Supplementary evidence from George Winn-Darley
At the EFRA Select Committee hearing on 30th October 2013, I was asked for some written evidence on the issue of common land and the distribution of Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 monies in respect of that. I have since had the benefit of the draft transcript to question 253 which refers. What I set out for you in that answer is to emphasise that every common is unique and different so I believe it is impossible to come up with a set of rules or procedures that can sensibly apply to all of them without causing injustices to one party or another or by compromising the objectives of the P1 or P2 money. Many people have worked hard, including DEFRA staff, to come up with a system that everyone has now got used to over the last 7 years and I would urge we stick with that as far as is possible. The negative impact on either applicants or on the schemes objectives are much more likely to be greater than any intended positive outcomes of any particular change.
Parties have come to terms with weaknesses and injustices in the current system which particularly affect them and often are able to effect changes by updating the register of common rights in order to minimise, mitigate or overcome the problems. However, the Select Committee should be aware that so far as P1 money is concerned that very often large parts of the notional hectarage available to a common are not paid out on at all and therefore that upland area does not get the fair share of the money that was intended for it. If there was some flexibility within the system to ensure that all the P1 money that is available for a particular common was distributed in some way amongst those applicants that claimed for it then it would overcome this difficulty. Perhaps it would help if I illustrated this in specific figures. Let's assume the common is 1,000 hectares and that actually 2,000 grazing rights rights are registered over it in total following the 1965 Act. However, not all of these have ever been exercised at once and the number of stock grazing the common has been broadly at its carrying capacity which is probably closer to half that number. As a result the owner of the freehold of the common has never exercised their right to graze any stock as they do not want to create (or make worse) an overgrazing situation.
In a particular year the common right holders who are actually exercising their sheep have claimed for their rights and they amount to 1,000 head. In addition some neighbouring farmers who own common rights but have never exercised them on the common also claim and these amount to 200. The RPA calculate an assumed stocking density for the moor and this is 1,500 head. They therefore payout to the 1,000 active graziers and the 200 non-active common right holders. They do not pay out on the next 300 because the total common rights registered to the common is 2,000. This seems a little bizarre and means that nobody in the community gets P1 money that is targeted at that proportion of the common. The owner of the freehold has also claimed but because he has no registered common rights and the total number of common rights registered exceeds the notional carrying capacity of the common, his claim is rejected entirely despite there being unclaimed rights.
In an HLS scheme as set out in my evidence note (I particularly refer you to question 248) we need to look at what the scheme is demanding and who is responsible for delivering those mutiple aspects. It is then up to the parties to then negotiate together and agree a basis on which they can all sign up to the agreement and be responsible for delivering their part of the bargain. As I pointed out in my reply to question 237 and 238, 75% of heather moorland which is designated as an SSSI (which is 60% of heather moorland in England) has successfully got into an HLS scheme. All parties should be congratulated on the hard work and compromise that they have all achieved for this to be the case.
I think if parties were allowed to negotiate in the same way to distribute the total P1 monies that a particular common is entitled to, then you would achieve the same or a higher % success rate. Although I do not believe any figure has been calculated for what it is under the current system, I would not be surprised if currently 20-30% of P1 monies that should be going to commons is not reaching them at all because of the way the system works. Building on the success and experience all parties have gained as a result of cooperating over P2 monies would ensure a much higher percentage success rate in getting more of the P1 monies to reach the commons they are aimed at.
In question 255 the Chair is slightly confused as to why we were talking about SSSI's when talking about common land. Perhaps it would help to explain that many commons have multiple designations on top of them. These include the following:
Registered Common
SSSI
SPA
SAC
Wholly or partly within a National Park or AONB
Scheduled Ancient Monument
Listed Structure
Open Country under the CRoW Act
Public right of way (Byway Open to All Traffic (BOAT), public bridleway or public footpath)
Tarmac Highway
For instance, every common on the North York Moors carry virtually every one of these other designations. This perhaps emphasises why it is very complicated and there are no quick or easy solutions that are not likely to have a number of unintended consequences.
November 2013