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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I, for one, am grateful for the work that the Government and the Minister and his team are putting into this. I do believe that something close to a consensus can be reached. Consensuses are sometimes 85 per cent agreement with people disagreeing at the edges, but that is better than disagreeing fundamentally. So I congratulate the Government on the work they are doing. There are two issues about third party involvement. One is whether third parties should have the opportunity to initiate a review. As a result of representations made by third parties on a report, the Secretary of State could decide to have a review, which is what I was suggesting. I understanding why the Government are saying that this should not happen, and I would not press that very vigorously. But the second question is whether, if a review takes place, third parties should have the right to have their say, to make representations during that review. That would be in line with planning appeals and CROW Act appeals, where, at the moment, third parties have that right. They do not initiate the appeal: the appeal is initiated by landowners. But anyone who has previously made comments on that particular piece of land, in relation to the CROW Act or a planning application, is almost always given the right to put their oar in. That does not necessarily take up a great deal of extra time or energy or expense. It is just a fair part of the system, and I would hope that the Government would consider that second point, if not the first. But I do express some satisfaction with the way this is going.