. If everything speeds up, and the draft forecasts from Natural England turn out to be wrong and it can all be done a lot quicker, if you tie it to implementation on the ground, it does not matter because, however long or short a time it takes, you have a sensible system. At the moment, as it is set out in the Bill, I do not think that it is a sensible system, and I ask the Government to look at this again.