Commons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 23:"After Clause 37, insert the following new clause—"    ““FEDERATIONS OF COMMONS ASSOCIATIONS (1)   There shall be a Federation of commons associations for England. (2)   The functions of the Federation shall include— (a)   the co-ordination of all commons associations in England, who shall be members of the Federation, (b)   assisting commons associations to achieve their objectives, (c)   the provision of rules and a constitution for use by voluntary commons associations. (3)   There shall be a Federation of commons associations for Wales. (4)   The functions of the Federation shall include— (a)   the co-ordination of all commons associations in Wales, who shall be members of the Federation, (b)   assisting commons associations to achieve their objectives, (c)   the provision of rules and a constitution for use by voluntary commons associations. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Public Bill Office has made a small error by attaching the name of the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, to this amendment. In old-politics-speak: ““I am not Selsdon Man””. My name should have been there. It is unfortunate, but I have not beaten anyone up about it or anything like that. Amendment No. 23 seeks to insert a new clause into the Bill after Clause 37. We would like to see a federation of commons associations in England with the following functions:"““the co-ordination of all commons associations in England, who shall be members of the Federation . . . assisting commons associations to achieve their objectives . . . the provision of rules and a constitution for use by voluntary commons associations””." In subsection (3) of the amendment we propose exactly the same structure for Wales—a federation of commons associations for Wales—with precisely the same functions as the ones I have just read out. The amendment seeks to address the frustration expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, about the structure of the legislation and, in particular, the fact that it addresses statutory commons when the vast majority of commons—in fact, 99 per cent of them—are voluntary commons. That is the situation in which we find ourselves today. There are so many voluntary commons associations, as other noble Lords have said, because voluntary commons were set up as a result of the Commons Registration Act 1965. So there are no statutory commons existing in any real sense of number. We share exactly the same concern as the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, my noble friend Lord Tyler and others—that the powers given to statutory commons and their ability to access funding, particularly for the environment, will be denied to voluntary bodies. Because voluntary commons association are inadequately resourced, many of them—I think I am right in saying that there are 194 in my area—are not in a position to take advantage, nor do they wish to be statutory commons. The uptake, sadly, will be minimal because of the bureaucracy, a lack of staff and so on. We envisage that these federations—the overarching bodies referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford—as a possible solution to the problem that we have been discussing for the past three-quarters of an hour or so. The federations in England and Wales could take on a statutory role to enable the voluntary commons associations to participate and to get the benefits into the upland areas—which have quite rightly been described as being so hard pressed—in order that they should become more viable. It is one way of doing it. In the Bill as drafted there appears to be a fundamental fracture between the legislation for statutory commons and the overwhelming number of voluntary commons associations. The amendment would help to bring more cohesion to the legislation and assist the process of achieving the Government’s desirable objective of improving the situation for those with common rights. We believe that the amendment could be the way forward. It would assist the process; revolutionise the legislation, which currently addresses only statutory commons; and would benefit a far wider number of commons in the voluntary sector. I beg to move.