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Commons Bill [Lords]

I recognise the strength of the right hon. Gentleman’s argument. I was trying to explain that we are considering whether to provide in regulations that the commoner need not be consulted on a matter affecting the common if personal rights have not been registered. That is a powerful incentive. It is not simply asking people to register, but providing a carrot. I am not committing the Government to that now but we are considering it. We shall give it further consideration when we frame the regulations. I hope that that goes a long way to answering the right hon. Gentleman’s points. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) spoke with great passion and knowledge about the case of many of his constituents and the errors resulting from the Commons Registration Act 1965. As he acknowledged, it is impossible to say how many errors the registers contain, not least because there is currently no legal mechanism to deal with them and therefore no obligation on the registration authority to record them systematically. However, the mapping of open country and registered common land for the purposes of the statutory right of access under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, has brought into the open hundreds of alleged errors, some of which have been taken to appeal under the Act, although it is not possible for appeals to deal with wrongful registration. That is why schedule 2 provides for deregistration of some wrongly registered commonly land. I cannot say whether those provisions will apply in the specific cases that he has described—that would be for a tribunal to judge in due course. It would be imprudent and wrong of me to try to make a judgment. However, if he wishes to write to me with details of those cases, I shall try to be as helpful as possible.