Commons Bill [HL]

My Lords, for a moment I thought that we had strayed into an Unstarred Question, when we got into bracken and hogweed. Speaking to Amendment No. 61E, I am happy to give the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, an assurance. We will provide advice to local authorities on the use of their powers under Clause 45 and, indeed, on the use of their powers under the Bill generally, in a circular that we intend to publish as part of the implementation programme following Royal Assent. As I said, and as he recognised, in the context of Amendment No. 57A, we do not need to take any additional powers to do that and we fully intend to do so. We believe that Amendment No. 61F is unnecessary. Clause 45 already confers on local authorities powers of protection for unclaimed common land. Where something more is required, three options are available. First, the authority may wish to help facilitate the establishment of a commons association to manage the common. If the common has ceased to be agriculturally active, there is no reason why the authority should not be represented on the management committee. Secondly, the authority has powers to create a scheme of management for the common under the Commons Act 1899. Those approaches would confer the sort of management powers which I think the amendment proposed by noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is leading to. The third option is in response also to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. The local authority may consider taking the land in hand and managing it as if it were the owner. We believe that some parish councils have taken such an approach with common land and that our solutions for management of unclaimed land are adequate. As I have demonstrated, they provide several means whereby better management may be secured through local authority involvement. We do not feel that it is necessary to strengthen the powers of local authorities .