Planning System: Gypsies and Travellers

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Gypsies, Travellers and the planning system.

It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I thank Mr Speaker for granting this debate, and I welcome the Minister to his place. I also thank other hon. Members for being present today, including Members who have long spoken out on these issues such as my hon. Friends the Members for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) and for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), and others. I declare my interest as a member of Kettering Borough Council.

I have called this debate because it is my contention that the Government’s planning policy with regards to Gypsies and Travellers is simply not working. I call on the Minister to ensure that during this five-year term of Conservative government, we finally get on top of this issue, because the policy is going in the wrong direction. Planning policy with regards to Travellers has as its aim

“to ensure fair and equal treatment for travellers in a way that facilitates their traditional and nomadic way of life while respecting the interests of the settled community.”

What I want, and what I think most hon. Members want, is for everyone in the planning system to receive fair and equal treatment regardless of their background. The present policy regarding Travellers does not respect the interests of the settled community. The Government go on to say that in respect of Traveller sites, their aim is to reduce tensions between the settled and Traveller communities in plan-making and planning decisions. I say to the Minister that far from reducing tensions, the present planning system is inflaming them, because Travellers effectively have preferential treatment within the planning system.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that when we talk about the settled community, we do not just mean residents—although they can be deeply troubled by this issue—but people who are seeking to earn a living through their businesses in local communities? Within the past few days, a business has written to me to say that it is having repeated difficulties because of wrongful occupation of a business site in my constituency. I know that is not the only place where this is happening; it is a repeated occurrence.

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend makes a superb point in an excellent way, and I entirely concur. However, the settled community does not include only residents and businesses, but Travellers. During one of his excellent debates on this issue, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire pointed out that we know from the 2011 census that three quarters of Gypsies and Travellers live in houses, bungalows or flats. Only a quarter live in caravans or mobile homes, yet Gypsies and Travellers as a whole have an existing, separate planning law for themselves that only applies to a quarter of their population. That kind of special treatment within the planning system applies to no other ethnic group.