Gypsy and Traveller Policy

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous]

I would welcome a proper analysis of how many transit sites we actually need. Many of my constituents have said to me that they in the settled community travel more, for business, than many Travellers. I am proposing a single, compassionate, overall housing needs assessment for everyone—everyone in this country needs housing. I would also point out that more than three quarters of Travellers already live in bricks and mortar houses, and that I would not take away their right to own caravans.

Many villages in my constituency, such as Billington, Stanbridge, Tilsworth, and Heath and Reach, feel very threatened by the large number of Travellers and Gypsies being sited in their communities to comply with current Government requirements. Specifically, the current requirement to accommodate a growth in the Gypsy and Traveller household net formation of 3% every year is causing massive problems. Although I would like to scrap the whole system, it is imperative that while it continues a more accurate figure is used, which I believe would be nearer 1.5%. I also believe that the Pat Niner review that called for a 3% figure was based on the arrival of large numbers of Travellers from Ireland after the Irish Government changed the law. The Irish Planning and Development Act 2000 made development without planning permission a criminal offence.

After that, in 2002, Irish law changed again to make trespass a criminal offence in certain circumstances, which I believe caused numerous Irish Travellers to come over to England and Wales, resulting in a spike in the numbers that led to the 3% figure that is causing problems at the moment.

The current law penalises authorities that have made significant Traveller provision, such as my own, Central Bedfordshire council, which had 197 pitches in November 2013. In addition, almost 60% of the total 247 pitches and plots listed in the Gypsy and Traveller local plan are within four miles of the village of Stanbridge, contradicting the Secretary of State’s statement on 25 November 2013 that Traveller sites should not dominate villages.

Large pitch numbers tend to produce large further needs assessments, leading to ever-increasing pitch requirements. The travellers on the unauthorised Mile Tree Farm site in my constituency are from Aylesbury, I believe, yet are counted against Central Bedfordshire’s needs assessment. That is wrong and unfair, as are the enormous legal costs that council tax payers must bear when local authorities challenge the unfair system.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is sometimes not only local councils but local communities that bear enormous legal costs? In one case in my constituency, an applicant at a planning appeal has sought costs against local residents, purely because they had the courage to stand up and speak about what they believed in for their community and their village.

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting that point on the record. She highlights the fact that there are many legal disputes. They do not promote community cohesion and are expensive for all concerned, whether individuals or, as often happens, council tax payers through local authorities.

Paragraph 15 of the March 2012 planning policy for Traveller sites seems to blunt the impact of the Minister’s written ministerial statement of 17 January on the green belt; that is another reason why I believe that nothing less than primary legislation will do. I do not believe the current situation is tenable, because central Government are forcing local authorities to take many extremely unpalatable decisions that are causing a great deal of anxiety and anger in rural and urban communities. As I said, that does not aid community cohesion. I believe strongly that we are all equal under the law. That is an important principle, but many of my constituents in the settled community do not believe that equality under the law exists at the moment and feel highly discriminated against.

The education and skills of Traveller children are more likely to increase if they are integrated with children from the settled community over a much wider area, so that they do not dominate any particular school. I also believe that Traveller children and their parents would follow the example of the majority of children and have higher rates of attendance and a greater desire to achieve the qualifications and skills necessary to secure sustained employment.

I repeat my request to the Minister to introduce primary legislation to deal with the situation in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech and, in the interim, immediately to lower the 3% net household formation annual growth requirement for Gypsies and Travellers to around 1.5%, as I do not believe that the evidence supports the 3% figure and it is causing huge difficulty to local authorities and our constituents.