Commons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 11:"Page 3, line 15, leave out ““as common land or””" The noble Lord said: This is the start of a group that includes some government amendments, to which I shall speak at this stage, and some amendments in the names of other noble Lords, which of course they will speak to in turn. The Government’s amendments enable new rights of common to be granted over land already registered as common land. They respond to two concerns raised by stakeholders. First, stakeholders have told us that there is a demand to grant additional rights where farms with tenants’ rights of grazing on the common are sold to their sitting tenants. The amendments will enable the tenants’ grazing rights to be converted to rights of common. Secondly, many lowland commons are under-grazed, as is well known, and the grant of additional new rights may help provide long-term security of grazing. Members of the Committee will be concerned that some commons are incapable of sustaining further new rights of common grazing, so the amendments provide that a registration authority cannot register a new right unless it is satisfied that the common is capable of sustaining any existing rights to begin with and the new right, taken together. The amendments to Clause 7—Amendments Nos. 16 and 18—are a logical extension of the amendments to Clause 6. They will enable application for variation of a right of common so that the right becomes exercisable over additional land, or alternative land where that land is already registered as common land. Perhaps I may give the Committee an example, which is completely anonymous to me. A person may have rights to graze 50 animals on Blackacre Common. He may agree with the owner to surrender his rights to graze part of Blackacre Common, so that the land may be used for a cricket pitch—something in which I know that my noble friend Lord Williams will be interested—in return for new rights to graze part of nearby Whiteacre Common. These amendments would make that possible, provided that the registration authority were satisfied, on advice, that Whiteacre Common could sustain both the new and the existing rights of common. Amendments Nos. 118 and 120, relating to Clause 23, would enable regulations to require the registration authority to seek technical advice on the test of sustainability. We have in mind that advice would be sought from what is currently the Rural Development Service of Defra, but which is expected to become part of Natural England. The amendment will also enable regulations to require a person’s consent to an application. We see that power as being particularly relevant to the new power for the reallocation of attached rights, to which the Committee will come presently. I beg to move.