Commons Bill [Lords]

I shall be as clear and precise as I can, because the hon. Gentleman is right: this is crucial. I wanted to reinforce the difference between the use of the words ““construction works”” and the use of the word ““works”” on its own. ““Works”” would apply, under a later provision in the Bill, to repairs and maintenance rather than specific construction. Our amendments are not about making planning consents automatically prevail over the ability to register land as a green. I hope that this goes some way towards answering the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood. They are simply intended to ensure that registration does not constitute an effort to turn back the clock when construction works have already begun. There is a big difference between those two approaches. It would be quite wrong for us to change clause 15 in a way that gave developers carte blanche to build houses on existing greens. That would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Land is only registrable in the first place under the clause if local people have genuinely used it for their recreation without permission, without force and without secrecy for at least 20 years. That is the kind of land that our ancient law of custom treats as a town or village green. It would be wrong for planning consent automatically to override that customary arrangement. That is not something changed by provisions in the Bill; it is something that is already part of the law of the land. Whether land has become a green in this way is outside the scope of the planning consideration, and is purely a matter of law.