Commons Bill [HL]

The amendments are about the position of persons who hold the lease of rights of common in gross. Amendment No. 3, which has just been moved by my noble friend, would enable the lessee of a right of common held in gross to register his ownership of that right by virtue of the lease. The latter amendments, Amendments Nos. 39 and 40, would enable the lessee to apply for the right to become attached to land provided that his lease of the right was for at least 10 years. At present, the Bill provides for the registration of ownership of a right held in gross, that is, a right that is not attached to land. In our view, ““ownership”” here means a freehold title to the right, which would exclude the registration of ownership of leases, but I can appreciate the point made by the noble Lord on Amendment No. 3. If a right is leased to a third party, the lessee effectively becomes the owner of that right for the duration of the lease. Equally, we are concerned not to promote a requirement for frequent, constant amendments of the registers to reflect the assignment of short-term leases. I am prepared, if the noble Lord is willing, to consider further whether the Government have struck the proper balance between enabling the registration of freehold ownership and excluding the registration of all leases. I hope that my noble friend will take some comfort from that. Amendments Nos. 39 and 40 would be undesirable, because they would enable the lessee of a right to attach the rights to land regardless of the reversionary interest of the freehold owner of the right. While we wish to promote the attachment of rights held in gross through the use of this clause, we also recognise that attachment will cause the value of a right to be transferred from the owner of the right to the land to which it becomes attached. Such land by virtue of Clause 10(2)(b) need not be in the ownership of the owner or the right, so it would be entirely contrary to the interests of the freeholder to allow the lessee to attach that right to land without the owner’s consent. It is for that reason that I invite the noble Lord to withdraw all his amendments. We will certainly look at Amendment No. 3 again.