Commons Bill [HL]

My Lords, I see that my Amendment No. 8 has been grouped with this one, so perhaps I may speak to it now. I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for having put his name to my amendment. Despite some of the rather sarcastic comments made earlier, the noble Lord and I seem to agree on rather more issues than we thought we might have done at the commencement of the Bill, which is extremely pleasant. I declare an interest as an owner of common land. As the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, has just pointed out, the Bill as drafted would allow an exception for severed rights of common to be transferred to Natural England. Much concern was expressed from all sides of the House about that proposal. Given that Natural England already has the powers to enter into management agreements with commoners, I think it is fair to say that it was generally agreed that ownership of rights by a statutory agency would be inappropriate. The government amendment would require the consent of any statutory commons association or consultation with the owner if such a severance were likely to take place. It is not clear why a commons association would be able to give its consent and yet the owner would only be consulted, and perhaps the Minister will explain that when he speaks to these amendments. In order to avoid the prospect of Natural England vying with an owner to acquire such rights, it seems to me that it would be preferable for the owner to be given an opportunity to do so, particularly as—in most cases, I suspect—his intentions would be the same as those of Natural England. The Minister made it clear in his Explanatory Notes that the objective of consultation was to enable the owner to negotiate to acquire such rights. But, returning to the point made by my noble friend Lord Jopling, nothing in the Bill clarifies the position or confirms what I suspect the Minister laid out in his letter. I should be very interested to hear what the Minister has to say about this. I think that the intentions are there but it is not clear on the face of the Bill.