Marine and Coastal Access Bill [Lords]

No, that was not the first time I have heard that. I have discussed this and associated matters with my hon. Friend the Minister on several occasions—and, as I have emphasised this afternoon, I am happy that he has applied due diligence to the undertakings that he gave in Committee to look carefully at the alternatives that had been suggested and then present proposals based on that careful examination. I hope and expect that this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will be able to reflect those considerations when she replies to the debate, but if that does not happen, I fear that we shall return to the position that pertained in Committee. It was clear that a number of Members on both sides of the Committee were not convinced by the argument that had been advanced about the exact wording of the Bill. Some wanted a different wording, while others wanted provisions elsewhere in the Bill to be amended to enable the wider sustainability objective to be underlined. If, and only if, that objective can be underpinned and those pillars can be set up this afternoon, I will be happy with a wording that reflects the intention of the Government amendments. Amendments 25 and 26 seek to reduce the point at which the Marine Management Organisation has an overview of applications for offshore energy projects, effectively—although the Bill does not actually say this—from 100 MW to 1 MW. Members have already expressed concern that that might strip the MMO of the ability to give serious consideration to an essential component of marine environment management—offshore energy installations. I personally consider that concern to be misplaced, not because it is not a proper concern, but because of the way in which offshore energy is developing. I think we all know that prospects for the development of offshore energy, overwhelmingly that of offshore wind power, are enormous and potentially glowing. We are already the leading country in the world in offshore energy installation, and there are substantial plans in the pipeline and on the drawing board for the installation of up to about 30 GW in the medium and long term. We are now in phase 3 of the licensing arrangements for offshore zones for the installation of wind farms. With the emergence of each of those arrangements—from phase 1 to phase 3, and including the revisiting of phase 2 in relation to additional licensing—the size, ambition and extent of those offshore wind installations have increased. Phase 1 licensing involved the development fairly close to the shore of a relatively small number of turbines, each of which was also, by current marine standards, of a relatively modest size. Both the commissioning and building of further developments, such as the London Array and the licensing of deeper sea offshore wind as we move into phase 3 licensing, indicate that the number of turbines per wind farm and the size of those turbines are increasing substantially. We can draw two conclusions as to what that means in relation to the planning regime for offshore wind in particular. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) may have a fair number of comments to make about marine current technology and wave technology, and I shall not intrude on what I suspect he will say, except to note that an enhancement in size will not be the pattern followed in those technologies, at least in the immediate future. Indeed, it is likely that a number of those technologies will in the foreseeable future be well below the 100 MW limit, and will therefore come within the purview of the MMO under the terms of the Bill at present. It is, however, extremely unlikely that in the immediate future many, if any, applications for offshore wind in the marine environment will come before the MMO, for the simple reason that the clock would be turned back in terms of the development of offshore wind if there were a number of applications below 100 MW—which amounts to perhaps 10 to 15 turbines under current arrangements—which would come within the purview of the MMO. Overwhelmingly, those applications will therefore come within the remit of the Infrastructure Planning Commission. The IPC will therefore have to be properly geared up to assess the planning processes for future offshore wind applications and the detailed considerations relating to the marine environment to which those planning processes give rise. The issue is not so much that the IPC will not know what it is doing in relation to offshore wind, and that there will therefore be a problem if it is given most of the planning remit for future offshore wind, but that there will, in theory at least, be two bodies geared up to have detailed knowledge of offshore wind, one of which will have a large number of applications before it and one of which will have no applications before it. What does that mean in terms of the consenting regime for offshore wind? Will it parallel the regime for onshore wind? For the foreseeable future, the vast majority—indeed, probably all—onshore wind applications will be below the level that would bring them before the IPC, and local authorities will still be concerned with the planning regime. As we know, however, there are no local authorities for the marine environment. There is one landlord of the sea bed. A number of important considerations have to be taken into account, but they are not parallel with those for onshore wind.