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Commons Bill [HL]

I understand where my noble friend is coming from on this and I can support it up to a point. I agree that those who do not exercise their rights in any form at all should perhaps be excluded. However, there are cases—and in this I am not including owners whose rights are part of the surplus and are not rights as such—where an individual owns the dominant tenement with rights but has let both. Would it be right or would it be wrong for that person to be excluded from the decision-making process? I suggest that it would be wrong to exclude such a person. That farm may become available in future and they may take it in hand or re-let it, but they have an interest in that land. To exclude them would be a mistake.