Member

I am not sure I really need to make the case, but it is important to put on the record that allotments and community gardens are vital for health and well-being, food security—one of the coming issues of our age—and environmental sustainability. These are of course community spaces: places where people gather, do outdoor activities, make social connections and learn, as well as producing food. The fact is that there is a huge shortage of allotments in the UK. Nearly 160,000 people are on English local authority waiting lists, and eight million people in the UK have no garden at home. The honourable Member for Rotherham referred in the other place to the kind of conversations others have already referred to. She spoke to the Minister, who said in response that there is nothing to stop local authorities doing this. Well, no, but we need to say that that this is an essential.