Amendment 159A, which I rise to move, covers a very specific and important question: the treatment of commons, and their commoners and owners, under the new system of agricultural support. I hope that by getting a full and clear response at this stage I will not have to bring the matter back at Report. This amendment has been put together with the assistance of the Foundation for Common Land and the Open Spaces Society. I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the latter group, and I thank both for their help. A number of noble Lords are knowledgeable about commons, and indeed several survivors of our discussions on the Commons Act back in 2006 are in the House. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, for adding his name to this amendment, and to the Public Bill Office for its help with phrasing it.
The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, apologises for not being able to take part in this debate: he has been called to the hills, the lucky man. He has asked me to make the point that where there is common land,
which is so prevalent in the uplands, in the event of ELMS the arrangement will have to be multilateral, not bilateral. Hence, every commoner will have to agree, and there is always a difficult so-and-so who could veto the arrangement. There is a need, therefore, for a mechanism to prevent a generally agreed plan being vetoed in this way. This echoes an earlier debate about the resolution of disputes under the new system of environmental and agricultural support.
Clause 2 makes no specific provision for how financial assistance is given in relation to registered common land. The amendment therefore confers powers on the Secretary of State to make regulations to specify or vary the scheme in relation to common land and any lands subject to shared grazing rights, in order to make allowance for the special circumstances inherent in managing common land.
What, in any case, is common land? On one level, it is land registered as common land in a registry kept under Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006 or the Commons Registration Act 1965. In real world terms, it is land owned by one person but subject to the rights of other people—the commoners—to take some product of the land. These rights of commons nowadays typically relate to the grazing of animals, but may also include the right to take wood, peat, bracken, furs or fish. I remember that in our discussions on the commons Bill 14 years ago, noble Lords enjoyed learning words such as estovers, turbary, piscary and, indeed, pannage. Commons are a survival from the medieval period—land that escaped enclosure. They are, however, of huge present-day importance in historical, biological, cultural, landscape and recreational terms.
In England, common land occupies no more than about 3% of the total land area, but it is key to the viability of many upland farms, comprising 37% of all land above the moorland line and over one-fifth of the area of SSSIs in England. Common land delivers many public benefits. Compared with enclosed land it is seven times more likely to be designated for nature and four times more likely to have a scheduled ancient monument on it.
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Back in 2000, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act designated all common land as access land; now almost two-fifths of access land in England consists of common land, including large areas of the Lake District. Why is this question important in the Bill? Over 90% of common land was under an environmental stewardship scheme. Stewardship income has been crucial for upland commoners. On average, it comprises 17% of an upland commoner’s gross income and no less than 70% of their net income—their wage, if you like. It is vital for public benefits and hill farm incomes that the new ELMS function effectively on common land where it is clear that commoners and owners are keen to enter into the new schemes.
Of course, not all commons are on hills. We talked in Committee last week, and earlier today, about the needs of hill farming in general. The question here is: how are ELMS projects and payments going to work within the often quite complicated structures of commons management? For instance, it may be appropriate to
offer assistance to two or more commoners—often many more—acting jointly to deliver public goods. It may also be necessary in particular circumstances to allow financial assistance to be shared among several persons, whether commoners, the landowner or owners, or other people. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government have already turned their mind to the administration of agreements in relation to commons, and the particular difficulties that can arise in negotiating, administering and delivering them in these cases?
There is a long history of agri-environmental and other agreements administered on commons over the last 20 or more years. Will the Government adopt best practice from what has been learned over that time and, in particular, make specific legislative provision for commons to underpin what is required? I beg to move.