HL Deb 15 July 1985 vol 466 cc495-6
Lord Wallace of Coslany

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many local authorities do not submit periodic reports on allotment gardens under their control to their appropriate committees.

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, this information is not available. It is for each local authority to decide whether or not periodic reports are submitted to committees on allotment matters.

Lord Wallace of Coslany

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that this Question is in the nature of an educational Question? Is he further aware that all local authorities submit to their councillors at least quarterly reports of allotments let, allotments vacant and people on the waiting list? To say, as the noble Lord said on a previous Bill's Third Reading, that to give this information to the local associations would be at the cost of excessive manpower is absolute nonsense.

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, I am all for answering educational Questions. Under the Local Government, Planning and Land Act, Sections 54 and 59 of the Smallholdings and Allotments Act 1908 were repealed. These placed on local authorities a duty to keep separate allotment accounts and to make an annual report, which is why this information is not available centrally.

Baroness Nicol

My Lords, does the Minister agree that although, as he said in answer to my noble friend last week, the Thorpe Report may be a little out of date, the need for allotments, and pressure from the Government to keep allotments going, is more needed now than it ever has been? Does he not see that because of the high numbers of unemployed in this country and because houses are now being built without gardens, for these two reasons, if for no other, the Government really should be putting some pressure and some thought behind this?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, we are putting a lot of thought and not a little pressure into the provision of allotments; but the point at issue as I understand it from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is that this pressure should be statutory pressure. I have made it perfectly clear over the last two years that statutory pressure is not to be considered on the grounds that we have no proof out in the country that local authorities are not providing for the demand for allotments which the noble Baroness says is there.

Lord Beswick

My Lords, how can the noble Lord say that he is putting on informed pressure if he is without the basic elementary information on which to exert the pressure?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, if it were apparent to central Government, as it periodically is on all sorts of other matters, that local demands are not being met then central Government will of course act.

Lord Wallace of Coslany

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that he has admitted that, under legislation, local authorities have a statutory obligation to publish an annual report; and that is precisely the information I have been asking for? Bearing in mind the answers that I have received at various times from the Department of the Environment, will he ask his right honourable friend the Prime Minister to transfer the care of allotments from the Department of the Environment to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, where I am certain that they will have more common sense treatment?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Lord feels that allotments are not getting common sense treatment from the Department of the Environment. However, as I said earlier, under the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980, the duty on local authorities to make an annual report has been abolished.

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