I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, that we on these Benches have supported her in the past and will continue to do so. I should reveal that it was me who quietly raised the issue of resources with her just before we began. I note that the amendment mentions identifying
“resources required to bring all land contamination in England to safe levels”.
I say to her and the Committee that that will be a challenging task. She rightly pointed out that, in your Lordships’ House, we are not allowed to discuss those matters, but I hope that someone will take this on board, whether through this amendment or through anything else, because it is a big issue.
This is a helpful reminder to us that, if we recognise that huge problems are caused by land that was previously contaminated, we have to make sure that we are not continuing to create problems for the future with the contamination of land now. Separately, I have been looking into the issue of lithium-ion batteries and the way we are currently disposing of them, which I do not believe we have yet addressed. There are all sorts of problems. People have been killed by lithium-ion
batteries exploding, but increasingly they are being dumped, not least in single-use vapes, which, sadly, many young children are now using. They are thrown away in landfill sites and cause all sorts of problems. It is worth checking what lithium can do: lithium toxicity can lead to cancer, brain damage and even death, so we are currently creating toxicity in our landfill sites that we need to address. This is a reminder to do that.
4.45 pm
I turn briefly to the important Amendment 483, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and signed by, among others, my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market, who regrets that she is unable to be with us today. As we know, restoring a sense of community is one of the levelling-up missions. There is no question whatever but that a project such as this, which would get communities to come together for the benefit of the environment in their local area, is something that everybody can get behind and would help to fulfil that particular mission.
Community cultivation—the idea that people can get together and grow food in their area—has, as we have heard, a vast range of benefits: supporting local food producers and markets, improving health and well-being, reducing costs to the NHS and making non-processed food readily available, especially during the cost of living crisis. We know, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, that there is huge demand for it in some areas, with people waiting for years to get access, for instance, to allotments, particularly when many allotments are, sadly, closing.
The amendment seems a straightforward approach that we could adopt. I gently say to the Minister that we already have a vehicle whereby we might be able to achieve this, because the Localism Act 2011, championed by my noble friend Lord Stunell, who preceded me as a Minister in DCLG, provides a model that we could use, particularly with the sections of that Act about assets of community value, especially land of community value, with the accompanying rights to bid, and even asset transfers from local authorities to local community groups. There is a way of doing this. It is a brilliantly good idea that is simple and straightforward. I hope that it will get the Government’s support.