Gypsies and Travellers and Local Communities

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The figures that I am citing are collected in January, but also in July, and I would be happy to share them with him. The fundamental point is that every incursion and illegal encampment causes problems, and that is what matters to constituents and communities up and down the country.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Will the Minister acknowledge that prevention is better than cure? What can be done to ensure that there are more authorised sites available, particularly in areas of the country that are feeling the pressure of unauthorised sites?

[Alok Sharma]

Prevention is, of course, better than cure, but it is also important that all communities abide by the law.

Local authorities and the police already have extensive powers to take action. Councils have a range of powers available to them. They can very quickly obtain a possession order to remove trespassers from land, and they can apply to the courts for pre-emptive injunctions that prevent unauthorised camping in a defined area. The police also have powers under sections 61 and 62 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

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[Tony Lloyd]

I will come on to the point that the right hon. Lady makes in a few moments. Of course there is an issue with unauthorised sites. I have experienced it in my erstwhile role as a police and crime commissioner and as a constituency MP. Like many other hon. Members, I believe that the law is inadequate at the moment and that we need to look at changes.

Anecdotal evidence from local authorities suggests that those that are good—which provide sites—end up attracting the Travellers who cannot be placed elsewhere. That is a real issue because unless the power exists—it did, but the Government took it away—to insist on local authorities conforming to some credible plan, the burden falls disproportionately on the good local authority to the advantage of others.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the case that he is making. He may also wish to comment on reports from friends and families of Travellers that certain rogue landlords who control sites put legitimate Traveller and Gypsy families under pressure to leave the sites, as they believe they will get more economic value from the sites if they can bring new tenants into the properties.

[Tony Lloyd]

My hon. Friend tells me something that I did not know and I am grateful because that should form part of the Government’s thinking.

Let me be clear: I do not countenance antisocial or illegal behaviour. Why would I, any more than anyone else? We are probably talking about 1,400 caravans that cause the problems. The Minister should not be too casual about his belief that powers exist. Sections 61 and 62 as operated by the police are not adequate because—not wrongly—they include a provision that the police have to ensure that there is a suitable, well-managed site to move Travellers to. That is a sensible provision, but it works only if such sites are available. We come back around, on this circular problem, that we can have all the powers we want but if the sites are not available, they will simply go round and round.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, I am particularly pleased to contribute to this debate and to endorse the comments of colleagues who have pointed to the fact that Gypsies and Travellers are members of our local communities whether they travel, live in houses, or live in settled sites in caravans. The communities have a long history of a rich contribution to our cultural traditions, and an equally long history of suffering intolerance and abuse.

I wish to start by remembering Rodney Bickerstaffe, lost to us last week, who was known to many of my colleagues as a leading union figure and a champion of pensioner rights. He was also president of the Labour Party Campaign for Travellers’ Rights. In 2004, he wrote:

“A litmus test of society’s commitment to fairness and equality is how it treats the most excluded. Current evidence suggests we are failing with regards to the Gypsy and Traveller community.”

It is extremely distressing that, today, we still know that Gypsies and Travellers continue to suffer what has been rightly described as the last respectable form of racism. I call that out when it is seen as coming from opinion leaders. Last year, in Amazon Prime’s “The Grand Tour” Jeremy Clarkson was found by Ofcom to have made comments that had the potential to be “insulting and offensive”, relying heavily on “offensive and stereotyped comparisons”, but the programme was broadcast none the less.

Recently, the Rooney family went on trial on charges relating to modern slavery. In response to defence claims that all Travellers had workers operating under similar conditions, the judge commented:

“Sadly, I very much fear that you may be correct about that.”

I do not believe that the judge had any evidence for making such assertions. It is really important that people in public office do not make those kinds of claims in an unsupported way.

I wish to follow the example of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams) who talked about disadvantage and inequalities in health outcomes by making some comments about educational outcomes. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) about the very poor educational outcomes suffered by young Gypsies and Travellers in the education system. We know, as he said, that they are much less likely to meet the GCSE threshold. Indeed, their performance is understated further by the fact that many do not even complete schooling beyond the age of 14. We know that they are more likely to be in special schools, more likely to be excluded, more likely to drop out of secondary education and 10 times less likely to go to university. The reasons for that include racist bullying in schools. Today, the Daily Mail reports the case of Ben Bennett, who was forced to change schools 11 times as a result of bullying and abuse.

There is a low level of aspiration for the community among teachers and the teaching professions—my hon. Friend rightly drew attention to that—and a lack of funding for Traveller education services, which helps schools to introduce policies to support the education of Gypsy and Traveller children. That scheme has now gone, and, as a result, schools feel unwelcoming to Gypsies and Travellers who are now more likely to be educated at home. There are problems with that as Ofsted is not required to check whether education is actually happening in the home setting, and will only visit if the parents request it.

I am not saying that we should remove that access to home education, because if we do that and do not address the structural discrimination in education it is more likely that these children will drop out of education altogether. What we need are positive policies to ensure that Gypsy and Traveller children thrive and do well in schools. There are very good examples of how that can be done effectively. For example, zero-tolerance bullying policies can be implemented. I urge the Government to work with the children’s commissioner and non-governmental organisations in looking at how such policies might be developed and introduced. The employment of members of staff from the community has been found to be very effective in schools that have a high concentration of Gypsy and Traveller children. It is important that the Government get their promised education advisory group up and running and that it includes members of the Gypsy and Traveller community.

Finally, it is also important to remove and reduce discrimination and discriminatory perceptions in wider society. We must do more to embed Gypsy and Traveller culture across all education settings. I endorse the calls this evening for the introduction into the curriculum of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history month. If we can get things right in early settings in our schools, I am confident that Gypsy and Traveller children will do better and that our society will enjoy a greater sense of community cohesion with this long-standing part of our local community.