Baroness Williams of Trafford
Main Page: Baroness Williams of Trafford (Conservative - Life peer)Mobile Homes Act 2013
Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts
Lord Graham of Edmonton (Lab)
My Lords, this is a good opportunity to review the situation, and that is the spirit in which I raise the issue. There are lots of things that I could say from experience, and especially from correspondence with the people involved. I do this because in 1983 I was a member on the Mobile Homes Act 1983. As a consequence, for the last 30 years I have been heavily involved. When I look back over 30 years the progress made from the situation then to now is quite remarkable and satisfactory. I do not intend to go over old ground of what has been fought over, achieved, and all the rest of it. However, I want to put down one or two markers.
The Minister, in replying to me on issues that I raised, alluded—not to put words in his mouth—to the fact that for the next three or four years the Government were looking forward to the issue bedding down. If he thought I was asking for action tomorrow he was wrong, but I know that he was saying, “Look, give us time to work out the detail”. All I want to say to the department—members of which I see not 100 miles away from me—and Ministers who have taken an interest is that there is a big job still to be done and I just want to point out one or two aspects of it.
I have here a booklet, Park Homes in Cornwall. I am sure it is familiar to the department and those who work there. What puzzles me is the assumption that because we are very creditworthy and using all the facilities, everybody else is the same. From a source that I have, which I accept completely, in Cornwall only 8% of the people who live on parks have access not just to telephones but computers. I do not have the answer, but the department should look at how it is possible to ensure that not just every authority and park but every resident on a park is given the information that they are entitled to. It is a tall order and I am not too sure how it should be done, but I congratulate Cornwall County Council, which has gone out of its way to ensure that residents on the parks are given all the information they need in order to make progress.
I remind the Committee that there are some villains who own sites. The situation has changed. At one time a park was owned by a man or a woman or a married couple, and that was their life. Their job in life was to make sure that the people who lived there, who they knew were vulnerable and sometimes distressed, were looked after. But now there are people who own 30 or 40 parks. Because they have that muscle and it is a big business, they combine with others, and a handful of people have the park home industry in their hands.
There are one or two instances that I want to bring up. The first is the following local newspaper article:
“The company that owns an Isle of Wight mobile home site has been ordered to pay more than £300,000 after offences committed against residents”—
of course, comment can be made that if that is the situation, that is what I want. I do not want people to have to pay. I want people to recognise that although they do not have a gold mine, they have something that pays well and they should look after it and do what needs to be done.
We all know the situation in Wolverhampton. I have a document here from a good friend, who lives in Wolverhampton. He is the secretary of the PHRAA. He woke up one night to find that the owner had set fire to some oil drums. In effect, he was trying to force him out. He was very quick. He was on to me like a shot. I spoke to the local police and they set up a system whereby they could co-ordinate. One of the problems we have is the number of different people involved. There is the department, which I deeply respect and the people who work in it, but we not only have the people who work there, but we also have politicians. There are residents’ associations, and all sorts of other things. We even have the police.
A few years ago, Detective Inspector Colquhoun, in Bromsgrove, solved the problem. We usually find that if we make a request, most police will argue that disputes on parks are civil matters, not criminal. Yet, Detective Inspector Colquhoun was called out to the park when a gang of eight tried to burn out this person and some others. The gang was caught and taken to court. Eight of them were given a total of 64 years in prison. That must have been a very big case, but the beauty was that under the Proceeds of Crime Act they were also fined hundreds of thousands of pounds because they could not show where their money had come from. Of course, that is very important.
I have one or two cuttings from various places. A caravan site was fined for safety breaches. Many site owners, as part of a quid pro quo, ask for a pitch fee or 10% of the sale, but they do not carry out the basic requirements or ensure that various aspects of their responsibilities are carried out. Many of the residents meekly accept that the law is the law and think that they can do nothing about it. When they raise the matter with the local police or the council, because of pressure from other places, including this place, those organisations say, “Well, it’s easier for us to tolerate a bad situation than to get involved”, and it costs a lot of money to the council or the police.
An article in the Cornish Guardian has the headline: “£11,500 bill for parks’ failings”. One park was found guilty of having,
“street lamps left with broken glass fittings, exposed electrical wiring in a clubhouse and a former swimming pool building being demolished by unqualified staff”.
The article continues:
“An inspection found sections of the roof fallen in, guttering blocked and electrical wiring exposed”.
People are getting away with these things. Frankly, we ought to be man enough to realise that they should not. The Herald ran an article with the headline: “Big fine for unsafe lights, wiring and pool building at caravan park”. I do not want to see headlines like that, because I know that behind them is human misery.
About a month ago, on 2 July, the marvellous organisation fronted by Sonia McColl presented a petition to No. 10 Downing Street, and then came to a meeting in Room No. 10 here, attended by Members of Parliament and others. They were quite clear in their minds that although they had won one or two victories, the biggest victory was the ability of a site owner to stop a sale, and, further, still to demand 10% of any sale. That battle is going on now, and so far, so good. But we need to watch the situation very carefully because many people who live in parks are single, elderly and unwell. I am frightened to raise the issues that they have in order to keep their homes. They have their homes, which they look after. When you look at a magazine or some of the journals, you will see that the products that these people are selling are absolutely fine, except that there are some blemishes.
There are no instant solutions; if there were, if it were possible to do things by the wave of a wand, I know that this Minister, looking after this Committee and others, would do it. But the strategic value of combining forces with other people needs to be recognised. The police, councils, councillors and authorities are all organisations that can make a contribution.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I ask the noble Lord to conclude his remarks because he has gone significantly over time.