Mr.Llwyd: I shall speak in support of the amendment, and inso doing I shall quote the RSPB briefing. Itstates: “Thusthe legislation provides a mechanism to facilitate the bettermanagement of common land through the reduction of stock in instancesof over-grazing, and reintroducing or increasing stock in instances ofunder-grazing.” The RSPBappreciates that the problem of under-grazing has a knock-on effect onthe whole environment. Who better to deal with that issue thancommoners? Why should such matters be farmed out to a national body forit to decide what is best for local people? I do not follow such logic.If the Government are serious about the Bill, they must realise thatthe amendments are good. They would lead to a proper, balanced use ofthe common. Thearguments advanced by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshirewere persuasive, inasmuch as those who have over-registered will notcare what happens to the common. However, people who are on the groundday in, day out care passionately because, if their stock over-grazes,it will destroy for everyone not only themselves as farmers, but thewhole environment. The more local, the better. The amendment would plugthegap. JimKnight: The powers of a commons association to dispose ofrights of common acquired under schedule 1 will be determined in itsestablishment order. The order could confer a freedom to dispose ofrights in gross as it thinks fit or it may provide that the associationmust retain the rights subject to arrangements for temporary letting.That will be a matter for discussion and negotiation in the context ofthe draft order. It is more appropriate to decide such matters on acase-by-case basis than to confer a blanket authorisation under theschedule. That is my response to amendments Nos. 39 and40. Mr.Paice: I appreciate that time is short, but we need to getmatters clear. If what the Minister said is the case, what is thepurpose of schedule 1? If we are to have flexibility, a word that thehon. Gentleman has used repeatedly in Committee, and settle suchmatters under individual orders for individual associations, why do weneed schedule 1? It stipulates clearly the rules governing who shouldtransfer to whom and how in cases of authorised severance. I press himfor clarification of the interaction between schedule 1 and theflexibility under the order to which hereferred. JimKnight: I may receive clarification, but I think that theorder is flexible only as regards the actions of the commonsassociation in respect of severance. Obviously, not everywhere willhave commons' associations. There are clear restrictions on suchmatters. As foramendment No. 41, the powers of severance under paragraph 1 arelegitimate tools available to Natural England and the CountrysideCouncil for Wales to help tackle problems of over-grazing. I agree inprinciple with what the hon. Gentleman said about under-grazing.Natural England seeks to retain the powers only to tackle over-grazingas a last resort. There is also a role for Natural England where thereis under-grazing and no commoner is willing to exercise his or herrights. In such a case, Natural England could perhaps acquire rights byseverance in order to reintroduce grazing if it thought that that wasthe best option. Wecannot reasonably expect all upland commons to be managed by commonsassociations or entered into agri-environment agreements. Elsewhere,where co-operation remains unforthcoming, we may have no othereffective mechanism to help reduce over-grazing but to acquire and sequester rights so that grazing pressures are reduced. There are nopowers to require rights to be sold. They must be sold, as the hon.Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said, with the vendor’sconsent. Voluntaryacquisition of rights by English Nature has sometimes been disruptiveof existing hefting patterns. We have therefore amended the Bill toimpose a duty on Natural England to consult voluntary commoners' association before proceeding. We do not think that the powers will bewidely used. To date, they have been used only in a limited number ofcases, but it would be foolish to throw away a power that may still berequired to help the achievement of the PSA target. I now come toamendment No. 69 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud. I amgrateful to him for his suggestion. However, we think that it isunlikely that Natural England or CCW will act to acquire rights in thatway, other than in the most pressing circumstances, namely where thereis no other reasonable way of reducing grazing activity on designatedcommon land. His amendment will therefore effectively neuter the effectof paragraph 1(4) of the schedule, because it would refer to the onlycircumstances in which the provision is likely to haveeffect. However, webelieve that it is very unlikely that Natural England will need toacquire rights by severance on a common in which a commons association is established. That would suggest that the association isseverely underperforming. So although an association may possess aveto, it would reflect poorly on the association if it were ever calledon to contemplate exercising it. At that point, Natural England mightwell talk to the National Assembly for Wales or the CCW about theperformance of the association, so we see no practical need to amendparagraph 1(4) in this way. Finally, I turn to amendmentNo. 108 tabled by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire. The hon.Member for South-East Cambridgeshire asked an interesting question onTuesday, when we discussed clause 8 stand part. He asked whether rightscould be deployed if the dominant tenement was fully surrendered todevelopment. The amendment could perhaps provide an answer to thatquestion. The owner of the dominant tenement could sever the rights andsee them redeployed to other commoners. I can see the attraction inthat it would help the rights remain in agricultural use, even when thedominant tenement had been taken out of agricultural use. For the most part, we thinkthat clause 11 provides a sufficient answer. Complete development willseldom arise, but we also foresee real difficulties with thatparticular approach. How many commoners, even though selling out theirfarm for development, would want to distribute their rights among allthe other commoners in the community? We all know of situations inwhich there is festering antipathy between one group of commoners andanother. How would the outgoing commoners secure payment for the rightsif the transaction were on the basis of all or nothing? More practically, many of ourcommons are not neatly registered as one common with a clear statementof rights held by each commoner. Rights are often exercisable overdiffering areas of the common or over more than one common. In suchcases, the formula proposed under the amendment could cause endlessbickering. However, I am still thinking about the scenario that wasoutlined by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire on Tuesdayand, if I come up with a magical solution, I will offer it onReport. Amendmentagreedto. Amendmentmade: No. 27, in schedule 1, page 32, line 33, at endinsert— ‘(4A) In a casewhere there is no commons association established for the land overwhich a right of common to which section 9 applies is exercisable, theappropriate national authority may by order provide that a person withfunctions of management conferred by any enactment in relation to thatland is to be regarded, for any or all purposes of this paragraph, as acommons association established for the land.'—[JimKnight.] DavidMaclean: I beg to move amendment No. 105, in schedule 1,page 33, line 45, leave out ‘and his consentobtained,'. TheChairman: With this it will be convenient to discussamendment No. 63, inschedule 1, page 34, line 3, at endinsert ‘including provision thatthe appropriate national authority may deem that the consent of theowner of the land has been obtained where it appears to the authoritythat such consent has been withheldunreasonably.'. DavidMaclean: We now come to one of the most crucial amendmentson the amendment paper, and that is not just my arrogant opinion, butthat of the Federation of Cumbria Commoners which the Minister waspleased to praise earlier for issuing excellent guidance. He said thathe was keen to follow that guidance so I hope that he will be keen alsoto follow its guidance and advice on theamendment. Theamendment seeks to delete: “and his consent obtained”.That means that the owner of the land, who in 90 per cent. of caseswill be the lord of the manor, will have his consent deleted. He wouldhave to be notified, but would not have to consent. Why am I doingthis? I have two reasons. Never before has a lord of the manor orlandowner had the legal right to consent to atransfer— JimKnight: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman forgiving way, particularly as he has only just begun his argument. Incase something irritating happens and delays us discussing the matterfurther, I shall say now that I am actively considering the amendment.If we do something about it, we would need the consent of the Lords.Perhaps he might help facilitate that. I shall flesh that out if I havetime to respond more fully, but I thought that I would let him know atan early stage that I am sympathetic to hisargument. DavidMaclean: I am delighted that the Minister is sympatheticand therefore I will not press my argument any further. I hope that the Minister willagree that his colleagues in the Lords should be willing also to acceptit. I know that they have a different view, perhaps because they havelarge landholding and grouse-shooting interests unlike the commoners. Iam delighted that a Labour Government will at last back the commonersover those with big vested shooting interests. I support the right ofpeople to manage their grouse moors and to shoot on them, but theyshould be paying the market price for buying up commoners’rights. If I had such a veto and was a grouse-owning landlord I wouldveto every transfer of rights. The rights would then become worthlessand I would buy them up for a song myself. We need to avoid that and Iam delighted that the Minister has said that he basically accepts thespirit of the amendment and will do something about it onReport. I am slightlyout of sync with my hon. Friend the Member for South-EastCambridgeshire and his amendment because I believe that it would bedifficult to prove “unreasonably”. If I owned the rights,it would not, in my view, be unreasonable to object to their transferbecause I wanted to buy them myself. So my amendment goes slightlyfurther than that of my hon. Friend, but I am delighted that inprinciple the Minister might be willing to accept it, or something likeit. JimKnight: I advise the right hon. Gentleman that I am morelikely to accept the amendment from his hon. Friend the Member forSouth-East Cambridgeshire, but that is something that we can discuss.We can correspond and possibly even meet up to do so. I expressed nervousness aboutthe other place. The Bill is the result of a compromise achieved in theother place and if we are to push further we need to be confident thatwe do not start parliamentary ping-pong. I am sure that none of uswould likethat. Mr.Paice: I do not want to detain the Committee, but I wouldlike to put something on the record. Obviously if the Minister acceptsmy amendment I would be very happy, but I would be equally happy withthat of my right hon. Friend. The principle is that we have bothidentified a key problem that needs to be addressed, and I, too, wouldbe happy to negotiate with our friends in the other place ifnecessary. JimKnight: That is all very helpful. The sensible thing wouldbe for me to correspond with the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen, copyingin other Committee members, in the run-up to Report to ensure that wecan achieve a successfulconsensus. DavidMaclean: I would not say that a compromise was reached inthe other place; we just could not get the votes to go as far as wewanted to. It is refreshing and interesting for a Labour Minister tosay, “The view in the Lords must prevail; we cannot upsetthem”. That is an intriguing thing to happen in thisCommittee. I hopethat if the Minister and the Committee are in agreement, the primacy ofthe Commons might actually prevail on this occasion. We will do ourbest to persuade those in the Lords who might be taking the Tory whipthat this is the way in which we wish to proceed. However, if on Reportthe Minister brings forward my amendment, or deletes the relevantwords, and the Commons votes overwhelming for it, I am certain thatping-pong will not last long before their lordships agree to the senseof what the Commons has done. I beg to ask leave to withdraw theamendment. Amendment,by leave,withdrawn. Schedule1, as amended, agreedto. Schedule2Rectificationof mistakes etc under the 1965act 3.45pm Mr.Drew: I beg to move amendment No. 89, in schedule 2, page36, line 19, at endinsert— ‘(2A) This paragraphdoes not apply to land owned or managed by a local authority, board ofconservators or charity as an openspace.'. TheChairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss thefollowing: Governmentamendment No.28 Amendment No. 90,in schedule 2, page 37, line 6, at endinsert— ‘(3A) This paragraphdoes not apply to land owned or managed by a local authority, board ofconservators or charity as an openspace.'. | 
