Commons Bill [HL]

My Lords, I believe my noble friend knows that I have great sympathy with the intentions behind his amendment. I certainly admire the way in which he has continued to try to find a solution to this matter. Judging from the reams of paperwork in front of him, I can see that he has done a great deal of work on the subject. I also appreciate the argument regarding the lack of viability of some small farms and the desirability of amalgamating certain hefts to achieve a more economically sized sheep flock. Those points make complete sense. I also appreciate my noble friend’s point on restricted severance, in other words, severance to the particular common in question, and that new subsection (3A) of his amendment would go some way towards addressing the original difficulties that we discussed in Committee. However, I am bound to say that with the best will in the world I still cannot support the amendment as it stands. If the Government were to accept the amendment, they would, in effect, drive a coach and horses through a major part of the Bill; the inability to sever grazing rights from the in-bye land or dominant tenement. As I said in Committee, hefted flocks have existed for a long time, in both England and Wales, and are now an integral part of the management structure of common land. Customs vary, as the noble Lord rightly identified, but the principles remain the same. Where they have been disrupted in the past, either through the introduction of flying flocks from outside or through over-registration of sheep numbers under the Commons Registration Act 1965, it has clearly led to extreme examples of over-grazing, a general breakdown in the efficient management of the common and, I am bound to say, considerable bad feeling and acrimony. If my noble friend’s amendment were accepted, it could lead to a disproportionate number of grazing animals being attached to a given piece of in-bye land. The farmer would have acquired only the rights, which could well lead to more supplementary feed being put out on the common. That then creates considerable concentration of stock, particularly in winter, and can lead to intensive over-grazing and loss of vegetation and biodiversity. I fully acknowledge the points made by my noble friend Lord Jopling about the problem of under-grazing, but there are also many existing examples of over-grazing, as Natural England clearly identified in its assessment of upland SSSIs. I believe this amendment would possibly enhance such a situation. My noble friend Lord Jopling mentioned a letter from the Federation of Cumbria Commoners. I also received a copy and was a little surprised by some of the suggestions forthcoming in that letter. It was suggesting that over-grazing problems could be dealt with through cross-compliance requirements under the single farm payment, or through agri-environment schemes. That is tantamount to suggesting that should an over-grazing problem be created by my noble friend’s amendment, then the public purse would simply come forward to try to sort it out. I do not believe that is the way forward. We should be doing everything to mitigate such circumstances from arising in the first place. Furthermore, it presupposes that such schemes will remain in existence indefinitely. That does not strike me as a sound basis on which to legislate. It is worth adding a point that the Minister has made many times during the proceedings on the Bill. There has been considerable consultation to date and overwhelming support on the question of severance for what the Government have put forward in the Bill. So I do not think that my noble friend has yet made the case for accepting such an amendment. For the reasons I have put forward, it would create a great deal of difficulty. However, I will try to finish on a positive note. If my noble friend’s amendment had included a further proviso, by which the consent of the owner—or even his reasonable consent—along with that of the commoners’ association had been sought and agreed to, then there may, perhaps, have been a better chance of an agreement. How the Minister will react to that remains to be seen, but if my noble friend were to introduce an amendment along the lines suggested, we could actually solve the problem which he is so desperately trying to solve. As I said at the beginning, I have much sympathy for the problems that have been identified today in his amendment.