Commons Bill [Lords]

We have made it clear that we are not prepared to countenance an unrestricted reopening of the registers under the Bill. We had an interesting discussion in Committee, and subsequently, on whether there should be a review of inflated rights registered under the Commons Registration Act 1965. Schedule 2 makes limited provision both to add land to the registers and to remove land; that is a careful balance, which the new Government amendments maintain. Government amendment No. 95 will enable additions to the register of land that Parliament has recognised as common land, or town or village greens. It follows from an amendment tabled in Committee by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), which we might call the ““Pumfrey”” amendment. The hon. Gentleman was concerned that land could have been omitted from registration under the 1965 Act, even though, by virtue of some statutory provision, it was beyond doubt common land or green. Our amendment enables those omissions to be rectified. Government amendment No. 95 also enables the registration of land that has been statutorily allotted as recreation grounds under 19th-century enclosure awards—a facility that I am sure will appeal to my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) and his correspondent, Mrs. June Perry. For example, in cases where an earlier statute may have defined the extent of a common in a plan deposited with the House authorities during the passage of the corresponding Bill through Parliament, part, or all, of the lands defined in the plan were overlooked and not registered under the 1965 Act. I believe that just such a case—at Monken Hadley common, in Hertfordshire—was identified by Mr. William Pumfrey in correspondence with the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire. The amendment would provide an answer in similar cases. Government amendment No. 14 amends clause 24 so that we have the power to restrict applications, under Government amendment No. 95, to persons defined in regulations. That might be useful where the land has since been developed. Government amendments Nos. 100, 104 and 107 provide a further or alternative mechanism to enable the deregistration of buildings and the curtilage of buildings, where they have been present since before the land was registered. We have learned that some large commons may have been registered so as mistakenly to include cottages or gardens abutting the common, even though there was an inquiry into the registration. It seems that the error may have gone unnoticed, or that the commissioner was unable to correct the error if no timely objection had been made. It may not be possible to deal with such mistakes under paragraphs 4 or 5 of schedule 2. These amendments enable the deregistration of such land, but only if it can be shown that the land was covered by buildings, or the curtilage of buildings, at the time of the original provisional registration and continuously up to the date of determination of the application. The amendments provide the right balance in enabling long-established homes and gardens to be deregistered, without calling into question the registration of common land generally, where the registration was properly inquired into by a commons commissioner. Government amendment No. 107 is consequential on Government amendments Nos. 100 and 104, and deletes from existing paragraph 5 a criterion for deregistration of greens, which is now essentially replicated in new paragraph 4A to schedule 2. Government amendments Nos. 96 to 99, 101 to 103, 105, 106 and 108 enable changes to the register under schedule 2 on the initiative of the commons registration authority itself, rather than in response to an application. That approach is consistent with the way things are dealt with elsewhere in part 1. It will enable local authorities to deal with problems of which they are already aware, and in respect of which it would be in the public interest to act, regardless of whether an application is made by, for example, the landowner. Government amendment No. 16 is purely consequential. It applies clause 24 to proposals made by registration authorities under schedule 2, so that regulations may be made about the process to be applied to a proposal.