Marine wildlife Bill is scuppered by shipping interests

A bill designed to protect Britain's precious marine habitats has been scuppered, angering ministers and conservationists, after successful lobbying by shipping interests.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) claimed that a group of Tory peers, who had been briefed by the ports industry, was responsible for sinking the Marine Wildlife Conservation Bill.

"We are bitterly disappointed by what has happened. This was a valuable Bill that enjoyed cross-party support in both Houses of Parliament," Graham Wynne, RSPB chief executive, said yesterday.

"It's a bad day for marine conservation when a Bill can be brought down by a small number of peers."

The RSPB accused Lord Geddes, a Tory peer who lists shipping as one of his interests, Baroness Wilcox, a paid board member of the Port of London Authority, and the Earl of Caithness, a former Tory shipping minister, of being among those who tabled amendments that sank the Bill.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by any of the Tory peers but the Bill, which had government support and was expected to become law, fell after peers tabled a series of amendments at second reading. There were so many that there would not have been sufficient time at the end of the parliamentary session to consider them and to allow the Bill to pass on to the statute books.

The Bill's Conservative sponsor in the Lords withdrew the legislation after it became clear the many proposed amendments would stop it progressing.

The Environment minister Michael Meacher expressed his regret that the private member's Bill had failed. "The Government strongly supported the principles behind this Bill and through our own current Review of Marine Nature Conservation we still intend to put in place the broad purposes of the bill," he said.

The Bill, which was stopped in its tracks at the end of June, would have provided unprecedented protection from disturbance for marine sites where wildlife thrives. The new sites were expected to have included an underwater chalk reef off Beachy Head, home to sponges and anemones and a feeding area for gulls; Poole Bay, where there are often sightings of bottle-nosed and common dolphins and pilot whales; and Worthing Lumps, sub-tidal chalk cliffs off Worthing home to rare fish such as blennies and the lesser spotted dogfish.

But organisations representing Britain's ports complained that there was no indication where the new protected sites would be. They said the lack of guidance would stymie expansion plans.

The British Ports Association, which represents the UK's ports, admitted it did brief the peers about its reservations on the Bill, but said it had never met them or paid them to act on their behalf. All three Tory peers, who were unavailable for comment yesterday, tabled amendments that protected the interest of Britain ports.