Commons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 125:"After Clause 24, insert the following new clause-"    ““COSTS UNDER PART 1    Regulations may make provision as to the payment of costs which are incurred by any person or body under Part 1.”” The noble Baroness said: The amendment is concerned with costs—a matter that was touched on in the previous amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, and referred to earlier by my noble friend Lord Livsey. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, the Minister said that the Government will provide welcome funding. I believe that if a statutory duty is given to a local authority under a Bill such as this, it must provide the funding. I am sure that the noble Lord will elucidate on that shortly. I declare an interest. My husband is a Devon county councillor. There are a couple of issues regarding funding being provided on a pilot basis. Although local authorities, when planning for the future, may be assured of having funding to underpin this, on what basis will the funding be provided? Will it be provided on the area of the commons, on the complexity of the registrations they are required to deal with, or on the size of the population involved? One issue that stands out is that a lot of this common land—very often with more complex problems—is in local authority areas with sparse populations. As I am sure the Minister is aware, the issues of sparsity and the costs of service delivery in such areas is already a contentious issue to those of us who feel that sparsely populated areas have been dealt a raw deal by successive governments. So, it is not a party political point, but sparsely populated areas have always had a bad deal. I hope that this will not be another case where council tax payers in such areas will be expected to foot the bill for a national shortcoming, by which I mean the Commons Registration Act 1965. Finally, on funding, what other bodies, agencies or NGOs might expect to receive costs that they may incur under Part 1 of the Bill? I beg to move.