Commons Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful as that situation will arise with one or two other groups with which we will be dealing today. So, with the leave of the House, I shall speak now to my amendments and, in doing so, shall deal as best as I can with Amendment No. 4, which has already been moved, and perhaps I can come back to the noble Earl’s amendment. I shall say what I can about Amendments Nos. 5 and 7—the two government amendments in this group. They deal with the powers in Clause 9 for certain bodies to acquire rights of common by severance. They do two things. First, Amendment No. 5, which is more technical than anything else, clarifies that a statutory commons association may acquire rights of common through severance only if those rights are exercisable over land in respect of which the association is designated; in other words, an association will not be able to acquire rights in this way over any other common for which it has no powers of management. That seems to be common sense and is a sensible matter to put beyond doubt. Amendment No. 7 responds to widespread concerns expressed by Members of the Committee about the powers of Natural England and the Countryside Council for Wales to acquire rights by severance. I shall say more about that in a moment. The government amendments will give a statutory commons association the power of veto over any proposed acquisition, and will require at least two months’ notice of the acquisition to be given to the common owner and any voluntary commoners’ association. Later I shall do my best to answer the question posed by the noble Earl, Lord Peel. That will enable consultation between the countryside body and the commoners’ association, and provide an opportunity for the common owner to acquire the rights instead. It may help if I explain why we think the powers in subsection (3) are necessary. That will respond to the concerns raised by Amendment No. 4 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Livsey. The House knows that we have set ourselves a target of ensuring that 95 per cent of all sites of special scientific interest are put in favourable condition by 2010. About one-fifth of SSSIs are on common land, and many of those are upland moorlands subject to multiple grazing rights. Yet those are just the sort of habitats on which the target condition remains elusive. For example, there are around 40,000 hectares of upland dwarf shrub heath which remain in unfavourable condition, and in the overwhelming majority of cases the primary cause is over-grazing. Of course, the world is changing and it is right that the decoupling of agricultural subsidies is relieving our upland commons of the burden of over-grazing. We need to plan for under-grazing, not over-grazing. That point was made in Committee. But the fact remains that many upland commons remain subject to levels of stocking that are incompatible with our nature conservation objectives. We cannot afford to proceed on the assumption that all will be well if we simply wait for commoners to respond to market signals. The powers in subsection (3)(a) and (b) are there because they can make a significant contribution to the reduction of over-grazing on common land. They enable Natural England and, in Wales, the Countryside Council to acquire rights by severance, and to hold those rights in abeyance. To put it beyond doubt, neither body has any intention of exercising the rights it acquires; the purpose of retaining the rights is to prevent the exercise of those rights by anyone else, or by the owner. Under Clause 10, Natural England and the council will, in future, have powers to reattach the severed rights to a holding which is held in sympathetic hands. There has been some comment about the way in which English Nature has exercised its present discretion to acquire rights by severance, and the impact that that has had on some commoning communities. English Nature acquires rights from willing sellers. We must not lose sight of that. If a commoner does not wish to sell his rights, he need not. I have heard reference made to commoners losing their livelihoods: if they do so, then it is of their own volition, and they are well rewarded for it. It is not for the House to tell farmers that they must continue commoning for the greater good. We recognise that a cessation of grazing by one or more commoners can disrupt existing hefting practices, which is why the Government have tabled amendments which would effect better consultation before these powers are exercised in future. I have spoken to the government amendments and in doing so I have attempted to answer the noble Lord, Lord Livsey. The noble Earl, Lord Peel, asked about the difference between the position of the commoner and the owner in relation to our amendments. The common owner can acquire rights of common in the same way as Natural England, voluntarily, where the holder of the right is willing to sell. The only difference is that if Natural England acquires rights, the rights will be held in abeyance, whereas if the owner acquires the rights, those rights will then become extinguished. I am not certain whether that has answered the noble Earl’s point. Later I shall do my best to answer the real point he made.