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Marine Navigation Aids Bill [HL]

We can have a talk about that afterwards. We have had a great variety of comments, some of them complimentary, some of them not. I have learnt a great deal from different people’s views today. I should of course have mentioned the Atkins report in my opening remarks. It has made progress. I still believe that more progress could be made. If one reflects on this, the key issue, when one is talking about RPI-X, is probably what X is. We can debate that, and I am sure that we will. The key is what the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, suggested as the answer to having two concurrent Private Members Bills and the draft Marine Navigation Bill. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, did not really comment on the Government’s intentions on that in his summing up. I could go through and thank all noble Lords who have spoken and comment on what they have said, but it would take a little bit of time. I know that one or two colleagues are waiting to get on with the next debate. However, I cannot resist responding to my noble friend Lord MacKenzie who complained, quite rightly, that we have got the date wrong for the Bill. If it had been on 1 February, it would have been 200 years from the start of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, which was a fantastic piece of civil engineering construction in its time. Whether I want to take the Bill forward is really a question of whether we can somehow incorporate, or get moving on, the navigation aids Bill that the previous Parliament was unable to take forward. I have been talking to some people, and Clerks, about whether much or some of the content of that Bill could be incorporated into a Private Member’s Bill. It could be within the Long Title. I am advised of that for this Bill, but I do not think that it could be with the one in the Commons, because that is called the Wreck Removal Convention Bill—apart from the ““wreck”” bit of it. There has been much discussion of how much the present Government want the Bill to go ahead, but in draft form it had a lot of support in the previous Parliament. As the Bill stands, I do not think it is appropriate to take it forward, even with the amendments I have tabled and much further thought. We have progressed and I have heard many useful comments today. However, it would be useful to keep it open for Committee stage to see whether the contents of the Marine Navigation Aids Bill could be incorporated. That is in the absence of any commitment from the Government to finding time for it; I would not expect them to do so anyway. My inclination, therefore, is to ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading but, clearly, I would not take it forward in its present form or with these amendments without a discussion as to what else could go in and whether it is necessary to take it forward at all. On that basis, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.