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Commons Bill [HL]

My Lords, I should like to add a few words to those of my two noble friends. I agree with everything they have said and I warmly support the amendment. However, I add my support for another reason which has not been mentioned in this debate, although I realise that it may have been discussed in Grand Committee. I am afraid that I was abroad for much of that period and therefore was not able to attend the sittings regularly. Over the many years that I represented a large part of the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, I would travel to and from my home and around my constituency over a lot of unfenced common land. Every year my heart bled when going past dead lambs and dead sheep, which had been run over because they did not understand what a road meant. I remember thinking, ““If only it were possible to erect simple fencing to keep livestock on the pastures and commons rather than wandering about on the roads””. I do not know what the figures are, but years ago, when I was involved with the National Farmers Union, I remember seeing the most appalling figures on the amount of livestock—lambs in particular—which had been killed through being hit by passing traffic. If the amendment will make it slightly easier to erect fencing to protect lambs from this annual carnage, that is another very good reason to support it.