Commons Bill [HL]

At the start of my reply to my noble friend’s amendment, I said that there was an ownership section under the 1965 Act. We will retain that as long as there is a use for it; so one method will be to look at the 1965 register. However, I cannot accept that somehow the Land Registry is remote in a way that the commons register will not be. The Land Registry has a number of regional offices which assist with inquiries, but as we move into an era of e-government, information from the register of title is already available on the Internet. I do not believe that the 28 farmers from Radnorshire are unable to obtain information electronically about ownership in the register of title—others are. It is quite possible for them to do so. It is amazingly easy to find out what is registered on the Land Registry. So we believe that it will be easy for them to do that, which takes away something of my noble friend’s point.