I thank noble Lords for their contributions to today’s debate, and I will endeavour to respond to them. Our target for MPAs will transform our marine biodiversity; I absolutely know that to be true. For the first time, it sets a deadline for the recovery of protected features in MPAs. The target reinforces the statutory obligations of our regulators to manage our MPAs and, through it, we will continuously monitor our MPAs, ensuring that regulators intervene and manage pressures on behalf of our most precious species and habitats.
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I will try to address the points as they have been raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, asked quite rightly about monitoring. We will assess our targets through the vulnerability assessment method, which is quality assured and a robust modality and uses a mix of evidence to predict the state of a feature. This is because direct ship-based surveys are prohibitively expensive, as was said in the Explanatory Memorandum. However, I have seen at first hand new technologies that allow us to assess in a much cheaper way the condition particularly of benthic environments. We expect there to be more ship-based surveys in future. Even some IFCAs have them, so there are means at hand to monitor and police what is going on in their areas. Progress towards achieving the target will form part of the annual review under the Act.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said that no one in the Government understands oceans. She may be right that we do not understand exactly what is going on in the oceans, because none of us is a marine biologist, but I implemented the Marine and Coastal Access Act, which saw the rollout of marine protected areas—marine conservation zones, they were called. I was also involved in trying to increase the spatial measures that underpin our commitment globally. The one I am most proud about is blue-belt policy. My noble friend Lord Goldsmith once stood in front of an informed audience of 500 people and asked them to put their hands up if they had heard of blue belt. Only one person did, and that was his researcher. That is a problem of communication, because it is one of the most exciting environmental measures introduced in my lifetime. It has seen an area of sea larger than India protected around our overseas territories, and it is growing as we continue to roll it out, in areas where 94% of the marine biodiversity under our responsibility exists.
In my time on the Back Benches and then out of Parliament, I was asked by Michael Gove to write a report on the need or otherwise to introduce highly protected marine areas. I spent a year doing that, and
sat at the feet of many people who really understand the oceans, such as Callum Roberts. We had fishermen, academics, people directly involved in exploiting the seas, and people directly involved in conserving them such as the Wildlife Trusts. I think I developed an understanding and a very clear recommendation that we should have highly protected marine areas, and I am now part of a Government who are rolling them out. That will be an important addition to our suite of marine protections.