Ms Marie O'Connor:

Regarding enduring licences, the ability is there within the scheme of the Bill in the heads to allow us to impose conditions relating to a review. We review the conditions of licences under the head where the regulations are made. We can, therefore, review the conditions of the licence and, as part of that, we can impose stricter conditions. We have the ability, therefore, to review those licences and make them stricter if required to protect the environment.

On revoking licences, a facility for doing this, as far as I understand it, will be allowed within the regulations for new abstractions. For existing situations, it is the case that we would be looking at it in terms of reviewing the conditions and putting significantly more mitigating conditions in place if we required those. In terms of revoking licences, we work hard with the people who have those licences to improve the operation of the licences. Revoking a licence would be a last step, and we would be very keen on ensuring the conditions of the licence and working with the individual licensees, which would be a better option. However, there is that power there to revoke them if we need it. I hope that answers the question.