Commons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 126:"Page 14, line 13, at end insert—" ““(   )   In preparing a proposed order, the appropriate national authority shall have a presumption in favour of an association which would be responsible for all commons in a well-defined area.”” The noble Lord said: Members of the Committee who took part in the Second Reading debate may recall that there was some discussion about whether Parliament should or could give some indication to those seeking to set up the new commons associations; that is, the type of area which we would expect them to represent and to manage. In Part 2, we now turn to the whole issue of management. My amendment, which is in a sense a probing amendment, may be very simple, but it touches on an extremely important principle. I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister will say on that issue. I am indebted to Professor Ian Mercer, chairman of the Dartmoor Commoners Council, for some very wise advice. It will be recalled that the passage of the legislation which set up the Dartmoor Commoners Council has been to some extent seen as a precursor to the present legislation. I hope that the practical experience on Dartmoor will inform discussions on this Bill and that the department has taken proper account of that experience. The experience to which Professor Mercer refers welcomes very much the general thrust of this part of the Bill. I am sure that the Minister takes comfort from that. But in his briefing to Members of the Committee Professor Mercer says in relation to the commons—or, in his terms, the blocks of common land units that may be appropriate for an association—that,"““In this regard the viability of the proposed association will be paramount and two things have a profound effect on that viability: one is the size of the area for which the association is formed to which the number of its potential members is connected, and the other is the conditions attached to the money-raising by fees referred to in Clause 31””." It would obviously be inappropriate at this stage to refer in detail to Clause 31, but Professor Mercer makes a very important point; namely, that an association should at least have a potential number of members large enough to mean that a fee related to stock numbers for which there is a right to graze is reasonable. Otherwise there will not be the viability or the economy of scale that is necessary to give that viability. Professor Mercer illustrates the point by referring to Dartmoor where there are 914 registrations for graziers and 445 non-graziers, which means that with comparatively modest fees that council is able to raise something in the region of £50,000 per annum through those contributions. It is an extremely important point that if a new association is not resourced adequately to be able to cover its normal expenditures and to put something aside in a contingency fund, there will be major problems. For the record, it is interesting to note that the Dartmoor council is comprised of 20 elected commoners: five from each of the historic quarters; two commons owners; two members of the national park authority, and Dartmoor is unusual in that it is a national park in the main; one from the Duchy of Cornwall, which his a very important landowner in the south-west of England and in Cornwall; a vet; and two co-opted members, one of whom is currently the regional director of the National Farmers Union, and the other is the chairman, Professor Mercer. The point is that if we have too many commons associations made up of lots of small units spread over a big area, it will not be feasible for that level of expertise to be available on a regular basis to all those associations. Professor Mercer makes the point that there are also practical considerations such as the need for all contiguous commons and their commoners’ activities to be managed together. As I think I said at Second Reading, there is a balance to be struck, and I notice that the Minister is nodding. On Bodmin Moor, on the fringe of which I live, we have a different situation with a large number of smaller commons associations. They are very proud of the work that they have done over the years and are, I have to say, very disappointed that we did not manage, with the help of the Government, to get through the private Bill that would have given statutory force to their management of those commons. The commons associations are smaller and have fewer resources, but they have something that is equally important—historic continuity and commitment. That is where the issue of balance comes in. We would dispel and disrupt the commitment, involvement and ownership of decisions by the associations at our peril. I hope that this afternoon we can give some sort of lead, and if we cannot do so now, that we can do so on Report or at Third Reading. I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate where the Government think that the emphasis should be, whether it should be in terms of coordinating and bringing together some of the existing institutions or whether, in the main, it is the Government’s view that they should be allowed to continue. I beg to move.