Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to (a) help tackle unauthorised encampments established by travellers, (b) introduce new powers for the police to seize (i) vehicles and (ii) other property owned by people who trespass and (c) make intentional trespass a criminal offence.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which received Royal Assent in April, strengthened the police’s powers to arrest and seize the vehicles and other property of those who set up unauthorised encampments and cause damage, disruption or distress.
The measures also extend the powers of the police to direct trespassers to leave land.