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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, for initiating this limited debate and to the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, for his contribution. I will try to answer his point in a moment. Clause 299 confers important new legislative competence on the National Assembly for Wales in relation to public access to, and routes for, the Welsh coast. It will do this by providing framework or general powers for the National Assembly. The new powers in this clause will add two new matters to Part 1 of Schedule 5 to the Government of Wales Act 2006. The two matters will be added to Field 16, "Sport and recreation". The first matter will enable the National Assembly for Wales to bring forward a measure or measures for the establishment and maintenance of a route, or a number of routes, for the coast of Wales to enable the public to make recreational journeys. The second matter will enable the National Assembly to make a measure or measures securing public access to relevant land, again for recreational purposes. Land will be "relevant land" if it is land at the coast or land which can be used in association with either land at the coast or a coastal route. These provisions will support the Welsh Assembly Government’s coastal access improvement programme, to which the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, referred. It is through that improvement programme that the Welsh Assembly Government intend to deliver a new all Wales coast path by 2012. The provisions will enable the National Assembly to legislate to provide new routes and secure new areas of land for public access at the coast of Wales, in addition to those delivered by the existing programme. We have not reached this position without consultation and I have to report that the UK Government and the Welsh Assembly Government believe the framework powers provided for by Clause 300 provide the right legislative framework to underpin the Assembly Government’s work. They would enable the Assembly Government to bring forward a proposed measure or measures, having consulted stakeholders on the best way forward for Wales. We feel reasonably secure in that position in terms of the intent of the Welsh Assembly Government and the fact that they agree that this is the way that it should be tackled in terms of their enhanced powers. The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, would require the Welsh Assembly Government to exercise the relevant functions provided for under Part 1 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, and any other functions that they consider to be appropriate to secure those matters provided for under this clause. In addition, the amendments would amend the description of matters to be inserted in Schedule 5 to the Government of Wales Act to include, ""a margin of land along the length of the Welsh coast"," and to add a description of coastal land. With this clause, we are providing enabling powers for the National Assembly for Wales to bring forward legislation in the form of Assembly measures appropriate to Wales. The amendments would constrain the scope of the Welsh Assembly Government to propose Assembly measures in this area and would fetter the flexibility of the National Assembly to determine and reflect the needs and aspirations of Wales in improving public access to the coast. I cannot therefore see where the gain is meant to be. If there were a gain, I am sure that we would have heard from the Welsh Assembly Government already and I would not be able to talk with the degree of confidence I have about the agreed way forward. I fully share the motivations of the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, as I think everyone in Wales does—he already indicated just how much support there is for the concept—but we think we have done the spade work to guarantee that the Welsh Assembly Government will be able to pursue their measures and achieve their objectives by 2012 as they intend to do. I therefore hope he will accept that his amendments, which have prompted an interesting debate, are not necessary. The noble Lord referred to some government amendments and asked whether they have any synergy with his amendments. I am not quite sure that I can define synergy when it comes to amendments, but I think the answer is no. The reason for this is quite straightforward; the amendments are minor and technical. They are there only because they are required as a result of the National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Social Welfare and Other Fields) Order 2008, which came into force on 11 December 2008. This order inserted a new matter into Field 16 in Part 1 of Schedule 5 to the Government of Wales Act as Matter 16.1. As a result, these amendments are needed purely in order to renumber the matters in Clause 300 that will be inserted into that field. If the noble Lord can accept some synergy there, we end on a happy note of co-operation.