Commons Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the Minister for, yet again, giving a long reply. I am also grateful for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, who raised some extremely important questions. With regard to the business of ““may”” and ““shall””, we are simply returning to the question of whether we believe that the Government can advise or persuade local authorities, perhaps by sending out circulars to them, to take much more interest in their powers relating to commons generally once the Bill is enacted. We look forward with interest to observing whether that happens. If it does not, no doubt various noble Lords will come back to the Government saying that the measure is not working as well as they suggested it would. I am becoming a little more concerned at the fact that the Government seem to be relying on local access forums to provide advice in relation to commons. Evidence from different parts of the country shows that local access forums work under the CROW Act with different degrees of effectiveness in different places. Some of them are getting a real life of their own—they are getting a grip of what they are doing and are working very well. Others are not working so well. In some cases, they simply seem to be another consultative meeting called by the local authority and are doing what the local authority wants. In many places, people are concerned that the forums do not yet seem to have the strength and resources to be strong advisory or consultative bodies in the work they already do. I am certainly sceptical about whether they can take on further work in relation to commons, which, as we are all discovering as we go through the Bill, is a fairly complex and technical subject. Having heard the discussion this afternoon, I simply place on the record that it is an issue that we shall want to look at again. The Minister merely said that the Government are consulting about what new powers the local access forums might have in order to give advice on different matters, so thus far it is all a bit vague. The crux of the matter lies in Amendment No. 335A—the question of vesting in local authorities and the suggestion that local authorities should have powers to take over the ownership of ownerless commons or unclaimed common land. At present, as I read it, the Bill does not give them any powers to do that. I am not satisfied that the Minister has given a satisfactory explanation as to why, in some circumstances, that might not be necessary. There is a general view on all sides that the system is not working at the moment—witness the large number of ownerless commons that exist. It is clearly not a satisfactory situation for anyone, not least the commoners. The Minister suggested that it is not a matter of ownership but of management. But subsection (2) of the clause gives local authorities powers to,"““take any steps to protect the land against unlawful interference that could be taken by an owner””;" in other words, a local authority will have the powers that an owner would have in those circumstances. The question is: what about the other management powers? The Minister spoke about those other powers only in relation to commons associations. But the vast majority of commons—at least in the early years—will not have commons associations, and I suspect that commons associations will not be able to take over and manage many unclaimed commons for a long time, if ever. So a different situation seems to exist between commons which will have associations to take on the management and those which will not, where there will be a vacuum. Even with the Government’s reference to ““management not ownership””, there does not seem to be an answer for the situation where there is no commons association. I do not know whether the Minister wants to reply to that point before I withdraw the amendment, but it seems to me that we have not got to the bottom of it at all.