I shall speak also to the other 22 amendments in the group; most are identical in wording and all are identical in purpose. This is the beginning of the Committee stage, which no doubt will detain us for a few days. Therefore, I need to declare my interests, which mainly relate to Part 9. I am a member of the British Mountaineering Council, its access, conservation and environment group, the Open Spaces Society and the National Trust. That is about it. I had the privilege to be a member of the Joint Committee of the two Houses that carried out the pre-legislative scrutiny on the draft Bill. No doubt some of the things that I say will be informed by what happened in that committee.

This is a simple amendment to change the name of the organisation that will be in charge of the planning and regulation set out in the Bill from the Marine Management Organisation to the “Marine Agency”. I have tabled the amendment for two reasons. The first is on the ground of simplicity. Shorter names are better, within reason, if they are not silly. If the body is called the “Marine Agency”, it is likely that people will call it that. If it is called the Marine Management Organisation, everyone will call it the MMO—or at least everyone who understands what MMO means will call it that, as indeed everyone is doing already. Acronyms generally are bad, partly because they are meaningless to many people, who therefore tend to be excluded from the club of people who know what is being talked about. Jargon is bad. Acronyms are usually a kind of jargon and should therefore be avoided.

Perhaps the more substantive reason for the change is that the name of an organisation is not irrelevant; it reflects what it does. In a sense, the name brands the organisation. The word that I consider to be unfortunate and which gives the wrong impression of what this organisation should be doing is “Management”. Perhaps it gives the right impression of what the Government think that it should be doing, but we will have that debate in relation to a number of amendments.

I am not arguing for a sexy name. Sexy names seem to be going out of fashion, which I hope they are because they are silly as well. People have suggested that the organisation might be called “Seas UK”, which would be totally silly. Someone said that it is the body that will rule the waves, so let us call it “Britannia”. My noble friend Lady Hamwee said that if I want to call it Britannia I had better transfer to the Tories. I replied that I had better not call it Britannia because the Tories would not have me. At least, I hope that they would not have me if they understood a lot of my views. Therefore, I am not calling for a silly name and I hope that it will never be given one. I am calling for the simplest, most basic name, and “Marine Agency” seems to be the best that anyone can think of.

There has been a lot of debate about what the marine agency, or Marine Management Organisation, will be, and we will probably discuss that in some detail in a later series of amendments. How strategic an organisation is it to be? Will it just carry out government policy and co-ordinate that policy to the best of its ability? Is that what “strategic” means? We will be debating that. Is it in some ways a policy-setting or lobbying organisation? Perhaps that is going a little too far, but to what extent will it be the champion of the seas? That is certainly what the Joint Committee recommended it should be. Will it help to set the policy agenda and be the body that speaks for the sea? We will shortly come to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Miller that questions whether it should be the body that represents public interest in the sea. Those are all important and interesting concepts but none of them particularly relates to management.

Of course, many of the organisation’s functions will be about management. It will be in charge of carrying out the new planning system and new planning regime for our coastal waters, and rightly so. It will be the body that carries out the licensing and regulation; a great deal that is currently carried out by diverse agencies will rightly be brought together. However, will it have a function over and above that? Will it play a leading role in the debate and in discussions on proposals for what should happen in its sphere of interest, as, for example, the Environment Agency clearly does and as Natural England and its predecessors clearly have done? Will it be that sort of body or will it be a functional, managerial, mechanistic body that only carries out government policy, doing a useful job in bringing things together but nevertheless being no more than that?

There are other big issues relating to its functions, such as the emphasis on development as opposed to conservation, and how those can be synthesised, but they are for later debates. The name change that I am proposing raises the question of the organisation’s culture. There is a concern that its culture will be derived from the Marine and Fisheries Agency, its predecessor, which does good work but is basically a delivery body—a regulatory body. It is not an organisation such as the Environment Agency and Natural England.

On Second Reading I complimented the Minister on his speech and said that he had been visionary, but when I read what he had said I thought that I had been a little over the top. I complimented him a little too much; I was taken in by his usual enthusiastic style and delivery rather than his actual words. We have had a useful Explanatory Memorandum about the organisation and how it will run, in which we read the details of an organisation that is functional, carries out services and delivers policies on behalf of the Government but does not have a real life, spirit and vision of its own. Will the body provide leadership and vision? As well as doing all its work, will it argue its case and promote its cause, which is the cause of the British seas? The Government’s document refers to its being a regulator of most activities in the marine environment. It will be a licensing body that will take a strategic view across all its responsibilities but not a strategic view of the way in which policy is going. We argue that it should be a body that promotes, champions and leads. If it does not, who else will do that on behalf of the marine environment? I beg to move.

I should declare an interest. We are a long way from coastal access but I am a farmer and involved in the ownership of land, so my interest should be on the record as we start the Committee stage.

My notes on this amendment consisted of one word—why? I was rather hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would answer that question so that I did not have to say any more than that I thoroughly agreed with what he said. However, I am rather disappointed. If I were to be mean-minded and uncharitable I would say that the amendment was tabled largely so that he could kick off this Committee by picking on the first possible thing that could be open to argument, although I am sure that that was far from his mind.

I have learnt that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, does not want to be a Conservative. I am not really surprised to hear that; he has spent much of his political life trying to fight the Conservatives in the various parts of the country in which he has been politically active.

I am confused by the noble Lord’s denigration of acronyms. After all, they identify bodies that are really worth their salt. They do not need to be explained. We do not need to explain the BBC or NATO, although we might occasionally have to explain what the Lib Dems are, but that is different, I suppose.

Management is what the Marine Management Organisation should be about and we on these Benches have no objection to “Management” being included in the name of the organisation.

We have made a splendid, non-consensual start to our debates in Committee. I am aware that we are enjoined by the Chief Whip to try to make this group last until just after 3.31 pm and I am sure that, when he replies, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, will enable us to do so. It is a great pleasure to respond to this first group.

Behind his comments, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, posed a fair question about the essential nature of the Marine Management Organisation. I accept that he is also arguing for a title that is as simple as possible and avoids jargon, but his question was essentially about the status of the proposed MMO and, more important, about what it is to do. I hope that I can reassure him that we think it right that the word “Management” should be in the title because, as I will explain in a moment, the Marine Management Organisation will have to manage some difficult issues and tensions that are inherent in the sea and many of the activities that take place there. Although it is right that the work of the MMO should take place within the strategic direction given by the Secretary of State, who is accountable to Parliament, it will have sufficient independence and confidence to make a major impact in relation to marine policy and to wider debates about the development of the sea and all the issues that we are going to debate over the next few weeks.

We are setting up the MMO as an independent non-departmental public body—not a step taken lightly—because we want the independence that the status of an NDPB brings. That status has been accorded to the Environment Agency, which has already been referred to, the Trinity House lighthouse service, the Health Protection Agency and the Natural Environment Research Council. We think that that gives the organisation the independence and status that it needs to deliver on behalf of government as a whole. It is notable that all those bodies have different names, yet they have the same legal status as the Marine Management Organisation.

I ought to say a word or two about the policy matters that the MMO will be concerned with, which are of direct interest to nearly every central government department: defence, shipping, courts, renewable energy, fisheries, aggregates, environment, recreation and more. While the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will be the sponsor Minister, the organisation will deliver on behalf of all departments. We think that this status ensures that it will have their confidence to do so.

The MMO will be able to deliver the new marine planning system with objectivity and propriety. It will build on experience of fisheries and environmental licensing to deliver more joined-up decisions and a better, faster one-stop service to developers. It will play a key role in integrated coastal zone management by linking conservation with fisheries management and regulating a new flexible tool to enable conservation benefits to be delivered while encouraging important economic developments, such as renewable energy. These are major policies that run through the Marine and Coastal Access Bill. They mostly arise because of the need to deal with the increasing and sometimes conflicting pressures on the sea.

I accept the point that the noble Lord made about a champion, but what is also urgently needed is a referee. That is what we are equipping the MMO to be and why I do not think that the word “Management” is inappropriate.

The Minister may look specifically at paragraph 46 of the Explanatory Notes, where the Government state:

“The MMO is to act as the UK Government’s strategic delivery body in the marine area. As such it will exercise a number of marine functions”.

That is a long way of saying that it will be precisely an agency. The Minister already cited the Environment Agency—which the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, may agree is perhaps the best exemplar and model for the new agency—but it was significant that the other organisations to which he referred do not have “management organisation”, which is, to my mind, a limiting title and inappropriate for this body, as part of their title.

I do not agree with the noble Lord. As I explained, a central part of the remit of the proposed organisation will be to deal with what are often conflicting pressures with the sea and its management. That is why the title “MMO” was developed. It has been asked: what is in a title? A number of the NDPBs sponsored by my department, Defra, have different titles but none the less have the same status. The important matter here is: what is its role and accountability, which we will debate under later parts of the Bill?

I understand that there will often be disagreement about the name of an organisation. Noble Lords are fully entitled to suggest that “the MMO” does not reflect what they think that the organisation is here to do. I reassure them that there has been extensive debate about the name. I know that during consultation stakeholders raised issues about the name with the previous Bill Minister, Mr Jonathan Shaw. He challenged stakeholders, if I may call them that, to come up with other names, but no consensus was reached. The question is: will this be an effective organisation that will make a major contribution? I am clear that it will. The status of the organisation as contained in the Bill ensures that it will have sufficient independence within the overall policy direction that must fall to Ministers to give.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked, finally: will the organisation be able to set its own culture? The answer must be yes, of course it will set its own culture. Will it be listened to by government? The answer must be yes, it will be listened to by government. The body has a crucial role to play. I am satisfied that the legislative framework in which it is to be established will ensure that it can do so. I accept that we will not always agree about names, but we can set this organisation up and running to do an effective job.

I was not planning to intervene, because until the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, illuminated what he intended by substituting “agency” for “organisation”, I thought that this might be a debate about semantics, but having heard the discussion I should like to make two contributions from my experience. I declare an interest as a former chairman of Natural England’s predecessor, English Nature, and a former chief executive of the Environment Agency. First, there was all hell to pay in the early stages of the Environment Agency to establish a role for it as a commentator on policy. If an organisation is carrying on regulatory, scientific, research and other functions on behalf of government, it is vital that the practical experience, knowledge and skills developed as a result are brought forward to comment on policy so that government and everyone else may learn from that. Does the Minister see this as a key role for the MMO, because it is a fairly fundamental one? It is crazy to invest huge amounts of money in staff, skills and programmes if you are not willing for the organisation to say things about policy from time to time. The minute you start saying things about policy from time to time, questions begin to be raised about the role of the organisation.

That is a very interesting comment. The noble Baroness and I share experience of the National Health Service, and she will know that the debates that we are having about the role of special health authorities and non-departmental public bodies in relation to their sponsoring department are very much the same. She is absolutely right; an organisation that can make its authoritative views known to government on the basis of its experience should not be inhibited from doing so. However, that is rather different from being seen to be simply a pressure group. I do not think that she suggested that; I think that her question was whether the MMO could be an influential body that builds on its work and scientific expertise and all the experience that it can develop and whether government would listen to it. The answer must be yes.

I am not sure that the noble Baroness’s analogy about referees is right. Of course referees are there to apply the rules of the game of football or of any other game, but they do so with a love and appreciation of the sport itself, so I am not sure that she has got her analogy right. I hope that I have reassured her that it would clearly be nonsense for Governments not to want to have an appropriate dialogue with the MMO on all these important matters.

I wondered why the Minister was a little surprised when I mentioned at Second Reading that it was my understanding that the Marine Management Organisation was a working title and that the Government were looking to come up with something better. He has since explained what happened with the Minister in another place, Jonathan Shaw.

On the amendment, an argument against changing the name of the organisation is that the abbreviation would be “MA”. We already have an MCA—the Maritime and Coastguard Agency—and to have two marine agencies might be a little confusing.

To what extent does this body relate to Scotland? Clause 313(4) states that Part 1 relates to Scotland. The Explanatory Notes say that the MMO will discharge a number of marine functions on behalf of the UK Government. That is clear and, so far, the discussion has exemplified that. Recently, the Calman commission on devolution produced its first report. I think that last week it sent to noble Lords a summary of its conclusions to date. It says that the Scottish Government are considering legislating for the marine environment. What does that mean? Do the Scottish Government want to supersede this Bill almost immediately? Perhaps the Minister will clarify that, although I may be misunderstanding completely what is going on.

At Second Reading, I promised to send noble Lords a memorandum relating to devolution and the points raised. Alas, having received a draft at the weekend, I made some changes. I will write to Members of the Committee later in the week. I apologise that it is not available today. Perhaps I may respond briefly to the noble Baroness, although I could respond at some length. On the general working together of the UK Government and the devolved Administrations, there was a meeting of the joint ministerial committee over the summer and autumn. I assure the noble Baroness that the UK Government and the devolved Administrations committed themselves to working constructively to ensure that there is an integrated and joined-up approach to the new marine legislation and its implementation.

The Marine Management Organisation is being established with a core purpose to deliver planning, licensing, fishing management and enforcement functions in the waters around England and the offshore area for matters that are not devolved. My understanding is that the Scottish Executive intend to set up Marine Scotland to deliver marine functions in Scottish territorial waters and for devolved matters in the offshore area.

I thought that the organisation being a champion of the seas would come up in later debates, so I may be too early in my remarks. As someone who sat on the Joint Committee, there was a strong feeling that the MMO should have greater powers than those in the Bill. I should be grateful if the Minister would enlarge on that. He also mentioned that it will not have a strategic role, but is a delivery body. Some of us would like it to have greater power and more teeth than it has now. If the Minister thinks that this matter will come up in later discussions, I am happy to wait. Since the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, talked about the organisation in a broader context, I should like clarification.

That is a fair question. It is true that later amendments will come back to this point. In this first amendment, I seek to reassure the Committee that the role of the Marine Management Organisation is not simply to be a referee in the terms that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, suggested that I had said. It will have to deal with critical issues and pressures from many sources. We should not be under any misapprehension that it will have an extremely challenging job, but it will act within the strategic direction given by Ministers, in particular through the marine policy statement. That is how accountability will be discharged to Ministers and thence to Parliament. In so doing, it will become an authoritative body that will be listened to carefully and, I strongly suspect, play an influential role in the development of future policy. While I understand what noble Lords are saying, my problem with the concept of a champion is that it has the suggestion of a pressure group about it. This has to be an authoritative body acting within the statute and on the directions given to it.

Am I right in saying that the maritime unions have raised no objections to the name of this organisation?

I am not aware of any objections, but if I find that members or potential members of staff have raised them, I will let noble Lords know. We have done well to get ourselves past 3.30 pm.

We have done so without any filibustering from me, and for that reason if for no other, I am grateful to all those who have taken part in the debate. I am particularly grateful for the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, which go to the heart of what the debate on the first few parts of this Bill will be about. That is because there are conflicts about the concept of this organisation, so we need to understand the issues. The Joint Committee said that the purpose of the organisation is ambiguous, so I do not apologise for raising this essential issue at the beginning of our consideration; it will be a thread that runs through all our debates.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that, although I have been fighting the Conservatives for most of my political life, that fight, because of the area I come from, has been nothing like as hard as my fight with the Labour Party. It is also true that some acronyms become household terms—the BBC is a good example. That reminded me of the acronym SDP which was very successful from the branding point of view, although whether the SDP was successful in other ways is something on which noble Lords will have views. However, most acronyms are used only by the members of elite or specialist groups who know about their area. That is a fact of life. If this organisation becomes known as the MMO, 95 per cent of the population will not have the slightest idea what it stands for. I have to say that if the Scottish Parliament is going to call its body Marine Scotland, it understands the skill behind naming organisations rather better than whoever came up with Marine Management Organisation.

This body is going to be a quango operating alongside the Environment Agency and Natural England, to name two obvious examples. However, terrestrial quangos, if I can call them that, operate in environments filled with people who champion their causes. We have parish, district and county councils, regional bodies, Members of Parliaments and all sorts of other organisations whose job is to promote issues. The sea is used by people who value the marine environment and economy, but of course do not live there. They go out to sea and then come back to where they live. That is a particular reason why the Marine Management Organisation, despite its clumsy title, has to be a champion of the seas.

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Do not the number of letters sent to noble Lords by organisations concerned with the issues he has raised suggest that this powerful group of bodies is able both to raise them now and will continue to do so with the establishment of the MMO?

That is true, just as it is for terrestrial environment issues. Lots of people write to us about quarrying in the Peak District. There are companies that think that it is their right to do it and want to continue doing so to provide jobs. There are people who think that it is a scandal. There are all kinds of points of view. For any issue or area of interest, there are, quite rightly, always pressure groups. They are a vital part of democracy. However, the seas are not a democratic set-up; no one lives in the seas or stands for them as elected people—and many unelected people—do for any particular region, area, borough, city, town or parish on land. This is important. These matters will run as a great thread through this debate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.