Commons Bill [HL]

The noble Duke’s amendment provides that any area of replacement land should be the same size or larger than the release land. It is a probing amendment to see what our view is of that proposition. We do not think that the discretion of the Secretary of State to grant an order should necessarily be limited in that way. In the vast majority of cases in which the area of release land is over 200 square metres, it will be necessary to provide an equal area of replacement land. However, we do not want to rule out in the real world the possibility that a smaller area of replacement land could be offered in circumstances where the replacement land is of better quality than the release land—that is, better for the exercise of common rights or public access or for any other reason. For example, the release land may be inaccessible and remote for the purposes of recreation, while the replacement land may be on the doorstep of the community and previously unavailable for public use. It would be wrong to turn down an application in such circumstances solely because the replacement land was not of an equal size to the release land. The noble Duke mentioned rights of way improvement plans. We do not think that the deregistration of common land could be a proper matter for inclusion in a rights of way improvement plan about improving access to the countryside not removing common land from registers. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, spoke to his amendment. He will, I think, have understood from what I have just said exactly what our argument is. It would be wrong to constrict ourselves by saying that in no circumstances should there be a smaller amount of land as replacement land.