Commons Bill [HL]

We certainly have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, and other noble Lords regarding Clause 24. A useful debate can be held on that clause. It enables the statutory registers of common land and town or village greens to be converted to an electronic form. Perhaps I can deal first with Amendment No. 123, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. It would remove the power for regulations to prescribe the conversion process, but it is clearly a probing amendment. We sense that there is widespread support from registration authorities for powers to enable them to hold their registers in an electronic form. But the process of converting the registers to an electronic form, and particularly translating the often ancient register maps into modern digitised mapping, will not be entirely straightforward. I do not expect that the Committee would expect me to say anything else. Many register maps are based on the old Ordnance Survey county series maps. The maps are long out of date, and much of the work in plotting boundaries on the maps was undertaken to an unsatisfactory standard. So regulations under subsection (3) of the clause may require authorities to consult on a provisional version of the register, which will enable people to comment in particular on the accuracy of the authority’s digitisation of the register maps. We consider it essential that the public have an opportunity to be involved in the modernisation of the registers in this way, and indeed, for those with an interest in the land or rights affected, provision for consultation—and if necessary a hearing—may be the minimum required to ensure compatibility with human rights legislation. As I think I have already said, I cannot give an assurance to the effect that there will be no problems with digitising the register. The onus will be on the registration authorities to undertake that digitisation with due diligence. However, we shall certainly endeavour to ensure that they can learn any appropriate lessons from experience under the CROW Act. I turn to Amendment No. 124, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Livsey. As I understand it, his intention is that electronic registers should be consistent with the maps of open country and registered common land prepared by the Countryside Agency and the Countryside Council for Wales under Part 1 of the CROW Act. Those maps were produced to show land to which people have a statutory right of access. The agency, and in Wales the council, were obliged to draw up maps which, so far as common land was concerned, effectively reproduced the registers of common land. The public had an opportunity to comment on the draft maps, and those with an interest in land affected could appeal against the provisional maps, but only on the question of whether the land was or was not registered common land. Such comments on and appeals against the maps are relevant only for the purposes of the new right of access, and have no bearing on what is shown in the commons registers. We believe that the agency’s and council’s statutory maps are very closely aligned with what is shown in the commons registration authority’s registers, though there are temporal and technical difficulties which will account for some small differences; so much so that in promoting registration authorities’ use of the new power in this clause to convert to electronic registers, I know that the agency will be prepared to make its electronic mapping data available to local authorities to assist them in that task. The noble Lord said that the website is sometimes inaccessible to some farmers. We do not think that his comments are entirely accurate because the CROW maps merely reproduce the boundaries of common land from the registers. They do not contain any of the textual data, for example, about rights of common. CROW access maps have been made available—also in paper form—to community councils in Wales and given to parish councils in England. I turn to the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, who opened the debate. Amendment No. 122A would require the Secretary of State to make regulations under Clause 24 enabling the conversion of commons registers to an electronic form. We very much share the noble Lord’s ambitions that commons registration authorities are able to convert their statutory registers to an electronic form. At present, registration authorities must keep their statutory registers in a paper form, although some keep an electronic copy of all or part to improve data handling. Conversion of the registers to an electronic form would bring significant benefits to both authorities and users—for example, electronic registers offer a much enhanced capability for searching both the maps and textual registers, including online services. Perhaps the only disagreement between the noble Lord and me, at least in this context, is whether we should be obliged to make regulations enabling all this to happen. The short answer is that we intend to make such regulations. Enabling e-government in this area is very much in line with our objectives, as I hope I said the other day. Such regulations may not be our top priority. We may well wish to commence Part 1 of the Bill in stages in different areas. I have previously spoken of that intention. We would like to see the new arrangements in Part 1 replace the outdated provisions in the 1965 Act reasonably quickly. We may also wish to give priority to the commencement of other parts of the Bill, so that we can get statutory commons associations up and running as quickly as possible. That does not mean that regulations about electronic registers will be left until last. I am sure that local authorities would not stand for that. We seek to retain some flexibility about the way the Bill is implemented, and to listen to what people have to say to us about how that is done. At the very least, it would look odd if we were using discretionary regulation-making powers elsewhere in the Bill, while failing to fulfil an obligation to make regulations under Clause 24. In those circumstances we might be open to challenge in the courts. The noble Lord asked about funding. Local authorities will be provided with funding from the Government for any new burdens, including those relating to improving the registers. The amount will be considered as part of any pilot programme we roll out and in association with the Local Government Association. He asked about registers being available on the Internet. Those are matters for the registration authorities to decide, but we would certainly encourage the widespread dissemination of registration data in that way. We do not envisage making it a requirement to be on the Internet in regulations. I hope that I have answered the points raised.