Commons Bill [HL]

My Lords, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, has done a tremendous amount of work on Amendment No. 6, and he is genuinely concerned that rights of common attached to land owned by others who have dominant holdings with rights on the common can have further land transferred to them on land that has been retained. In proposed new subsection (3A), ““particular land”” is specified, so it appears that land with rights of common can be transferred within the same common only. As the noble Lord has just said, the wording of the amendment is extremely complex. The effect would be that the owner of the dominant holding with attached common rights could amass a large percentage of the rights on one common. That is a matter of concern. Is it a desirable state of affairs? It is probably not. Secondly, although it would ensure that rights of common remain with people who already have common rights on that common, clearly that is a good part of the amendment. What is likely to occur is a market in common rights, which may exclude other commoners from purchasing common rights. I am not sure whether that would be the case, but it is a possibility. That may well be all right in Cumbria, where holdings appear to be being sold, for example, for the farmhouse. The land remains and the common rights remain, and obviously there is concern in that situation about what happens to the common rights. The attached common rights could then be sold to another commoner on the same common, but again it could create a large amount of common rights in the hands of one grazier, for example. The fact that it also breaks the link between the holding and the common rights is not popular, particularly in my part of the country. Do we actually need this amendment? We have to ask that question. Clause 9(5) states clearly that the right of common can be severed temporarily for an unspecified period of time if it is being leased or licensed, and indeed it would be subject to regulations and to rules made in relation to the land by a commons association. Can the Minister give us some idea of what force those issues would have in this situation? Is that in fact a good substitute for the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood? The other factor is that the amendment seeks to introduce greater flexibility. As I have just said, the issues I have just raised could equally fill the gap. We could end up with distortions in common rights holders, if more common rights accrue, but the dominant holding remains the same size. What would happen, for example, in an outbreak of foot and mouth if the sheep are moved on to the land of the dominant holding? That holding, because of its size, might not be able to sustain the additional sheep or other livestock. The noble Earl, Lord Peel, has raised some important points. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, asked me in Committee when I would say something about good husbandry. There is an issue of good husbandry because of the hefted flocks, which are part of the inheritance of upland Britain. The hardiness of those breeds of sheep could be put at risk through supplementary feeding, as the noble Earl, Lord Peel, has said. As for the whole issue of CAP reform, I forecast at the time that in reforming the CAP previously for the sheep regime, farmers would be paid per head for the number of sheep they had, and that that would result in the overstocking of sheep. That is exactly what happened. Decoupling, on the other hand—the new CAP reform, which takes away the support from the headage and puts it into a single farm payment—would probably result in fewer sheep being kept anyway and in less over-grazing as a result. I think that the remarks of the noble Lord, Earl Peel, are extremely wise in these circumstances. He is also right, I think, to say that when the Bill was announced, the suspension of severance had overwhelming support. What we are trying to do with this amendment is to row back There is probably a solution here somewhere. I am sure that we will learn of it in due course. Those are my remarks at the present time.