HC Deb 11 May 1953 vol 515 cc1009-11

(1) The Minister may, out of moneys provided by Parliament, make to—

  1. (a) an association of allotment holders whereof the members are, at the beginning of the thirty-first day of January in any of the relevant years, occupiers of allotment gardens whose area in the aggregate is not less than half an acre, being allotment gardens that have been damaged by salt water in the period beginning on the thirty-first day of January, nineteen hundred and fifty-three;
  2. (b) a local authority or a society having as its object the cultivation of vacant land for the purpose of letting it for use as allotment gardens, being an authority or society by which there are let at the beginning of the thirty-first day of January in any of the relevant years allotment gardens whose area in the aggregate is not less than half an acre, being allotment gardens that have been damaged as aforesaid;
a payment by way of contribution towards the cost of taking the necessary steps in the relevant year in question for the purpose of rehabilitating those allotment gardens.

(2) A payment under this section to an association, local authority or society shall be made by reference to the area of land consisting of such allotment gardens as aforesaid which, at the beginning of the thirty-first day of January in the year with reference to which the payment is made, are occupied by members of the association or, as the case may be, let by the authority or society, and shall be at such rate as may be specified in a provision included for that purpose in a scheme under section thirteen of this Act, so, however, that in calculating the area of any land for the purpose of ascertaining the amount of a payment any fraction of an acre less than one-half shall be disregarded.

(3) Provision may be made by any such scheme as aforesaid with respect to the time within which applications for payments under this section are to be made.

(4) In this section—

  1. (a) the expression "allotment garden" has the same meaning as it has for the purposes of the Allotments Act, 1922;
  2. (b) the expression "local authority" means the council of a borough, urban district or parish and the parish meeting of a rural parish not having a parish council; and
  3. (c) the expression "the relevant years" has the same meaning as it has for the purposes of section thirteen of this Act.—[Sir T. Dugdale.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Sir T. Dugdale

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The Committee might like a short explanation of this new Clause. During the Committee stage hon. Members opposite moved an Amendment to bring allotments into the ambit of this Bill and on Second Reading I gave an undertaking to look into the position and, if necessary, to move an Amendment to bring allotments within the scope of the Bill. We have done that and this new Clause extends the scope of acreage payments to land used as allotment gardens and so fulfils the undertaking given.

There is a point upon which the Committee might like guidance. For administrative reasons it would be impracticable to pay each allotment holder individually for a 10 rod plot, which is one-sixteenth of an acre. For that reason, the proposal is that payments shall be made to local authorities, allotment societies and similar bodies which have an interest in not less than half an acre of allotment gardens, leaving them to deal as they think best with the rehabilitation of the land. It is intended that payments shall be at a uniform rate for all allotment land, which will be specified in the general acreage payments scheme to be made under the powers given by Clause 13.

In this connection, I would remind the Committee that hon. Members opposite asked that payments should be made available for blocks of allotment gardens of half an acre and more and not restricted to allotments of more than half an acre. The Committee will see from the new Clause that the provision has been amended accordingly.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Horncastle (Commander Maitland) raised the point that payments should apply to allotment gardens given up because of flood damage and this has been met by altering the qualifying date of occupation from 4th June to 31st January.

Mr. Edward Evans (Lowestoft)

If a person does not happen to be associated with other allotment holders, either under a local authority or voluntary scheme, is he denied compensation if his holding is less than half an acre?

Sir T. Dugdale

Yes, but he and his friends may associate themselves with one or two others and call themselves an allotment society. There is no need for him to have been in an allotment society before the passing of the Bill.

Mr. Evans

I hope that that advice will be made well known to the persons affected; otherwise, many will be disappointed with the actual terms of the proposed new Clause.

Mr. Champion

I think we can commend this new Clause as giving effect to a promise made by the right hon. Gentleman. The Minister is always very good on these points and we are grateful to him for the great care he gives to representations made from any part of the Committee. Those who have had association with allotments recognise that it is rather difficult to make payments to individual holders and that, therefore, we have to deal with an association of allotment holders and the Minister has rightly included that provision in the Clause.

We thank the right hon. Gentleman particularly for having looked again at the question of the actual area and included the words, not less than half an acre, which makes quite clear that if an association occupies half an acre they will be eligible for assistance.

10.15 p.m.

Commander J. F. Maitland (Horncastle)

I do not think that hon. Gentlemen opposite should make a corner in gratitude, and I should like to express to the Minister the thanks of hon. Members on this side of the House.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

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