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Commons Councils (Standard Constitution) (England) Regulations 2010

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for shifting us on to that constructive and optimistic perspective. I emphasise that Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006, which provides for updating the commons registers, has been implemented in England in seven pilot local authority areas. To ensure that we can learn fully all the lessons from the pilots, we have decided that the decision on how and when to go ahead with national commitments should await the completion of the pilot period in September 2010. Part 3 of the 2006 Act, which deals with consent for works on common lands, and Sections 16 and 17, which deal with exchanges of common land, were brought into force on 1 October 2007. Responsibility for casework consent was transferred to the Planning Inspectorate at the same time. We have no plans at present to bring into force Section 50, which provides for updating schemes of regulation made under the Commons Act 1899, but we do not think there was any anxiety about the capacity of Natural England to cope with prospective take-up of commons councils. That answers the noble Lord’s question. We do not expect a flood; he will have recognised that from the tentative figures. Those figures are an estimate of the rate, not a commitment or plan. Remember that we are dealing with a concept that requires the consent of all concerned and a consensus to emerge. It would be presumptuous in the extreme for the Government to lay down figures that have to be reached. If the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, did not assault me for the heavy hand of central government if I did that, I assure him that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, would not miss that point; he would say that this was all about centralisation. That is not the concept behind this; it has to emerge from local consensual positions. That is the only thing that will work successfully. As I mentioned, Natural England has explored the potential of the two areas. If there were a surge in demand to establish councils, we would have regard to the probable benefits and costs of each in deciding what resources to allocate. In practice, it is unlikely that a candidate commons council would be encouraged to work up a detailed proposal without resources having been allocated to the project. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, pressed me a little further on this. We expect resources from Natural England, but it is possible that resources would be available from Defra with regard to the establishment of the councils, against an obvious background that we will not run before we can walk. We do not expect a great deal of running to be necessary, because of the nature of the process by which the councils will be set up. I emphasise to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that we will focus resources on commons where the councils are most likely to deliver our objectives with regard to biodiversity. That does not mean that councils could not be set up elsewhere and meet the criteria, only that priority councils will obviously have first call on resources. They will know the name of the game—that they will have a better chance of acceleration than others if they are able to establish gains in terms of the Government’s broad objectives with regard to issues such as biodiversity. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Taylor—hinted at that, but not with the force that he spoke about the concerns about costs. He knows—we have established—that the estimate of a small council’s set-up costs is about £13,500. I am not minimising that, nor am I exaggerating the resources that might need to be established to take on a few more councils than we expect in the early days. Grant support is potentially available from Defra or Natural England. That support will follow government priorities for rural development. In that respect, the noble Lord’s anxieties need not be taken too far, nor does he need to be concerned about process.