Commons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 24:"After Clause 16, insert the following new clause—" ““CHANGES IN OWNERSHIP OF COMMON LAND    When an electronic register under section 25 is complete— (a)   each commons registration authority shall inform Her Majesty’s Land Registry of all common land in its area; and (b)   the land registry shall notify the relevant commons association of any proposal to exchange ownership of common land.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment No. 24 and Amendment No. 32. We debated some aspects of the issue in Committee. I have brought forward the amendment because of some remarks made by Ministers about what they hoped to do when there was poor communication between the commons registration authorities and the Land Registry. This is really a way at looking at means of trying to improve it in the context of electronic registration being on its way. It is already quite well advanced in some cases but not, sadly, in others. Amendment No. 24 relates to changes in the ownership of common land. The amendment states:"““When an electronic register under section 25 is complete—""(a) each commons registration authority shall inform Her Majesty’s Land Registry of all common land in its area””." That does not appear to have been happening too well at present. The amendment goes on to state:"““(b) the land registry shall notify the relevant commons association of any proposal to exchange ownership of common land””." Now that really should be a routine operation. If necessary, it can be carried out by a commons registration authority. Paragraph (a) of the amendment will ensure that the commons registration authority informs the Land Registry of all common land in its area. The Land Registry will then have the necessary information. By the same token, once it has this information, it is surely duty-bound to inform the relevant commons association of any exchange of ownership of common land. That has not been happening, and there are problems. As I said in Committee, some commons associations are never informed that the land over which they have common rights has been sold. In some circumstances, the new owner is unaware that any common rights are there at all. The Land Registry does not always co-operate with the commons registration authorities or the commons associations. If communications are opened up as prescribed in the amendment, we feel that many problems will be overcome. In Committee it was acknowledged that,"““the system of notification is not 100 per cent effective””—" and that,"““the Land Registry does not always know when an application for first registration of title relates to registered common land””—[Official Report, 1/11/05; col. GC 42.]." I shall not quote any more, but that underlines the problem. There was a commitment from the Minister to try to do something about the problem. I should like to probe the Government on what ideas they have about that and whether the amendment, as currently drafted, is helpful in that respect. Amendment No. 32 refers to registers being kept by the relevant commons registration authorities until they have been converted into electronic form. That is one point. The second point of Amendment No. 32 is:"““The definitive copy of the electronic registers shall be kept by the relevant commons registration authority””." It is vital that the commons registration authority can keep registers, as it operates as a reference point for all commons associations, commoners and owners in its area. People visit the commons registration authority and they communicate with it to check up on factual information. Indeed, I was recently in the commons registration authority in Powys, which keeps the records of 174 commons. A fantastic amount of useful information is held there both in files and in electronic form. The conversion into electronic registers could take some considerable time—that is probably an understatement. Some commons registration authorities are advanced and others are very slow, so it could take many years. Even after many years, when all the registers will have been converted into electronic form, it is still crucial that a definitive copy is available in the offices of the commons registration authority. The amendment has been put forward because of the concerns of commons registration authorities, which are anxious that they are able to have definitive copies of commons registers in their offices that are available for interested parties to examine. I beg to move.