James Paice (Shadow Minister (Agriculture & Rural Affairs), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

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

This is a straightforward new clause, but the Minister probably will not be able to accept it as drafted as it may be deficient. It was suggested by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, among others, because of concern that professional advice to the national authority is needed on how it should go about doing things.

I do not wish to destroy the harmonious mood of the Committee in the past two days, but there have been times when some Opposition members of the Committee have felt that there was insufficient practical understanding of the implications of what was being discussed. Without rehearsing those matters, it is important that the Government, or the Welsh Assembly in the case of Wales, have the necessary advice on the practicalities and implications of the proposal.

We discussed earlier matters such as minimal and trivial works, which are all relevant to the Bill, and wider management issues such as what works should, or should not, be approved. On Tuesday, the Minister touched upon the body that he is setting up to bring together the registration officers and advise and help them in their functions under the Bill. That may be linked to my proposal, the principal purpose of which is to invite the Minister to explain how he sees the national authority moving forward. I hope that he will give us some more information about setting up the organisation for land registration officers and say where he will get practical advice to help him to fulfil the significant amount of responsibility that he, or the Department and his successors, will assume under the Bill. I stress the word “practical”, because I say specifically in the amendment that the national authority should be representative of commoners as well as those with a public interest in the land. The Government should use the real interests and the wealth of experience and knowledge of people who have held commons rights and applied them and used them for grazing—or indeed used any of the other rights that we have discussed—in applying their responsibilities under the Bill.

Jim Knight (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Rural Affairs, Landscape and Biodiversity), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; South Dorset, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman, as ever, is acting from the best intentions in wanting to ensure that the national authority acts on the best advice. However, it is not necessary to include that power in the Bill, as the national authority already has the power to establish a non-statutory advisory body, if it were felt to be appropriate.

We intend to establish a national stakeholder group to provide advice on the implementation of the Bill—but to do so on a statutory basis would introduce an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and impose additional costs. In section 101 of the NERC Act 2006, we repealed no fewer than five committees established under various enactments, which had become redundant. We have rehearsed the arguments about this Bill being an opportunity that comes round rarely and wanting it to stand the test of time.

There will be a separate organisation from the national stakeholder group—the Association of Commons Registration Officers—which we have already started and funded for set-up costs. We also want to ensure that we use advice from other bodies that currently exist, such as the Welsh Commons Forum and the federations of commoners in Cumbria and Yorkshire. The Federation of Cumbria Commoners, with assistance from a rural enterprise scheme grant, has recently issued a series of good practice guides for commons, which we thoroughly welcome. We want to make sure that we are using such advice beyond the national stakeholder group.

James Paice (Shadow Minister (Agriculture & Rural Affairs), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister. As I said at the outset, I did not expect him to accept the amendment. Indeed, he has explained not only why he will not accept it, but why it is unnecessary. Nevertheless, it has given him the opportunity to place on the record the Government’s intention to set up such a stakeholder group.

It is getting late in the afternoon, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border said that perhaps the stakeholders were useful in respect of the fencing measures that we referred to earlier—but that might be lost on some hon. Members. [Interruption.] Yes, it was much better when my hon. Friend was Chief Whip, because he was not allowed to speak. Nevertheless, I am pleased that the Minister will take up the idea of an advisory group, and I hope that it will involve a lot of people with the on-the-ground practical experience to which I referred. In that light, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.