Unauthorised Encampments

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I will try not to fill the long period that you described between now and the winding-up speeches, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on raising this issue, which I have heard debated four or five times in this Chamber in the past five years or so. That, along with the number of my hon. Friends seeking to speak in the debate, demonstrates what an extremely important issue it is. Indeed, it affects communities across the whole of England, and those hon. Members here today probably represent only a small number of those on both sides of the House who have significant worries about the issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) raised the particularly interesting topic of trespass. As far as I can recall, the issue was dealt with quite well in one of the last Acts passed by the previous Conservative Government in 1997, which made some efforts towards putting the point right. Although the legislation no doubt needs improving, the basic machinery is there. With the exception of my hon. Friend, however, all the others who have spoken in the debate have addressed the identical problem of people of one sort or another—I will come back to who they are—illegally occupying a vacant site, of which they have taken ownership, nearly always on a bank holiday Monday. Within a few days, they insert hard standing.

[Heather Wheeler]

The interesting point about trespass is that there is no criminal trespass law on which we can rely in relation to public authority land. We are looking for our new coalition Government to bring forward from our manifesto a new intentional criminal trespass law that will allow us to have the same rights for public authority land as for private authority land. That would be a major development, and I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to mention it.

[Mr Gray]

My hon. Friend makes a similar point to my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe. Both my hon. Friends are quite right, although their point is not absolutely central to the topic of today’s debate, which is the illegal occupation of land owned by Gypsies, Travellers and others.

As I said, the pattern we see is a similar one, and many people have described it in the debate. People move on to land, often on a bank holiday weekend. Before anybody knows what is happening, hard standing has gone down, toilet blocks have been erected and gardens have been put in. Often, little bungalows—we are not talking about caravans—are established in a very short time, as I have seen in Minety in my constituency. I have eight or 10 illegal Gypsy encampments in my constituency, including at Calcutt park, near Cricklade, and various other places. In a short time, something that looks for all the world like a village has been established. There are wheelie bins at the end of the drive, electricity has been laid on and these people have established something that no one else would be allowed to establish.

I will not bore hon. Members by repeating what a number of my hon. Friends have eloquently described. However, I want to address the reason why such developments are allowed to occur. My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) referred to the way in which the noble Lord Prescott—what a noble Lord he is—introduced planning circular 01/06. Hon. Members will recall that the circular told planning inspectors that where local authorities are not able to demonstrate that there is adequate provision for Gypsies and Travellers elsewhere in their area, there should be a presumption in favour of illegal Gypsy and Traveller encampments. That has meant—I have had several such cases in my constituency—that where the planning inspector sits on an appeal, the law requires him to say that unless the local authority can demonstrate that there is adequate provision elsewhere, he must give the Gypsies and Travellers permission for their illegal encampment. I do not blame the inspectors; they have no other option but to do that, because that is what the single planning note requires them to do.

Leaving aside the two-tier planning system that such an arrangement implies—I will come back to that in a second—there are several specific problems associated with the circular. First, it does not stipulate who Gypsies and Travellers are. No distinction is made under law between hippies, new age travellers, people who are homeless, traditional Romanies, of whom there are many in my constituency, Irish Travellers, Roma and people coming in from France. Indeed, the French Government recently expelled a large number of Roma, and there is nothing to prevent them from coming here and declaring themselves to be Gypsies or Travellers. There is therefore no definition in the law to distinguish between those people.

As another speaker mentioned a moment ago, when the Gypsy and Traveller assessments were made under the regional spatial strategy—I am glad that that document is now defunct—local authorities were required to assess how many Travellers there were in their area and what provision there was for them. However, there is no way of doing that. By definition, these people are Travellers. Are we talking about the Travellers resident in the county of Wiltshire, the south-west of England, the west of England, Wessex, England or what? There is no scientific way of assessing who these people are, because, by definition, they do not live in one place. A very large number of the Travellers in my constituency come from Ireland. Others come from the continent of Europe.

Incidentally, one interesting side issue is that the Irish and the Romanies will not live on the same site. The site at Thingley junction in my constituency has vacancies, but it is occupied by Irish Travellers. The Romanies, perfectly reasonably, say that they do not want to go there, because the two groups do not like each other. I am just not certain, however, that society has a duty to provide for people who do not happen to like each other. If somebody came to my constituency surgery and said, “I want a council house, but I’m not going to live in that council estate full of Irish people, because I don’t want to live with the Irish,” I would say, “I’m extremely sorry about that madam, but you’re jolly well going to have to put up with it.” The same applies in this case.

As I said, we do not know who these people are. By definition, they are Travellers. The Traveller population in the United Kingdom has been increasing exponentially over the past 30 or 40 years, and I will come back to that in one second. Asking a local authority whether it has enough provision for these people is an impossible question to answer. It cannot, by definition, say, “Yes, we do.”

[Gavin Williamson]

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend has witnessed a similar situation in Wiltshire, but a number of Gypsies and Travellers in South Staffordshire have successfully applied for planning permission and obtained established sites. I then notice in the local newspaper that those sites are being commercially marketed to people who are not Gypsies and Travellers. People are exploiting the law for personal profit.

[Mr Gray]

I noticed that episode when it was recently mentioned in the newspapers, but that has not been my experience. All the illegally occupied sites in my constituency, and I think throughout the west country, have gone on to be fully occupied by Gypsies and Travellers. I have not seen any being sold on, although I suppose there is no reason why they should not be. However, I have my doubts about whether a local authority would give planning permission to a settled person to take over a Gypsy encampment afterwards. I certainly recommend that it should not.

The numbers are extremely interesting. When I was special adviser to the then Secretary of State for the Environment we had the great joy of repealing the legislation that required local authorities to make provision for Gypsies and Travellers in their counties. We did so because when the Labour Government passed the provisions there were, from memory, 3,500 illegally parked caravans in England. In 1996, by the time we had repealed them, there were 6,000 illegally parked caravans, so the illegals had more or less doubled. That was in addition to the 7,000 pitches that local authorities had by then provided. Those authorities had provided twice as many pitches as they were required to under the Act, and a further 6,000 were illegally parked. That total of 13,000 caravans in England has now become 18,355, according to a recent survey. The number went from 3,500 to 18,500 in as many years.

[David Tredinnick]

My hon. Friend touches on an important point, which can perhaps be illustrated by a comparison with road building. When an extra lane is put on a motorway it does not solve the problem; it just brings in another lane’s worth of traffic.

[Mr Gray]

My hon. Friend is right. It is what I would describe as a Parkinson’s law of Gypsy caravans. No matter how many sites are provided for them, more appear. That takes us back to the original question of the definition of what those people are. Who are Gypsies? What are Romanies? What definition do we have under the law? The answer is none at all: the more sites are provided, the more people appear to fill them.

I therefore do not subscribe at all to the underlying principle behind planning policy guidance note 01/06 that somehow a local authority must demonstrate that it has made adequate provision. It is not possible for a local authority to demonstrate that. No matter how many sites it provides, it is perfectly possible for the Gypsy and Traveller community to say that there are not enough. Indeed, there seems to be a moth-to-a-flame attraction: the more sites are provided in a county, the more Gypsies and Travellers appear to try to fill them. Wiltshire and the west country as a whole seem to be a bit of a hot spot for that.

That seems to me to be completely wrong, and the Government have indicated their intention to address the situation. We must do so by abolishing Lord Prescott’s planning guidance note and the regional spatial strategy and by telling local authorities exactly what they are told in relation to homeless people from the settled community: the rule for the settled community is that if someone needs a council house they go to see the local authority or—too often—their MP, or a housing association. To get a house one must demonstrate need, in a certain prioritised way, and a local connection. If someone came to my constituency surgery and said, “Hello; I come from Inverness and I am homeless. I want you to get in touch with the local authority and get me a council house,” I would say, “I’m awfully sorry. You must get back to Inverness and get your council house there. You aren’t going to get one in Wiltshire because we demand a local connection.” Precisely the same applies to the Gypsy community. They are very nice people. A number are close friends of mine. Those who live in Wiltshire have a right to proper Gypsy encampments there. However, those who come to Wiltshire from elsewhere have no right to demand that the people of Wiltshire should pay for sites to accommodate them. Exactly the same rules should apply to them as to anyone else with regard to planning and housing.

An example from my constituency, which I think is an outrage, highlights what has gone wrong with our planning process. A very nice lady came to see me. She had an organic farm in the village of Box in my constituency. She had a caravan, in which she lived, in the centre of the organic farm, which was about 15 acres. Rather bizarrely, the local authority looked at the profitability of the organic farm and concluded that it was not profitable and was not a going concern, and that she could not make it a going concern. Had it been profitable my constituent would have been allowed to carry on living in the caravan. That in itself is bizarre. She was required to leave the caravan, although, incidentally, she was allowed to leave it for chickens. It could remain where it was as long as she did not live in it. Fine so far.

Next door, just down the road, is an entirely vacant field that was bought at a very high price by a group of Travellers. They moved on to the site and are in the same position as the non-Traveller organic farmer. They went to appeal and said, “We are Gypsies” and the inspector was required by law to give them permission to remain in the field, adjacent to the one from which someone from the settled community had been removed. That seems to me to be disgraceful. There is no reason why any group in society—white, black, green, gay, straight, Chinese or anything you like—should have different planning rules from those affecting anyone else. There should be one law for one, and one law for all.

[George Hollingbery]

I am curious about the example that my hon. Friend has raised, and the more general implications. He has rightly said that there is no formal legal mechanism for assessing whether someone is a Gypsy or a Traveller, yet local authorities regularly make such assessments. Does he have any experience of how local authorities make the decision? Perhaps the Minister will elucidate the matter and tell us how local authorities can make a better job of assessing who is, or is not, qualified under the Human Rights Act 1998 or other legislation.

[Mr Gray]

I am afraid that my hon. Friend and I will not agree on this issue. I take the view that it is not up to local authorities to decide who is a Gypsy, who is a Romany, who is an Irish Traveller, who is a dropout, who is a hippy and who is a settled person. Every human being, of every kind, whatever their colour, race, background or class may be, should be treated identically by the local authority, which does not need guidelines about what to do. The same applies with respect to the Human Rights Act, about which some hon. Members in the Chamber have reservations. I do not think that it should come into the consideration of whether land should be set aside for Travellers or anyone else. The Act is about human rights, but the issue that we are talking about is planning, and I do not think that Travellers or anyone else should be given preference over the settled community merely because they are Travellers. What a perfect definition of racism that is—for a local authority to say “We are required to do something for you, not because you are a good man, or a bad man, but because you claim to be some kind of Romany, Irish, Roma, Gypsy or who knows what. You claim you are that, and therefore I must do something for you that I will not do for someone else.” That seems to me to be unacceptable in 21st-century Britain and I hope that the new Secretary of State will do away with it.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I apologise to the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for missing the opening speeches; I was detained on other business. I intervene on the eloquent speech of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire) to ask whether he is denying the existence of Travelling people as a community in the UK. If so, presumably he would disagree with the approach that I believe the Government have retained, that local authorities should, wherever possible, find and provide sufficient official sites to meet the needs of the Travelling community. If that were done, we would not be debating the issue of illegal encampments because sufficient pitches would be available for those in need.

[Mr Gray]

The hon. Gentleman and I have crossed swords for many years on many subjects. He was late for the debate and I am not sure whether he missed any of my speech as well; I certainly was not denying the existence of the Travelling community. Quite the opposite. I said at the beginning of my speech that I felt strongly that the Travelling community had a perfect right to be Travellers; good luck to them. That is fine. It is not my way of life. I cannot stand camping at all. However, if they want to be Travellers, that is fine. It is right that the local authority should make suitable provision for the Travelling community, as it does for the settled community. It is right to do that for the local Travelling community, but I see no reason to do so for the wider Travelling community. I certainly do not deny its existence, nor the state’s responsibility to make proper provision for it. It is right to do that, but we are discussing the means by which that happens, not whether it should happen.

I welcome the stricter stance taken by the incoming Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and the abolition of the regional spatial strategy, which is the document behind much of what we are debating. I hope that as part of what happens we shall do away with the Gypsy and Traveller assessments, which were flawed, to say the least, whoever did them—Salford technical college or anyone else. I call on the Secretary of State to stipulate that the planning status of Gypsies and Travellers is precisely identical to the planning status of everyone else—indeed, their rights in every other respect should be identical to everyone else’s. I also call on him to introduce stronger enforcement powers, so that when these outrages occur, local authorities have the power to go on to these sites and deal with these people as they would anyone else. I very much welcome the fact that he has stipulated in his general approach to planning that the people who decide whether or not these things occur, whether with regard to Gypsies or to houses, should be local councillors who are answerable to local people. They should make up their mind about how such things happen; it should not be down to Lord Prescott or his successors in the DCLG.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on a crisp and temperate presentation of the issues that not only he but other hon. Members in the Chamber have encountered. I was particularly interested in his strong focus on the issue of unauthorised occupation—that matter has come across strongly today. Some of the difficulties surrounding that issue are very different from those surrounding the debate about the need for authorised sites, which again has been robust. I shall try to bring out some of those issues in my remarks.

I start by mentioning some of the facts and the chronology of what the previous Government did—or, indeed, attempted to do—regarding some of the matters raised. I understand that some Conservative Members may not be aware of those points. That is not surprising, given that a “year zero” approach seems to have been adopted by the Department for Communities and Local Government website; all reference to what was done in the six months before the election has been removed. However, with your permission, Mrs Brooke, I shall touch on some of the things that were done in that period.

In March 2010, DCLG launched guidance that was sent to police, local authorities and other agencies. That guidance focused particularly on adopting a multi-agency approach to helping communities tackle the problems of antisocial behaviour on Travellers’ sites, including the use of antisocial behaviour orders and acceptable behaviour contracts. I shall return to those important points.

In introducing that document, my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham), the then Secretary of State, said:

“local councils and the police have strong powers and tools to crack down on anti-social behaviour—and I expect them to be used to the full. This guidance will help ensure that the local agencies understand the powers available to them.”

The Home Secretary at that time, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), said—it is important to make this point because various hon. Members have mentioned it—

“The Gypsy and Traveller community is treated no differently than the rest of the community. Perpetrators of crime and antisocial behaviour will be punished and, where appropriate, taken through the criminal courts and jailed.”

From the Opposition’s point of view, I would like to emphasise that that principle, elucidated by the former Home Secretary, stands four-square.

In addition to that, on the question of unauthorised developments, a statutory instrument was laid before Parliament on 9 March 2010, which reduced the period of appeal against refusal of an unauthorised development from six months to 28 days. That reduced the ability for the time frame to be exploited where unauthorised developments are in situ.

That did not come out of the blue; it was based on the findings of the Briscoe report, which was set up in 2007 and revised in 2009. It is worth noting that that was regarded as a priority by DCLG Ministers, which is why it reached the statute book before the wash-up and Dissolution. That was because of the importance of the need to reduce the period of uncertainty for local residents after local authorities refuse a planning application. In addition to those enforcement measures, the previous Government continued to support local councils in their bids to establish authorised Traveller sites, and £32 million was pledged from the Homes and Communities Agency budget as part of the site grant for 2010-11.

I have mentioned the difference between authorised and unauthorised sites. Although I appreciate that in some circumstances there can be significant problems with authorised sites, I believe that the development of authorised sites helps to combat the problem. To be fair, the current Government believe that as well, but the question of where the money will come from is another matter. On that main point, however, there is a consensus between the Opposition and the Government. There is evidence that the creation of authorised sites saves councils significant amounts of money. Once Bristol city council invested in a transit site, for example, having relied on enforcement action before, it reduced its related annual costs from £200,000 to £5,000.

The previous Government also intended to amend the Mobile Homes Act 1983 to give improved security and right of tenure to Gypsies and Travellers on official sites. Unfortunately, as the present Government were kind enough to acknowledge in a statement to the House on 27 July, there was no parliamentary time to debate those statutory instruments before the general election. They do, however, relate to the application of the 1983 Act. The Minister will no doubt remark that the Government intend to make a decision on section 318 in due course, in the context of the wider strategy. There is no difference between the policies of the previous and current Governments.

I now turn to what the current Government have said and done since taking office. In May 2010, as part of the first round of spending cuts, the Homes and Communities Agency ended the Gypsy and Traveller programme grants for the creation of authorised sites. As far as I am aware, the regional spatial strategies have been revoked but not yet formally abolished. Their formal abolition will no doubt be presented later in the year as part of the decentralisation and localism Bill that the Government are promising—or threatening us with. That removed the obligation for local authorities to identify sites that could be used for authorised Travellers. However, nature abhors a vacuum, and I suspect that that will be the case if there is no formula whatever.

On the point about returning to regional spatial strategies, there will be no formula whatever for dealing with what will be a continuing problem. I put it to Members and the Minister that without some form of overarching framework there is a danger that local authorities will pass the parcel and try to shift the onus of provision on to neighbouring authorities, which will be doing likewise.

[Mr Gray]

Why should there be an overarching vision? Surely it should be for local authorities to decide what provision they make for Gypsies and Travellers in their areas. Why should anyone else decide that?

[Mr Marsden]

I would not accuse the hon. Gentleman of nimbyism, but I think that such action is common sense. Indeed, in his eloquent contribution he explained that Travellers move around a lot. Simply playing pass the parcel with those people is no mechanism for dealing with them, and I find the idea that it is rather bemusing.