Clause41
Commons Bill [Lords]
1:45 pm
Jim Knight (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Rural Affairs, Landscape and Biodiversity), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; South Dorset, Labour)
I will think about that last point while I deal specifically with amendment No. 78, which would place a duty on commons registration authorities to resist encroachment on common land. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud for tabling it.
The Bill goes some way toward improving controls on works on common land. It will clarify the application of the controls, modernise the consent regime and, as we heard, enable any person to enforce against unlawful works. It will no longer be possible to ignore the controls in the hope that they will not be enforced.
As I have said, I want Natural England and the Countryside Council for Wales to become the Government’s champions for the management and well-being of common land. We see a role for them in encouraging communities to take a more proactive attitude to protecting their common land.
Registration authorities, in common with other councils, will have power to enforce against encroachments, but my hon. Friend will appreciate our position on the matter. A local authority’s priorities are for the authority, and not central Government, to decide. It is appropriate to give the power but not the duty.
The Bill is not just a legislative instrument. It will raise the profile of common land. We will be working closely with local government in the next few years to implement the legislation, assuming that it becomes an Act. That will involve issuing circulars explaining authorities’ powers as well as their duties under the Act and encouraging their greater involvement in the management of common land.
I counsel my hon. Friend against seeing new duties necessarily as a solution to a problem. I am sure that he shares my desire to see greater access to the countryside, but duties alone are not always fulfilled, as we have seen with the management of the public rights of way network by certain local highway authorities in certain parts of the country. It is only as a result of a combination of new duties—such as rights of way improvement plans, together with guidance and a great deal of hard work by, in the case of England, the Natural England partners and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in raising the profile of rights of way in the past few years—that we are now seeing results in making the network better available for use. I want to see a similar effort made to raise the status of common land.