My Lords, my noble friend Lord Greaves found today that he was unable to get to London and asked me to move his amendment, which with the leave of the House I rise to do. I shall endeavour to say roughly what my noble friend would have said, although not necessarily in the manner in which he would have said it.
This is an amendment to Clause 13, which inserts new Sections 15A and 15B into the Commons Act 2006. Their effect is to allow the owner of a piece of land that is not already registered as a town or village green to make a statement to the commons registration authority—a unitary or upper-tier council—which brings to an end any period during which persons have indulged as of right in lawful sports and pastimes on the land; that is, informal recreation, openly, without hindrance and without permission.
The result of making such a landowner statement is to bring to an end the right of anyone to make an application for registration of the land as a town or village green under Section 15 of the Commons Act 2006. However, under Section 15(3) of the Commons Act, there is a period of two years before that right comes to an end, in which such an application for registration as a green can still be made.
There was discussion in Committee on the question of how people would know that a landowner had made a statement under this new provision. Amendments were proposed by my noble friend Lord Greaves and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton. In Committee, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, made some very helpful commitments that,
“where a landowner statement is deposited with a commons registration authority, the authority will be required to publicise it”.—[Official Report, 30/1/13; col. 1602.]
The Minister assured the Committee that regulations will include this requirement but that specific publicity requirements are best set out in regulations rather than in the Bill. She added, equally helpfully:
“The regulations will require that commons registration authorities take appropriate steps to ensure that local people and other interested parties are made aware of the fact that a landowner statement has been deposited”.—[Official Report, 30/1/13; col. 1603.]
The purpose of this amendment today is to probe further the Government’s thinking on what are “appropriate steps”. In particular, will there be appropriate publicity in the local media serving the locality in which the land is situated, not just centrally in what might be a far-flung county authority—which might just be Lancashire? Will it include a physical notice on the land itself? Will it include notification of specialist organisations such as the Open Spaces Society and the Ramblers’ Association, as well as organisations representing landowners? I hope that the Minister can give these assurances today. I beg to move.