Commons Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful for what the noble Lord has said. I know the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, has spoken to Amendment No. 17, which is very much in line with Amendment No. 18 of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I can briefly answer those now. The amendments both amend the last aspect that I spoke to on our Amendment No. 16, regarding statutory closures. Amendment No. 17 seeks to emphasise that a period of statutory closure may be disregarded only for the purposes of determining the period of 20 years if it is a temporary period. Amendment No. 18 in effect questions the wording of our expression,"““by reason of any enactment””," and seeks to ensure that the phrase used covers any type of action taken under any enactment to prohibit public access to land. I am happy to reassure both noble Lords that these amendments are, certainly in our view, unnecessary. On the point of the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, no mischief could flow from our Amendment No. 16 in its present form if a statutory closure of land were permanent rather than temporary. If 20 years’ use as of right has not been achieved by the time of statutory closure, it never could be achieved if people could never again use that land. On the other hand, if local inhabitants had already achieved that 20 years’ use as of right by the time of the closure, it might be theoretically possible to register the land as green. Even if this happened, however, people would remain unable to use it, because of the permanent statutory closure. So we think that adding the word ““temporary””—which noble Lords will understand might prove difficult for the courts to interpret, although they would of course be able to—would not make any practical difference to the provision. On the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, I am advised that the wording used in our Amendment No. 16—"““any period during which access to the land was prohibited to members of the public by reason of any enactment””—" would cover any circumstances in which land was closed to the public, or, indeed, merely to local people, under any statutory power. Briefly, government Amendment No. 19, as we heard, would allow for the voluntary registration of land as a green by the landowner. It was prompted in Committee by the noble Lords, Lord Vinson and Lord Greaves, that the owner of any land should be able to register it, voluntarily, as a green. It may come to many noble Lords as a surprise that that was not already possible. It certainly surprised me. It seems a nonsense that a landowner cannot do that at present. We noted the general enthusiasm for this proposal, and have responded. We have avoided complicating with red tape what is essentially a simple concept. We have, however, inserted a basic safeguard at new subsections (8) and (9), that consent is required from any leaseholder or any holder of a financial charge over the land in question. That is no more than common sense. Finally, Amendment No. 23 to Clause 16 is consequential to Amendment No. 19, which incorporates some lengthy text that currently sits in Clause 16 into Clause 15(9). Fascinatingly, we are removing that detail from Clause 16 and simply referring back to the wording we are introducing into Clause 15.