Member

I move on to Amendment 298A, which was also tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, which seeks out a new route for legal challenge of an EDP, where it fails to meet the tests set out in Amendment 264. This would allow complainants to challenge an EDP without the statutory time limit given to other challenges under Clause 65. When read with Amendment 264, this route of challenge would be available only to persons and organisations that have expressed an interest in delivering conservation measures. This is likely to result in more legal challenges to an EDP outside the normal time limits for such challenges, resulting in uncertainty that an EDP can be relied on. That is the uncertainty that the Bill is seeking to remove, and I hope that noble Lords will agree that the judicial review procedure, alongside oversight from the OEP of individual EDPs, will be sufficient for the purpose of holding the Government and Natural England to account.