Commons Bill [HL]

moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 7, Amendment No. 8: Line 11, at end insert— ““(aa)   enable the owner to negotiate in order to acquire such rights;”” The noble Earl said: My Lords, I have already spoken to this amendment but the Minister made one or two points to which I would like to return now, if I may. I asked the noble Lord why, under his amendment, a commons association would have to give consent to the transfer of severed rights to Natural England or the Countryside Council for Wales, whereas the owner would only be given notice of the proposal. The Minister said that if CCW or Natural England were to hold such rights, they could do so in abeyance, whereas if the owner acquired such rights, in effect those rights would be extinguished. That is true to an extent in that, if the owner purchased the rights, they would become part of the surplus of the common, but that would not in any way prevent the owner letting or leasing the rights after purchase or, indeed, at a later date if he so wished. If under-grazing became a problem on a common and was clearly identified as such by the statutory agency, I am sure that in most cases the owner would be only too willing to let some of his surplus rights in order to overcome that under-grazing problem. However, the noble Lord asked why an owner would wish to buy rights simply to extinguish them. That has happened in many cases—I have done so myself. With regard to the commons in the north of England, where there has been a conflict between sheep and over-grazing on the one hand and heather for sporting purposes on the other, it has been in the interests of the owner to acquire the rights. Those rights then become part of the surplus and are held in abeyance to prevent over-grazing. That is why I pointed out to the noble Lord in Grand Committee that we could find ourselves in the rather ridiculous situation in which Natural England and the owner vie for the rights for precisely the same purpose. I tabled this amendment today as I was hoping for some assurance that the statutory agency would enable the owner to negotiate to acquire such rights if he or she wished to do so. I do not want to prolong this debate any longer—