Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Garnier
Main Page: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Garnier's debates with the Home Office
(2 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will be participating remotely in this debate.
My Lords, I begin by explaining that I will not be pressing my amendment to a Division. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for prompting me—although she may not have realised this at the time—during the course of Committee, when we were debating other amendments in Part 4 dealing with unauthorised encampments. On that occasion, I explained that I thought there was an unfairness in the Bill in relation to the victims or respondents to criminal trespass—the tenant or landowning victims of trespass on the land; I know there are plenty of arguments about whether there should or should not be criminal trespass. I mentioned a particular example when I was a Member of Parliament some 25 years ago, in 1996 or 1997, when not only did a large group of travellers trespass on a constituent farmer’s land, but their dogs were troubling this farmer’s sheep. Some of them were killed by the dogs in question.
The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker—perfectly fairly, I think—made the point in that debate, in which I was seeking to place the burden of proof that an activity on a landowner’s or tenant’s land was being conducted unlawfully, on the trespasser who wished to assert that the occupier of the land was conducting an unlawful activity, which could have been any sort of activity. Essentially, I was seeking to persuade noble Lords that it was far more just for the invader of the land to demonstrate that what they were seeking to stop—for example, the growing of genetically modified crops—was unlawful, and that it should not be for the owner or occupier of the land who was carrying out a lawful farming activity to show that he was not conducting an unlawful activity.
That aspect of the debate in Committee is not particularly relevant to what we are doing now, save that it prompted the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, to draw my attention to her argument that, because local authorities have historically failed to provide any, or any adequate, official sites for travellers to park their vehicles and reside on, this problem of invading other people’s land will continue.
I am so glad to have the approbation of the noble Lords opposite, for whom I have the greatest respect—on their negotiated stopping site.
That is what I invite the House and the Minister to consider, and perhaps the Minister will respond in due course, saying why my idea is not quite as wonderful as I think it is.
My Lords, I am a patron of the Traveller Movement. I thank the Minister for reaching out to those of us interested in this issue and I am sorry that the change in date meant that I was unable to attend. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for her dedicated work in co-ordinating the efforts of those of us who remain very concerned about these clauses in the Bill.
In Committee, we had a full debate on how the clauses on authorised encampments are a breach of the human rights of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities to live a nomadic life. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, because he has tried to propose a compromise regarding stopping sites. It certainly merits listening to, and I hope the Minister will take account of it.
In my contribution today, I wish to focus on just one area. Clause 63 also creates the right for the police to confiscate a vehicle that may be an individual and their family’s main residence. That confiscation would have the most extraordinary consequences, giving the police very strong powers that they do not have in respect of other people’s principal residences. If the police were to confiscate a vehicle under this clause, families would not only become homeless, but because they would be deemed to have become intentionally homeless, there is a possibility that their children would be taken into care, especially if there was no appropriate emergency accommodation locally. By doing that, parents may also not be able to move on to their next planned place of work.
I support Amendment 55ZC from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which protects individuals by preventing police confiscating their vehicles if it would make the individual owner, and their family, homeless.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council could not be clearer. It said:
“We believe that criminalising unauthorised encampments is not acceptable. Complete criminalisation of trespass would likely lead to legal action in terms of incompatibility with regard to the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010, most likely on the grounds of how could such an increase in powers be proportionate and reasonable when there are insufficient pitches and stopping places?”
In Committee, the Minister said that these clauses are not targeted at the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community, but it certainly looks that way, especially as the Government explicitly referenced Traveller caravans in the background briefing to the Queen’s Speech. The Government have also made it clear that they are not criminalising trespass more generally. Even if the outline of these proposals were in the Government’s manifesto, actions that target one particular community, infringing their human rights and giving the police powers that they have said repeatedly that they do not want, cannot be right. I hope that the Minister will rethink this deplorable legislation.
My Lords, 15 noble Lords have spoken in this debate. Most of them have concentrated on amendments other than mine, which is hardly surprising. Three broad points have emerged from this debate which I hope are uncontroversial.
First, there is an undersupply of official local authority Traveller sites. Regardless of quite how far along the pendulum one places this, that must be a reason why there is a high incidence of trespass. The Government say this is a problem and I am sure others do as well, but the more interesting question is, what do we do about it? If I may say so with the greatest of respect to my noble friend, this is not just a planning matter. It is a wider public policy issue, and this Bill turns it into a criminal justice matter. It is not an answer to complain that noble Lords are conflating unlawful occupation and damage. The two may be linked; none the less, they need to be thought about with some degree of care and not by sloganising.
The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, reminded us about Clause 63(6)(a) and (b), which provide for the reasonable excuse defence. I happen to agree with him, and his recent intervention on my noble friend saved me from making a speech of an additional 10 minutes—for which there is much relief. It strikes me that Clause 63(6) provides a second incentive to local authorities to get on and provide more official sites. The first incentive is the compensatory damages which I expect them to pay. Secondly, if they, the police or the CPS seek to rely on the criminal offences described in this part of the Bill, and there are no sites and therefore it is a reasonable excuse, surely, we come back to the fact that there is an undersupply of official sites so please, let us do something about it. I entirely take on board what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said about the point at which it is realised that this is a good defence. It is not a question of me being righter and you being wronger. It is a question of sorting out the problem sensibly, pragmatically and economically, in a way which does not cause additional, prolonged and unnecessary distress to local residents such as the neighbours of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, or to the families and children within the Travelling community. It is not impossible. It just requires political will.
I beg leave to withdraw my amendment. What others do with theirs is a matter for them.