Orders of the Day — Commons Bill [Lords]

House of Commons, 18 April 2006.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill will provide for the better management of common land in England and Wales. It will ensure that some of our most valued uplands, open spaces and conservation sites remain effectively protected and recorded, and overhauls the existing patchwork of antiquated controls to bring them up to 21st century standards of better regulation. I know that the general principles behind the Bill have been widely welcomed, and I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), who has done a great deal of work on the Bill.

At the core of the Bill are more than 2,000 square miles of registered common land in England and Wales, representing around 4 per cent. of our land area. Those places are fundamental to the character of our countryside. Some people might have in mind the ponies of Dartmoor, walkers will think of the high fells of the lake district, and families perhaps cherish the local common for games and walks on a Sunday afternoon. All these places are common land, and the Bill seeks to ensure that such places will be properly protected and managed for future generations. The Government have already undertaken limited legislation for common land in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, providing a general public right of access to commons. This Bill deals with other substantive issues on common land, such as their management and protection.

It might be helpful to explain what is meant by the term "common land". There is a popular misconception that common land is land owned by all of us, or even by no one—that it is, in effect, a public resource. It is not quite that simple. All common land is owned by someone, often a private landowner. Since time immemorial, however, common land has been subject to rights for certain people other than the landowner to use the land for their own benefit—for example, to graze livestock or take fallen wood for fuel. It is those rights over another person's land that make common land special.

Common land is important for many reasons. I have already spoken of the tremendous recreational resource that it provides. It also remains a fundamental part of the agricultural economy for many upland farmers, for whom commoning has been a way of life for generations. However, common land is also a crucial reservoir of biodiversity. Much of it has never been improved or enclosed, so many commons are havens for wildlife, while the absence of ploughing leaves many prehistoric remains intact.

Remarkably, around half the common land in England is designated as a site of special scientific interest. The wealth of information that we now have about both commons and SSSIs, and the action that we are taking to improve their condition, is vital to our overall work on biodiversity. We need to take action to protect biodiversity across the whole of the countryside, as well as in our most special and valuable sites.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Will the regulations provided for in clause 3(5) appertaining to the register of common land be subject to the negative procedure of the House or to its affirmative counterpart?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I will deal with those details later in my speech.

I do not need to tell the House that protecting our biodiversity is important, or that healthy, thriving and diverse ecosystems are essential to a healthy, thriving and diverse society. Biodiversity should be valued not just for its own sake but for all its benefits and opportunities—not only environmental benefits, but economic and social benefits, such as health, recreation and education.

Surveys have told us that people are more concerned about the quality of their natural environment than anything else, and biodiversity is a major part of that. Natural green spaces such as commons provide whole communities with access to recreation and a chance to experience nature at first hand. In the Cotswolds—at Minchinhampton common, for example—there is a strong sense of identity and community. The limestone downland is maintained through grazing by commons animals. Early purple orchids and cowslips can be seen there now, and later in the year there will be orchids, chalkhill blue butterflies and fritillaries. Large numbers of people visit from Stroud, Gloucester and the surrounding area, making use of local facilities and bringing many benefits to the local economy.

That all makes biodiversity an essential component of sustainable development. That is why the Government are firmly committed to achieving all our biodiversity targets for 2010, both at home and internationally. The England biodiversity strategy sets out our plans to integrate biodiversity into policy making and practice across all sectors and at all levels. We have achieved much already, including through new measures in the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, but more is needed. We must also continue to report on and measure our progress, and to communicate and demonstrate clearly the value of biodiversity so that all its benefits can be realised.

In the context of common land, that poses a particular challenge. A lack of effective management has resulted in only 57 per cent. of SSSI commons being in good or improving condition—significantly less than the 72 per cent. of all SSSIs in similar condition. That is why the Commons Bill is one of our key tools for promoting biodiversity in this country. It will facilitate local management of commons where none has been achievable in the past, helping us to achieve our public service agreement target to get 95 per cent. of SSSIs into favourable condition by 2010.

As I have discovered, however, common land is never a straightforward subject. There is a complex web of interaction on our commons, which we must address holistically. This Bill provides for improved management and protection of commons, and brings the registration system up to date. Let me explain briefly how it works, and I will be glad to touch on the point raised by the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow).

Part 1 of the Bill is about the registration of common land. It builds on the Commons Registration Act 1965, which created registers of every common and town or village green in England and Wales. Unfortunately, the 1965 Act was flawed: registration was a snapshot only, with little provision for keeping records up to date. The Bill provides for the registers to be updated, and kept that way, with provision for electronic registers.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

As one who used to practise in this area of law, I agree with the Minister that the 1965 Act was flawed. However, the proper implementation of the provisions in this welcome Bill will require some finance for local government. The problem in the past has been that there has been a Cinderella service, usually involving one man and his dog.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

The Government accept that there may be financial implications, and we are prepared to put money into the start of the process, particularly for the purpose of professional skill building. I shall say more about that shortly. There will be an opportunity to rectify past mistakes relating to the 1965 Act, which have been raised by a number of organisations and people. The idea is to balance the scope to remove or add land to registers.

Part 1 also prohibits the severance of rights of common. Severance happens when rights of common attached to a farm adjoining a common are sold separately from the farm itself. That can mean that rights are exercised by people with no ties or obligations to the commoning community. It can lead to disruptive and damaging grazing practices. Our stakeholders asked us to ban severance, which we have done, but we have also listened to those who have said in another place that some local exceptions are needed. We propose to table amendments in the Standing Committee to respond to fears expressed by the Dartmoor Commoners' Council that it will not be able to exercise certain powers of a commons association. We take those fears seriously.

I can tell the hon. Member for Buckingham that the regulations for which clause 3(5) provides will be subject to negative resolution.

Clause 15 updates and clarifies the law relating to the registration of town or village greens. Greens are a vital part of our culture: they provide invaluable breathing space, right on the doorstep. The concept is ancient, but those areas remain as relevant today as they were when the locals used them for archery practice and community dancing. Yet greens are also a cause of controversy, particularly when development proposals arise. We have tried to strike a fair balance, and to provide certainty by consolidating the existing law on new registration of greens based on long use.

Significant Government amendments were tabled to clause 15 in another place, where we were told that there was a lack of clarity. We shall return to one or two of them in Committee. In the background is the high-profile greens registration case known as Trap Grounds, which was recently heard by the Judicial Committee of the other place and now awaits its ruling.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

I support the principle of the Bill, but I should like my hon. Friend to clarify one aspect of the registration of town greens. In two cases in my constituency—in Fairfield, where planning permission exists for some social housing, and in New Mills, where planning permission exists for a magistrates court—applications for town green status have been lodged after the granting of planning permission. Clearly the purpose is not to respect and preserve the sites, but to frustrate a planning application. In both cases the development has already been delayed by several years, with no end in sight. I hope my hon. Friend can assure me that the Bill will clarify the position, and will make it less easy for town green applications to be used maliciously to frustrate the legitimate planning process.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I understand my hon. Friend's point. It is possible that people will use the Bill's provisions to frustrate developments that are important to communities, but the advantage of the Bill is that it will speed up the process, so it will not be possible to drag cases out for long periods. If my hon. Friend writes to me or to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset, we shall be happy to examine the cases that he mentioned, and to contact him when we have done so.

We recognise the importance of the role of commons registration authorities in delivering the objectives of part 1. That is why we announced last year—this is relevant to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt)—that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was providing £100,000 to set up a professional association for commons registration officers, to help promote dialogue between local and central government on the implementation of the Bill. We will also fund the new burdens that the Bill will impose on local authorities.

A reliable registration system is key to the proper management of common land, and part 2 of the Bill is the key to that improved management. It allows the creation of commons associations with powers to manage commons locally and sustainably. Many of the benefits of common land come from its use in agriculture. It is the use of locally adapted breeds and customary practices such as hefting that has created the high landscape and biodiversity values in areas such as the Welsh and Cumbrian uplands. However, agriculture is changing. Many commons have deteriorated because of a lack of effective management. Some upland commons are being over-grazed, and under-grazing on lowland commons has led to scrubbing up and a consequent decline in their biodiversity and accessibility. However, those are not areas in which the Government can intervene easily. The Department is making common land eligible for entry into the higher level environmental stewardship scheme, as well as providing a supplement that recognises difficulties for communally managed land. However, financial incentives alone will not bring about improved management.

Commons can be managed from day to day only by those who share and have a real stake in the resource. Part 2 will recognise that, by putting in place a framework for resolving agricultural management problems on common land. It will allow the creation of local management bodies—commons associations—to manage agriculture, vegetation and the exercising of common rights. Some commons are already managed through voluntary local bodies, but they lack the powers to enforce their management decisions on everyone. At the moment, just one disagreeing voice can upset the management of a whole common. The statutory powers that will be given to commons associations will overcome that by enabling them to make and enforce rules.

I should stress that a commons association will be established only with the support of those who use and manage a common. A top-down approach cannot be imposed on those with an interest in a common, and we want to work with the grain, not against it.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

My hon. Friend talks about support for the new associations. How will he gauge that support? Will there have to be 100 per cent. support, or substantial support? He knows the agricultural sector as well as I do, and finding agreement on a way forward is not always easy.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

Yes, I have met the odd difficult farmer, so I know what my hon. Friend is talking about. We will be looking for majority support. We will not have a situation in which one person or a minority could have a veto. However, there will have to be a way of establishing majority support. Such issues are best explored in Committee, and I know that my hon. Friend will have an interest in that.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

In the case of a large upland common in which most interest was from those with common rights, does the Minister envisage that those people would form a substantial majority of the association, or that they would have, for example, 50 per cent. of the vote?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

Obviously, I would expect people with a direct involvement in a common to have a majority, but there are many people with interests in commons. I do not think that it is unreasonable that the structure of a commons association should be modelled on successful bodies that exist now, with a range of interests represented. For example, I think that there is a veterinary surgeon on the Dartmoor Commoners Council, who can give advice on animal welfare. I am not saying that that would be needed for every single association, but there should be flexibility so that the make-up of an association reflects its local area. Again, we can explore such matters in Committee.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

Will the Minister say a little more about the higher level stewardship scheme that he mentioned a few minutes ago? How many commons have applied for the money already? What will happen to the money? Will it go to the people with grazing rights, or a committee, and will that distort the dynamics of the management?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

Few commons are in the higher level scheme, although there are one or two. There are few commons in the scheme because that requires a management agreement, which means that there must be grazing at a certain stocking density, or specific kinds of management. Such an agreement thus requires the support of the majority of commoners on meeting the obligations of the agreement.

At the moment, there is no way of enforcing any agreement on the common. Many commoners would like to be in the higher level scheme, but they have not been able to join it because they have not been able to reach their side of the legally binding agreement on the management of the land. Under the Bill, the commons association will be able to agree the rules, apply them and meet its obligations under the terms of the agri-environment schemes. It will also be able to share the income out according to a formula that it decides. The Bill will give commons associations the power to enter into such arrangements and decide how they are going to share out the income, as they cannot do at present. That is one of the advantages of the Bill, as I know from talking to commoners and from my days of dealing with agri-environment schemes.

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

Is my hon. Friend envisaging some democratic representation on commons associations? Parish councils, in particular, often take responsibility for commons. My hon. Friend mentioned Minchinhampton, and I hope to talk more about that later. However, organisations mentioned in the Bill, such as the National Trust, have management responsibilities but are not always thought well of by those who have conflicting responsibilities. How will the associations evolve? Those are key issues.

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

They are important issues. Generally speaking, we would expect the associations to be elected so that they represent the interests of the groups for which they speak. We do not want to be too prescriptive at this stage, because different circumstances apply in different parts of the country, and the make-up of the associations may also need to be different. However, we want the systems to be democratic, open and transparent, and I know that my hon. Friend will lead on such details in Committee.

The Bill also deals with controls over works and fencing on common land. For 80 years, we have had a consent regime under the Law of Property Act 1925. It was recognised even then that commons required special protection to keep them open, unspoilt and accessible. That approach remains as relevant and necessary as ever—perhaps more so in this modern world. But the fact that commons are unique and warrant that extra protection does not mean that the system is perfect.

We have listened extensively to those who have said that the consent regime is at times unnecessarily slow and bureaucratic. The controls must be proportionate to the impact of proposed works. The Bill will enable us to modernise and streamline the system so that it is truly fit for purpose in the 21st century.

Students of section 194 of the 1925 Act will find much in part 3 of the Bill familiar. But in consolidating the existing controls into the Bill, we have done our best to iron out inconsistencies and provide clarity. We also aim to resolve situations in which works that might make sense on a common were completely prohibited by the existing management rules on certain commons.

There was considerable debate in the other place about whether minor works should be excluded from the consent regime. The reality is that enforcement against works with no material effect on access is extremely unlikely. But we have taken powers in the Bill to prescribe works that ought to be exempted from the consenting regime, and we will consult on the use of this power.

There were also strong views in the other place about who may take enforcement action against unlawful works on commons. The Bill will allow any person to ask the court to enforce against future unlawful works on commons. This is our response to arguments that those currently entitled to seek court action often fail to do so.

Part 3 of the Bill also re-enacts existing powers for local authorities to protect common land with no known owner. We shall also bring forward some minor amendments in Standing Committee to ensure that local authorities' existing powers to make management schemes for unclaimed common land remain relevant and up to date.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

My hon. Friend has just reaffirmed that the Bill provides that people can apply to the county court in respect of future unlawful works. I think that the date mentioned in the Bill is 28 January 2005. However, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000—the CROW Act—puts in place many obstacles to access, especially with regard to fences erected before that date. There is a clear conflict between that legislation and this Bill: how will it be resolved?

Elliot Morley (Labour, Scunthorpe)

I am not sure that there is a conflict. My hon. Friend asks an important question, although the date in question is actually June 2005. The new power allows any individual to bring a court case over illegal activities on commons carried out from that date, although local authorities will still be able to act in respect of activities carried out before it. I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend that that date should not be taken as the cut-off for legal action. We want to strike the appropriate balance with a significant new power to deal with illegal activities on commons, but that balance will, of course, be open to debate in Standing Committee.

Finally, I commend the scrutiny of the Bill in the other place, where it was the subject of a good and constructive debate. I followed closely the progress of the common land forum, many of whose recommendations are included in the Bill. In that forum, the question of access was very controversial, but it has been dealt with by the CROW Act and so does not affect the debate on this Bill.

The Bill is mainly about putting in place the sensible management and registration provisions that a wide range of stakeholders and organisations with a common interest in ensuring the proper, effective and sustainable management of our common land have been requesting for many years. The Bill gives us the necessary powers to do that, and I commend it to the House.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

As the Minister said, this Bill has already been given the technical scrutiny that we expect of the other place. That is to be welcomed, as is the Bill in general. It is not a matter of great partisanship, as legislation in respect of common land commands wide support in the House.

The attitude of hon. Members to the matter of commons and greens will be influenced by their experiences. Traditionally, my own county of Cambridgeshire has relatively small commons, which are generally attached to local communities and usually cover an area of no more than 50 acres. Some of them have been covered by their own Acts of Parliament for many hundreds of years, but the Minister was right to point out that, conversely, commons elsewhere in England and Wales might cover many thousands of acres, with various different owners of the rights to grazing, pannage, turbary or estover.

The Minister was also right to say that about 3 per cent. of the land in England, and 8 per cent. of the land in Wales, is common land, covering a little over 500,000 hectares. However, 80 per cent. of land is privately owned, with almost half coming under the sites of special scientific interest designation. The Opposition entirely agree with the Government's desire further to enhance and protect our common land.

The Bill will have far-reaching effects. It is largely about remedying the deficiencies of the Commons Registration Act 1965, which was introduced by a previous Labour Government. However, given that the very first Act in respect of common land was passed in 1235, I doubt that this Bill will be the last word on the matter—especially as the Government, I regret to say, are ducking some of the most serious weaknesses arising from the 1965 Act.

We support the improvement of environmental conditions of common land and agree with encouraging sustainable management practice through the introduction of regulatory bodies, but the Government are addressing the problem of over-grazing on common land a bit late. It was the introduction of the single payment scheme last year that reduced farmers' incentives to increase their herd and flock sizes, and I hope that commons associations, Natural England, the Countryside Council for Wales and others do not have the problem of trying to deal with under-grazing, to which the Minister referred, as well as the over-grazing that has been a problem in the past. In principle, we agree that greater collective action is a welcome move towards achieving improved environmental and agricultural management. The Minister touched on the fact that the success of the Dartmoor commoners council is testimony to that.

The first part of the Bill deals with the registration of common land and with town and village greens. According to the explanatory notes:

"This replaces and improves the registration system under the 1965 Act, but using the same registers prepared under that Act."

We are concerned that there are known to be many deficiencies in the existing registers, which the Bill does not provide an opportunity to remedy. They particularly relate to the number of registered rights, which the Bill does nothing to tackle. There are numerous examples: for example, grazing rights may have been claimed that were significantly in excess of those traditionally attached to the land through the old system of levancy and couchancy.

It would be absurd not to understand the Government's reluctance to enter into what we all know to be a minefield, and I understand that there are also human rights concerns. However, I suggest that where there are obvious cases of deception, there cannot be any fair claim on human rights grounds. For example, I know of a common in my constituency where rights were claimed and registered by a person whose property had never previously had any such rights. If the Bill is to prove durable, it should enable people sensitively and sensibly to challenge previous rights.

The Bill prohibits severance of the rights of common, with the exceptions applying to commons associations, Natural England and CCW. I wholly support the principle of ending severance, but I question the logic of severed land being handed to Natural England and the others. While the intention may be that they do not use the rights, thereby dealing with over-grazing, there is nevertheless nothing in the Bill to stop them using them, perhaps becoming grazers themselves, or possibly cutting peat, catching fish or harvesting bracken. That could mean all those bodies having more rights over common land than are currently held by established voluntary commons and statutory commons associations.

I heard what the Minister said about the Dartmoor commoners council and the amendments that will be proposed. I have had discussions with the council over its concerns. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether the Bill will result in a fair situation for the Dartmoor commoners council. In particular, will it let the council continue to hold the rights of registration, creation and severance that it holds under the present legislation? Other commons associations also deliver benefits for people on lands that are well managed for agricultural, environmental and public benefits, and I hope that they, too, can be dealt with under the amendments.

There is also a question why Natural England and the other organisations should need the rights that come from severance. If associations are to be responsible for ensuring that commons are not over-grazed or in other ways exploited, it should surely be to those associations that the severed rights are granted. Alternatively, they could revert to the owner of the dominant tenement.

Clause 13 deals with surrender and extinguishment and correctly ends the practice of common law extinguishing rights, but in doing so disposes of certain circumstances where extinguishment might be desirable. For example, rights in gross created by severance at some previous time in history that may have been abandoned, especially after passing through a few generations, would be an ideal way of reducing the total number of over-grazing rights. However, that opportunity would be lost under the Bill. It seems contradictory to use human rights as an excuse for not removing rights that were either fraudulently obtained or have been abandoned, while clause 15 of the same Bill would confiscate land from a private owner by allowing it to be registered as a green and, in effect, to become worthless. Where are the human rights in that example?

The Minister and the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt), who has left the Chamber, said that the provisions largely repeat those in existing legislation, notably the 1965 Act, but there are serious concerns that for land claiming village green status they have become increasingly relaxed. Opponents to new developments can argue that land should be registered as a village green if they can prove that local inhabitants have indulged in so-called lawful sports and pastimes for at least 20 years. I have great regard for the Minister, but he may not have taken on board the seriousness with which that issue is viewed not only by his hon. Friend but in several parts of the country.

As long ago as 18 January, on Third Reading in another place, my noble Friend Lady Byford referred to case studies where the 20-year use rule—for example, simply for walking dogs—had been employed by activists opposed to housing proposals to enforce the registration as a village green of land that few reasonable people would consider as such. Lord Bach responded:

"I agree with everything that the noble Baroness has just said. Perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, that we will study the details of her remarks and that I shall write to her."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 January 2006; Vol. 677, c. 686.]

I understand that no response has yet been received by Lady Byford. Perhaps tonight the Minister will take the opportunity to elaborate on behalf of his noble Friend.

It seems that such housing developments are not isolated cases. My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) is dealing with a similar case in his constituency where a small number of local individuals opposed to the development of a health village on reclamation land proved that they had used the land for lawful pastimes for 20 years, thus qualifying it to be registered as a town green. Fortunately, the court ruled against the application for registration and building work restarted, but there is concern that the Bill could allow the case to be reopened, which would further delay the building of that much-needed community facility. Will the Government consider how to address that issue? Can the Minister tell us whether the Department has made any assessment of the amount of land eligible under the 20-year rule?

In addition to that, the creation and registration of rights will apply only to those commons registered under the 1965 Act, through Natural England and the CCW. To gain such rights, commons associations set up outside that Act and voluntary commons associations will be required to register under the Bill, which will be a time-consuming and costly process. Will the Minister tell the House how many commons associations outside the Act there are, and will he assure us that the advantages of registering outweigh the monetary cost of registration and the administrative burden that will fall on those associations? Would not it be more suitable to allow existing voluntary commons associations to remain operating as they are, while becoming part of a larger statutory organisation? Such an umbrella structure could provide democratic discussion and ruling at local level, with a more central administrative control. Moreover, it would create a better national framework for sharing information and promoting good advice. Have the Government considered a point of contact in DEFRA or another part of the Government so that the various commons associations have a central database? I do not mean a literal database, but somebody with the knowledge to provide advice and co-ordination, and develop expertise within the Department and deliver it to all the commons associations. There seems to be general agreement that the 1965 Act has not been entirely successful. I wonder whether the Minister can tell the House exactly how many commons and green are still in dispute. Do we know what are the chief disputes?

On the Government's plans to establish electronic registers, I welcome the Minister's commitment to provide funding. I hope that another Department's funding is not cut accordingly, which is, of course, what usually happens on such occasions. Nevertheless, I am somewhat concerned about the establishment of an electronic register, given the Department's track record. We only have to go back a few years to the cattle tracing scheme that was introduced following the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease or the mapping exercise following the CROW Act—the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000—to find that problems surround such schemes. Of course, none of us needs reminding of the current debacle at the Rural Payments Agency. So I hope that the Minister can tell the House how much the proposed commons register will cost to establish and maintain. Will he assure us that the scheme will be more successful than the Department's previous computer projects?

In England, the commons registration authorities are largely county councils, with some district councils and unitary authorities. Do the Government know whether councils and authorities have adequate staff, with the necessary qualifications and experience; or will recruitment and training be required? That issue is one not just of funding, but of having competent staff.

The objective of part 2 is to enable the appropriate national authority to establish commons associations, thus enabling commoners to work together to manage agricultural activities and vegetation on a voluntary basis. The Bill will allow commons associations to enter into agri-environmental schemes, which, of course, we welcome. However, it is essential that such associations truly represent those with interests in the common. I listened with interest to the exchanges on the matter that the Minister had with Members on both sides of the House. It is important that such organisations are formed not just of a small group of people who can create an association to exercise power over others, possibly to their detriment. I hope that the Minister can tell the House a little more about the composition of associations and particularly whether a minimum level of support will be needed to establish a commons association.

Moreover, what will be the relationship between such commons associations and those who may have leased other rights from the landowner? The Minister made the perfectly proper point that most commons are privately owned. The owner may well have leased other rights, such as sporting rights, to third parties. What will be the relationship between the holders of such rights and a commons association? Obviously, the association's role may well impinge on the holder of sporting rights and, of course, vice versa.

Part 3, which deals with protection of commons from unlawful works, is entirely welcome, as the Minister implied. Of course, such works can include building or the erection of fences on common land. Of course in many areas, such as my constituency, they can involve the incursion of unlawful Traveller encampments. So measures to protect common land from such works and to speed the process are, of course, welcome, but I am concerned about whether the minimum additional regulatory burden will be placed on the commoners who want to achieve that aim. The Minister said that the Government plan to introduce exemptions from the necessary consent process, but I should be grateful if the Minister gave us a little more information. In particular, what will happen if the owner of rights wishes to erect temporary fencing, perhaps to reintroduce grazing on a common or to keep stock out of an especially sensitive part of a common?

Open commons with roads going through them—I have examples in my constituency—were fine when there was a small amount of fairly slow-moving traffic, but there is a problem given the increasing amount of traffic nowadays. People can stand on some of our commons and watch cars and motor bikes going through at 50 mph plus—perhaps they should not travel at that speed, but they do—and many people will not risk either their stock or the likelihood of a legal case by allowing their stock to cross open roads. Fencing is becoming more and more important. I hope that the Government will consider either an exemption or some sort of fast-tracking of inconsequential works so that only the more significant proposals have to go through the full process.

Finally, I am concerned that, yet again, in the Bill Ministers are taking immense powers to repeal other legislation—in this case, under clauses 36 and 44. In particular, the National Trust has raised the issue that its own Acts could be repealed or amended by virtue of a Minister giving commons associations powers that supersede those of the National Trust. I know that the Minister is aware of that important issue and I hope that he will reconsider it in Committee.

As I have said, and as I am sure will come through in the debate, there is clearly broad support for the Bill. The Conservatives strongly support it, but there is scope for improvement. Like the Minister, I pay tribute to the immense work done in the other place, but there are still a few things to resolve and there is still some clarity to be achieved. My experience of the Minister who will take the Bill through Committee is that he is open to good suggestions and sensible ideas and I look forward to that consideration and to making improvements to some of the areas that I have touched on. I welcome the Bill. It is a sensible measure that brings commons legislation up to date and improves some of the shortcomings of the previous legislation. I regret that it does not improve all of them, but we will seek to amend it in Committee.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

It is already clear that we are talking about an area of the law and of policy that is archaic, highly technical and very complicated. The Bill is a useful vehicle to take the discussion forward. It has been a long time coming and there has been a lot of background work on it.

The Bill is important in two significant ways. First, it helps the Government to meet their own target of getting 95 per cent. of sites of special scientific interest in a favourable condition by 2010. That is an important aim in itself. It is particularly important in relation to national parks. For example, a third of England's common land is in Cumbria and the Lake district has a high density of village greens. Secondly, the Bill facilitates common structures and organisational changes. Common holders can come together on a statutory basis to bring about change and apply for agri-environment benefits.

I am not entirely sure whether those processes—those organisational changes in the Bill—will be a driver for change as much as the new agri-environment schemes will be. The way in which we pay our farmers is changing significantly. The importance of mid-term review and the switch from payments for subsidies on production to payments for public good has been undervalued and under-recognised. However, the trend seen in the changes will continue. It seems inevitable to me that a fixed common agricultural policy budget, new accession states and a review of the CAP, which is promised for 2008, will bring about a major change in the way in which we support and pay farmers. If we are moving in that direction, and that is the right direction, we need to ensure that all new legislation—the Bill included—takes account of the wider public benefit and not just the private benefit to farmers and landowners.

As I said, this is a highly technical Bill and I pay credit to the Minister's officials, who have worked extremely hard on it. Throughout the country, there is recognition of the way in which the Bill team and officials have gone out and listened to different views and tried to find consensus, which has not always been easy. This is a good example of a Bill that has been improved because the Department was prepared to listen to views in the field. As has been said, the Bill was subject to substantial scrutiny in the other place. A great deal of expertise has been brought to bear on it and many amendments were made. Nevertheless, the Bill should have been published in draft and subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, as it is an ambitious task to introduce it and make changes during its progress through Parliament. I accept the Minister's desire to make progress and take an available legislative slot, but if ever a Bill needed detailed scrutiny, this is such a measure.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

The hon. Gentleman has made a valid point, as a labyrinth of legal measures surrounds the issue. Putney and Wimbledon commons in my constituency are covered by measures on urban commons introduced in 1925. We must be careful that we understand all the Bill's ramifications, so he has made a very good point.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

Let me make a confession. I am not sure that I understand all the Bill's ramifications, but I have learned rapidly and I expect that a number of issues will be discussed in Committee, as the Minister suggested. It is a fundamental principle of mine, however, that complicated, technical Bills should be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. I accept that Ministers in the Department wanted to take advantage of the opportunity offered by an unforeseen legislative slot, but that is not necessarily the best way forward.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

I agree, but is the hon. Gentleman surprised that the programme motion says that proceedings on the Bill must be completed by next Thursday?

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

I am surprised but, as I hope to serve in Committee, I am pleased as well. I am confident that a range of issues need to be probed and scrutinised in Committee, and we have already heard examples of such issues on Second Reading.

The hon. Gentleman leads me on to the royal commission report that was published in 1958 and eventually led to the introduction of the Commons Registration Act 1965. That was the first leg of work after the royal commission report. The second leg was the CROW Act, which provided rights of access over common land. The Bill is the third leg: it is right to concentrate on management and biodiversity, but it has taken us almost 50 years since the royal commission report to complete the legislative process.

I am particularly keen on clause 15, which has been discussed this evening. I want to see more village greens. We are currently awaiting a judgment from the Lords on the Trap Grounds case, which has cast the law into turmoil. If people make an application after usage for a number of years, it is not acceptable for the land owner, on learning of that application, to stop it because they object to it. However, the Court of Appeal decided that it was acceptable, so I am delighted that the Bill overcomes that hurdle. Village greens are important for a range of recreational and social reasons.

I am particularly keen to have a village green at Keenwell in Calverton. Local people have come together and submitted an application to create a new village green in an area that has been used informally for more than 20 years. The site has historical connections, but it needs to be improved, and there are plans in Calverton to try to do so. That site is next to Dark lane—an evocative name and a traditional right of way through to the south of the village. There are plans to develop the western side of Dark lane for housing and to bring an access road through Keenwell. Clearly, different interests are at play here, but it is important that when an area has been in legitimate use over many years, applications to develop it should be considered very carefully. No planning application has yet been made in respect of Dark lane. I hope that Gedling borough council, which has to deal with the application, will wait for the outcome of the application for village green status at Keenwell. I have met the council and it is familiar with the argument: I hope that it will wait for the legislation to come through and then make a balanced consideration about the need for housing as against the need to enhance the environment in Calverton.

People feel strongly about their recreational spaces and their common land. In the city of Nottingham, people really appreciate the 130 acres of allotted recreation grounds. They have been laid out in three miles of public walks and five public parks or recreation grounds. Mrs. June Perry has corresponded with the Department about the issue. She wanted to know the status of allotted recreation grounds and wrote to the Department in February. Unfortunately, she has received no response, but she wants to see the allotted recreation grounds on the commons register. She says in her letter:

"It seems to me to be a strange anomaly that Allotted Recreation Grounds, which have been covered by all the Commons Acts since 1845, have not been placed automatically on the Register of Commons and Town and Village Greens."

She goes on to acknowledge that it is a complicated area, but she suggests that

"all that is needed to register an Allotted Recreation Ground should be authenticated copies of the relevant parts of the original documents."

By mentioning Mrs. Perry and her desire and drive to improve recreation and informal spaces right in the centre of Nottingham, I hope that we will be able to make some progress on the case that she makes.

At the heart of the Bill, as we have already heard, is the notion of commons associations. I hope that they will provide a real mechanism to manage and improve common land. Some already exist in a voluntary form. It is vital, however, not just to pass the legislation and put the process in place, but to go out and promote the commons associations. It has already been suggested that, because of costs and administrative burdens, some voluntary associations will be reluctant to make that step change. It is easy for us to pass legislation without fully considering the steps necessary to create the new commons associations. It is relatively easy to see how large commons could be managed this way, but many of our commons are small and fragmented pieces of land and the new sort of association does not fit so easily there. There has been talk of joining up these pieces of common land, perhaps on a county basis, but unless there is real commitment from the people involved in those land holdings, that may be difficult to achieve. The issue requires further thought and consideration.

Assuming that support and finance for the new commons associations is available, one of the key issues to consider, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) has already said, is who should be on them. Should it just be the commoners, or are there other bodies that can bring expertise to the association—for example, the National Trust and the national parks have got a lot of resources? If we are offering finance and support, we must bear in mind the need to deliver wider public goods and, possibly, to involve other stakeholders in the association.

I assume that the term, "member", in clause 30 includes all registered commoners. If a new association is set up, it seems to me that all commoners with grazing rights should be part of it. The Minister has already alluded to the provision in clause 30 on elections to the association, and perhaps he will bring us up to speed with the thinking on what membership of an association means either in his reply or in Committee. He will also be aware of the suggestion that statutory commons associations might better be termed statutory commons committees in order to distinguish them from existing bodies.

This is a good Bill, but it could be improved and strengthened. I accept that it should be possible to deregister commons, but I am concerned about the provision in clause 16 that it may not be necessary to exchange comparative land for commons of less than 200 sq m. Many commons are small, and, they will be eaten away piecemeal unless we are careful. Again, I look forward to the debate on replacing deregistered common land on small commons.

As the Minister has said, clause 45 deals with the powers of local authorities, which are permissive powers rather than duties. There has been some discussion in the Chamber this evening whether local authorities have got the resources to pursue such matters, and I suspect that issues connected with common land will be relatively low on the agenda for many hard-pressed local authorities. Some commons have no record of ownership, and there is a strong case to argue, as the royal commission has done, that local authorities should have the power to have that land vested in them, so that they can make the necessary improvements.

A survey of commons has been undertaken in my area, Nottinghamshire, and it found that many of them are fragmented and piecemeal. Of the 74 commons surveyed, 11 are totally encroached upon, eight are partially encroached upon and seven are neglected, which reinforces the case for local authorities to take common land, to have it vested in them and to improve it.

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

My hon. Friend has discussed the wonderful notion of devolution to the appropriate authority, which surely includes a role for parish and town councils rather than district and country councils. Does he agree that parish and town councils are likely to have the greatest interest vested in them, because such matters are germane to their immediate localities?

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

I certainly agree with that. I believe that the local environment is extremely important to local people and that the more we can localise decision making around relatively small pieces of land, the more issues can be identified and resolved. I very much look forward to town and parish councils having greater responsibilities and powers.

I want to return to a matter on which I intervened on the Minister earlier—the cut-off date of 28 June 2005 for unlawful works. I am delighted to be told that that does not apply to local authorities. However, I know from direct experience that large areas of land where the public have a right to roam freely under the CROW Act are fenced off. I seek assurances that the 28 June cut-off date will not prevent action on that. It would be a travesty if the monumental piece of legislation that delivered the right to roam were to be frustrated.

On making an application to a county court as regards obstruction, I am not entirely clear what powers the court will have. I presume that if the order is not complied with, there can be a reapplication for a breach. Under rights of way legislation, magistrates courts have the power to fine. Highways authorities now have the opportunity to come and remove obstructions. What are the powers of the county court if unlawful restrictions are not removed?

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

I think that I can help the hon. Gentleman. A court would have an inherent power to apply a fine and/or to imprison for a breach of its own order.

Paddy Tipping (Labour, Sherwood)

I am grateful for that advice and look forward to the Minister making the Government's position clearer.

I am conscious that I have highlighted a whole range of aspects of the Bill that can be strengthened and improved, but I want to reinforce the fact that it is a good piece of legislation that builds on the royal commission's work, with registration, access, and now biodiversity.

There is a view in the countryside that the countryside should never change—that it should be preserved in aspic. That cannot be right. The countryside needs to change to survive. A changing, working countryside is a healthy countryside. I am pleased that the Bill is a piece of revising legislation that will enable change to take place. What is important for the countryside is not that change should take place, but the scope, scale and timetable of that change.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

At this stage in a debate on agricultural matters, I usually draw the House's attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests. On this occasion, I do not believe that I have an interest to declare. Having scrutinised the register of common rights, I can find no mention of the dominant tenement that I occupy. I therefore presume that I have no common rights—nor, as I understand it, am I likely to be able to acquire new common rights under the Bill.

Commons are a relic of the old manorial system of land tenure. It is not surprising that it is a complex subject, because the history goes back a very long way and people have huge attachment to their common rights and to any commons on which they exercise them.

Liberal Democrats will support the Bill because we believe that town and village greens are important for the communities in which they are situated and provide them with opportunities to exercise and to enjoy pastimes. Unfortunately, such greens are often encroached upon. We welcome the powers in the Bill to ensure that that does not continue. We recognise the importance of commons, particularly to agriculture and to remote farming communities whose common rights are the backbone of their business. Without those rights, the business would often not survive. Commoners are fiercely possessive of their rights and their commons, and know them well. In many families those rights go back generations and the attachment is great.

Because of the huge size of commons, many of the activities that take place there are co-operative. Farmers come together to gather sheep or to shepherd, which builds up a feeling of community and togetherness. In Wales, as I am sure the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) will agree, the Welsh language is an important part of those activities and contributes to the feeling of being Welsh and being part of the agricultural community.

It has been pointed out that commons represent a not insignificant amount of land in both England and Wales—about 3 per cent. in England and 8 per cent. in Wales. It is important for us to understand how that land is to be managed and how it can be best organised for the benefit of the people who have rights and ownership. Of the 540,000 hectares of common land in England and Wales, almost 70,000 hectares are situated in Brecon and Radnorshire, so in my constituency I have about 12 per cent. of all the common land in England and Wales.

When I spent an interesting couple of years as chairman of the Brecon Beacons national park, I got to know commoners and their common land well. One issue that is often raised is overgrazing. I know areas where overgrazing takes place, but it is not to the benefit of anybody. It is not beneficial to farmers, whose stock does not flourish, or to biodiversity, to the appearance of the landscape or to the people who want to enjoy it for recreational purposes. A far bigger danger will be undergrazing, particularly as a result of the reform of the common agricultural policy. I hope that one outcome of the Bill will be the development of management techniques to overcome undergrazing, which threatens our common land. Common land is important for agriculture, recreation, nature conservation, landscape and archaeology. The Bill provides a way forward for management plans to protect all those aspects.

There are one or two omissions from the Bill. We are disappointed that the commons commissioners are abolished by the Bill. They did excellent work following the Commons Registration Act 1965, and although there has been criticism of that Act and of some of the inaccuracies and associated difficulties, much good work was done and the commissioners became proficient and knowledgeable about commons and the related legislation.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman's comments and I appeared many times in tribunals. The main flaw of the 1965 Act is that, when mistakes were made, it was a devil of a job to rectify them without, for example, an application to the High Court, which was beyond most people's means.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

Indeed. As the hon. Gentleman says, the main difficulty was to rectify mistakes. That was a complaint not about the commissioners, who were implementing the legislation, but about the legislation itself. The Bill will ensure that some matters, such as severance, attachment, creation and variation, can be addressed by commons registration authorities. I am not clear how those issues will be determined, mostly by county councils, but in some cases by district councils, and in Wales by unitary authorities. Does the Minister anticipate that decisions will be taken by officers of the authority or by elected members, or will there always have to be an independent inquiry to determine applications, to give both applicants and objectors confidence that the process is conducted in an entirely appropriate manner?

If there are to be numerous local inquiries, we will need a body of people who have the necessary commitment and expertise to decide those matters. When statutory commons associations are set up, the Bill provides that, if there is an objection, there should be a local inquiry. My noble Friends in the other place suggested the creation of commons inspectors for that purpose. It seems that there will be considerable work for them to do.

There is no reference in the Bill to the huge contribution that commons could make to food production. Last week, the Government's chief scientific adviser, David King, warned that an increase of 3° C in global temperature could mean that 400 million would go hungry. The present Government have been more cavalier in their disregard for food security than almost any British Government for the past 100 years. In the 1920s and 1930s, Governments believed that we could raid the global larder, so to speak, and buy food from wherever we wanted to satisfy our needs. That was confounded by the second world war and the destruction of shipping.

Town and village greens were dug up and turned into allotments in the "Dig for Victory" campaigns, and the commons were ploughed, especially in our area, where Llandefalle common and Hay Bluff were ploughed up to provide potatoes and corn for the country. In an emergency, that might have to happen again. Such activities took place under emergency powers during the war, and perhaps the Bill should provide for such a possibility in future.

We welcome the opportunity to rectify some mistakes that were made under the previous registration system, but we are concerned about the provisions for common land to be exchanged—for instance, when it is compulsorily purchased for road building. The land for which it is exchanged should be contiguous with the original common. Commoners often complain that the land for which it is exchanged is so remote from the existing common or is divided from the common by a fenced main road that it is of little use to the commoners for stock grazing.

The most important aspect of the Bill is the powers given to national authorities to set up statutory commons associations. We welcome that, because in many cases commons have been unable to make use of grants through environmental schemes, as it has not been possible to get the agreement of every commoner on that common. However, the Bill is unclear about who might initiate the formation of a statutory commons association. I presume that it could be the people with common rights, local authorities, national authorities or organisations with interests in conservation. Will the Minister state whom he believes will initiate the process? Given commoners' sensitivity, the method of electing commoners' representatives to the associations' management boards could be a difficult matter.

The Bill mentions elections. Would inactive graziers have the same rights as active graziers? If a dominant tenement was owned by a sole trader, would that constitute one vote? If it was owned by a partnership, would that constitute two votes? If one person had more than one dominant tenement on a common, would there be a vote for each dominant tenement? Would the size of the vote vary with that of the registration? For example, would someone who was registered for 100 sheep have fewer votes than someone who was registered for 5,000? The Minister would be well advised to resolve the matter before the Bill becomes law because establishing statutory commons associations could flounder on it.

If statutory commons associations have the power to order the management of commons, and it meant a reduction of commoners' rights in order to comply with a specific environmental scheme, that might be all right for commoners who agreed with entry into the scheme, but if an individual commoner did not agree, what would be the effect on his human rights of the reduction of his grazing rights without his agreement? The Bill does not mention that human rights aspect. Will the Minister comment on that?

We welcome the protection of village and town greens and commons. The repeal of the Law of Property Act 1925 is a good step forward. However, several commoners complain to me that planning authorities give planning permission for developments on commons without informing the applicants that they should have applied under the 1925 legislation. When planning authorities receive planning applications for a common, they should be required to inform the national authority, or possibly to put a condition precedent on the planning permission, if it is issued, requiring the applicant to make the proper application to the national authority. If the planning permission is granted, it could mean injustice for those who value the common or the green. It would be much better if the Bill included a process to ensure that applicants made a proper approach to the national authority.

I agree with the comments of the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) on requiring a person who is responsible for illegal developments on commons simply to take down or remove the development is an insufficient punishment. People should be deterred from taking illegal action by some sort of penalty, if appropriate. I bow to the legal knowledge of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy on that. The point has been made to me on several occasions.

The Bill is welcome but it has taken a long time to arrive. The 1965 Act gave us registration and we were told that the second tranche would quickly follow. It is 35 years late, but welcome, although much damage has been done.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

Forty-one years.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

I allowed six years to achieve the registration—I believed that that was a reasonable time. However, thirty-five years later, we have no way of ensuring that commons are managed properly. Much of the damage to the sites of special scientific interest has been done in that time.

Although we support the Bill, we shall make suggestions in Committee about ways in which it can be improved so that commoners can be engaged more fully and have the confidence that their interests will be taken into account and that the commons that they have loved and on which they have worked for so long will not be taken over by somebody with a different vision from theirs. In most cases—I would say 90 per cent.—the commoners' interests encompass not only agriculture but conservation. We want to encourage sensible commoners who are committed to that work to have the opportunity to do it.

Paul Truswell (Labour, Pudsey)

I appreciate that Second Reading debates are supposed to take a panoramic view of proposed legislation, and I shall therefore begin by saying that I welcome all the Bill's provisions.

However, I make no apology for now becoming more specific and parochial. I want to examine whether the Bill will assist with town green applications that have already been submitted, as well as those to be made in future. I shall concentrate on an application for an area called Yeadon Banks in my constituency. If applications such as the Yeadon Banks proposal for registration are successful, they will benefit from the range of measures in the Bill.

Yeadon Banks comprises three fields in the town of Yeadon in my constituency. Leeds city council owns two and the other is in private ownership. Local people greatly value the area, for the reasons that other hon. Members have cited when considering commons. Until the 1990s the whole of Yeadon Banks was in the green belt. Then came the Conservative Government's lengthy, byzantine and expensive unitary development plan process. There was no problem with the two city council-owned fields remaining in the green belt. However, at the public inquiry into the unitary development plan, the owners of the private field successfully appealed against their field remaining in the green belt. It therefore became a protected area of search. That meant that the field would be reconsidered for possible housing development when the UDP came up for review.

The review took place from the end of 2004 to early 2005. The owners of the field were unsuccessful in their appeal to have the land designated for housing, so it remained a protected area of search. Its future is therefore uncertain. The people of Yeadon want to retain that cherished area of green space. The idea that it should be buried under bricks and mortar for the simple pursuit of profit by developers is repugnant to them. Is it such a bad thing for communities, such as Yeadon in my constituency, to attempt to use the registration process to protect a valuable green jewel from the developers' bulldozers? That is the background to the application.

After the original removal of the land from the green belt, local residents and I explored the possibility of getting the whole of Yeadon Banks—all three fields—designated as a town green. It appeared to fulfil the criteria. It had been used for generations—indeed, throughout living memory—for various relevant recreational purposes. No one can remember any "Keep Out" signs or other restrictions on public access. No one had been challenged or given express permission to use the area. Local people had used it, to all intents and purposes, as of right, without force, without secrecy and without permission—to cite the legal jargon.

I have worked closely with local residents on this issue, and following several well-attended public meetings we formed a community group called Keep Yeadon Banks Green—or KEYBAG, as it came to be known. With assistance from the Open Spaces Society, and in particular its esteemed local legal adviser, Jerry Pearlman, we began to put together an application for designation.

At this point, I must pay tribute to the chair of KEYBAG, Doug Jones. He has been tireless in his work, and played a huge role in collecting statements of evidence from residents, drawing up maps and filling in application forms. He has done all this while caring for his seriously ill wife and suffering from a protracted period of ill health himself. He is truly a local hero. This is relevant not because I want to eulogise Doug, but because I want to touch on some of the points that have already been raised in the debate. The work involved in the application has fallen on a few volunteers, and it is much more time-consuming than anyone might assume, especially if significant numbers of statements of evidence need to be collected in order to put forward the most cogent possible application for designation.

There are immense legal complexities involved. They are not quite beyond the lay person, but they are incredibly arcane and we have needed time and assistance to get to grips with them. For that reason, among others, I would ask my hon. Friend the Minister to reject the advice of those who seek to restrict the limits relating to land being closed off to the community and applications being submitted. That is the other side of the coin to that described by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) and by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice).

Eventually, in July 2004, Doug and I had the pleasure of presenting our application to the council. We had no illusions about the difficulties involved. We realised that many applications fail, for any number of reasons. However, we did not expect our application to run aground as a result of the so-called Trap Grounds Appeal Court judgment of February 2005. That judgment effectively gives landowners an absolute block on applications for town greens. All they have to do is erect fences and "Keep Out" signs between the date of the application being submitted and the day on which the case is heard, as has been done on Yeadon Banks and in many other locations throughout the country. Under the Trap Grounds judgment, terminating access in that way before an application is heard automatically defeats it. That is obviously nonsense, and is clearly completely contrary to the intention of the Commons Registration Act 1965.

The community was devastated by that action by the landowners. I would not go so far as to say that the residents of Yeadon took to the streets, but many were moved to demonstrate in palpable terms what they thought of the landowners, the fences and the "Keep Out" signs. It felt a bit like the local team getting to the cup final, only to turn up at the ground and find that the gates had been locked and that someone had put up "Keep Out" signs and threatened that if the players insisted on playing the game, victory would be awarded to the other side. This is why clause 15 is so welcome to so many communities throughout the country, not just to those living in the vicinity of Yeadon Banks. It will not make applications any stronger, but it will give applicants something approaching a level playing field, and the ability to have the evidence properly weighed.

I am delighted that the Government have taken this initiative. They could have waited for the outcome of the appeal to the Lords on the Trap Grounds case that was heard at the end of last month. They could also have considered making regulations under the existing legislation. However, they have seized the issue and recognised the legal loophole—the black hole, as I would call it—and are tackling the matter with primary legislation that I hope will restore the status quo.

I realise that my hon. Friend the Minister cannot comment on individual applications, for a whole host of reasons. My purpose is simply to flag up the issue of applications that were left in limbo by the Trap Grounds judgment, including that involving Yeadon Banks. There are a number of scenarios for applications in that state of limbo. Rather than rehearsing them now, as my hon. Friend has not had an adequate opportunity to seek advice that would enable him to respond in a considered way, I should like to meet him and his officials at the earliest opportunity to discuss them. I would welcome a commitment from him that he is prepared to do that.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

I should like to say to the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) that one of the problems involved in using the town green method of trying to obstruct or prevent a development on a particular site is that more and more landowners who have allowed a certain amount of informal use of a piece of waste land will be far more reluctant to do so. One of the reasons why we have a planning process is precisely to deal with such situations. I appreciate that he has a problem in his constituency—we all have problems from time to time—but he should be very careful about encouraging people to use the town green clause, as it were, as a way of blocking a planning development. In the north, such developments often involve much-needed social housing.

Paul Truswell (Labour, Pudsey)

The hon. Gentleman uses loaded words such as "obstruct", but the people of Yeadon Banks and their counterparts up and down the country would not recognise that concept. They would use the word "protect", because they are trying to protect a facility, an open space, that people have been using for generations.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. No doubt his constituents will read about his remarks in their local paper with great interest.

The Bill has proceeded through the other place, including its Committee stage there, to this House with a great deal of consensus. The Minister has been very willing to listen to all our remarks as he deals with this nightmarishly complex piece of legislation. It is sad, therefore, that having gone through all this, we are now faced with an outrageous programme motion. We know perfectly well that some amendments will need to be tabled in Committee. How on earth can the Committee deal with these complex matters by Thursday 27 April? That is an outrageous abuse of the programming system.

Before the programming system was introduced, the Opposition had the weapon of delay to wring concessions from the Government. This Bill would have provided a wonderful opportunity to prolong debate to win a number of concessions. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), who is sitting on our Front Bench, was, in his day, a great master of speaking long and hard on certain issues in order to get concessions out of the Government. Given the provisions of the Bill, we could have spent at least an hour on turbary, a further hour on estovers and possibly even more on couchancy—although I am not sure whether my Norman French pronunciation is quite correct there. The Bill would have provided wonderful opportunities for delay, as well as for those who are interested in the arcane areas of common land law.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

I wonder why the hon. Gentleman has left out rights of pescary.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

That was remiss of me. That subject could also have taken up a fair amount of time in Committee. These are much-loved common rights that date back to the Norman conquest.

My hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) mentioned the first commons Act, which was passed in the reign of Edward I in 1285. That must be one of the oldest Acts of Parliament remaining on the statute book, and if this Bill passes into law it will abolish it, so I want to pay a passing tribute to that old piece of legislation. My hon. Friend was right to say that the problems in 1285 were very similar to those that exist today, with which the Bill is trying to deal. The Act of 1285 says that there was concern among those who owned the common land and put up hedges or dug ditches that

"some by Night, or at another Season, when they suppose not to be espied, do overthrow the Hedge or Dyke".

In those days, too, landowners were worried about vandalism to their property, and the Act was introduced, in part, to deal with that.

I hope that the Bill will be more successful than the previous legislation on these matters. There is no doubt that some of the unintended consequences that have flowed from previous legislation—not least the Law of Property Act 1922, which abolished the old feudal right of copyhold—are the reason why we are debating this Bill tonight. That was an important right, because it meant that all those with common rights over a piece of ground were listed in the manorial roll. They also had a copy of that manorial roll, which enabled people to know exactly who was entitled to what common rights. That was abolished, and considerable doubt has existed ever since about who owns particular rights in relation to particular commons.

As we have heard, the 1965 Act left a lot of doubt about the ownership of commons and common rights, and the amount of grazing rights that various commoners had. As a result of the 1965 Act, many rights that were unclear and had been more or less lost in the mists of time were hopelessly exaggerated, and many more farmers than were entitled to do so claimed the right to graze sheep on a piece of land. That is reflected now in the single farm payment, which is based on historic rights. If those historic rights were based on the wrong figures, either accidentally or deliberately, other farmers on the common might not get the payment to which they were entitled, and the money might go to another farmer who might not be entitled to it.

Despite what I have said, I welcome the Bill, as it will make a difference and clear up several anomalies, not least in my constituency. In one case in my constituency, somebody's drive was apparently listed as common land a number of years ago. In another, somebody had bought an existing house that apparently, unknown to anybody, was built on common land—at the time of the registration in 1965, no one noticed that so there was no appeal against it. Of course there was no way in which the couple living in that house could unlock themselves from the situation. I hope that the Bill will at least resolve that problem.

There is no doubt that there are many problems with commons. As my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said, the nature of those problems depends on where one comes from. In commons in the south of England, under-grazing has often been the problem. Having lived for many years in East Anglia, I know that some of its commons have become completely overgrown because nobody there grazes sheep any more, or cuts bracken for bedding. Commons in the north, however, such as some of the big north Pennines commons in my constituency, have been over-grazed. If one looks at the landscape, one sees that where there is a moor that is managed for grouse, a fence, and then a moor that is not managed for grouse, there is purple heather on one side of the fence and white grass on the other. That is a stark example of how over-grazing can cause deterioration in management. I do not know whether that will continue. We have not yet seen the full effects of the single farm payment, but now that subsidies are not production-driven, there seems to be a tendency towards under-grazing on some upland commons. People will take cattle off those upland commons, and grazing cattle and sheep is important in maintaining proper biodiversity.

The Minister should also address the management of commons in any amendments about erecting and taking down fences. One of the difficulties is that when many flocks were slaughtered during the foot and mouth epidemic in my constituency and other areas in the north, hefted flocks were destroyed—flocks that have lived on a particular piece of ground for generations. That ground has been repopulated with new sheep, which do not have the tradition of hefting. Those sheep wander all over the place.

For example, on Allendale common, one of the biggest commons in my constituency of well over 20 square miles, the commoners—or stintholders, as they are called—put up a 3 km fence to manage the movement of sheep better, because some individual sheep were travelling 20 or 30 miles from where they should have been. Farmers were driving up and down collecting odd sheep that had turned up as far away as Weardale over the border into Durham. They have now been told to take the fence down, as they did not have the correct permission to erect it on common land. That is an example of how unsympathetic officialdom can make life difficult for commoners.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) about access, the fact that there is a fence does not mean that there is not access. It simply means that people must go through a gate or climb over a stile. In view of the changing circumstances of management, fences should be allowed without the long protracted process of consent, which can cause considerable expense and waste a great deal of time. A more sympathetic form of management would make an important contribution.

In the handling of severance of common rights and the reallocation of rights, commons associations should have greater flexibility than the Bill allows them. In different scenarios on different commons, severance of rights can be important, but reallocation of rights should not necessarily be on the pro rata basis stipulated in the Bill. No doubt the Minister has read the explanatory memorandum on the subject.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

indicated assent.

Peter Atkinson (Conservative, Hexham)

Of course he has. The official who wrote the explanatory memorandum deserves credit, as it is a clear and interesting document. It gives an example of a piece of one farm being sold off for housing development—not on common land but where the owners had rights to graze on common land—which could have ended up, had the rights been halved, with one farmer having 50 per cent. of the grazing rights, and 50 individual house plots having the grazing right of, say, one sheep each. Of course those householders will never exercise that right, which will remove sheep from the area. If the commons association could intervene, it could award the 50 grazing units given to new householders to the farmer or other farmers who had access to the common, so that the grazing regime could be properly maintained.

When I have inquired in the past what the balance should be between commoners, stintholders, farmers or other interests on the commons association, I have been told, as the Minister of State said earlier, that he had no scenario in mind for who should be in the majority. One can imagine a conflict between the owner of a grouse moor, the leaseholder of the shooting rights and those interested in nature conservation. Those issues can be difficult, and it is important that commons associations know exactly where the priorities lie. The composition of commons associations is a recipe for considerable conflict of interest.

I want to reinforce the concerns expressed by the National Trust, because an important point of principle arises. I understand that many commons are subject to different and various Acts of Parliament, and that we need to be able to change those without the scrutiny of the House. However, the National Trust owns a huge amount of common land—about 10 per cent. of the total in England and Wales—and for the National Trust Act 1971 to be amended by regulation in relation to commons associations is wrong. The National Trust Act should not be changed without proper scrutiny by the House.

I am sad to end on the sour note that there will not be proper time to debate the Bill in Committee. Apart from that, however, I welcome the Bill, and I am grateful to the Minister for listening to representations previously made to him.

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

I am delighted to take part in the debate on Second Reading. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) on bringing a slight note of disagreement to the proceedings. So far, there has been a rather mushy compromise, with a level of consensus that perhaps this place does well to achieve on occasions. I want to take a slightly more robust approach to the defence of our commons, which matter to me.

I am in the fortuitous position of having a large number of commons in my constituency. My hon. Friend the Minister of State mentioned one of them in his opening remarks—Minchinhampton, about which he spoke in glowing terms. He referred to biodiversity and people coming from Gloucester and Stroud to visit it. I thought that we would hear about the warm beer and the maids riding to church, so glowing were his comments.

Commons and common land are not exempt from controversy, however. I think that it behoves those of us who look at history to bear in mind the basis on which land has been allotted, and also the fact that, for what I consider to be dishonourable reasons, there has been an attempt to brush it under the carpet rather than defending it. It is deeply ironic that the other place spent five days in a Grand Committee and two days on Second Reading, Report and Third Reading—stages that we will no doubt handle as well—given that the predecessors of those peers stole common land from people. It is wonderful that the other place can spend all that time on detailed consideration, but some of us feel that the Commons, which contains the representatives of the commoners, is the place that should uphold the right of every person to have access to the land and use it purposefully.

David Taylor (Labour, North West Leicestershire)

rose—

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

I am sure that my hon. Friend has something enthusiastic to say.

David Taylor (Labour, North West Leicestershire)

Is it not somewhat ironic that those peers of bygone times have been replaced by peers of modern times who, instead of stealing land from the people, steal state schools from the people for a pittance of £2 million?

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order. The hon. Gentleman might want to rethink what he has just said.

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

I will not go down that path, Madam Deputy Speaker, although I am sure it would be interesting. I will, however, take my hon. Friend back to the age of the Diggers and the Levellers. The Diggers in particular fought to maintain common land. In those days, in the mid-17th century, three fifths of land was common land; now the proportion is 3 per cent. The remaining land has gone somewhere. In fact, it has gone into private ownership—and 80 per cent. of the 3 per cent. is now privately owned. We are hardly talking about the legacy that many of us would like to see, involving rights of access and use. The maintaining and enhancing of democratic accountability has not been a great success story.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

Although I supported the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, I saw no evidence that access to common land had ever been denied. I understood that people had de facto access, even if they did not have legal access. I tried to explain to farmers that people would not get off their sofas and stop watching television just to walk on common land because they had been given the legal right to do so.

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I am merely saying that there should be more common land, because by right that land is common. We have found numerous ways of taking it away from people in the past. I see the Bill as an opportunity to rebalance the way in which we can grant not just access but rights in perpetuity, so that people can use the land meaningfully.

I will not dwell on history for too long, but those who do not wish to consider the mid-17th century should refer to the late 19th century. Those of us who know a bit about rural socialism will be aware that the Clarion group encouraged people to cycle out of the urban centres. People would often go to the commons, because the land was available to them. More recently, there was the great Kinder Scout trespass. That was all about what I would like to see: not a division between town and countryside, but the nexus that really exists. As many earlier generations were driven from the countryside, people want to revisit it now. They want to know that they have rights to do that, and that those rights are enshrined in statute. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) spoke of the voluntary aspect—the way in which we British tend to compromise and to be tolerant, but tolerance goes only so far on occasion. We see dreadful legal disputes over who owns what, and who has the right of access.

The Bill provides valuable opportunities for us to return to some of the issues that I have raised. I am fortunate in that my constituency contains not just Minchinhampton common, but Selsley, Edge, Amberley, Painswick and Stinchcombe commons. It used to contain a common called Eastcombe, but that is now a major housing estate. I met a wonderful lady, whose name escapes me for the moment, who spent many years investigating what had happened to that common. The developers continued to develop it without giving a second thought to the nature of the land, and there was no recourse for anyone else. Those who think that such land is sacrosanct and cannot be taken away are somewhat naive.

In general this is a good Bill, but I want to draw attention to some of the dividing lines. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) and by the Minister, this is the third part of the tripod. We had the legs in the form of the CROW Act and the seat in the form of the NERC Bill. This Bill bolts the tripod together: without statutory underpinning of the way in which commons, and village greens in particular, are allowed to operate, the whole system is meaningless.

It is welcome that the new organisation, Natural England, will undertake many of the detailed responsibilities. I hope that it will indeed be a new organisation, rather than a rebadged version of English Nature, and that it will do genuinely interesting things. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood pointed out, the requirements for biodiversity and protection of SSSIs are absolute commitments made by the Government. If the Government do not meet those commitments, the Opposition or anyone else will have every right to beat the Government. They have set themselves onerous tasks, but they must perform those tasks.

It is a pity that the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay) is not present today, because he has done sterling work. At the time of the NERC Bill, he raised the question of easements. It just happens that for some years Minchinhampton has been a source of great disagreement between those who, for what they would term a long period, have had vehicular access to the common and across it, and the National Trust, which is responsible for management of the common. I hope that the NERC Bill has lain to rest the dreadful issue of easements. It is a dreadful issue because I wish I understood it. It is very complicated, and whenever people explain it to me it seems to change and become even more complicated and confrontational. Nevertheless, I hope that it has been laid to rest. I hope that it is clear that age-old rights will be maintained, and will not be removed for apparently unfair, money-raising reasons.

As for the question of maintenance, we could talk about over-grazing and under-grazing, but I am more interested in how we can make common land fit for purpose. Everyone accepts that common land must be managed: it does not manage itself, which is why the National Trust has taken responsibility for many commons. It has become the managing agent, although there are controversial issues relating to the curtailment of some of its responsibilities in the Bill. I should like maintenance and management to be appropriate to the time in which we live. As some legislation demonstrates, some people wish further to denude common ownership by putting all land into some form of private ownership. I should like to see an opening up, with responsibility given to representative bodies in areas where commons exist—usually parish and town councils.

I link that directly to the question of the commons associations. Whether we call the bodies commons associations or commons councils, I want them to be genuinely democratic, and that will be one of the tests for the Government. I want those who are responsible for commons to have a voice in the way in which their management is taken forward. That will not be easy because we must consider not only agricultural interests, but golf clubs, cricket clubs and hand gliding clubs, all of which use common land in my area alone. Such clubs might have a view, so they might wish to have a voice. The way in which they are incorporated in the process will be a test. Given that the Minister said that the arrangements would be ad hoc, we will have to work that out. Perhaps there will be new localism in action, but someone will have to give the matter serious thought.

I would not want to exclude in any way the political voice of democratically elected representatives. Those people are important because they can have an overview and examine the way in which things should be done in a wide sphere, unlike people with a self-interest, or who wish to pursue a specific interest.

David Taylor (Labour, North West Leicestershire)

Is it not possible that trying to widen the scope of those whose views must be sought might run directly contrary to the underpinning aspiration of part 3 of streamlining the consent system on works and fencing? Many landowning conservation organisations such as the Woodland Trust have entirely admirable objectives that should be supported, but have been frustrated time and again when trying to carry out work that is entirely consistent with the Government's aims on the sustainable management of common areas. Would not those organisations find that their work was impeded if the democratic group to which my hon. Friend refers was widened?

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

I agree. That is why we need a properly democratically accountable body that can look out for such interests. The changing nature of common land throughout history has not yet been brought out in the debate. Some such land could be reforested, so it is important that those who know something about that form part of a decision-making process to protect an area. My hon. Friend's point is entirely correct and laudable and I hope that the Minister will respond to it in due course.

Given that we are talking about the new agriculture and will, perhaps, re-extensify some parts of our agricultural land because we do not need the same intensity, we must understand the opportunities that can be created for the use of common land. I hope that that will be examined seriously when considering the single farm payment. We could, dare I say, see action through real joined-up thinking and joined-up government. We could consider not just the use of the land, but who uses it. A community agriculture group in my constituency wishes to develop, on a semi-voluntary basis, new forms of organic agriculture. It is always looking for land to take on, so why should it be excluded from accessing such land that could be made available? The Government should make smart moves to be inclusive and examine the way in which common land is made available to those who can use it purposefully. Those people would be accountable and could introduce new forms of agriculture and use the grant system in the most beneficial way. If common land is to be cultivated, I hope that we can think creatively about using it in such a way. I accept that we wish to protect many parts of common land and use them in a way that is as minimalist as possible, but sometimes we will want to maximise the use of land for agriculture and employment.

I hope that I speak for others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood, when I tell the Minister that I hope that in the time that we will have in Committee, which will not be great, we will be able to come up with an amendment that sets out a proactive approach on village greens. I heard what my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) said, and the Bill would be the right place for such a provision, so I hope that the Minister will think about the proposal positively. The existing process is long-winded, negative and entirely against communities that wish not only to find a piece of land, but genuinely to protect land that should be a village green—land that is a village green in all but name and statute. Why can we not use the Bill as a way to consolidate the process? We do not want a rash of new applications, but the matter is important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey said when he spoke lyrically about his area, there is a danger that people will take the opportunity to shut down the right and proper use of such land.

I hope that we will examine carefully several of the proposals made by the Open Spaces Society, which has altruistically done more than anyone to defend open land that is for common use. Several of the society's suggestions are controversial, but it is generally supportive of the Government's approach and says that that is long overdue. I hope that we will look at the suggestions purposefully and make the Bill a measure of which we can all feel a bit proud, even if some of us think that it is a bit late in coming and could have been even more radical.

Philip Dunne (Conservative, Ludlow)

I remind the House of my declaration of interests. I am a partner in a farming business that holds modest ownership rights, and slightly more substantial grazing rights, over common land. That means that I have some knowledge of which I speak.

I am pleased that there has been such consensus across the House, notwithstanding the remarks made by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). The debate is important because common land raises considerable concerns among many of our constituents who have historical rights that go back many generations. In the county of Shropshire, which I represent in part, there are more than 5,000 hectares of common land in 86 registered commons. The county council that monitors the commons anticipates that there is a substantially larger amount of unregistered land and is trying to pull together various interests. The Bill is designed to put right several of the deficiencies of the Commons Registration Act 1965.

I am extremely relieved that the Minister has decided that the most appropriate registration body is the local authority, rather than his Department. I say that for several reasons, not least of which is the performance of the Rural Payments Agency, which his Department supervises, on the mapping and registration of agricultural land throughout the country. With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, because it has some relevance to the debate, I will cite a letter that I received from the agency shortly before the recess—on 28 March. The letter was about the form that I was invited to complete for my 2006 single farm payment. It said:

"Your application form has been pre-populated with the number of entitlements that were notified to you on your un-validated entitlements statement."

It led me to think that there might be some data included on the form, but it was not until I got to the eighth page of zero information that I reached part D, which was on common land grazing rights. I was pleased to see that there was notification on the form that I was entitled to graze 43.3 cattle and 720 sheep on common land. As it happens, I cannot reconcile those figures with any of mine, which shows that the entire form is gobbledegook. It is a great relief that Shropshire county council will be responsible in future.

I have spoken to the registration officer, who has some concerns about taking on that onerous task, not least because of the resources that will be required to manage common land—in particular, the cost of installing digital mapping. I share his concerns about the potential for confusion and conflict between the Rural Payments Agency and the common land registrar in each local authority. I hope that they will be able to match up the two different systems. I urge the Minister to address in Committee how that will be done in practice, because few MPs and even fewer people outside the House have much confidence in the Government's management of IT projects.

I was relieved that the Minister confirmed that funding would be made available to the registration authorities. I hope that it will be sufficient to cope with the extra burden.

I wish to address three aspects of the Bill, which have been touched on already today. Concerns have been expressed about the definition of village greens and open spaces that is set out in clause 15. Several hon. Members have referred to the Trap Grounds case that is going through the other place—the decision is awaited—and I am pleased that the Bill will provide clarity for all those concerned to establish ownership of village greens. In common with other hon. Members who have spoken, I welcome that.

However, some concerns arise from the Government's changing views on the matter and I take slight issue with the comment made by the hon. Member for Stroud about the potentially conflicting rights of those seeking to obstruct or gain access to land, as opposed to those who have ownership rights over the land. The issue has been addressed throughout the long period of debate over common lands and I hope that the Government will consider introducing in Committee similar protections for those who have ownership rights, as laid out in section 31 of the Highways Act 1980.

There would be a precedent for such a move. In the discussions that took place during the public consultation in February 2000, Ministers recognised that such protection for landowners' interests would be appropriate. In particular, the "Common Land Policy Statement 2002", issued by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, stated, in relation to future legislation:

"There would, however, be a similar provision to that under Section 31 of the Highways Act 1980 concerning rights of way, so that a land owner could give notice that it is not his or her intention that the land should become a permanent town or village green".

That has been referred to in the other place in debates on the Bill over the past year. The concern is that by providing a mere notice in the relevant place, it could give rise to vexatious or frustrating action on the part of those who have ownership rights. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) effectively countered that argument by making the point that it could also prevent any new land from being opened up for public access, for fear that over time it would be turned into a formal village green, with all the implications that that would have for the landowners.

I have a particular, slightly unusual case in my constituency, which relates to land owned by a charitable trust set up by the Church. The land is known as Glebe land and it is in the village of Clun. It has been owned by the Church for centuries and people in the village have had full public access to it on a permissive basis for much of that time. However, it is now potentially subject to sale, and there is considerable scope for conflict between the public who use the land and the Church. Far be it from me to get in the middle of that battle, but the issue appears incapable of resolution other than through the result of the Trap Grounds case or if the Bill included a similar provision to section 31 of the Highways Act 1980, as I have just mentioned. I ask the Minister to consider that proposal in Committee. The Church has had many lands confiscated over many centuries, since Henry VIII started the process, and this is not the right time to deny its property rights.

Clause 27 addresses the role of commons associations and in particular their establishments. I have concerns that the drafting of clause 27(4) means that the appropriate national authority will have to be satisfied that substantial support exists for the making of an order for a commons association. I have examples in my constituency of existing commons associations that have a management agreement with English Nature. I met the Stiperstones Commoners Association last week, which looks after an area of nearly 1,000 acres, 700 of which are registered and 300 are unregistered. It has a management agreement with English Nature, under which it is essentially told what to do. The association has very little negotiating right on behalf of its three commons rights holders, who are small farmers in their own right. My concern is that if the appropriate national authority determines that an organisation should be set up with a dominant state entity as a party to it, that entity may call the shots, which may not necessarily be right. How will the national authority determine "substantial support" when there is a limited pool of existing rights holders? Will it be opened up to everybody who lives in the area surrounding the common? People will want to retain access rights to travel across the common, but they may not wish to exercise grazing rights.

Another example is the Long Mynd, a well known landmark in my constituency. I am told by English Nature that shortly after the 1965 Act, more than 26,000 people registered rights on that common, which comprises some 2,000 hectares. That was clearly a massive exaggeration of rights and I hope that the Bill will put that right.

There is no easy answer to these issues. The examples are so diverse, even in an area as similar as within a few miles of Shropshire hills.

David Drew (Labour, Stroud)

My problem is the distinction between grazing rights, whose holders will presumably be active members of whatever organisation manages the common, and more distant rights, such as that of access. The difficulty is achieving the balance between the two. For example, those holding grazing rights are seriously under-represented and they do not seem to wish to come forward. How can we resolve that?

Philip Dunne (Conservative, Ludlow)

It is very difficult to say what farming activity should take place in areas where it is no longer economically viable. It may be attractive to have an entity such as English Nature enter into management agreements in areas such as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. In the Stiperstones area, the graziers used to get what I would call proper payment from DEFRA's predecessor, the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. However, the payment that they receive now is about to make grazing in the area uneconomic, even though it is part of environmental support and so deserves reward.

My final point has to do with clause 31 and the management of common land, which I am not convinced is always best determined by a bureaucratic entity. Commoners in the Stiperstones area tell me that the land management practised by English Nature means that opportunities for grazing have fallen significantly over recent years, with the result that the land can no longer support the number of animals for which rights have existed for many decades. In part, that is a result of the management agreement entered into by English Nature, which does not consider grazing to be a priority. It has a different objective, and wants to create environmental attractions for walkers and those who pursue other leisure activities.

That gives rise to a conflict: whose rights should prevail? My fear is that small graziers, whose voice is relatively small, will be steamrollered by the bureaucrats. I hope that the registration process and the relevant management agreements will allow appeals to be mounted. So far, however, I have seen no evidence that such mechanisms will be included.

In conclusion, our agricultural sector, and the livestock industry in particular, faces difficult times. Our common lands cover large areas of some constituencies, and we must not set up a management system that weakens the possibility of a viable livestock industry in those areas. Any such system should encourage that industry.

Madeleine Moon (Labour, Bridgend)

As many speakers have said, this Bill is a historic piece of legislation, linking us with the Norman conquest of Britain and the manorial system. Village greens and commons are part of our historical and natural heritage, and are valued for reasons of agriculture, recreation, landscape and nature conservation.

There is a long history in this House of legislation relating to commons and village greens, but the Bill shows what happens when we fail to take account of the effect that measures can have once enacted. We need it to rectify the failures of the Commons Registration Act 1965, but we must ensure that any failures in this Bill do not take so long to put right.

The Bill's provenance is worth setting out in detail. An interdepartmental working group made recommendations in 1977 and the common land forum of 1984 reported in 1986. A consultation on the better management of common land in England and Wales led to the 2000 rural White Paper and the common land policy group set up by DEFRA and the Welsh Assembly in 2002 published a statement in 2003. All of that was needed to rectify failures in the 1965 Act.

Many speakers have identified those failures and the need to ensure that the Bill drives forward to achieving the Government's target of having 95 per cent. of SSSIs in England in a favourable condition by 2010. Common land covers 4 per cent. of land in England and 55 per cent. of commons are registered as SSSIs, but only half those sites meet their public service agreement targets.

In Wales, between 8 and 9 per cent. of land is common land: 45 per cent. of that total comes under the SSSI designation, but only 16 per cent. of those sites have management agreements. I questioned the Countryside Council for Wales and was told that the targets in the Wales environment strategy action plan to be released in May will be lower than their equivalents in England. Where 95 per cent. of SSSIs in England are set to be in a favourable condition by 2010, the target in Wales is to have 95 per cent. of SSSIs in favourable condition or in unfavourable recovery by that date.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

May I suggest an answer to that conundrum? Much land in England has fallen out of agricultural use, but the CAP system meant that, in Wales, an impetus was given to increasing stocking. That is the reason behind the problem that the hon. Lady has described.

Madeleine Moon (Labour, Bridgend)

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I remain concerned that, in Wales, the target is to have 100 per cent. of SSSIs in favourable condition only by 2026. The landscape of Wales is as important and valuable for biodiversity as England's. I do not want England to be ahead of Wales in the protection of anything, but especially not our national heritage. I am sure that he agrees with that. I hope that the relevant Ministers, in Wales and in England, will take part in close consultations and work side by side to protect our natural heritage. Biodiversity targets should apply across the UK and we must ensure that they are met.

I want to focus on a common in my constituency because it highlights the critical importance of commons in meeting biodiversity targets. Kenfig down was given to the local burgesses by Thomas le Dispenser in 1397, in compensation for land lost to sand encroachment. In the 1920s, Colonel H. Morrey Salmon, an amateur naturalist, established the Kenfig sand dunes as a wildlife resource of outstanding significance for its birds and plants. The rare fen orchid was especially important in that context.

Kenfig appeared in a list of 19 proposed British nature reserves that was produced in 1943. That shows that, even in the depths of war, we were planning for the future of nature reserves. In 1947, it was recommended that 1,500 acres should form a national nature reserve. Sadly, the Margam steel works was expanded soon afterwards and the population of two local villages, Pyle and Cornelli, grew. The increasing pressure from those communities meant that Kenfig did not become a nature reserve.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) spoke about the loss of common land. Kenfig did not get the protection that NNR status would have conferred, and the consequences were dire. In the 1950s, a pipeline was laid across the sand dunes to provide an emergency water supply from its 70-acre freshwater pool—the largest natural pool in Wales—for the Margam steel works. A large railway yard was built in the north-east of the site, and a road was built behind the dunes to enable the deep port at Port Talbot to be established.

With the spread of tourism, there were suggestions that the whole of the dunes would be flattened for a holiday village. It was, even then, the last extensive remaining part of the sand dune system that had previously stretched from the Ogmore river to the end of Gower. It was the only area not covered by housing, industrial sites or caravan parks and the Margam estate claimed the land. That led to an extensive court case between the trustees, who held the commoners' rights, and the estate. It was not settled until 1971. Fortunately, the settlement went in favour of the commoners and not the Margam estate. That enabled Colonel Salmon, supported by county Councillor Ted Davies, to fight for Kenfig to become a local nature reserve, which it did in 1978. It made it to national reserve status in 1989 and was designated a European site for nature conservation in 1995.It is worth noting that, since the establishment of the reserve, the water pipe has been removed and the haul road scarified, promoting the creation of a whole new habitat. Generations of people will have cause to thank Colonel Salmon and Councillor Davies.

Let me give an example of the importance that just one common in Wales has to biodiversity and hitting our important targets. Kenfig alone has 525 species of plant, 19 species of fern, 69 species of fungi, 509 species of moth, 24 species of butterfly, 16 species of dragon and damsel flies, six species of leech, 54 species of snail, 195 species of beetle, 950 species of fly—I was surprised to discover that—113 species of spider, and 77 species of bees and wasps. Some 250 species of birds visit the site.

Kenfig is one of 12 commons protected in Wales by local authorities, but it is the only nature reserve and European site of nature conservation funded and protected by a local authority. My local authority also manages Locks common, which is now a local nature reserve, on behalf of its landowner, and the Green. Both are areas of access and public open space and commons stretching along the sea front, and they are much valued by visitors and residents. I am concerned that small, new unitary authorities will not have the capacity to take on such tasks and responsibilities.

A recent study of just six SSSIs in Wales, carried out by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, found that only one was in a favourable condition. Problems were caused, as several speakers have said, by both undergrazing and overgrazing. Lack of fencing, lack of graziers, off-road 4x4s and motorbikes, vandalism, arson and conflicts of interest between graziers, owners and commoners were common. Almost all common land is semi-natural habitat and should be delivering on biodiversity targets if the habitat is in a favourable condition, but that requires funding and investment.

Some issues will be addressed by the Bill, particularly through the ability to form commons associations with powers to regulate grazing and some other agricultural activities and to access agri-environment schemes. The capacity for the Countryside Council for Wales and for Natural England to acquire severed rights of grazing by voluntary sale will assist in moving towards the 2010 target of halting biodiversity loss.

I would welcome some clarification of how the Minister sees the Bill operating. Areas currently have management agreements between local authorities and commoners, involving voluntary organisations such as the excellent Glamorgan wildlife trust, in my constituency, which manages a number of commons across south Wales in partnership with commoners and landowners. How will they relate to the new commoners associations? Will their current terms of reference come into play? Or if we are to have regionally based commoners associations, will they be incorporated into the new associations? There is some lack of clarity.

I am particularly pleased that there will be new money for local authorities to take on responsibility for the management of registrations. But how will commoners associations be funded, particularly for new works that will be needed, such as cattle grids, fencing and equipment? Will new money be provided? Kenfig is funded by my local authority and the CCW; it has five staff, but no funds to allow it to buy the new tractor, mower and Land Rover essential to carrying out its tasks. If that is Kenfig's experience as a statutory designated site, how will commons with no statutory protection finance themselves and move forward to tackle the damage taking place because of the neglect of some of our commons?

There will be cost implications for local authorities in supporting the establishment of commoners associations and public inquiries. Will there be financial support for local authorities if they are brought into involvement when the associations are developed and introduced into Wales?

There is some indication that there may be some conflict and cross-over of responsibilities between commoners associations and local access forums. There is potential for duplication in some areas of responsibility. Local access forums do not have responsibility to have regard to the public interest in relation to biodiversity, but we may find that officers with responsibility for commoners associations may well also be involved in local access forums. There seems to be an opportunity to look at how we marry some of those responsibilities so that we do not have officers and land managers having to attend two meetings rather than one.

It will be important for commoners association meetings to be held in public. A wide range of people have an interest in the management of commons and a previous speaker referred to the importance of those with grazing rights being heard. There may also be people who have an interest in the natural history of sites who would wish to be heard and to be able to listen to debates and speak with members of the commoners associations.

I have some concerns about the use of "may" in clause 45(2)(a), which deals with local authority intervention powers. It says a

"local authority may . . . take any steps to protect the land against unlawful interference",

but to give full protection to common land where there is no registered owner, the intervention powers should be strengthened to a requirement that a local authority either must or shall take steps to protect the land from unlawful interference. Alternatively, has the Minister looked into the local commons association having that power and responsibility?

The requirement to take action could be particularly relevant in an area of common land in my constituency where there are problems with off-road biking and the use of 4x4 vehicles. Powers might be taken under clause 31 which deals with the functions of commons associations. I would certainly like additional powers to tackle such problems, which affect a number of commons in Wales.

The drive to establish commons associations will be led in Wales by the Welsh Assembly Government and in England by the Secretary of State. It would be helpful to consider the common land stakeholders working group report of 2003, which called for the establishment of regional advisory bodies to advise the statutory authority on whether to confirm regulations put forward by commons associations and whether reserve powers would be justified. The report also called for a non-statutory advisory body to promote good practice and provide a medium for communication between the Government and those with an interest in common land.

I would welcome the Minister's comments on whether such bodies will be created and whether he agrees that the responsibilities would best be placed with Natural England and the Countryside Council for Wales. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds carried out a brief survey in Wales and it was felt that there was a need for an independent body to which commoners could go for advice and information. That will be critical to help commons associations to make progress.

Commons are much loved and valued in Britain where, as the Minister rightly said, too many people believe that the title means that they are owned by the public and managed for the public good. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 brought public access to commons and the Bill will bring management which includes the public interest. It is not the solution to all the problems of commons. We cannot draw a line under the issue—to do so in legislation whose history stretches back to the Norman conquest would be nonsense. What will be needed to halt biodiversity loss is a proactive approach to implementing the legislation, and funding to ensure that its effects are positive.

I hope that the streamlining of consent systems for works on commons will remove casual abuses such as one that occurred at Kenfig during the recess, when Network Rail drove a tractor and pick-up vans over the reserve to carry out work on a fence without the agreement of the trustees, the local authority, the reserve or the CCW. Such casual abuses will not end, but new powers, new information and new bodies will have the responsibility to tackle what has been rightly described as the tragedy of the commons.

Given the debacle of the 40-year gap between the previous legislation and the Bill, I urge the Minister to consider a requirement for an assessment of progress after five years so that we have an analysis of the improvements brought by the Bill and of its impact. After 10 years, there could be a further analysis of the effectiveness of the Bill's operation, so that we do not wait a further 40 years to rectify our mistakes but can start to move forward.

We should not be too disheartened by the 40-year gap, however. When I was exploring the 1965 Act to see what had gone wrong and what might have led us astray, I discovered that in the same year the House discussed smoking and the banning of cigarette advertising on television. It took us 40 years to move forward on that. There were concerns about the inappropriate award of honours because the Beatles had been given OBEs. We can move forward and we can be proactive, but we need to keep track of the legislation. We need to review it and we need to know that Ministers will make sure that we do not wait 40 years before rectifying any further mistakes.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

Several speakers have referred to consensus across the House. There is indeed a large degree of consensus—so much so that sometimes it is almost disturbing. However, like the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) who spoke very well, I shall break the consensus slightly, although only to note that after 41 years we should be allowed a reasonable time to discuss the amendments. When the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment introduced the Bill—reasonably and properly, as one would expect of him—he concluded that there would be many amendments to discuss in Committee. Despite the large consensus on much of the Bill—100 per cent. on the need for a change in the law—I can see no justification for concluding its proceedings by next Thursday. I say that with complete sincerity, because although there was consensus in the other place, their lordships were given a considerable amount of time to discuss this important Bill.

As was said earlier, there are more than 550 hectares of common land in England and Wales whose importance, pro rata, to the agricultural community is greater in Wales and in the north and west of England than in the south-east where much land has fallen out of agricultural use. The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) mentioned rights of turbary. Those are not ancient rights that have fallen off the scale. I have neighbours who exercise rights of turbary on the mountain behind the village where I live. Another neighbour has piscary rights at a mountain lake in my community—[Interruption.] I am pleased that the hon. Member for Stroud smiles at that. Such rights still exist, and it is important to give them as much consideration as biodiversity, to which the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) referred. There is no doubt that that is important but many other interests need to be catered for under the Bill.

It was said earlier that there was consensus that the 1965 Act was not as good as it might have been, and indeed that it was flawed from the beginning. It was certainly a cumbersome piece of legislation, which was often bewildering to the agricultural community and lawyers alike. On behalf of farmers in north and mid-Wales, I appeared many times before Her Majesty's commons commissioners and it was felt overwhelmingly that the procedure was unnecessarily complicated, even when rights or ownership registrations were uncontested. In contested hearings the proceedings could, and in my experience did, last for a week or longer, so the procedure was very expensive indeed. In that regard, the Act certainly was flawed from the beginning.

Even worse, when mistakes were made, wrong registrations were usually rectified by an application to the High Court. That, too, meant huge delays, uncertainty and further worries about costs. I know of individuals who found those considerations so off-putting that they did not proceed with their applications. I hope that will be put right under the Bill.

One example involves an enclosed piece of common land fairly high up the mountain in Merionethshire. The land has always been enclosed and used by one farm alone. No one else has used the rights, but unfortunately two other people have registered rights to graze. They cannot use the rights, because they cannot get to the land—that would involve crossing the dominant tenement in any event—but if that ground is sold, there will be huge complication. Any means of rectifying such problems has been beyond people locally, and I had hoped that the Bill would assist in that regard, but I do not think that it does. If I am fortunate—or perhaps unfortunate—enough to be selected to serve on the Standing Committee, I shall develop the argument slightly and address it with the Minister in Committee.

On my reading of clause 19, it appears that the process for amending mistaken entries is far simpler and less expensive—of course, I welcome that—but, unfortunately, I do not think that previously incorrect registrations under the 1965 Act will be capable of review under the Bill. If I am wrong, I will gladly stand corrected. I am led to believe that that is the case because of some human rights concerns, but one must consider the human rights of those against whom adverse and incorrect registrations have been made. I hope that we can discuss that point further in due course.

If there is no means of addressing patently wrong registrations, the Bill would appear to be a lost opportunity, because that aspect is probably the greatest and most obvious shortcoming of the 1965 Act. In large part, that was responsible for over-grazing for many years. The Country Land and Business Association points out in its helpful briefing what happens if:

"where registered rights have been overstated. This unfairness has been accentuated by the recent CAP reform and the allocation of SPS entitlements to graziers based on their registered rights with the prospects that landowners, who may also be active graziers, possibly being excluded from any entitlement where there are more rights registered than a common can physically support."

At this juncture, it would be as well to remind ourselves of the vital nature of grazing rights to agriculture. Very often, common land borders on a farm's ffridd or in-bye land and forms an integral part of the whole farming enterprise. As the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) said, many farms would not be viable without such rights. Many upland sheep farms in Wales simply would not exist without such rights on common land. Therefore this is not an esoteric subject, of peripheral interest to the agricultural community. It is vital to that community, so it is also vital to people in the locality who use commons recreationally, and to biodiversity.

There are many aspects to the Bill, and it does a reasonable job in addressing some of those balancing acts; but as this is a Second Reading debate, I shall merely comment on three or four ways in which the Bill should be improved. I note that during the Bill's passage through the other place, there were some interesting and highly informed debates that culminated in several useful amendments to the Bill.

The first issue that I should like to flag up—I shall not do so at great length because this has been referred to already—is the severance of grazing rights from the farms and holding to which they are attached. That came about as an unintended consequence of a decision in a leading case. Under the 1965 Act, commoners seeking to register rights had to quantify the number of animals that they were entitled to graze. As the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) said, figures such as 70.3 cattle—whatever that means—have been used. In due course, those rights could be severed from the land itself.

I agree about the explanatory notes. They are refreshingly good, and very useful indeed; whoever is responsible, perhaps the whole team, can take all the credit for them. They refer to the leading case of Bettison v. Langton in 2001, in Appeal Cases 27. In effect, the House of Lords determined that as a consequence of the quantification required by the 1965 Act, the commoner was able to dispose of rights of common independently from the land to which they were attached—or, incidentally, to sell the land and retain the rights, which has also happened frequently. That is what is meant by severance, and it damages the whole framework to allow grazing rights to be transferred to someone who might have no contact whatever with the area, and who might even have no desire to co-operate with the other commoners in preserving the common good of the land, the environment and its use.

The general prohibition on severance in clause 9 is therefore welcome. However, that was amended in the other place, and the inclusion of an authorised severance was secured, whereby statutory commons associations can acquire rights by severance and their consent would be required for any transfer of severed rights to Natural England or the Countryside Council for Wales. That is appropriate, because no one wants to see over-grazing—but as the hon. Member for Bridgend said, no one wants to see under-grazing either, as it is equally damaging to the flora and fauna, and the environment generally. A proper balance has been achieved.

Under paragraph 3 of schedule 1, it will be possible by ministerial order or by order of the National Assembly for Wales to suspend the general prohibition on severance—in particular, where local circumstances dictate and there is strong local support and a good case for doing so. That may not be used very often, but it introduces some welcome flexibility into the equation.

Madeleine Moon (Labour, Bridgend)

I wish to advise the hon. Gentleman that Kenfig is a prime example of a place where grazing rights can be used effectively. The Countryside Council for Wales has taken on the grazing rights at Kenfig, where grazing should be increased, but it is an open common, and there are problems with fencing following the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. It would be wrong to suggest that the bodies responsible for improving biodiversity and habitat management would not also recognise the importance of grazing in carrying out those tasks, and would not seek to increase grazing where it was needed.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

I am very much heartened by what the hon. Lady says, but I know of examples in my locality where the converse is true, and such agri-environment agreements go too far in lessening the number of sheep carried on the mountains—but that may be by the by. None the less, I hear what she says, and I am pleased that that is so. I am sure that people who are aware of the agri-environment scene will realise that there is a need to keep a proper balance. For example, I was recently on a farm on the Berwyn mountains near Bala, where I live, and one of the problems there is that because of under-grazing, young gorse shoots are not being disposed of as they should be. That, in turn, has an effect on grouse. Of course, the whole thing is an ecosystem, so we must be aware of the need to graze responsibly, not only to do the best for the land, but to achieve the best return on the animals and generally to serve the three balancing acts to which I referred earlier. To that extent, I certainly agree with the hon. Lady.

I wish to refer briefly to management. We should find another name for the commons associations. That is a small point, but it might be an important one in avoiding confusion, and the Minister looks as though he is taking it on board. However, the point was made earlier, and I am sure that it can be discussed further in due course. There is good reason for doing so. Most commons already have graziers associations, and if it is the wish of those associations, they should be allowed and encouraged to take on the role of a commons association—people may call them what they will—with as few administrative obstacles as is humanly possible. Many relevant commons graziers associations wish there to be as few obstacles as possible so that a commons association can be responsible for more than one common, where it is proper for that to happen. That would be sensible in the circumstances.

Many of us believe that it is paramount that the main function of such an association is to protect the interests of all those whose livelihoods are reliant on the common rights. In particular, the non-business interests of those who have rights such as access should not take precedence over the interests of those whose incomes derive directly from the use of rights on the common. It is therefore essential that the majority of members of each association are drawn from the relevant business interests on the relevant commons. For example, the Farmers Union of Wales has mentioned a majority of 75 per cent.

We had quite a discussion earlier about the make-up of the associations. I do not know whether the document that I have in my hand, an example of a draft statutory instrument, has come to me surreptitiously. I hope that the Minister has seen it, otherwise it has come to me surreptitiously. [Interruption.] He is making me rather nervous. It is entitled "The West Barsetshire Commons Association Establishment Order 2006". Many Members have referred to this matter, so I hope that I am raising a point of information. Under the heading, "Establishment of the Association", in article 3(2), the order states:

"The Association shall consist of not less than 10 and not more than 12 members, of whom—

(a) three shall be appointed by the active graziers on White Moss Common from among themselves;

(b) two shall be appointed by the active graziers on Black Moss Common from among themselves;

(c) one shall be appointed by the active graziers on Ambridge Common from among themselves;

(d) one shall be appointed by the commoners who are not active graziers from among themselves;

(e) two shall be appointed by the owners of the Commons from among themselves;

(f) one shall be appointed by the Barset National Park Authority; and

(g) up to two may be co-opted by the Association."

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

The hon. Gentleman forgot Lynda Snell.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)

I apologise. No doubt, as a community councillor, she will find her way in there somehow or other.

Will the Minister tell me whether that is the kind of standard association that we are looking at? If so, I suggest that the balance is not quite right, but no doubt that is a matter not for Second Reading, but for Committee in due course.

Much has been said about the registration of greens, and quite rightly so. It is an important area of law, and another area that needs significant change and simplification. We need to consider further modifications. There is a possibility that the legislation could become an effective weapon for objectors to development, once the planning process has not had the desired outcome for them. It is not unheard of—under previous laws and currently—for spurious claims to be made in a last-ditch attempt to prevent development. Depending on the quality of evidence, those claims can be extremely difficult for a landowner to refute.

I was professionally involved in a case some four years ago on behalf of a county council that wanted to develop a corner of a parcel of land. As soon as the council made its intentions known—it wanted to use the land for affordable housing, for letting and part sale—the people in the locality said, "No, this is a green and it always has been." Well, it never had been, but it cost many tens of thousands of pounds to prove that. Thirty or 40 people came along and each spent up to half a day in the tribunal hearing. The thing went on for about 12 or 14 days. Tens of thousands of pounds were thrown away—for no good reason, it seems to me. We need to look again at that mechanism, to prevent that happening again.

We need a balance. We need to ensure that where greens have been used since time immemorial they continue to be used, for all the good reasons that they have been used in the past. Equally, if a part of a green is needed for some reasonable development, that should not be objected to and stopped in its tracks, per se. There should be a better means of dealing with those conflicts, rather than the current expensive litigation procedure. We need to strike a fairer compromise between the residents of a locality and possible developments.

My next point has already been made, so I will be brief. It is about what was referred to as the common land policy statement. There are occasions when a landowner is willing to permit the general public to have access to a piece of unfarmed land for recreation, where that would be of benefit to the community. There is now great anxiety among people who would be willing to do that. I could name names from my own locality. People are happy for that to happen, but they are concerned that over time, it will become a right capable of registration and that the land could become something akin to a green. Paragraph 50 of the common land policy statement 2002 says clearly that that will be legislated for in primary legislation, and that when the landowner makes it clear that people have limited recreational access, that is not to be transferred into a public right. The highway example given earlier is the same. Many of us are disappointed that that provision is not in the Bill. It would have freed up more access for the public, because landowners would not be concerned that public rights would be created, adverse to their own. I hope that even at this late stage, with a very limited Committee stage, that matter can be revisited.

In general, despite some of the things that I said earlier, this is a good Bill, which is overdue. However, other hon. Members and I have raised points that need to be addressed. The Bill will not succeed if the additional costs that will follow are not met. I was encouraged by what the Minister said when I intervened on him at the beginning. I welcomed that response and I hope that there will be some new money available. Otherwise there will be confusion, and we will have misleading plans and, potentially, lots of litigation, which nobody wants to see being pursued unnecessarily.

With those caveats, I welcome the Bill. If I am fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to be selected for the Committee, no doubt I can raise further points at that stage.

Dan Rogerson (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall)

I am delighted to be called to speak in the debate. It is always unfortunate to be called late, when so many of the points that I was hoping to make have been made by other hon. Members, but that is a reflection of the consensus that exists. There is a consensus that the Bill is to be welcomed, but that some issues need to be addressed in Committee, and I am sure that that will happen.

It was a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon). I think I have told her in the past that my mother is from the neighbouring constituency of Ogmore, so it is good to hear so much work going on in that part of south Wales to preserve the natural environment.

Given the name of the Bill, which will appear on the Annunciator screens around the Palace of Westminster—the Commons Bill—I wondered whether we might have had more interest from hon. Members who might have thought that their livelihoods were at stake. That did not prove to be the case, but it is important that we discuss the Bill because many people's livelihoods are at stake. As hon. Members pointed out, it is 40 years since the legislation on common land was last debated, so we must get it right, as it may be a long time before the issues are debated again. I hope that hon. Members' comments, and those that I shall make, will be taken on board by the Minister in Committee.

My constituency includes many areas of common land, including 7,000 hectares on Bodmin moor. Most of the moor therefore consists of common land, which accounts for most of the common land in Cornwall. There are many sites of archaeological significance on Bodmin moor, so land management must take account of such sites as well as the natural environment and the implications for biodiversity. Archaeologists have already raised the problems that under-grazing will cause in the management of those sites. There are ponies on Bodmin moor, as there are on other moorlands in the south-west, which adds another dimension to the management of grazing.

Many such areas are already covered by countryside stewardship schemes, and it is important to point out that commoners' associations and groups work closely with existing agencies to ensure good stewardship of the environment. However, they are eager to undertake further work once the Bill is enacted. The common land on Bodmin moor makes a substantial contribution to agriculture and to the wider economy, and it plays a significant part in the life of rural communities on the moor, just as it does in other communities, including those in the constituency of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd). Biodiversity is an important issue, given the historic patterns of land use, and sustainable management is of interest to a wide variety of users of common land.

Management involves private owners and, on Bodmin moor, people with grazing rights, as well as groups who are concerned to meet the challenge of preserving and enhancing the environment in an area as vital as Bodmin moor. The Government have taken a positive approach, and I welcome the Bill's presumption against the severance of common rights from land when it is sold. As hon. Members have said, common rights ought to be exercised by local people who, it is to be hoped, will be encouraged to take an interest in the management of common lands. Like many hon. Members, however, I have some concerns, as there are omissions in the Bill and other problems that I hope will be addressed in Committee.

I am concerned that local authorities have been given increasing responsibilities to make decisions about common land, which will add to the burden on local taxpayers. I welcome the fact that the Department has allocated money for the transition period to assist with new ways of working, but it remains to be seen whether that is sufficient for local authorities to be able to deliver their new responsibilities, including responsibilities in disputes about the keeping of records on rights, as the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy said. Some cases may take a long time to resolve, and will involve a great deal of work.

The commons commissioners operate a system that has been criticised—no doubt, it has been frustrating for people who have had to resort to the commissioners to try to resolve problems—but which is none the less trusted and well used. If the commissioners are abolished by the Bill, there is no alternative other than the courts, which is worrying for people involved in land management. The Bill creates new opportunities for statutory commons associations to take greater responsibility and to access resources to improve and maintain the land. However, many groups are not ready to become statutory associations. That is the biggest problem with the Bill, as much of the land is managed by smaller associations—indeed, there are some areas where there are no associations at all. Statutory associations will allow us to make progress, but it would be a shame if other areas were left behind, so I hope that amendments are tabled to encourage voluntary associations to work more effectively. We should look at ways in which they can be supported as a whole, so that they, too, can take advantage of the powers that will be given to the new statutory commons associations.

I welcome the powers that will be given to local authorities to resolve problems with unclaimed land, including cases in which land is used in a way to which the local community objects. Such cases cannot be resolved while the ownership of the land is unclear, so I welcome the opportunities for local authorities to step in and play a role in resolving those issues. Commoners in the Bodmin moor area look forward to the opportunities that will be extended to them following the introduction of the Bill, but they are concerned about the repeal of the Commons Registration Act 1965, as they do not want an open season on rights. If Natural England and the Countryside Council for Wales acquire commons rights, grazing in some areas may be reduced, so people wish to work with archaeologists and other groups to ensure that the correct level of grazing is secured and common land is maintained in the best possible way.

There should be more explanation of the way in which new commons associations will be supported, and how they will be encouraged to fund their activities. Again, in many cases, volunteers are involved, and I would hate to think that opportunities will not be taken up because there is no support for them. I am pleased that we are considering the issues that affect common land. The Bill has been a long time coming, and many people will be watching its speedy progress in Committee. I have some concerns, as I have outlined, but I am glad that hon. Members will seek to make a contribution in Committee. I hope that the Minister has taken our concerns on board, and I look forward to the Bill's progress in Committee.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

The Minister for Climate Change and the Environment opened the debate with his definition of common land, which involved the rights of people other than the landlord. He talked about havens for wildlife, the number of sites of special interest and the state of them. He talked, too, about the Dartmoor commoners council amendments that will be tabled in Committee, and clause 15, which applies to village greens. We welcome his acknowledgement of the need to provide certainty in Committee.

The Minister discussed the higher-level stewardship scheme, on which I intervened, and the need to meet obligations. His remarks were well intentioned, but I suspect and fear that they are likely to create new problems in addition to solving some of the old ones. He also discussed the good and constructive scrutiny in the other place. I think that he is absolutely right, and I add my congratulations to Baroness Byford and her team on their hard work.

My hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) discussed local commons in his constituency, which are, by and large, small, and pointed out that under-grazing is a problem as well as over-grazing. He talked about village greens, deficiencies within the registers and registered rights, and he talked about severance rights and increased rights over and above existing rights. Importantly, he pointed out why Natural England needs to receive severed rights, and he talked about human rights being used as an excuse not to remove fraudulently acquired rights, although confiscation opportunities are being implemented against private landowners. I think that in Committee we will explore how much land is eligible under the 20-year rule. My hon. Friend also made a helpful point about the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs being a point of contact where people can go for co-ordination and expertise. He welcomed the Minister's funding commitment to establish electronic registers, but pointed out that DEFRA cannot take an enormous amount of pride in its track record on, for example, cattle movement and the Rural Payments Agency. Questions will obviously be asked about how much the Minister's funding commitment will cost and whether the scheme will work. The issues of fencing and of the difference between consequential and inconsequential works are also important, but my hon. Friend was right broadly to welcome the Bill.

The hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) suggested that the Bill would have benefited from pre-legislative scrutiny, which was a helpful suggestion given that the Minister has said that the Government want to make a number of amendments in Committee. He also expressed concern about the eating away of small amounts of common land, which I am not so sure about—when he said that he did not understand some of the detail, the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) kindly helped him.

The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) has no common rights and is unlikely to get any—knowing his interest in farming, I feel for him—and he talked about the importance of town and village greens. He has been chairman of the Brecon Beacons national park, and he discussed the difficulties caused by over and under-grazing—people do not always realise that over and under-grazing depend on the weather, and he will know that the grass has not been growing particularly well this year. He also discussed the abolition of the commons commissioners, which is a serious loss, and we should not throw the baby out with the bath water. I hope that he was more right about the loss of commoners than he was about ploughing up Hay bluff. The votes on the commons, which will decide who gets what and how much they get, have been discussed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, because there is a serious concern about how the commons will be managed.

The hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) welcomed the Bill, which was no great surprise. He talked about village greens, but he seemed to fall into the local pitfall trap—what is good in some areas is not good in others. He spoke passionately about village greens in his constituency, and it took my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) to point out that although his view is attractive in Pudsey, it creates problems in other parts of the UK. As always, the key is getting the balance right, and I hope that we achieve that with this Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham made an excellent speech. He attacked the programme motion and talked about the 1235 Act and the problems therein. He spoke with passion about the problems with common land and, in particular, errors and false entitlement. He welcomed the provisions to clear up anomalies, which, as hon. Members on both sides of the House have pointed out, will make a tremendous difference, especially when constituents' drives, access or homes are on common land. At the moment, there is no way to unlock that problem, and we want the Bill to clarify the situation. My hon. Friend also discussed the distance that sheep stray, the fences that have been put up and that are now due to be taken down and the need for balance and judgment. His constituency contains a 20 square mile common, and it was clear that he knows exactly what he is talking about. He questioned whether the National Trust Act 1971 should be changed without proper scrutiny, and I agree with him that we should tread carefully. I enjoyed his excellent and informed speech.

The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) light-heartedly discussed the length of time the Bill spent in another place. He then made a joke about the Commons, and he was doing really well until the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) got all excited and intervened on the theft of state schools. At that point, the hon. Member for Stroud became misty-eyed about rural socialism. He is normally very good on these issues, but this time he got a bit muddled—perhaps his emotional moment on rural socialism caused him to forget his own constituent's name. By the time he got to Minchinhampton common, he was even more confused—he discussed "a common fit for purpose", which confused me. He clarified his position by calling for genuine democracy in the management of commons, which is, again, a unifying point on both sides of the House. He is also frustrated by the Woodland Trust issue. Finally, he discussed the length and complexity of the Bill, but his entertaining speech lasted for about 20 minutes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) has common and grazing rights, so he knows what he is talking about. He discussed the problem of unregistered land, which is very important, and welcomed the council's role in overseeing the registration of such land. He then mentioned his 43.3 cattle—he is a superb breeder of Charolais cattle, but even he cannot breed 0.3 of a cow, and I am sure that the Minister will sort out that extraordinary anomaly when he has a moment. He also discussed the RPA fiasco and IT projects, the escalating cost of which is causing growing worry on both sides of the House. He talked about the conflict between people who are concerned about development on village greens, people who want to see more affordable housing and people who own land. He also talked about the protection of landowners' interests in the Highways Act 1980, the value of land, which is the key to the problem, and the transfer of land to public ownership. His constituency case involving the Glebe land in Clun, which was owned by the Church and accessed by villagers, was skilfully handled, because he avoided getting stuck in the firing line. He also discussed concern about the entity that may be imposed to run common land—again, almost every hon. Member who spoke mentioned that worry. He talked about English Nature and grazing opportunities being reduced under clause 31, which will weaken the livestock sector.

The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) pointed out the need for legislation to rectify the fault lines, but I am not sure whether we rectify all problems when we introduce new legislation, because in rectifying some problems we may create others. Although the history of nature reserves in her constituency was fascinating, I think that there is a problem with Welsh SSSIs. I agreed with her when she said that she does not want Wales to be behind in anything, and particularly not in such a wonderful thing as biodiversity.

The hon. Member for Bridgend also discussed off-road motor cycling, which is another subject that I care about. When we discuss common land, we must be careful whom we discriminate against in addition to whom we try to protect. Motor cyclists also have a right to enjoy common land, providing that they do not cause damage or distress to other people. She also suggested that the Bill should be reviewed after five years.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

Will the repeal of the Law of Property Act 1925, which, as far as I understand it, precludes motor vehicles from going more than 10 m from a right of way or road, make common land more vulnerable to off-road activities?

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

Most of the issues to do with off-roading are covered by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill, so although that is a relevant point, it is not covered by this Bill.

The hon. Member for Bridgend suggested that the Bill be reviewed after five years and then after 10 years. I thought that that was an interesting and important suggestion but not one that inspired a great deal of confidence. We should try to get the Bill right here and now.

The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy talked about the Bill's importance to Wales. He mentioned the problems of complexity in the old rules. His contribution was extremely helpful, because he has been involved in the legal side of this for a long time. He referred to enclosed common land up a mountain, with registered commoners who cannot access their rights yet have a claim should that common land ever be sold. The nub of his argument is that if we can unlock the complexities of this legislation, it will have a knock-on benefit for everybody who enjoys, lives off or uses common land. He talked about severance of grazing rights and welcomed the ending of that practice. He rightly referred to the balance that is essential as regards over-grazing or under-grazing, and the resulting gorse that may grow if that is got wrong.

The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Rogerson) also made some important points. It is frustrating to speak last when many matters have already been covered by other Members.

I am concerned about the cost of the legislation, the brunt of which will fall on local authorities and is estimated at between £5 million and £9.5 million. The Government have talked about extra funding, but I do not think that it was that much. If I am wrong, I am more than happy to give way to the Minister so that he can tell us how much he is going to give.

I can foresee potential pitfalls with the electronic register; I have already mentioned the Government's track record on that.

On the substance of the Bill, there are several concerns regarding the roles of the statutory commons associations that will be established under clause 26. As we have heard, situations may arise whereby voluntary bodies such as the Dartmoor commoners council could find its activities curtailed by the presence of a commons association. The National Farmers Union has expressed concerns over the confusion that could arise from statutory commons associations and non-statutory and voluntary groups wanting to care for common land. It is not clear how the membership of those statutory commons associations is to be constituted. No one would want certain interest groups or charities to dominate such groups at the expense of others. We must get that balance right.

When looking at the role of statutory commons associations, we must also consider the rights of the landowners. This seems to be a fairly inflammatory matter for some Members of the House, but 80 per cent. of common land is owned privately, and it does not rest well with human rights legislation for a statutory body to be able to impose on a landowner certain designs and plans on that land with which the owner, or other interested parties, may not be comfortable. We must have a fair resolution mechanism whereby conflicts between the landowner and statutory commons associations over the use of the land can be dealt with within the framework of the Bill.

The issue of executive powers has already been taken up, but it is worth reiterating with regard to commons associations. The National Trust has expressed concerns that under clauses 36(2)(e) and 44(2), a future Government may take away some of its powers and hand them over by ministerial order to a statutory commons association without sufficient parliamentary scrutiny.

Another concern is the retrospective nature of clause 15. As has been said here and in the other place, that could affect planning decisions and often much-needed planning developments. It is also unclear what constitutes a

"significant number of local inhabitants"

and, for that matter, who counts as a "local inhabitant". Would two people walking their dogs on the same patch of grass every day for 20 years be able to prevent a housing development by having it designated as a "town green"?

Those are important matters of definition and clarity that the Bill does not fully address at the moment. However, we are in favour of the Bill and will work throughout the Committee stage to make it much better.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I thank all Members who have taken part in this constructive debate on an important, yet somewhat technical, Bill. I am sure that it is no coincidence that it was planned to be the first Second Reading debate after the Easter recess, which has meant that our minds are fresh to tackle the more technical elements of common land law, which, as we have heard, goes back to 1235.

When I was first briefed on the Bill, I was given a glossary of terms that I might encounter. It is redolent of an earlier age. Who could fail to be fascinated by an ancient manorial system of rights of pannage and piscary, of house-bote and hedge-bote, and of rights of pasture that were regulated under the principles of levancy and couchancy? We may learn more of these things in Standing Committee, perhaps even from the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd).

I am delighted that the Bill fulfils a manifesto commitment. The fact that it was a Conservative manifesto commitment from the 1987 election should not detract from its merits. Indeed, the Bill has attracted widespread support from all parties in the House, as well as support throughout England and Wales. I am particularly grateful for hon. Members' comments about the officials who have done so much work on the Bill, particularly the explanatory notes.

The debate has reflected the consensus while raising a plethora of technical points. I could go through all those in some detail, but as I spent 10 years in classified directory advertising as a profession, I am looking forward to the Adjournment debate and want to give it proper time. Nevertheless, I will dwell on a few issues.

The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) raised a series of technical points, most of which will be dealt with in Committee.

The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), who said that 12 per cent. of common land in England and Wales is in his constituency, spoke with some knowledge and authority. I look forward to his being able to lease some rights, which might satisfy his desire to be active in common land.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) spoke with his usual authority, and his passion for biodiversity and town and village greens shone through. I will chase up the correspondence from Mrs. Perry for him.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) spoke, again with passion, about the green application for Yeadon Banks. I must not comment on that particular case, but he is right to pay tribute to the role that just a few volunteers play in putting such applications together. We are grateful to them. The Trap Grounds case that he and many other hon. Members mentioned should reach a conclusion shortly. That may inform what we decide to do on Report, depending on what is said. I hope that the measures in the Bill will be sufficient to sort those matters out. I am certainly happy to meet my hon. Friend, as he requested.

The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) discussed the programme motion. I have to tell him that the amount of time that we propose for the Committee stage has been agreed on both sides of the House, including his own. In fact, we have extended the amount of time from that which his hon. Friends proposed. I hope that he will be satisfied with that.

The hon. Gentleman went on to talk about some of the problems of under-grazing on the uplands. I listened carefully to his remarks and I hope he will respond to the consultation on the England rural development programme, with the discrete consultation on uplands, so that we can hear the experience of his constituents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) recalled the Diggers and the Levellers. He wanted conflict, but with his usual charm and charisma, some of that conflict ebbed away magically as he spoke.

The hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) spoke with knowledge, informed by his interests, which he declared. I am pleased that he welcomes the proposal in the Bill that the commons registration authorities should be the local authorities, and that registration will not be handled centrally. If I have time, I shall say a little more about the electronic register.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) spoke about the target for 95 per cent. of SSSIs to be in favourable condition by 2010. I should advise her that that includes those that are improved or recovering, which might assist progress in Wales. Here in England, we are up to 72 per cent., which puts us on course to meet the 2010 target. My hon. Friend spoke with passion and in some detail about the Kenfig site in her constituency and showed the importance of protecting commons, which we are seeking to do in the Bill.

The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) was unsure whether he wanted to serve on the Committee that will consider the Bill. I am unsure, too, whether I want him to serve on the Committee. No doubt he would bring great expertise to it, which at times, as the Minister being scrutinised, I might not welcome, but on balance, it would probably be a good idea. He raised a case that the hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) mentioned in his summing up. If the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy writes to me about it, I shall be happy to look into it. I was grateful to him for brandishing the draft strategy instrument, because my officials then passed it on to me.

The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Rogerson) spoke about livelihoods. The Bill is about livelihoods, of course. It is also about matters of life and death for some of the biodiversity on our common land. That is why we think it important to tackle these issues.

I shall deal more substantively with one or two of the key points made. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire asked why the Bill does not allow the correction of mistaken, fraudulent or excessive registration of rights under the 1965 Act. That query was repeated by others. We have listened to the views of stakeholders. We recognise that many rights registered in the 1960s were excessive or inflated and have led to problems, but we believe, in common with most stakeholders, including the National Farmers Union and the Moorland Association, that we must move on, and that re-opening those registrations 45 years later would not be helpful in achieving better management of our commons. I am sure we will debate the matter further in Committee, but if the result of that inflation of rights is over-grazing, we hope that the formation of statutory commons associations will tackle it.

The hon. Gentleman questioned whether the registration of land as a green breaches human rights. We will hear more when we get the judgment on the Trap Grounds case. He asked about the cost of commons registers. The Bill enables commons registration authorities to convert their own registers to electronic form. It is important that that power should be available as we move into an electronic age, but it is not a power for DEFRA to create a national electronic register. It is for the authorities to do that. Like many other features of the registration authorities, we will start with pilots in areas where there are significant amounts of commons to make sure that they work. We will fund that, learn from it and roll out best practice elsewhere.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood asked why there was no pre-legislative scrutiny. As I said, the measure was a manifesto commitment back in 1987 and much has been said about the time it has taken to get a slot for it. We now have the slot and we shall use it to the best of our ability. Pre-legislative scrutiny might have disappointed the high expectation for action among stakeholders.

I could continue going through various points but I believe that we will cover them well in Committee. Again, I thank all those who have taken part in the debate. Hon. Members referred to the importance of biodiversity, which my hon. Friend the Minister emphasised in his opening comments. The Bill will help common land to be sustainably managed, thus benefiting not only SSSI commons but all common land. It will help improve biodiversity and contribute to our domestic and international targets.

Biodiversity is important for our national sense of well-being. It is a resource for recreation, tourism and education. It provides the vital ecosystems that we all need to survive. It regulates our climate, provides clean water, air, fuel, food and medicines. It is also good for business—to keep my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), who is present, interested. It helps create thriving, sustainable communities by providing employment and generating revenue. It is estimated that activities connected with the management of the natural environment support nearly 300,000 jobs in England and contribute £6.5 billion in gross value added to the economy.

The Government's commitment to biodiversity informs the need for the Bill, but it is also important in its own right. Legislation on commons does not come along often and we have an obligation to ensure that the Bill makes good use of a rare opportunity to help protect and conserve our common lands for current and future generations. I believe that the measure does that and I therefore commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.