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Commons Councils (Standard Constitution) (England) Regulations 2010

My Lords, I shall not repeat what my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach said, but I shall pick up on one or two comments. Having taken the Bill through all those years ago—it seems like a long time ago—I do not think that certain issues have been finally cleared up in the regulations. Any one person can call for a council to be set up. The Explanatory Memorandum says "substantial", but I think that when we had the debate the Minister said that it was a majority. I am not happy to see the word "substantial" if it should be "majority". Some commoners may be in favour of a council being set up and others may not be. I would be grateful for clarification on that. It has been said that Natural England has allocated resources for the first two proposed councils. Is that just for those two? We are all aware of the current crunch on funding. If funding is not available, will the proposed councils be put on hold for the time being or would it be up to the members who want to form that council to find alternative funding? I should have declared that I am a member of the CLA and the NFU, but we do not have any common ground to declare. Paragraph 8.2 refers to the widely differing views expressed in Defra’s consultation on costs and benefits. I will be grateful if the Minister will enlarge on what the issues were. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, raised the issue of what happens when people refuse to pay, which I had intended to ask. As in any society, there will be some people who refuse to pay. Do the others carry the extra burden? Are those who refuse to pay entitled to some of the benefits that that council will bring? An important benefit is the opening of the door to agri-environment schemes. It seems slightly wrong that if people are not prepared to pull their weight and take part in the full sense, they should benefit from other people being willing to do that. Paragraph 9.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to Natural England publishing guidance in April 2010. That is a very few days away. Is it available? It seems strange that we should be debating these regulations when follow-up information is to be made available to us after the event. It does not seem logical, but some aspects of the way we went about the Bill were not very logical. Figures for the administrative burdens are given on page 3. They are based on 2005 prices. Have they been upgraded? If so, what difference does that make to the figures we are considering today? Some agreements in force now are voluntary agreements among associations and seem to be working quite well. Will the Minister update us on how many there are and how many of them have indicated that they would like to become full councils? That would help. The noble Lord also raised closure procedures, which I wish to raise. I suspect that some councils remain strong, but over time some may wilt on the vine. What review will there be of that? What would that council’s position be? Page 13 refers to "moderate significance" with regard to significance and benefits. I was quite surprised to see that in the significance rating agri-environment schemes are listed only as moderate. One big thrust behind even considering this issue when the Bill came through was the ability of the commoners to be able to access agri-environment schemes, which they would certainly not have been able to before. It would have been the landlords who were able to do that. I am slightly puzzled why it was put down as only moderately important. From the briefing from the CLA that I have had—and which I suspect that others have had—I raise two other things. There is obviously a difference in role between the commoner and the landowner. Sometimes the landowner is missing; I expressed my views on that earlier. I think that the councils and the proposals will deal with that well. But sometimes the commoner is involved only in the grazing of the cattle, or whatever else he is holding on the common, so his applying for agri-environment schemes may be looked at in a different way, if he is able to do it, whereas the landowner has to consider the long-term welfare of the environment for biodiversity and everything else, and has to balance that—particularly in moorland areas—with cover for game birds. There is a big issue around management of moors and game birds, and the burning of scrub, for example, which we dealt with when we discussed this in Committee. I have not managed to look in here and find clarification on the issues in which I was interested. Clearly, there could be differing views between the commoner and landowner. I am uncertain in my own mind as to how, even within the commons councils, those diverse issues will be overcome. Having said that, I welcome this measure. I am sad that it has taken four years, but the benefit is that my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach is now on the Front Bench. I sit proudly behind him, supporting his efforts on this Bill. We went into great detail on what was considered a fairly small Bill at the time, because there are real, practical issues. I am not too convinced, having waded through the Explanatory Notes and having had briefings from other organisations, that we have got it totally right. If we have not, would the Government’s view be to push ahead, or would they have the common sense to delay the authority of this proposal until some of these details have been clarified?