Housing and Regeneration Bill

moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 58, Amendment No. 59: 59: After Clause 10, line 18, leave out from ““shall”” to end of line 20 and insert ““make arrangements with the local authority that manages allotments in that area to maintain a waiting list and manage the allotments on its behalf under the provisions that would apply if the allotments were provided by that authority”” The noble Lord said: Following yesterday’s discussions, I am not sure whether the Minister will think this discussion of allotments is a digression. If it is, it is an important one and my noble friend is to be congratulated on raising it in such a forthright and comprehensive way. I am tempted to digress further about the meeting I am going to attend tomorrow evening in Colne where, among other things, we will be discussing proposals to provide new and replacement allotments—so at least some of us at local level are taking this appropriately seriously. I will not go into great detail about that as the Committee will drum me out if I do—at least it ought to. The amendment returns to a theme that has been present in some of our discussions already, and which will certainly be present in a number of discussions which are to come fairly soon on planning and many other issues—the extent to which a large national quango should get involved in doing local things at a local level. Provision of allotments is clearly a local facility. If the Homes and Communities Agency owns allotments—I am not sure why it should—or provides allotments as part of its wider involvement, it is absolutely clear to me that such allotments should be managed as of right by the local allotments authority, which might be the borough council, the district council or the parish council. They are doing it already, they have the expertise, and there is no point in duplicating things. It is a simple point which I will be making on a number of occasions in other contexts in our debates today and later on. I beg to move.