Bob Stewart
Main Page: Bob Stewart (Conservative - Beckenham) Gypsies and Travellers and Local Communities
Bob Stewart Excerpts
Tony Lloyd
I just want to make a few more points, but I will most certainly give way in a moment.
Many Travellers are in jobs—skilled, unskilled and professional—and some are public servants. I call to mind Jim Davies, a sergeant in the Thames Valley police. Along with Petr Torak of Cambridgeshire police, Jim Davies founded the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Police Association, which now has 100 members. Having spent a lot of time in recent years trying to increase the number of people from minority communities in our police force, I found it interesting that the Traveller community is one of the few groups with a proportion of people in the police that more or less mirrors its proportion in society more generally. Jim Davies, who has a Romany background, is about to retire after 30 years of serving the people of Thames valley and I applaud him.
Tony Lloyd
I will give way to my right hon. Friend first, and then to the hon. Gentleman.
Tony Lloyd
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, but let us be very clear that if we were talking about any other minority community, the idea of stigmatising the majority because of the illegal behaviour of a minority would be unacceptable and atrocious. We must not stigmatise them. We should act against those whose behaviour is unacceptable and illegal, but we should not stigmatise them.
Bob Stewart
I actually lived in a Traveller community for a few days, and I must tell the House that one of the biggest problems is that people who act illegally are giving their children no chance in life because they cannot get an education. Most of the children under 17 in the encampment I was in, which was mixed, could not read. When I advocated their joining the Army, for example, they said, “Mister, you don’t understand. They wouldn’t have us.” It took me two days to understand what they meant: they could not read. This is something we have to crack.
Tony Lloyd
I am with the hon. Gentleman on that. Let me remind him, if I may, of Jim Davies, about whom I spoke a few moments ago—a Romany who spent 30 years serving the public in our police force. People like that are already the role model we want in that community.