I'm on the positive side. The arrival of the first ever marine plan for Wales, I believe, is a significant moment in the history of Wales as a maritime nation. Despite a land use planning system being in place for 70 years, a strategic spatial and plan-led approach to managing UK—including Wales—marine environments has been absent. That's not to say that the land-use planning has been without its problems, without its arguments, but at least we've had a planning strategy. We might not always have agreed with what's come out of it, but we've had a strategy. In response to the ever-increasing demands on space and marine resources, and the need to deliver a marine biodiversity commitment alongside aspirations for economic growth, many countries globally have begun to develop regimes for marine spatial planning. Many of us are old enough to remember when the sea was treated as one big dumping ground, with everything from raw sewerage to industrial waste being sent out to sea, because the sea would dissipate it—it would all disappear. And, of course, the abundance of fish such as cod would last forever no matter how many were caught. That the sea is no longer treated as a dumping ground, and fish as an infinite resource, is substantial progress for the last 40 years. 

Traditionally, the approach taken to marine management has been to manage the needs of each sector—so, fishing habits, then energy, then tourism and energy—all dealt with separately. I think it's important that the Welsh national marine plan manages to put all of them together, because sometimes they have competing needs, and a decision will have to be made on which one to give priority to in any one area. It says it aims to bring users together to look at an area of sea for its environmental, social, cultural and economic qualities, and decide collectively how it should be used. The plan introduces a framework to support sustainable decision making for our seas, sets out a vision of strategic objectives, presents general economic, environmental and social policies, and includes policies specific to the sectors that operate in our seas, which include aquaculture, aggregates, defence, fishing and tourism. Putting everything together and dealing with it like that, I think, is a positive move. I think that the people who've been critical from the third sector will accept the general idea of the policy. They might not agree with what's there, and they might say that different things should be done, but we're moving definitely in the right direction. Once we've got this, once it has gone out to consultation, it can be changed. The greatest thing about having a plan is it can be changed. The disadvantage of not having a plan is there's nothing to change.