Allotments

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, the National Trust is indeed doing an extremely good job in providing access to part of its land for allotments. I think that we would all be glad about that. I am not quite sure how many other landowners or landholders might be happy to do this, but I am sure that the example that has been set by the National Trust will be followed. There is plenty of enthusiasm and encouragement for people to start growing vegetables in their own gardens. There is also encouragement for people to be community gardeners and growers, and there are vegetable plots all over the country.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the very important work currently being done by the Royal Horticultural Society in using gardening as a way of developing skills in schools, and that some of this work is connected to the use of community land? Would it not be a very great shame if the kind of limited but important funding available for schools to contribute to this work was in any sense compromised by the forthcoming spending cuts?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I draw the noble Baroness’s attention to what I said originally. The support for initiatives such as this comes from local government, which will make its own decisions about it. The sort of initiatives to which she refers are extremely valuable; they build into future generations a love of the land, the love of gardening and an appreciation of where our food comes from. Quite a lot of children just think that it comes out of the shop.