§ 32. Major PRESCOTTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if he is aware that the Tottenham Urban District Council claim that a notice was served upon the local gas company on the 13th November, 1917, taking over the Willoughby Farm site under the Cultivation of Lands Order; and whether, if he is 1358 not able to agree with the contention of the urban authority that such notice was valid, he will consider the propriety of taking effective action with a view to the allotment cultivators remaining in possession of their plots until the gas company produce satisfactory evidence that the land is required for a greater public need than the production of home-grown food?
Sir A. BOSCAWENThe agreement between the urban district council and the gas company superseded the entry by the council under the Cultivation of Lands Order, and consequently the notice to quit under the agreement is valid. The Board are, however, in communication with the gas company, and they have every hope that the company will agree to a continuance of the tenancy so far as the greater part of the land is concerned.
§ 33. Major PRESCOTTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if he will consider the desirability of initiating legislation for amending the Small Holdings and Allotments Act of 1908 with a view to removing the provision requiring allotments to be self-supporting, having regard to the impossibility of carrying out this provision in large populous towns where land in many cases cannot be acquired for less than £1,000 per acre, or will he consider the expediency of making Grants-in-Aid to those communities which are treated as necessitous areas by the Board of Education in order that the large number of war-time allotments in congested districts may be retained in some permanent form?
Sir A. BOSCAWENAn opportunity will occur of raising the question to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers in connection with the Land Settlement Bill, which will be introduced shortly.