I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 3, line 8, leave out 'seven' and insert 'fourteen'.

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 5, in page 3, line 24, leave out 'seven' and insert 'fourteen'.

No. 18, in clause 15, page 9, line

7, leave out 'seven' and insert 'fourteen'.

No. 26, in clause 27, page 12, line 11, leave out 'seven' and insert 'fourteen'.

No. 62, in clause 80, page 28, line 29, leave out 'seven' and insert 'fourteen'.

No. 17, in schedule 1, page 46, line 5, leave out 'seven' and insert 'fourteen'.

No. 31, in schedule 2, page 47, line 29, leave out 'seven' and insert 'fourteen'.

No. 32, in schedule 2, page 48, line 2, leave out 'seven' and insert 'fourteen'.

No. 33, in schedule 2, page 48, line 9, leave out 'seven' and insert 'fourteen'.

No. 35, in schedule 3, page 49, line 10, leave out 'seven' and insert 'fourteen'.

We are now heading into much more contentious waters. In general terms, the amendments are designed to relieve small businesses, the agricultural community and some residential occupiers of the burden of registration for little, if any, benefit.

The Law Society's suggestion, which has already been traversed in the House of Lords, is that leases should be registrable only if they are for a term of at least 14 years instead of the seven years proposed in the Bill. This is a substantial issue. I know that the Minister has heard the arguments and has in front of him voluminous papers that will give us further opportunities to examine the question, if not at such fantastic length as is theoretically possible.

The case for lengthening the period is that it would reduce the number of leases that will have to be registered to no good purpose. Registration is carried out at the expense of the tenant, who pays both Land Registry and professional fees. Some of the leases in question would be of residential premises, adding to the cost of home ownership. The majority will probably be of business premises, and some will be of agricultural premises. The cost will become an overhead that adds nothing to the profitability or productivity of a business.

The three principal reasons for registering a lease are: to ensure that the tenant has a secure title; to facilitate transfers; and for public information. Under almost all short leases, tenants will be in possession themselves. That protects their title adequately so that registration is unnecessary on that account. The shorter the lease, the less likely it is that it will be transferred during its lifetime. Certainly, some leases of seven to 14 years' length will be transferred, but their number will not be great enough to justify the expense of registering them all.

Most commercial leases contain five-yearly rent reviews, so leases are commonly five, 10, 15, 20 or 25 years in length. At present, only 25-year leases need to be registered. The obligation to register leases of 14 years would catch the other substantial terms of 15 and 20 years, which was the reason for selecting it. The longer the lease, the more likely it is to be transferred and the more likely it is that the benefits of registration would outweigh the burdens.

The only substantial public information reason for registration appears to be to give information for rent reviews. That is misleading. On a rent review, the comparative data used as evidence are known as ''comparables'', and it is important that the other transactions cited do indeed bear comparison. An important factor is the security of tenure that the tenant enjoys. The information that rent reviews in seven-year leases use would be available for reviews under much longer leases. However, the disparity between the lengths of the leases would seriously reduce their value as comparables. In addition, other terms of the lease must be equivalent in such matters as repair obligations and restrictions on use. That information is contained in the lease and when a lease is registered a copy is lodged with the registry, but it is not made public. Registration would not ensure that the available information on rent and length of term would be useful.

The Bill contains powers to reduce the term of registrable leases, and we would suggest proceeding by a stepped reduction from the current 21-year period to a 14-year period. In future, perhaps when electronic conveyancing is familiar to most conveyancers, that figure should be reduced to seven years. That would allow the impact on the Land Registry and the commercial property market to be felt before moving, probably irreversibly, down to the short term proposed by the Government.

The amendment, which is an old friend, stands with nine others of identical wording with which it would take collective effect. Those who have been involved with the Bill for some time have seen this idea in various shapes and forms in discussions and debates in the other place. We must resist the amendment because there is a fundamental difference between its supporters and us.

The Government believe that the progressive extension of registration over the past century is one of the great success stories in the reform of the law and public services. That applies to the extension of registration to leases in general and commercial leases in particular. The general case is clear: registration involves additional investment and more work for the conveyancer on registration. Both those costs are relatively small compared with the overall cost of drawing up a lease, let alone the value of the transaction—this is an investment in which we can spend to save. When the lease is not registered, any significant subsequent transaction would require the initial conveyancing work to establish the title from the head lease and from the lease itself to be redone, with all the consequent costs. That effort is unnecessary when the lease is registered, and a great deal of unnecessary and expensive work would therefore be saved. When the lease permits the granting of rights over land, issues such as rights of way or shooting and fishing rights would become easier in a registered system. The Bill also significantly improves the protection that can be given to shooting and fishing rights.

Is the Minister aware that the Law Society has expressed concerns about the ability of the Land Registry to cope with the additional number of registrations that would apply in this case? Is he confident that the Land Registry can cope? The Bill's aim is to speed up the process, and we would not want to clog up the system with unnecessary work.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important concern. Baroness Scotland has already provided reassurance on the matter in another place, where she quoted the chief land registrar. One reason why we fixed the limit at seven years is that we have a great deal of information about leases of that length and longer, which enables us to be confident that the Land Registry can cope.

It is important that we are clear about the benefits that setting the level at seven years can bring. I have examined what we know about the number and value of leases. Although we have particular information about certain groups of leases, for example seven-year leases, the overall figures are murky. Registration will allow us to shed light on that, and it will become possible to prepare detailed figures on the length and value of leases.

That is just the start. The quinquennial review of the Land Registry's work, prompted by suggestions from the commercial property market, has made detailed and very valuable suggestions for how those figures could be combined with others held by Government—particularly by the Valuation Office Agency—to enable to publication of enhanced and co-ordinated information on types of property, floor areas, and the broad terms per square metre for leases of various commercial property types and periods. That could show how price levels, leasing terms and rents vary between regions and districts. For example, the figures could be at the level of local postcode districts.

The registry already publishes monthly figures on the domestic freehold market, which are widely recognised as the most authoritative in showing how the market is changing over time. The quicker registration is extended to leases and the wider the bands of leases included, the quicker similar information can be provided for leasehold property. The report records strong support for that from, among others, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Government's property advisory group.

In broad terms, that is why the Government think that leaseholders should and will welcome the Bill. Its proposals will create greater transparency in the market, which must benefit all businesses, and lessen the burden of transactions on the lease undertaken subsequently, through registration. Not everyone will benefit in the same way and to the same extent. Some leases do not change hands, as the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) suggested, although many commercial leases will benefit from savings where there are incidental transactions.

My own experience before I entered the House suggests that the commercial property market is becoming increasingly flexible. Leases are getting shorter and changing hands more often. Anything that encourages that is likely to benefit small businesses, in particular. All will stand to gain from a dramatically more transparent and efficient market overall.

I understand people's concerns that the Government are trying to move too fast. We have listened very carefully to those voices and tried to identify exactly what problems are foreseen. We have talked about possible additional costs to the end customer and I have explained why the Government believe strongly that the balance is extremely positive for the customer.

There may be some additional work for the professions, but I find arguments about that unconvincing. A well-organised conveyancer is likely to prepare the materials needed for a registration application in parallel with work on drawing up the lease. We estimate that the additional work required will take an hour at the most, and probably less. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) suggested, there will be more work for the Land Registry, but it has assured us that it can cope and that the additional work can be absorbed without prejudice to the extremely high level of service that has just won it its fourth charter mark in a row. I can only repeat its assurances.

I should also point out that the changes will not bear on the profession and the Registry immediately. The Bill's general registration provisions are not likely to be brought into force until mid–2003 at the earliest. There is therefore ample time to get the operation in order. Overall, the changes will benefit leaseholders and businesses. Far from being a burden on small businesses, these practical measures will assist them considerably.

Will the Minister address one or two points? Surely, if the experience of a limited change suggests that a further reduction is desirable and will not overstretch the industry, that reduction could be made by order, after consultation under clause 5. Why can we not have a little more time to consider and observe this in operation and then, after consultation, bring in new provisions by order?

How many leases of between seven and 14 years are likely to be registrable, and how is that figure arrived at? Can the Minister assure us that from the beginning the registry will be able to be cope with the work load without difficulty? Can he also give an indication—if not now, later—of the fees for registering a seven-year lease?

Let me start addressing those questions by again stating that we have been categorically reassured by the Land Registry that it can cope with what is being proposed. I urge all those who remain concerned about the possibility of extra work from extended registration to talk to the Land Registry. It is important to recognise that the registry has historically shown itself to be an organisation fundamentally concerned to help in the business of buying and selling land, not to hinder it. I am confident that the registry would not have given us such an assurance unless it could deliver on it.

The hon. Member for Stone asked why we could not wait to extend registry to seven years, and do it under order. We want to extend the benefits of registration as quickly as possible, and as was said in another place, our intention is to bring the level of registration down to three years when we are confident that the profession and the Land Registry are ready to deal with that. In the meantime, we want to move as quickly as possible to expand the boundaries of registration as widely as possible. We know that we can cope with seven years because, for various reasons, we have more information about leases for seven years and 14 years than about other leases; the information on leases between three and seven years is somewhat murky. Leases of more than seven years must be declared to the district valuers and we have information about them—that is the basis of the assurance that we received from the Land Registry.

The hon. Member for Stone asked me for some figures on the cost to register leases. Fees are calculated by value and the maximum is £800 for the most expensive. The figures can be quite complicated, so rather than trawling through my files and holding up Committee proceedings I will write to him.

I am grateful for the assurance that we will get the figures. However, as the Minister knows, such matters have already been raised in the other place and it seems extraordinary that we are in the position of not having accurate figures at this stage. When one is dealing with questions that relate to the length of leases, and the dramatic change that that represents, a huge number of people may be affected—I could not put a figure on how many and nor could anyone. The cost of the operation and the extent to which it will impose difficulties, is therefore of interest to the public.

It was acknowledged, even in the report that led to the Bill, that no consensus emerged, despite huge efforts to achieve one. Now that the Bill has been through the other House, and various reports and consultations have taken place, there remains no consensus. I ask myself why the Government are so insistent. I have heard the Minister's argument, but the issue is contentious and one on which there is no resolution. My troops have just arrived, so I am now in a position to advise the Minister that we intend to divide the Committee on the amendment.

Before the hon. Gentleman does that, he need no longer be astonished that we do not have the figures. I simply did not want to delay the Committee on something that was not salient to his point. However, while he delayed the Committee with his further intervention, I took the opportunity to find the figures in my files and can now give them to him.

In the financial years 1999–2000 and 1998–99, the stamp office stamped some 75,000 and 100,000 new leases respectively. The overwhelming majority were already registrable, but 9,000 and 12,000 respectively were for between 14 and 20 years, and 11,000 and 17,000 respectively were for between seven and 13 years. The Land Registry can therefore expect the Bill's proposals to result in between 20,000 and 30,000 new leases, plus assignments of extant unregistered leases where the un-expired residue exceeds the relevant minimum. Figures on leases from the investment property data bank are of the same order, but the figures should be seen in the context of the overall work load. In 1999, the Land Registry received 373,000 first registrations and more than 3 million applications to change the register following a dealing with the whole or part of the registered estate. Figures of 20,000 to 30,000 should therefore be compared with 3 million and 373,000. It is against that background that the chief land registrar has offered his assurances.

Figures on leases are extremely complicated and would take a very long time to explain. It should suffice for our purposes to point out that the maximum fee is £800. Given that leases can be worth millions of pounds, and given the legal and other professional costs involved in such huge commercial transactions, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that such fees are relatively insignificant.

I hope that I have reassured the hon. Gentleman sufficiently. I hear what he says about pressing the matter to a vote, and if he is still minded to do so despite my persuasive arguments to the contrary, that is a matter for him. However, I hope that he will think again and accept our compelling arguments.

I am certainly grateful to the Minister for that additional information, and I admire the way in which he fished it out of his incredibly complex documents. It helps to get such matters on the record, but substantial questions remain unanswered that underpin our objections to the Bill. We shall therefore press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 3, Noes 8.

Question accordingly negatived.

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 3, line 14, at end insert—

', unless at that date the person to whom the grant is made is the tenant of the whole of the land comprised therein for a term which is not registered (and is not subject to the requirement of registration) and will expire on or after the date on which the estate granted will take effect in possession'.

With this we may discuss the following amendments: No. 27, in clause 27, page 12, line 27, at end insert—

', unless at that date the person to whom the grant is made is the tenant of the whole of the land comprised therein for a term which is not registered (and is not subject to the requirement of registration) and will expire on or after the date on which the estate granted will take effect in possession.'.

No. 37, in schedule 3, page 49, line 31, at end insert—

', unless at that time the person to whom the grant was made is the tenant of the whole of the land comprised therein for a term which is not registered (and is not subject to the requirement of registration) and will expire on or after the date on which the estate granted will take effect in possession'.

The amendment would remove the need to register a lease that takes effect in possession more than three months after it is granted, if registration is not otherwise required, and where such a lease is a renewal of an existing lease to a tenant who is already in possession. The need for such a reversionary lease is explained in paragraph 3.32 of the report that preceded the Bill. If it is not registered, the buyer of a landlord's interest may not be able to find out about that before their term begins, because the tenant would not be in possession. That objection does not apply where the reversionary lease is a renewal to an existing tenant. In that situation, there is no practical need for such a lease to be registered merely because it does not take effect at once. Under the Bill as drafted, a renewal for a year or less, granted during mid-summer for a lease that will expire at Michaelmas, would be registrable and, as we said, would attract.

The amendments would restrict a reversionary lease to a tenant whose existing lease is not subject to registration. We accept that a tenant who is within the registration system can reasonably be required to register a renewal. When a tenant is not already within the system, the balance of advantage is emphatically on the side of our amendments. A buyer of the landlord's interest would have to establish the tenant's rights, and it would surely impose no real burden to require such a buyer to ask not only whether there is a lease but whether there is any other relevant document. A tenant renewal on a comparatively short lease—

Order. I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman in mid-speech, but I should point out that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon) is not a member of the Committee and is therefore not allowed to remain in the Room.

Sitting suspended.

On resuming —

On a point of order, Mr. Illsley. Given the break that we have just had, there are no objections from Opposition Members to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington joining the Committee, if that is an issue.

On Thursday, the Liberal Democrat Whips Office was told that this meeting was yet to be arranged and we were not informed at any point about when it was to be held. Although cards were issued stating that the Committee was meeting today, they were not drawn to my attention until yesterday morning, by which time it was too late for us to table amendments. I want to put that on the record.

With regard to the membership of the Committee, there has been some confusion as to the attendance of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington. Obviously, no one objects to his presence, but unfortunately the Chairman has to abide by the Committee of Selection's choice of members, and because his name does not appear on the list, I cannot accept his being in the Room. It is not a question of whether anyone objects.

On the issuing of cards, again it would appear that there may have been some confusion as to the membership make-up of the Committee. I will ask that that be looked into, in the hope that it will be rectified for the future.

Further to that point of order, Mr Illsley. In all my 18 years in Parliament, I have sat on a vast number of Committees, and I have never witnessed this before. I must say that I am beginning to get quite used to some fairly unusual things happening in Committee. I need not refer in detail to what happened on my first outing as an Opposition spokesman, but on that occasion the order was withdrawn, at any rate for the time being. I am told that it was then rectified, although I am not convinced about that. This time the matter cannot be rectified, at least for the time being. The appearance, sans tie and no doubt armed to the teeth with intellectual vigour, of the ex-member for The Daily Telegraph, now the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, caused a certain amount of amusement when he arrived extremely late, even though he thought that he was expected to be here.

I have for many years been captain of the Lords and Commons cricket team, and I have played many a game with less than the prescribed 11. Given the vast superiority of the firepower on the other side, in terms of numbers if not quality, I am sure that the Government will continue to win the votes, but we shall continue to press our case.

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments. We are involved in a unique situation. Is he prepared to resume debate on the amendment?

I would be absolutely delighted to do so. I do not want to delay this any longer than is necessary, for all the reasons that I have already given. I will take up where I left off, and repeat what I said just before this rather unusual suspension.

The amendments are restricted to a reversionary lease to a tenant whose existing lease is not subject to registration. We accept that a tenant who is within the registration system can fairly be required to register a renewal. When the tenant is not already within the system, we think that the balance is on the side of the amendments.

I have picked up the threads of what I was saying before, because I am not sure how much got on the record the first time round. A tenant renewing a comparatively short lease may well do so without specialist advice. The Bill as it stands would create a very significant trap. If the renewed lease is registrable, but unregistered, it will always be ridden by a disposition of the landlords interests, not only before it falls into possession, but at any time during the renewed term.

Paragraph 1(a) to schedule 3 will stop a registrable reversionary lease from ever being an overriding interest in the common situation in which the landlord's interest is registered.

I should say in defence of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who has just departed, that he did not receive a card inviting him to attend the Committee, and his lateness was due to the fact that he was informed only shortly beforehand that he was expected—erroneously, as it now appears. That may have had something to do with his tieless state, to which the hon. Member for Stone referred. He was probably in such a hurry to get here that he did not want to delay by putting on a tie. On the other hand, it may have been a fashion statement. He will have to answer for that himself.

The provisions that would be altered by the amendments are based on a recommendation in the Law Commission and Land Registry's joint consultative document. Everybody who responded to that recommendation supported it.

The amendments would place intending buyers in an unreasonable position, because they could not tell from the register whether the land was subject to the reversionary leases that the amendments would exempt from registration. That is, they could buy the land only to discover that the existing tenant had a right to a further lease, which could very well be for a considerable time. Obviously, that could significantly reduce the value to them.

Under the Bill, intending buyers would not have to inquire of an existing tenant whether the tenant also held a reversionary lease covered by the Bill. Under the amendments, they would, even if the proposed seller had produced a copy of the tenant's lease and the lease did not contain, say, an option to renew the lease.

Moreover, the first two amendments do not require the renewed lease to be granted to a tenant in occupation, so if the tenant's existing lease is some sort of reversionary lease, inquiry of the tenant in occupation would not be of the right person. If the proposed purchase involved a large portfolio of properties, for example as part of a large estate, the intended buyer's problems would be even greater.

If we accepted the amendments, the Bill's objective of making the register as comprehensive as is reasonably possible would be damaged. A less comprehensive register would affect e-conveyancing, because for that to work effectively a buyer will need to be able to rely on the register entries to the fullest extent possible and have to make only a few inquiries. Those inquiries should not be about whether the land is subject to the type of reversionary lease covered by the Bill.

I hope that in the light of that explanation the hon. Gentleman will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

As ever, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. In the expectation that we will be able to consider these matters in further detail as we proceed, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 7, in page 4, line 2, at end insert—

'subject to subsection (3), ''transfer'' has the same meaning as ''convey'' in the Law of Property Act 1925 (c. 20);'.

The amendment relates to a dealing with unregistered land under which any such dealing that leads to compulsory registration of title can still be done in the old form of a conveyance rather than a transfer. I should make it clear, however, that compulsory registration would still follow. Traditionally, land then unregistered was transferred by conveyance. The abbreviated modernised transfer form was introduced to registered land and has recently been redesigned. To encourage modernisation, it has for a long time been the case that unregistered land that would be registered immediately after a transfer transaction can be transferred by using a transfer registration form.

Under the Bill, it will continue to be in order for unregistered land to be transferred by conveyance, even though compulsory registration of title will follow. It therefore seems necessary to make it clear that when the Bill refers to a transfer in terms of dealing with the levers of compulsory registration, that includes a conveyance.

I am afraid that I must resist the amendment, which was also moved in another place. It is a drafting amendment intended to clarify the meaning of the word ''transfer'' in clause 4.

There is no doubt that it will still be possible to use conveyance rather than transfer to pass a legal estate in unregistered land. I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, but the amendment is unnecessary because the Bill does not prevent the use of conveyances in such cases. Moreover, it implies that ''transfer'' is used as a verb in the clause, but, as my noble Friend Baroness Scotland made clear in another place, it is used as a noun. It refers to the event of the transfer, not to the type of Land Registry form known as a transfer.

I hope that that clarification will assist the hon. Member for Stone to withdraw his amendment.

I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.