The Marine Bill

Marine conservation gets new legal support

01/10/2008

The long awaited Marine Bill looks as though it will finally come before Parliament during this coming session. It has been a long time coming because the process has been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by two parliamentary committees even before the bill is published. One of these committees was a joint committee of the Lords and Commons set up to look at the whole bill. The other was the familiar Environment Food and Rural Affairs committee which considered only the coastal access provisions.

Like other recent acts of parliament the Marine Bill will be a framework law which mainly sets out how the marine and coastal environment will be governed. Hence on the face of it one is completely unable to say what will and will not be legal under this law; but, one should be able to tell who it will be who decides such matters.

The aspirations are lofty (of course) and basically come down to better planning (where you put the wind farms, marinas and allow gravel dredging), better conservation (the creation of Marine Conservation Zones), and better fisheries management (revamped Sea Fisheries Committees). All this will be overseen by a new body the Marine Management Organisation which will have the task of co-ordinating the activities of the various other bodies such as Natural England and the Environment Agency to make it work.  Tacked on to all this are Natural England’s provisions for coastal access which were added later because Natural England wanted new primary powers rather than make use of existing dormant provisions in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act (2000).

While the coastal access parts could prove the most controversial as the ten year programme unfolds, perhaps the most interesting aspect will be what the Marine Management Organisation eventually looks like. Will it be a high profile advocate for the sea, influencing decision makers round the coast, or will it be a faceless, behind the scenes agency, that nobody notices until it makes a serious mistake?