Commons Bill [HL]

I am grateful to those who have spoken in this debate. Amendment No. 78, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, would introduce a new clause imposing an obligation on the Land Registry to notify to the commons registration authority proposals for the transfer of title to common land. Amendment No. 116, spoken to by the noble Duke, relates to the requirement on the commons registration authority to delete an entry in the ownership section of the register when it receives notice that title to the land has been registered for the first time with the Land Registry. As the noble Duke told the Committee, it is a probing amendment. The Bill already contains powers in paragraph 7 of Schedule 2 to re-enact Section 12(b) of the 1965 Act, which requires the commons registration authority to delete any registration of ownership in the ownership section of the commons registers when it receives notification of first registration of title by the Land Registry. We acknowledge that the system of notification is not 100 per cent effective at present. That is because the Land Registry does not always know when an application for first registration of title relates to registered common land or registered green—not least because it is not custodian of the commons registers and it is by no means always obvious from title documents that the application land is common land. However, we are working with the Land Registry to improve its access to information about the extent of registered land so that the notification system can be more reliable. There may be opportunities for the registry to use the data already compiled by the Countryside Agency and the Countryside Council for Wales under Part 1 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, so that it is aware of what is and what is not registered as common land. However, our view is that it is not necessary, or even reasonable, to go further and to require every transfer of title affecting common land to be notified. If a substantial area of common land is sold to a new owner, then I do not doubt that the commoners will hear of it soon enough. I also think it would be unreasonable to cause the owner of common land to be hostage to objections regarding a possible sale. That would be an unwarranted interference in his freedom to dispose of his own property, although I am not quite sure on what grounds any objection to such a sale might be made. Subsection (3)(b) of the proposed new clause in Amendment No. 78 would impose an obligation on the seller, on the vendor, to ““declare any evidence of common grazing rights””, which presumably means a requirement to advise a potential purchaser of the existence of any registered rights of common. That, we consider, is a matter which the purchaser should establish as part of the searches conducted on a purchase of undeveloped land, and we are seeking to integrate the present statutory search of the commons registers into the existing property search form, which is rather better known to property conveyancers. This should mean that conveyancers will be more likely to undertake a search of the commons registers as part of the usual pre-purchase routines, and consequently the purchasers are less likely to claim that they were unaware of the special status of land as registered common land or town or village green when they bought it. On the subject of declaring grazing activity on the sale, I refer the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, to the Land Registration Act 2002, and to the need to declare existing rights. I shall write to the noble Lord with an explanation about that. Turning to Amendment No. 116, I repeat what I said in the debate a week ago on Clause 2 of the Bill that we consider the ownership of land should be recorded in the register of title kept by the Land Registry. The register of title provides conclusive evidence of title to land. Because of the gradual migration of ownership information to the register of title, the ownership section of the commons registers will become increasingly devoid of meaningful data and therefore, in time, defunct. So paragraph 7 makes transitional provision whereby the existing ownership section of the commons registers is kept on life support until it has ceased to have any useful purpose. After that date, the national authority may make regulations to secure the archiving of that information. Until then, we think it is worthwhile for the existing practice to continue, whereby the registration authority removes any entry relating to ownership in its registers upon receiving notice so that the entries do not become positively misleading. The noble Duke asked about the timescale. The Land Registry will notify a registration of ownership whenever it is aware that the land registered is common land. We would expect it to act promptly. Indeed, the registry has a reputation for acting quickly and in accordance with its targets. The commons registration authority should also act promptly on receipt of the notice, but as the entry in the commons register—unlike the Land Registry—is not conclusive as to ownership, there will not be much harm done or caused even if there is a delay. I hope that deals with the points raised by noble Lords.