Commons Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Roger Williams (Shadow Minister (Rural Affairs), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Brecon and Radnorshire, Liberal Democrat)
I alsowelcome you to our proceedings, Miss Begg, and look forward to servingunder your chairmanship.As the hon. Member for South-EastCambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) said, when preparing for our proceedings inCommittee we received several representations and a number of issuesmust be teased out. We might not have the opportunity for another 40years to deal with common land. It is therefore our duty to give theBill full scrutiny and attention so that we can put it in a form thatwill serve the interests of not only landowners and rights holders, butthe public who regard commons as an important national resource fortheir recreation, nature conservation and other conservation issues. Asalways, I look forward to the Minister’s constructivecontributions to the debates and his responses to our amendments. Therepresentations that we shall put forward will not necessarily betechnical, but they come from people who have experience of managingcommon land and exercising theirrights.