The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) on securing the debate on such an important issue for her constituents. I thank other hon. Members for their contributions.
The Marine Management Organisation was created just 18 months ago, with cross-party support. As a non-departmental public body, it carries out its function with technical expertise, impartiality and transparency, and at arm’s length from Ministers, but it is accountable to both Ministers and Parliament. At the outset, I pay tribute to the MMO and to its staff. Its remit is very diverse. It continues to mature and is tackling a range of challenging issues. It manages our fisheries; it is delivering marine planning; it is working with others to create and manage a network of marine protected areas and to carry out marine licensing. Within its broad remit, the MMO is required to manage its activities with the objective of making a contribution to sustainable development, in a consistent and co-ordinated manner and taking account of all relevant facts and matters.
The MMO’s decisions should be impartial and based on best available evidence, taking into account the potential benefits and anticipated adverse impacts. It also needs to ensure that its decisions comply with statutory requirements under UK and EU legislation and are consistent with our international obligations. All that sounds straightforward in theory, but the decisions that the MMO has to make, whether about opening and closing fisheries, licensing construction or applications to the European fisheries fund have real-world impacts and directly affect people’s livelihoods, something that I believe the MMO is acutely aware of. The MMO will never be able to please all the people all the time, and decisions will sometimes adversely affect some more than others, but for that reason the MMO stresses the importance of transparency and impartiality. The MMO has been exemplary in ensuring that the information it bases its decisions on is publicly available, and it is helpful for people to be able to see how it makes its decisions, particularly when they are relatively controversial.
One cornerstone of the 2009 Act was to introduce a streamlined licensing system and marine planning in order to contribute to the sustainable development of our seas. That streamlined licensing system was introduced in April, the first marine plans will be in place in 2013 and, to guide the MMO, DEFRA has produced statutory guidance on sustainable development. It refers to the UK marine policy statement, which was adopted in March as the framework for planning and decision making in the marine environment in order to ensure a consistent approach throughout the UK and to contribute to sustainable development.
At the same time, DEFRA produced the description for the marine planning process in England so that the MMO could take it forward and produce subsequent guidance on how marine planning will work, and it is an absolute priority of this Government to ensure that, when we view our seas, we do so holistically. For too long we have looked down the silos of fisheries, conservation or marine licensing, but now, at last, we are developing the means to look at the marine environment as a whole. That is long overdue, and it will assist the constituents of my hon. Friends and others, who at the moment have to follow an entirely application-led process. Marine planning, like terrestrial planning, will be a great advantage to them.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman refers to involvement with other parts of the United Kingdom, and there is an impact on the devolved Administrations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, because they have responsibility for fishing, so can he confirm that he will consult the devolved Administrations to ensure that there is a uniform approach to fishing?
Richard Benyon
I make it my business to confer with my devolved colleagues regularly, and I will do so on Thursday and Friday in Luxembourg and with the Northern Ireland Minister and other devolved Ministers in Newcastle in the very near future. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I make it my business to ensure that we, as a UK group of Ministers, talk together and recognise that we cannot look at our seas just in terms of the countries that make up the United Kingdom; we have to look at them holistically.
My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth mentioned the appeals process, and one important feature of the new licensing system is the introduction of just such a process. An applicant for a marine licence will be able to appeal against a decision made by the licensing authority on their application. That includes a decision not to grant a licence, conditions attached to a licence or the length of a licence, and the Planning Inspectorate—PINS—will manage and decide appeals against licensing decisions made by the licensing authority.
We have closely aligned our processes to those for terrestrial planning appeals, as we expect there to be benefits in developing a system that is consistent with current practice. For example, a familiar process should be easier for PINS to implement and for appellants to understand and follow.
Similarly, for marine planning, as my hon. Friend said, there will be the option for independent investigations of a marine plan, and PINS will carry out those, too. Should an independent investigation be needed, it will take place after the consultation on a proposed marine plan and before adoption by the Secretary of State.
Clarity, transparency and the involvement of as many stakeholders and communities as possible are important in marine planning and licensing. Similarly, although the MMO relies on advice from Natural England and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee as statutory consultees when making many of its decisions, it none the less draws on a wider evidence base in delivering its work. Naturally, this includes research commissioned by DEFRA and carried out by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science and many other expert organisations, as well as studies commissioned directly by the MMO.
Indeed, the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) is a well-known international hub of expertise in marine science, and precisely those resources are available to and used by the MMO for the evidence that it needs. It is essential that it should be able to have access to the best information available, including information submitted during public consultations. I can give my hon. Friends the absolute assurance that, in our reviews of the performance of the MMO, we will ensure that it is taking all the best evidence available and is not only listening to the statutory conservation bodies but registering a serious attempt to widen its reach in terms of the advice it receives.
My hon. Friend may also wish for some clarification of the marine conservation zone process. The identification of MCZs has been stakeholder-led operation from the outset, managed by the statutory nature conservation bodies, Natural England and the JNCC. The statutory nature conservation bodies established four regional MCZ projects—Balanced Seas, Finding Sanctuary, Net Gain and the Irish sea conservation zones—and these provided advice about which MCZs should be brought forward. I can tell hon. Members, if they have not witnessed it, that it has been a tortuous process with many hours of work, and it has brought forward some suggestions at this stage.
Each project established stakeholder groups made up of a variety of key interested parties in their regions to examine the evidence and put forward site recommendations and associated impact assessments. To that end, it is the stakeholders who have been responsible for developing the recommendations on location, conservation objectives and management measures options of any MCZs in their region, and they have had a real opportunity to shape and influence the decisions that the Government will make.
On 8 September, the regional MCZ projects submitted their final MCZ recommendations to the independent Science Advisory Panel and the statutory nature conservation bodies for review. In total, there are 127 recommended MCZ sites. Across all four projects, over 2,500 interviews were conducted with stakeholders, and detailed discussions took place during the course of 155 stakeholder meetings. Over 1 million individuals’ interests have been represented through the MCZ stakeholder groups. Once the advice from the panel and the statutory nature conservation bodies is received, Ministers—I stress, Ministers themselves—will examine all the evidence before deciding which sites to put forward for public consultation. The public consultation will be yet another opportunity for stakeholders to present their views on proposals and for any further new evidence to be submitted. Only after all this evidence has been collated and reviewed will Ministers designate MCZs.
I conclude by reiterating the scale of the challenge facing the MMO and Ministers as we seek to grapple with exceedingly complex issues that, as my hon. Friends have eloquently noted, stir a great deal of interest and passion around coastal Britain. I look forward to continuing that vigorous discussion as we move forward through the process of designating marine conservation zones and managing our vital marine resources.
Question put and agreed to.