Clause3
Commons Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Jim Knight (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Rural Affairs, Landscape and Biodiversity), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; South Dorset, Labour)
I would be pleased if the hon. Gentleman passed onmy best wishes to Mrs. Griffiths of Powys council, who clearly showswisdom. We will return to the registration of ownership of rights whenwe discuss clause 8 and the interesting issue of apportionment, so Ishall not dwell on it unduly.
The register’s coreelements are the land register and the rights register. The landregister contains a conclusive record of the extent of common land andgreens, and the rights register contains a conclusive record of thenature and quantification of rights exercisable over the land to whichthey are attached.
The power in subsection (5) isintended to amplify what can or must be shown in the register. Forexample, we expect to provide that the registers may continue to showall the additional information—information about mineral rightsand public rights of access, for example—that the 1965 Actpermitted them to show. That the register should continue to show thatinformation does not raise any new data registration or human rightsissues.
We have alsoproposed that commoners should be able to enter in the register adeclaration of their entitlement to exercise rights of common when theyown the land to which such rights are attached. I think that thatanswers the hon. Gentleman’s question—they would be ableto register those rights, but would not necessarily have to. We willreturn to that when we discuss apportionment. It is not realistic torequire people to register those rights, because in the real world itwould be difficult to make them do so. The measures will improve the availability of information about who isentitled to exercise the rights over a particular common. The provisionof such information will be for assistance only, as the informationwill not beconclusive.
Theregulation-making power in subsection (5) is an essential tool forobtaining the information that must be shown in registers undersubsections (1) to (4). The Government will consult on draft proposalsfor regulations under subsection (5), so some of these issues, whichthe hon. Gentleman has rightly raised, will be subject to debate underthose order-making powers and as those orders go through. However, wewill consult, as part of our commitment to consult, on the detailedimplementation of part 1 generally.
In respect ofthe hon. Gentleman’s question as to why we should“require” rather than “permit”, it must bepossible for regulations to require certain additional information tobe included in the register, rather than leave it to theauthorities’ discretion, for example, declarations ofentitlements to rights to which I have just referred. I hope on thatbasis, that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw hisamendment.