WEDNESDAY 25 MARCH 1998

ANGELA EAGLE, MP and MR JOHN ROBERTS

  210.  Minister, may I welcome you to the Committee. Could I ask you to identify yourself and your official.

  (Angela Eagle)  I am Angela Eagle. I am Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. John Roberts will identify himself.

  (Mr Roberts)  I head one of the divisions which deals with regeneration policy.

  211.  Do you want to make a statement to us to start with, or are you happy for us to start with questions?

  (Angela Eagle)  I have a small statement which I thought might put the Government's policy in a positive light. If you would allow me, Mr Chairman, just to say that the Government recognises the importance of allotment gardening for a variety of reasons. It can be an important recreational activity and allotments can play a positive role as a focus for local communities. But, as no doubt the Committee has been finding out, there is a history of quite old legislation around allotments. They were originally created so that the labouring poor could supplement their income by cultivation and stock keeping. The imperative to increase food production was seen, particularly during the two World Wars of this century, when there was a huge increase in the number of allotments. Since then, obviously there has been a decline, but we still believe that food grown on allotments can contribute to a healthy diet and lessen the impact of food production on the environment. Local food production can also reduce food transportation and reduce the waste produced by food packaging. It can reduce the use of agricultural chemicals because of the use of recycled matter; in other words, we believe that a lot of allotment gardening tends to be organic rather than full of pesticides. The Government is committed to the sustainable regeneration of our towns and cities, and recognises that allotments can contribute to our aim of providing green areas in urban environments.

Chairman:  Thank you very much. John Cummings.

  212.  Good morning, Minister. I represent an area which has a culture of allotments spanning perhaps 150 years. I have certain evidence that our lives have been greatly enriched by the provision and working of allotments, not just in terms of food production, as your departmental memo refers; but also in assisting a healthier form of living and involvement with leisure in the widest context. It was rather interesting to hear your remarks. Once again, your Department seems to concentrate only on the production of food, when there are so many other aspects which can be attached to the working and provision of allotments.

  (Angela Eagle)  I did not mention pigeon-keeping either. That has a certain presence in some allotments.

  213.  I could certainly mention pigeon keeping, and rabbits, horses, pigs, dogs, turkeys, a whole range of activities which take place on allotments in my area. Really, your memorandum does concentrate upon food production and does not make reference to the many other qualities of allotment keeping; particularly in terms of a healthier way of living, exercise, encouraging schoolchildren to attend allotments to see how allotments are worked, looking at disabled clubs—there is a wide range. It does appear as if allotments are the poor nail of leisure provision in local authorities. I wonder what your Department can do in order to project allotments in a more positive manner, to encompass all those other activities to which I have referred.

  (Angela Eagle)  This may well connect in with strategies that local authorities may want to design for local Agenda 21 processes. The Government has said that it wants the remaining 30 per cent of local authorities that still do not have an Agenda 21 strategy, to have developed one by the end of the century. This was an announcement that the Prime Minister made when he went to the meeting in New York in the follow-up to the Rio Conference. That certainly is one aspect that local authorities need to be taking into account when they are looking at their local sustainable policies. However, I do not think that we want to be too prescriptive from a central Government point of view, in saying in different areas what local authorities feel is the right level of provision. You have rightly pointed out that in your area of the world allotment gardening is very popular. No doubt you have seen the survey, the English Allotments survey, which is the last, most up-to-date statistics, done by the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners Limited and Anglia Polytechnic University with DETR grant. There were very interesting figures at the back of this, which demonstrate what you have just said, Mr Cummings, which is that in different areas of the country there is a greater or lesser level of enthusiasm for allotment gardening. Clearly your area of the country has a very low vacancy percentage of existing allotments, but that is not the case in some other areas. We do think that it is really a matter for local authorities to include the many benefits of allotment gardening which you have just mentioned in their local Agenda 21 strategies, and in the way they actually promote the use and hire of allotments.

  214.  Do you not see the role of your Department as being rather proactive to requirements of allotment holders? Do you not believe that they are not getting the fair share of limited resources which provide for leisure in the community? How would you see the future of allotments? I find it difficult to understand that you can, perhaps, take two paces back and place the emphasis upon local authorities, when so many applications are being submitted to your Department to get rid of allotments, and the number of applications which have been accepted by the Department.

  (Angela Eagle)  47 since last May. The Committee has a list.[4]

  215.  So how do you see the Department being more proactive in encouraging people to take up allotment gardening?

  (Angela Eagle)  That is really a matter for local authorities, as part of their local sustainability work in local Agenda 21. The Government sets a national framework for some of that. We have produced new consultation papers on how we can look at sustainable development. That goes across a lot of areas, including impinging upon planning and in other areas, but it also fits very well in with local Agenda 21. The Government would certainly want to encourage people to take up allotment gardening, but the fact remains that in many areas of the country there are large numbers of vacant allotments that people do not, at the moment, want to see and take up and use. It varies between areas like yours, where there are very low vacancy rates and even competition for allotments, to other areas where there are very large areas of vacant, unused, semi-derelict allotments.

  216.  We know the problem but does your Department have any ideas on how to overcome that problem in promoting allotment holders?

  (Angela Eagle)  I believe that is best done at local level where there is local provision.

  217.  You mentioned, two or three times, the large number of vacant allotments.

  (Angela Eagle)  In some areas.

  218.  Indeed, as you say, and several which have been sold off. In your view, is it a bad thing that the number of allotments has gone down?

  (Angela Eagle)  I think we have to look at where we were coming from. If you look at the figures in the evidence that the Department has submitted, we see that there are 296,923 plots left. This has come down, at the height of the Second World War, from one and a half million. We have to look at trends that have happened over the century. In both World Wars there was a big increase.

  219.  I am not asking about the trends, I know about the trends. My question is: do you think that is a good trend or a bad one?

  (Angela Eagle)  It represents some changes in society.