Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]

I am as always grateful for your clarification, Mr. Deputy Speaker. New clause 4 would give the daughters of freemen the right to become freemen in their turn. The present situation is that only sons have that opportunity. The proposal would thus correct a significant inequality. It would also correct an anomaly that undermines freemen, where they remain, when exercising functions on behalf of their communities, and that undermines a significant part of our constitutional heritage. It is important to explain that I am not talking about honorary freemen. They are a common part of the work of every local authority, and we are entirely familiar with their situation. Nor am I talking about the statutory position of freemen of the City of London, which is excluded in the proposed new clause. The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 swept away the historic position of freemen who, through the guilds, had been the original governors of local communities up and down the country. In a significant number of places, freemen continued to exercise functions, usually charitable, whereby they used certain property and land for certain statutory purposes. That is the case in York, Chester, Coventry, Northampton, Durham, Beverley, a number of other places and, most significantly from my point of view, the city of Newcastle. I can best explain the new clause and its importance with reference to the city of Newcastle, which has already been referred to today by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). I suspect hon. Members will be pleased that I am not going to accompany my references to Newcastle with references to John Lewis—a splendid store of which perhaps all in this House have learned rather too much in the recent past. The freemen of the city of Newcastle continued to exercise functions after the 1835 Act. Their responsibility was to safeguard the Newcastle town moor and to use the benefits of grazing cattle on it for the benefit of the poor citizens of the city. The town moor therefore survived in a way that it probably would not have survived if it had simply been left in the hands of the council of the day. If that had happened, the moor probably would have been physically developed, but it has not. The moor remains, at the heart of the city of Newcastle, an area of open space that is protected by the right of the freemen of the city to graze their cattle. Importantly, the freemen do not control the freehold rights over the moor; they control only the right of herbage, but that safeguards the use of the land. I can best explain the significance of this by saying that over the years the freemen have supplemented the income that they get from the grazing of cattle by allowing areas of town moor to be taken in for certain specific purposes. For instance, Newcastle United football club is one of the town moor intakes. The club is almost unique among city football clubs these days in being in the centre of the city. It exists because the freemen of the day agreed that the football club could use that land. If successive owners of the football club had been careful enough about due diligence, they would have discovered that it does not own the freehold of the land on which it stands. It is allowed to exercise its functions because the freemen of the city have agreed that it may do so. A small fee is paid to the freemen of the city each year by the football club to recognise the fact that the freemen choose not to exercise their right to graze their cattle on the football ground. Over recent years, that point has been the subject of many ironic references by my constituents. The fee tops up the income of the freemen and enables them to exercise their charitable functions. The same applies in other areas where the stewardship of the freemen survives, including York, Beverly and Chester. In Newcastle, because of the large area of land in the city centre and the intakes, the system is of great significance to the people of the area. But the only people who can become freemen are the sons of the freemen, who have a right of hereditary succession. I am no great defender of the right of hereditary succession, but it is anomalous that only sons, and not daughters, may exercise the right to become freemen. That anomaly is gradually undermining the freemen system, because it depends on the male line, and if that dies out there is no replacement and it becomes an ever more limited group. New clause 4 would confer a right on daughters to become freemen, alongside sons. I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) that this is an issue of equality, and this is the right time to put it right. I have for some years, in various ways, attempted to do that with the support of the stewards of the freemen of Newcastle. I have been given assurances that the Government would give this issue a fair wind or would deal with it in various pieces of legislation. Sadly, that has not been possible. With the help of Lord Graham of Edmonton, I have attempted to introduce legislation to correct this anomaly, but without success. I hope that today, at a time when the House is taking equality issues seriously, we can put right this anomaly and allow daughters of freemen, as well as sons, to exercise this important aspect of our constitutional heritage reflected by freemen in those areas where they continue to exist. So far as the city of Newcastle is concerned, we would then know that the future of the town moor would be safe in the hands of a significant body of people who will protect it and its heritage in the interests and for the benefit of the citizens of the city as a whole.