Commons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 36:"Page 35, line 32, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—" ““(a)   throughout the period of 20 years preceding the date of its provisional registration the land was, by reason of its physical nature, unusable by members of the public for the purposes of lawful sports and pastimes; and”” The noble Lord said: This amendment responds to amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, in Committee and on Report, which we agreed to consider further. The amendments relate to paragraph 5 of Schedule 1, which is about the deregistration of town or village greens. The criteria for deregistration are set out in sub-paragraph (3). One of those criteria is that, in the 20 years leading up to the provisional registration of the green in the late 1960s, there must have been some physical impediment to use for the whole of that period. Sub-paragraph (3) is not revisiting the issue of whether there was enough evidence of qualifying use during the 20-year period, rather it is concerned with the physical impossibility of there having been such use. For example, the registered land may have actually been occupied by a house and garden during the 20-year period in question. We have concluded that the wording of sub-paragraph (3)(a) is not helpful to its understanding and our amendment is, we hope, clearer. The amendment will clarify that the physical impediment must have been present throughout the 20 years preceding registration, rather than some part of that time. The amendment is not intended to effect any substantive change in policy, but merely to clarify the doubt identified in the amendments tabled at earlier stages. I beg to move.