Planning System: Gypsies and Travellers

Debate between George Howarth and Jim McMahon

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jim McMahon]

It is for the Government and local councils to be supportive and to facilitate good community relations. They do not do that when the planning, education and housing systems are stacked up to make the people we are talking about part of the problem, not the solution. The reason there are illegal encampments is that often not enough authorised sites are provided. Even so, 88% of the travelling community are on authorised sites, whether local authority or privately owned. We do not talk about that; we talk about the unauthorised ones, as if that is somehow representative of a whole community. It is not.

Those in positions of power and leadership have a responsibility to build bridges, not walls, and to bring people together. They must use the levers of government, whether about regulation, tax or spend, to make sure that we create a long-term solution. We will be having this debate in another 10 years. If the Government put in place even harsher laws, which the police will not even implement because they recognise the reality on the ground, that will not solve the problem at all. We need positive solutions, looking at communities as human beings and recognising that people have the right to live the life they ought to lead, whether as a Traveller or in a settled community.

Perhaps some cross-party support is needed. If the Government want to look at the issue from a human being’s perspective, I am sure that they will find useful participants in that conversation on this side of the House. If the Government do not want to do that, but instead build walls and further the division, they can expect very firm opposition.

[Sir George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, may I remind him that he should leave a little time for Mr Hollobone to make his final remarks?

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Jim McMahon

2nd reading: House of Commons & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

We have heard from Members on both sides of the House the deep concern that any review will mean that some areas are worse off than others. As I said, that is inevitable with such narrow tax bases, when we are looking at council tax income and business rate income and saying, “That’s it.” Given that the additional grants to local authorities are now in question, we are always going to be fighting for a scarce resource.

Devolution deals have included requests for retention of air passenger duty and the tourism tax. Okay, not every area might want that, but if we believe in devolution, local areas should be able to have some of these options. The retention of fuel duty or VAT at a local level has not even been discussed. If we want genuine fiscal devolution, we need to be more open to more taxes being raised locally and spent locally, with local people holding to account the people who make those decisions.

It is not local government that needs to change, or even the DCLG team, but the Treasury—it needs to let go. The reason air passenger duty cannot be devolved at the moment is that the Treasury has no idea how much fuel duty is generated at any of our airports, because it is paid by the airline at its head office. The Treasury has no idea how much is generated from fuel duty, because it is not attributed to every petrol station but paid at the refinery, and that does not account for how much is spent at a local level.

[Mr George Howarth]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point that many of us tried to make earlier. Does he agree that on top of the fact that no redistributive mechanism is involved in this measure, there has not been sufficient testing of what the outcomes will be for us to be satisfied that it will work to the benefit of all local authorities?