Speeches by Gardiner.

“Land-based gambling shops represent a silent crisis up and down this country, targeting some of our most disadvantaged and deprived communities. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Muhammed Butt and Mili Patel, leader and deputy leader of Brent council, on their campaign, now supported by leaders of …”

“That is if I can remember the question; I have so many. When we are considering features-based MPAs, it seems to me that when you talk about the seabirds, for example, that is the feature on which it was designated. It is immobile. The seabirds are in that spot for a particular reason, usually because it is feeding gro…”

“We heard that there might be alternate MPAs providing that, but of course the MPAs that we have established were the ones that were most important for those features and, therefore, to get that elsewhere will be difficult. [Interruption.]”

“We have had talk at the Committee of changing the designation so that we could put in, for example, windmills. Look, I am all in favour of our renewables targets, but I want to get clarity on this.”

“Under Natura 2000?”

“You could write to the Committee about that, but I wanted to pick up on the feature basis. You said about making sure that the MPAs were in the right place. The fact that they have been done on a feature basis ensures that they are in the right place because you are designating the protection of the feature that is the…”

“Yes, but, for five of them, the feature that is being protected is seabirds. Is that not correct?”

“Five, is it not?”

“Minister Hardy, can I start by picking up what you said about seabirds? We have 377 MPAs in the UK—about 200 in England alone. Do you know how many of them are protected for seabirds?”

“Thank you. For an offshore wind project, there are separate processes for seabed leasing, marine consents, landfall and the onshore construction activity, but there is very little opportunity for the affected communities to participate in the decision making until the operations go through the terrestrial planning, whi…”

“Okay. How is the 45 to 50 GW that the Government have predicated of offshore wind by 2030 influencing your leasing process? How are you co-ordinating with Government to ensure that those leases are available? How are you doing it in such a way that it is not impacting on marine protected areas that are already establis…”

“We will come to the local considerations in a minute.”

“Thank you. I would like to do a Bamber Gascoigne and divide you up, give you each your starter for 10, but with no conferring on the next one. Whereas one of you is responsible for the licensing and the seabed, and owning the leases, it is the regulator that does the statutory planning. What I want to know is how you c…”

“Yes, of course. I was asking what involvement you had had in that consultation document.”

“Ms Thomas, what about yourselves?”

“Ms Willis, you said that you work very closely with DESNZ. Last month it published the “Building the North Sea’s Energy Future” consultation. Did you work closely with it on that? That consultation document talks about the transition from oil and gas to clean energy, but it does not seem to focus on the challenges of m…”

“You did not have any input into that consultation document.”

“I think that is a reassurance that ultimately this will come out well. You talked about the features-based approach to MPAs but of course the whole-site approach has shown itself to be more effective for marine conservation protection than the features-based approach. We see that in the Lyme bay example. It is one of t…”

“Minister, we heard that you are at the point of trying to get BBNJ ocean treaty ratified, which is great news, and you talked about the work that is being done that will mean that you can get on with it quickly. We heard from the witness earlier today from the MMO that they have completed their work on stage 3 and that…”

“I was trying to lead in gently.”