THE Forest of Dean is home not only to some of the country's most beautiful landscapes but also to some of its most unique traditions.

From the Cathedral of the Forest, the Church of All Saints at Newland, to the free roaming sheep the local area is steeped

in history which stretches back centuries and gives it its distinctive character.

One of the traditions my constituents are most proud of is free mining. For almost 1,000 years since the time of King Edward I, men born within the Hundred of St Briavels have been able to become free miners (upon reaching 21 according to the Dean Forest [Mines] Act 1838), and recently Elaine Morman became the first woman to join their ranks.

There has been keen debate about this in the Review letters pages and I can understand why. The unique privilege of becoming a free miner is one of the distinctive features of the Forest of Dean, one of the things that marks it out as different, and so I understand why some of my constituents are concerned about a change to it.

It is worth saying that neither I, nor anyone else, have changed the law recently. The Dean Forest [Mines] Act 1838 is a piece of hybrid legislation and, not to get too technical, hybrid legislation is very hard to change.

That's why the New Clause I tabled to the Equality Bill last year to raise this matter in Parliament couldn't be pursued. However, Vera Baird, then Solicitor General, undertook to investigate the matter further. She did so and wrote to me to set out what her officials considered to be the legal position.

She explained that section 1 of the Employment Act 1989 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 combine to make ineffective the Dean Forest [Mines] Act 1838 in so far as it prohibits the registration of a female free miner. Given this clear advice, I wrote to John Harvey, the Deputy Gaveller at the Forestry Commission, to ask if he would reconsider his refusal to register Ms Morman as a free miner. Eventually, having received legal advice of their own, the Forestry Commissioners, in their role as Gaveller, approved the registration of Elaine Morman as the first female free miner.

A number of people have asked why I gave Ms Morman my support given the sensitivities around this issue. First, I thought it right to debate the issue in Parliament to test what the law actually said. That debate revealed that past changes in the law had changed the legal position although that had not been widely realised.

Second, once the legal position had been clarified I didn't think that in 2010 it was defensible to continue insisting that only a man could become a free miner and not a woman. Clearly, in 1838 the world was very different but expectations have changed for the better in the years since.

As Benjamin Disraeli once said, "In a progressive country change is constant; and the great question is not whether you should resist change which is inevitable, but whether that change should be carried out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws and the traditions of a people".

Since the news about Elaine Morman's registration as a free miner, I have had a number of letters asking me whether the part of the Dean Forest [Mines] Act that specifies that you have to be born in the Hundred of St Briavels can be changed so that, for example, children born at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital would still qualify if their families lived within the boundaries.

This issue is more complex because it would require a change to the Dean Forest [Mines] Act 1838 using either a "private" or "hybrid" Bill. It's a technical procedural point but basically a "private" or "hybrid" piece of legislation is one that affects a particular private interest of some group of people as opposed to others. It then has to go through a particularly complex and time consuming process in Parliament which is often not successful.

Even if that were possible there are many practical problems in defining who this would apply to. Would it be all hospitals or just Gloucestershire Royal? How long would someone have needed to live in the Forest of Dean to qualify? Would they actually need to be living in the Forest around the time of birth? When you start thinking about it and how legislation would be framed it becomes more complex than it appears at first glance.

I would, of course, be interested to hear people's views on this. In the meantime, I think that since fewer people are born in the Hundred of St Briavels today, given the lack of a local maternity unit, then widening those eligible to become free miners, by enabling women to register, is likely to help preserve the tradition for years to come.