Commons Bill [HL]

My Lords, Amendment No. 60, which I tabled, is grouped with these amendments, so I shall speak to it now. I am aware that it becomes obsolete if the government amendment is agreed to. I hope that that amendment will be agreed to, because it is a good amendment. I am grateful to the Minister for including in it the additions that we discussed in Committee. Amendment No. 58 goes a significant way towards dealing with the points raised. It gives the Government power to carry out their stated objective of making orders so that the need for consent for minor management works on common land is removed. In view of our recent result on Amendment No. 46, this amendment takes on greater importance. I hope that it will prove to be a significant means of ensuring that sensible management activities, which noble Lords have already discussed, are allowed to continue, thus removing much of the doubt about what constitutes an impediment to access. It will also alleviate the need for land managers to seek consent for a management activity. We know from experience that that can be a lengthy and expensive operation. Despite its admirable intentions, the weakness of Amendment No. 58 is that there is nothing in the Bill that suggests that such an order will be made. I appreciate that it would be impractical to try to lay down precisely what should be included in such an order, since the purposes in subsection (4) are extremely wide, as they should be, but it seems reasonable to ask the Minister to consider putting a time limit on the issuing of such an order because, apart from anything else, it would test whether the Minister believes that such an order will be used at all and how effectively. I think he said that it would not be used ““casually””. I understand that, but I hope that it will be used, and used effectively, so that a clear message can be put forward to deal with the contentious points that we have been discussing. Amendment No. 60 is a probing amendment, but I hope the Minister will assure us that this clause will deal with the problems that we have identified.