Speeches by Gardiner.

“If we are thinking about our management of the seabed today, how likely is it, because of that lack of good quality data, that we could be facilitating damage to the ecosystem because we do not have the data to demonstrate it?”

“There is a lack of good quality data.”

“What we have not signed up for is what protection means. We signed up to protecting 30%, but as we heard from the earlier panel, what that means in practice is not clear. It is not clear exactly what level of protection is being put in place. I want to talk to you about baselines. We have all heard the analogy about cl…”

“You talked about the Crown Estate, and they are trying to balance these very complex choices. On the one side, there are clear economic metrics, and on the other side, you were telling us that there are very uncertain biological metrics, but they have huge monetary implications. It is very difficult to quantify them. I…”

“I loved that last analogy that you used about farming and soil structure, and what you said about the whole sedimentary ecosystem. Has any work been done on trying to calculate the natural capital value of the sedimentary system that you were talking about? In your earlier remarks, you said it was about a metre where a…”

“The MMO, the Marine Management Organisation, was supposed to be completing stages 3 and 4 of the review on destructive activities, namely bottom trawling and dredging, as we were talking about. That was supposed to come in when? When should it have been done by?”

“A simplified and holistic view?”

“I think there are some great recommendations for us there.”

“Who should be doing it, and what recommendation should this Committee make to Government?”

“Thank you. I think the Dasgupta review sets out very clearly our dependence, and how we should be regarding natural capital as national infrastructure, in that sense. I want to press you on the fact that you seem to be saying that we have all the ingredients and we know what the recipe is, but somehow we are not gettin…”

“You are not talking about the dredging in the north-east that saw the die-off there—or that did not see the die-off there?”

“One of my colleagues will be asking a question about that.”

“The difficulty with that, though, Ms Godwin, is that in the meantime other potentially important sites for highly protected marine areas could be disintegrating while we wait and see how it is going with the highly protected ones. I would have thought the precautionary principle should cut in and we should say, “These …”

“Thank you. That is really helpful. I do not want to pass over the equally important point that you made, where you talked about how at the moment we have designation of features, rather than adopting a whole site approach. It would be extremely helpful if you wanted to suggest to the Committee in writing afterwards rec…”

“That would be really helpful.”

“That is a really important point about cumulative impact. How would we take that on board in this Committee and make that a recommendation to Government?”

“Again, if this Committee were making comment in that area, we should emphasise that there must be net gain not only to offset the damage but to provide increased benefit and sustainability. Under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and the habitats regulations there is the possibility for derogation on some of the m…”

“That is very interesting. Is that something that you would like to see this Committee recommend—that when the JNCC gives advice, the Government, or the regulator in this case, should be obliged to respond to that advice and say how they have accounted for it and taken it on board? Would that be helpful?”

“You are silver-tongued, you two. Just three weeks ago the Office for Environmental Protection announced that it was investigating DEFRA about its suspected failure to take the necessary measures to achieve or maintain good environmental status. That goes to the fact that of the 15 descriptors of good environmental stat…”

“We are only talking about a maximum of 10% of the English waters, are we not? That is what the Benyon review recommended. If we are talking about establishing that, it leaves you 90% for our balanced approach, which I wholly support.”