HL Deb 24 January 1985 vol 459 cc433-7

6.49 p.m.

Lord Wallace of Coslany

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Wallace of Coslany.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]

Clause 1 [Duty of certain councils to provide allotment gardens]:

On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?

Lord Wallace of Coslany

I wish this clause and Clause 2 deleted. The reason for my opposition to the retention of Clause 1 is that, as with Clause 2, it could be held to be imposing extra work upon local authorities at a time when they are experiencing great difficulties arising from the imposition of Government policies. On the other hand, the Government have objected to the two clauses on the grounds that, in effect they were imposing bureaucracy on local authorities, these are, of course, conflicting arguments which more or less come to the same conclusion; that is that the two clauses ought to be deleted. Therefore, when the Question is put, I shall oppose the inclusion of Clause 1.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale

I said in the last Session that I supported the noble Lord on his similar Bill. I came down to support him this evening only to find him moving a wrecking amendment to his Bill. I think in those circumstances I have to remain mute though, I assure him, not out of malice.

Clause 1 disagreed to.

Clause 2 [Publication of statistics about allotment gardens]:

On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?

Lord Wallace of Coslany

The words are the same. I have already explained the reason. I oppose the inclusion of this clause.

Clause 2 disagreed to.

Lord Wallace of Coslany moved Amendment No. 1: After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:

("Access to records of statutory and temporary allotment gardens.

—(1) The council of a district, parish, community or London Borough shall afford to organisations representing allotment garden interests in their area sufficient access to their records to facilitate the preparation of an annual statement of the number and area of statutory and temporary allotment gardens provided under the Allotments Acts 1908–50, of the numbers which are occupied and of the number of persons who have applied for an allotment garden.

(2) In this section the expression "statutory allotment gardens" means land purchased or acquired under section 8 of the Allotments Act 1925.").

The noble Lord said: I beg to move the new clause standing in my name. This clause in effect replaces Clauses 1 and 2 to which the Government, together with one local authority association have objected. I may add that this association now approves the new clause and the Bill as amended by these adjustments. Subsection (1) of the clause now places responsibility on allotment garden associations to obtain and record information about allotment gardens in their respective areas without involving local authorities in additional statistical work. In most areas there is a close association between responsible allotment associations and their local authorities. This subsection will encourage still closer association and lead to co-operation in the letting of vacant plots, which no allotment tenant likes to have around him and which encourage weeds and pests, or where, there is little demand on the site, lead to closure or unnecessary transfer of a few plots to another site. On the other hand, evidence of great demand in an area with no vacancies could lead to negotiations for the provision of a new site.

Subsection (2) is very important as it defines "statutory allotment gardens". At the moment, according to the evidence of a letter from the Department of the Environment to the London Borough of Ealing, statutory allotments are not legally defined. But the letter goes on to refer the council to Section 8 of the Allotments Act 1925, which is generally interpreted to mean that if the council originally purchased or acquired the land for use as allotments, it must thereafter be considered to be a statutory site. I referred to this point at Second Reading but, for various unfortunate reasons, without previously notifying the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, to whom I have already given a copy of that letter. I hope that this new clause, and particularly subsection (2), will be acceptable and helpful to the Government.

In deleting Clauses 1 and 2 and tabling this new clause I have tried to be reasonable and to extend co-operation to the Government. This is the very essence of this Bill. I cannot, of course, discuss the whole Bill at this stage. That will have to wait until a subsequent stage. But it is in a spirit of co-operation, and bearing in mind the helpful advice received indirectly from the Government, that I beg to move.

Lord Skelmersdale

I have listened with interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has said. I observe that he has again taken careful note of what I said at Second Reading. I thank him for that. He must appreciate, however, that he is placing both the Government, and, perhaps, more importantly, the Committee, at considerable difficulty by the withdrawal of Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill to which he spoke at Second Reading. When this new clause is passed, as I am sure it will be, the noble Lord will have a Bill which is more than slightly different from the one that he presented. So I appreciate the dilemma of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, referred briefly to this new clause at Second Reading and said: I would suggest that when we get to the Committee stage this amendment will be of great importance because the point is that you have to define a statutory allotment because a statutory allotment must not be cleared and used for another purpose without the consent of the Minister. The problem up to now has been: what is a statutory allotment?"—[Official Report, 3/12/84; col. 1130.] While I accept that the word "statutory" is not defined in legislation, I raise again the questions of evidence to support contention. Nothing I have seen in any way leads me to believe, as the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, appears to imply, that local authorities, where they need to do so for the purposes of disposal of allotment land, have any difficulty in determining which of their allotment land is "statutory" land or, as a consequence of this, are failing to obtain the consent of the Secretary of State when disposing of such land, as required by Section 8 of the Allotments Act 1925.

The Departmental Committee of Inquiry into Allotments—the so-called Thorpe Committee—stated in paragraph 61 of their 1969 report (and here I quote): The following definitions of allotment land—although not included in the legislation—became widely accepted: (i) land of which the freehold was vested in the allotments authority, and which had either been originally purchased for allotments or had subsequently been appropriated to allotment use, became known as statutory allotment land; (ii) land which was either rented by the allotments authority on lease or tenancy, or, being owned by the authority, was destined ultimately for some other use, became known as temporary allotment land". It also defined a third category—private allotment land—which does not concern us this evening.

I have on a number of occasions during the passage of the noble Lord's Bills made it clear that the Government's aim is to reduce the burdens on local authorities, not to increase them. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will therefore understand that in the terms of this amendment, under which local authorities would be obliged to: afford to organisations representing allotment garden interests in their area sufficient access to their records to facilitate the preparation of an annual statement", I still stand by that, although I understand what the noble Lord said in introducing this new clause to the Committee.

The new clause is also unclear as to whether the allotment societies or the local authority are to prepare the annual statement, although I understand from what the noble Lord has said this afternoon that he is quite clear in his own mind that it is the allotment societies who are to prepare the report. I must say that in this the noble Lord has made a small step in the right direction. Nonetheless, local authority man hours would still be needed to make these records into an acceptable and understandable form. I am prepared to accept that it would be a nice thing to do, in theory, but my central point on Second Reading remains the same: what proof has the noble Lord that such a report is necessary at all? I cannot countenance legislation unless I know that there is an evil to be righted.

Baroness Nicol

I should like to take up one point that the Minister has made. We support my noble friend's Bill and would like to see it go through. The local authority time involved here, surely, is very small. I do not agree that there is any doubt about who is to prepare the annual report. It seems clear to me from the Bill that it is the allotment societies themselves. In most local authorities, the kind of information that would be required is easily available. It is simply a question of allowing access to the records which are clearly kept by most competent local authorities. Therefore, I think that the objection raised by the noble Lord the Minister is not very useful.

7 p.m.

Lord Wallace of Coslany

I am somewhat surprised at the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. I am getting the impression that Private Members' Bills are not liked by government departments. We are presuming to do something that they would like to do but never get down to doing. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, quite rightly quoted the Thorpe Report. One of the reasons for this Bill, which has a lot of good points, in spite of what the noble Lord says, is that the Thorpe Report has never been implemented. I tried when my own party was in power to get the Thorpe Report implemented, and the noble Baroness then replying for the Government said that at some time that might be done; but it has never been done.

As to formulating what a statutory allotment is, when a government department gets a letter, a request for the schedule, from a very important and large London borough asking which are statutory allotments and which are not, the department cannot tell them and apologises because there is no legal definition, but it advises them that if they search out those allotments acquired and purchased under Section 8 of the 1925 Act they can be held to be statutory allotments.

Hang it all, here am I extending a helping hand to the Government which will save many local authorities sending in letters of inquiry for schedules, wasting the time of civil servants. This is reducing the burden on local authorities, and I am completely astonished at the reaction to the DIY (if I may so put it) effort of local allotment associations, most of which are of great repute and most of which are already involved in a close degree of co-operation with their local authorities, anyway. There is not the slightest difficulty whatever in obtaining the information they want, but the difference now is that instead of council officials preparing the figures, the allotment association does it itself.

Allotment records are accessible. It is not as if we were dealing with some state defence document of high secrecy. I have had local government experience. I have been chairman of a parks and cemeteries committee which deals with allotments, and these statistics are supplied from time to time. But I am not asking the local authorities to do it now. In order to meet the Government's wishes, the local associations, if they so wish, can go to the council and obtain the necessary figures they want.

That is all there is to it. I have never heard such a load of waffle on the part of the Government in trying to dodge a simple issue. Therefore, as I said at the beginning, I am convinced that if you promote a Private Bill, then all the departments get jealous of you and you have not got a chance. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Remaining clauses and schedules agreed to.

House resumed: Bill reported with the amendments.

House adjourned at five minutes past seven o'clock.