Planning Policy: Traveller Sites

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the adequacy of planning policy for Traveller sites.

It is a pleasure to hold this debate with you in the Chair, Dame Siobhain. My constituents are reasonable people; they totally understand and appreciate people’s wanting to live alternative ways of life, including nomadic lifestyles. I have lived all my life in my constituency, and the Travelling community has been part of the constituency for that whole period of time. We respect the contribution the community makes to our society, as long as communities are law-abiding and let other people peacefully enjoy their property, settlements and communities.

The real concern in my constituency is about a number of planning applications, and whether planning policies apply equally to local people and to other communities, including Travelling communities. The basic principle is that there is one law for all, rather than one law for one person and another for another person: the law applies equally to everyone in our communities and society. With some of the applications, there is a real feeling that that is not the case, and that contributes to a feeling that we are moving to a form of two-tier society, which would be a dangerous state of affairs.

Where some applications are being made, our local communities do not understand why planning policy is not being overseen equally, and there is a deal of anger about that. That is the case with a number of applications, including one at Sheriff Hutton, one near Rillington and a number of potential others. The applications are being considered, and in some cases recommended for approval, on the basis not of planning law but of other laws, such as the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010 and the UN convention on the rights of the child, as well as the European convention on human rights, which obviously has other consequences in different parts of our system.

Normal, law-abiding citizens go about a planning application in the appropriate way: they first find a site that suits their needs, before looking at planning policy and probably instructing an agent to act on their behalf, and they then submit an application before doing any work to that site. The application must conform to planning policy, or they will not get consent. They go through the various iterations of the planning process. It may take years to get planning consent for the property development, but hopefully at some point they get it. Most of my constituents respect the planning process and its outcomes.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I apologise to you, Dame Siobhain, and to the hon. Gentleman, because I have other engagements and cannot stay. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the delicate balance to be struck between allowing travellers to carry on their way of life and ensuring that the community around them is not adversely affected relates not just to planning policy but to all policies? We want to foster Traveller communities that feel engaged in and a part of our communities; that can be achieved by building relationships and through a little bit of understanding.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

As always, the hon. Gentleman is very reasonable. That is exactly the position that my constituents and I take: this is about fairness and applying the law equally. The Human Rights Act contains a requirement to consider the rights not just of the individual but of other people in such situations, but it seems that some applicants’ rights are given greater consideration than those of others. That is my biggest concern. This issue has been dealt with to some extent through planning policy, but that has not been sufficient to deal with some of the problems.

I have set out how someone who respects the law and the planning process might set about applying for planning permission. In some applications it has not been done that way. Some applicants purchase a site first, probably a roadside site, with or without access—they might create access. Sites in Sheriff Hutton and Rillington are in open countryside and not in a location where someone would normally get planning consent for such developments. The site is prepared with the access and hard standing, for example, which is not a major contravention of planning policy and not something the planning department might have too big a problem with at the time. There might be an agricultural building on the site, for example, and water and power put into the site. Preparation occurs.

Then one evening—overnight or on a bank holiday weekend when the people who look after these matters might not be in their offices—the site is occupied unlawfully without planning consent. Caravans might move on to the site, along with other equipment, and maybe toilet blocks are built overnight, which happened at one of the sites, and the site is occupied with a view to being occupied permanently. It is not a temporary position; the people occupying the site intend to occupy it permanently.

Then the planning authority has to go through an enforcement process following complaints from local people about the application. The planning authority’s wheels turn pretty slowly, which I think the people occupying the site are aware of, and enforcement measures take place. That might take months, during which time the community might experience some disturbance and real concerns are expressed.

When enforcement measures are taken, the owner of the land will submit a planning application retrospectively. Despite the flagrant breach of the proper planning process, the application is then considered as if it were made using the proper process. That is where it fundamentally goes wrong: the fact that the retrospective application is considered on the same grounds as though it were a normal lawful process is what is wrong. The application is made, of course, on the basis of the rights of the people occupying the site. The Human Rights Act, the Equality Act, the UN convention on the rights of the child and the European convention on human rights are all cited in relation to the rights of the occupants—generally the families on that site who need healthcare and education. No one would doubt the need of the children and the people in need of healthcare to access such facilities. That is the basis of why the application should be considered, despite the fact that it is retrospective.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for graciously allowing a second intervention. Is he aware of the latest Irish Traveller accommodation strategy 2020-2025? If he or the Minister are not, may I suggest that they access it? It sets out guidelines to provide, in this case, Irish Travellers

“with access to good quality, culturally appropriate housing accommodation which fosters a sustainable, vibrant Traveller community”.

That allows the Travellers to enjoy their own lifestyle but at the same time consider the possibility of integration. Does he agree that perhaps those guidelines, which are from a different jurisdiction, might be helpful?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Perhaps understandably, this is not my policy area. I am holding this debate because it is a constituency issue. I am not particularly aware of the Irish rules that the hon. Gentleman mentions. But it is right to say that local planning authorities have a requirement to facilitate the peaceful enjoyment of people who live nomadic lifestyles. I support that totally. North Yorkshire should provide such facilities, and it does. That site is occupied despite the fact that there are available places on a designated Traveller site nearby. That is one of the concerns: there are other facilities available, but the person who made this application does not want to be on them. I believe they are misusing the planning policy. I have no objection to people’s right to live alternative lifestyles and to live in different ways in their own communities; what I object to is the misuse of the planning process.

The issue was dealt with, to some extent, by my very fine colleague—sadly, my late colleague—James Brokenshire when he was Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary. In February 2019, he published some new recommendations for planning authorities, stating that the intentional unauthorised development of a site should be considered a material point within a planning application. That is absolutely critical. He was saying, therefore, that the local planning authority had grounds to refuse the application on the basis that there was an intentional unauthorised development. Despite the North Yorkshire planning authority’s awareness of that requirement, it still recommended approval on this site, which I find astounding.

I find the whole situation astounding, and so do many of my constituents. It is important that we look at the facts. Members engaging in this debate and people watching it on Parliament TV may look at the application on the North Yorkshire portal—the planning reference is 22/00102/FUL. The things I am saying are based not on local rumours and concerns, but on the actual documented situation with the planning application.

The site in question is on Cornborough Road, about half a mile out of the village of Sheriff Hutton. It is in open countryside, and is outside the development plan. The application is for eight units of accommodation—four permanent breezeblock-built units, and permanent static caravans—and 12 car spaces. It has been occupied for three years without planning consent by a family with six children. Obviously, we respect their right to go about their lives in a way they feel appropriate, and we have every hope that those children will be properly educated and receive proper public services.

The planning officers, in their wisdom, decided to recommend the site for approval, with one significant condition: occupancy of the site was to be restricted to the family and their dependants—the adults on the site, the owners of the site and their children. Of course, those children will be adults one day, which means that the site could be occupied for many decades. The application also says that there could be a variation in the application for an extended family, for example, which could mean that the site is occupied for a very long time. Remarkably, the agent for the applicant objected to that condition, again on human rights grounds. It is clear that the site will be occupied in the very long term, and that there will be the ability to sell it on to someone else.

I think it is absolutely wrong that people can effectively drive a coach and horses through the planning system. My law-abiding constituents would not go about it in that way. Unless we deal with this situation properly, it will breed a sense of unfairness—the idea that there is one law for one and another for others. Unless we deal with the problem by clarifying the planning guidance, to ensure that anybody who is guilty of a flagrant abuse of the planning system cannot ever get planning consent on a site in that way, we will see more and more such applications, not in just my constituency but in constituencies around the country.

I know the Minister is freshly in the job. I welcome him to his place. He is a good man, and we have dealt with many things in the past, when our roles were reversed, so I know that he will look at this seriously. We have engaged on this particular matter already. Furthermore, my colleague the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), is also experienced in these matters.

I urge the Minister to tighten the rules to ensure that our constituents, law-abiding citizens of this country, feel that we are on their side. Law-abiding people go about the planning process properly, and should not feel that we favour people because of abstract laws, laws potentially imposed on us by the UN convention on the rights of the child or the European convention on human rights—now embedded in our own Human Rights Act—which mean that some people are treated more fairly than others during the process. It is important that we act and that we clarify the planning process, so that people who act in that way can never get planning consent. That is the only way we will stop such rogue applications being submitted.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for securing this debate on a subject with which I am sure many hon. Members are familiar, although sadly that familiarity does not always come from a good place. Often it is driven by casework.

My understanding of the issues has been enriched by listening to the Traveller community in my constituency and hearing about the problems that they have experienced. I have heard the concerns about a two-tier system in planning, but it was interesting to hear, in a discussion on a long-standing site run by the council in my area, that they are not eligible for the right to buy, even though some of those families have lived there for 40-plus years. The idea that there is a two-tier system in planning ignores the fact that there is also a two-tier system for this very prejudiced-against group of people.

Too often our familiarity comes from lurid headlines that generate a lot of heat rather than shedding light on the problems experienced by a community facing discrimination and disadvantage across the board. It is important that we bear that in mind when we talk about the issue in the context of the planning system, and it is important that we are honest about the context of those problems. It is difficult to have a sensible discussion about how we best serve Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities when words like “incursion” are used and when groups of Travellers are repeatedly characterised as ruining picturesque landscapes, towns or villages, creating nuisance and disturbance, or somehow being above the rules.

Given that context, we need to be explicit in saying that, far from the invalidation and demonisation of such communities that we often see in the media, the planning system should support this group to live in the way that they choose. There has been an absolute failure to provide adequate sites for those who do travel. Stopping places simply have not been available, so it is no wonder that families are looking for alternatives. Unfortunately, that means a huge shortage of sites and pitches across the UK, particularly in England. As a result, in 2019 some 13% of caravans were on unauthorised land, as the organisation Friends, Families and Travellers reports. What we are seeing is not an incursion, but rather a forced displacement due to the lack of available sites for those who choose to travel.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I absolutely agree that sites should be made available, but may I reiterate the point that I raised? For the family I mentioned, sites were available. In fact, the family occupied a site at Tara Park in Malton until they moved on to that particular site, so it is not the case that no sites are available. There are also nearby sites in Osbaldwick in York. It is not as if there are no alternatives to occupying the site unlawfully. It is important to understand that.

[Olivia Blake]

That is why I think it is important that local authorities work with the community to understand their needs. There are many reasons why individual families may not feel able to be on a site. They may also want to create their own space and home, which I completely understand.

Rather than creating more sites, the previous Government moved to criminalise GRT communities through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Those laws should be repealed, in my view. We should be tackling the root cause of the issue: the failure of the system to support a diverse group of people who already suffer prejudice and discrimination. There is a lack of understanding about the realities for this group.

It is not just that we need new sites and more pitches; the ones that we have are not up to scratch. That is certainly true of the sites in my constituency: they are often segregated from settled communities and suffer problems with access to services, transport and schools. There is no path to reach the community that I represent, so children have to walk down a 60 mph road to get the bus to school. When the street lights were updated, for some reason the contractor did not realise that the council owned the properties, so the community has been living with poor-quality street lighting rather than LEDs. I hope that that will soon be resolved on the site.

That is the kind of suffering that we see in those communities. They are often seen as other, as different or as difficult to deal with. That is not true, in my experience. If we listen to the concerns of the community, we will see progress and clarity of responsibility, not only from the community itself but from the services that are meant to serve it. Decisions are often made to place sites in unsafe areas next to main roads, refuse destructors, traffic-laden areas, intersections of motorways, busy highways or railway tracks. There are many reasons that people would not want their children to be near those things. That has contributed significantly to the health, education and other social inequalities that we see in the community.

We have to acknowledge that the isolation and segregation are partly due to political pressure. We know that local authorities have not achieved what they should in terms of sites, options and working with the community as best they can. That is why this is not just a technical debate on planning laws; we have to talk about tackling attitudes as well. When the Caravan Sites Act 1968 gave councils a statutory duty to create sites, many people opposed having them in their area. To put it bluntly, the location of many sites today is a consequence of anti-Traveller racism. The site in my area is right on the edge of town, away from many services.

We need more sites and pitches, and we need to end the criminalisation of people living in a legitimate way, but we also need to work with the community and listen to their needs, understanding that they are individuals and have individual rights, as we all do. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton probably disagrees; he alluded to European human rights putting one group ahead of another. I disagree. I think that those rights protect us all and allow us all to have the individual rights and freedoms that we so richly deserve.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I agree with the principle. My point is that that is how the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act are framed, but it is not how things operate in practice. My constituents cannot occupy a field and build a house on it if it is in open countryside and not within the development limits of a village. They operate on that basis. Why should somebody else from a different community be able to occupy that site and develop it in a way that my other constituents, who work on a lawful basis, cannot? Why should that be the case?

[Olivia Blake]

The hon. Member highlights an important issue for his constituency that points to the failure in this space. I am not disagreeing, but I think we have to recognise that these rights come to the fore because of that failure, not the other way around. We really need to focus on that in our planning policies. We need to communicate with the community, work with them to understand their needs and make sure that those needs are being adequately met. We should not hold it against communities that have bought their own land; we should work with them to ensure they can go through the planning process adequately for their community needs and family needs.

We also need better integration within communities of amenities and services, and we need to end the criminalisation. To do that, we need to challenge anti-GRT attitudes and the lurid headlines that drive them. That would be a good start to ensuring that the planning system works for the community. I do not disagree with the idea that the planning system is broken, but I think there is certainly a better way into the conversation that starts with an understanding of all our communities, not just one or the other.

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[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for bringing forward this important debate. I have also listened carefully to the other hon. Members who have spoken today, and I appreciate that in some cases there is a misuse of planning. It is clear that we need the system to work better to tackle those attitudes.

I appreciate what the hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) said, in that this is often seen as a difficult matter to deal with. But that should not be the case, and we need to ensure that sites are put in the right place to avoid segregation and isolation. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) spoke passionately about how we have simply not progressed. Neither community feels represented, and we must seek to change that. The hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) spoke about the risk of the GRT community becoming second-class citizens and the need to find appropriate sites to stop the reoccurrence of conflicts. Let us engage with and listen to the GRT community and treat them with respect and dignity. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) raised his concerns, which I think we all share, about agencies passing the buck and the emergence of tensions.

In the space of a month, I have received correspondence about illegal Traveller sites from concerned constituents in Wincanton and Glastonbury, towns that are at the opposite ends of my constituency. The complaints are a symptom of the fact that Somerset, like most counties in the country, is facing huge challenges in properly supporting our GRT community. Friends, Families and Travellers, a national charity, received a response to its engagement campaign this summer which called for an increase in

“site provision for nomadic people, transient and permanent.”

I do not know if that respondent lives in Somerset but I would not be surprised if they did. Somerset has no transit provisions—none at all.

Members of the Gypsy and Traveller community, like all of us, have to travel across the country to attend funerals and weddings and to see family, but because we have no transit sites, and therefore nowhere for them to legally stay for short periods, the only way they can stop when passing through our sizeable county of Somerset is in the form of an unauthorised encampment. We only need to look at my casework to see that such encampments inflame tensions between my constituents and Travellers—some of whom are, of course, my constituents—and reinforce dangerous stereotypes.

With 91% of English local authorities having some form of GRT presence, we are unfortunately not alone in that, so it is alarming to see the trend growing nationally, either because local authorities are selling off sites or because they simply cannot afford to maintain them. I worry that we could soon find ourselves with huge distances between transit sites, which would make it impossible for Travellers to legally travel. That also harms our relationship with the GRT community, because then the only response that local authorities are left with is enforcement.

Not only do we need more transit sites; we need permanent pitches where members of the GRT community can stay longer than just three months. There are well-known, documented and dangerous knock-on effects of not providing the community with stability. While the community is naturally transient, it needs access to a permanent base. Without a permanent pitch or a brick and mortar address, it can be a struggle to access mental health support and GP appointments, which forces more people to use our overburdened accident and emergency services to access healthcare. It is tragic, but not surprising, that life expectancy for members of the GRT community is 10 to 25 years lower than for the general population and that the suicide rate for Traveller men is seven times higher than for settled men. We also know about the reduced attainment rates for those in education, with only 18% in GRT communities meeting the expected standard in their SATs last year.

Councils could avoid huge additional costs if they did not have to waste officer time dealing with complaints and cleaning up encampments. The case for providing permanent pitches is clear, and local authorities have a quota for delivering Traveller provision, but there is nowhere for them to obtain funding. Funding has recently taken the form of ad hoc grants that are too small and oversubscribed. If we expect local authorities to be able to maintain a constant and consistent number of sites, we must provide them with consistent and adequate funding. The Liberal Democrat manifesto pledged to ensure that all development has appropriate infrastructure, services and amenities in place, by integrating infrastructure and public service delivery into the planning process. This should also include the development of permanent pitches.

I was recently elected vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, which wrote to the then Government in the last Parliament to urge them to increase site provision. That Government failed to deliver sites, but the new Government could. The Liberal Democrats have a strong record of supporting the GRT community, but we want to work with colleagues to bring about an end to these systemic problems.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Lady is making a very valid and interesting point, but she seems to think that it was central Government’s responsibility to provide Traveller sites—I think that is what she said.

[Sarah Dyke]

indicated dissent.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Okay, I have misunderstood. Perhaps she will clarify that she accepts that it is the local planning authority’s responsibility to provide these sites.

[Sarah Dyke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; he misunderstands. I am fully aware that it is local authorities that provide Traveller sites, but the funding is not there for them to provide it. That is my case. As we know, over and over again, many local authorities find themselves on the brink. They are under such pressure at the moment. The crucial point is that they are unable to provide the resources within their remit. That is what was lacking in the last Parliament, and that is what we need to see from this new Government, to ensure that local authorities have the resources and the capabilities they need to provide sites for our Traveller community.

It was confirmed in the King’s Speech that this Government intend to reform our planning system. When they do so, they must not treat Gypsy and Traveller provision as an afterthought to bricks and mortar housing. Looking after this community is a housing requirement, not an add-on that can be addressed when there is more time and money. I would like the Government to introduce a statutory duty to provide sites, along with proper funding measures. With a reasonable approach to location and funding, this could be the single most transformative measure for Gypsies and Travellers in England. Our planning regulations and guidance are not fit to serve the community. The guidance dictates what local authorities need to deliver on a site, but it is not properly delivering that provision, which leads to the GRT community being viewed negatively and the community feeling less safe. The Government should make updating those documents a priority.

Finally, not all these problems can be solved with reforms or increased funding. The narrative from the previous Government was not constructive and made it challenging for local authorities to build meaningful dialogue. Over the last decade, Somerset and much of the rest of the country has seen a reduction in publicly owned sites, fewer community liaison officer roles in local authorities, a lack of new private sites, an increase in unauthorised encampments, a reduction in funding for site development, and political inertia slowing down pitch development. We need this new Government to provide real leadership and ensure that the needs of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community are met. We should engage with and treat our Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community with respect and dignity, and provide them with the sites they need to live their lives.

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[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Siobhain. I formally congratulate you on your honour—I have not had the chance to do so yet.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) on securing this important debate and thank him for the characteristic clarity with which he made his case. I also thank the hon. Members for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) and for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas), and my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) and for Rugby (John Slinger) for their contributions. Lastly, I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), for his thoughtful remarks, and warmly welcome him to his place. I will certainly take away the specific points that he raised. More widely, I look forward to working with him, as he said, on a constructive basis wherever possible.

I must make it clear at the outset that, while I noted the specific case that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton raised—and indeed other cases that have been raised today—I hope that hon. Members will appreciate that I am unable to comment on individual plans or applications due to the quasi-judicial nature of the planning process and the potential decision-making role of the Deputy Prime Minister. I therefore propose to make some general comments about national planning policy as it relates to Traveller sites and specifically the role of local planning authorities, including in respect of enforcement, within that national framework, thereby addressing many of the points that have been raised today, while recognising that this is an incredibly complex area of policy and law, particularly as it relates to individual cases.

Turning first to national planning policy, the Government’s approach to Traveller site provision is set out in the planning policy for Traveller sites policy paper, which should be read in conjunction with the national planning policy framework and has the same policy status as it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam, and others, raised a number of wider issues outside the subject of this debate, but I reassure her that the Government’s overarching aim is to meet the housing and accommodation needs of all communities in our society, and that we are committed to ensuring 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.

The policy paper in question makes clear that local planning authorities should set pitch targets for Gypsies and Travellers to address the accommodation needs of Traveller communities within their area. Specifically on the points made around human rights law, that is often engaged when a proposed development is closely linked to a particular person’s interests. In the case of Gypsy and Traveller developments, the right to respect for private and family life under the European convention on human rights, and in relation to the rights of the child, under the Children Act 1989 and the UN convention on the rights of the child, are often engaged. However, such considerations can be addressed by planning adequately for Traveller pitches to meet needs, and that is ultimately through the local plan process.

I think that that touches on a wider issue. In respect of the community that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton represents, for example, the North Yorkshire emerging local plan is in its very early stages. We need to see local plans across the country come forward in short order. We want to achieve universal coverage, but we need to see those plans progress because they are the best way that local communities can shape developments in their areas.

I noted the points made by the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton on funding, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby regarding the concern, which I do recognise, that local planning authorities do not face sufficient consequences for failing to adequately plan for those pitches. That is a concern raised in other areas, and, typically, as I am sure my hon. Friend will know, the penalty for not having a local plan in place—for not adequately providing for sites—is that a local authority will leave itself open to speculative development or retrospective applications. However, I appreciate that that does not address the specific challenges covered in this debate in the way that it does with more conventional planning applications.

The policy paper also states that local planning authorities should consider the existing level of and local need for sites, and the availability of alternative accommodation, among other relevant matters, when considering planning applications for Traveller sites.

I appreciate that the specific case that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton raised did not concern a green-belt site—as far as I understand it—but hon. Members may find it useful if I provide some detail on the proposals that we have set out in relation to Traveller sites as part of our proposed reforms to the national planning policy framework and other changes to the planning system.

As hon. Members are aware, we are consulting on a range of policy changes to ensure that our planning system is fit for purpose, supports the right development in the right places, and is able to deliver on the Government’s growth agenda. They include changes to green-belt policy to enable the targeted release of low-quality grey-belt land to meet unmet housing and other development needs. Those policy proposals will not compromise our environmental objectives or undermine the overall function and purpose of the green belt, but will support opportunities for development in areas of highest need and deliver tangible benefits to local communities and nature through our golden rules.

We intend that the proposals will address unmet need for Traveller sites and we are seeking views, through the consultation, on how the policy will operate. To be clear, that is a departure from the current policy position on the green belt set out in both the NPPF and the planning policy for Traveller sites policy paper, but we believe that it better supports the development needs of our communities and contributes to sustainable growth.

However, we will consider all these matters carefully and will finalise our position after considering the consultation responses and following targeted engagement with the key stakeholders, including specialist planning consultants, charities representing the interests of the Traveller community and professionals working in this space.

As part of wider changes to national planning policy, we will also consider how planning policy for Traveller sites should be set out in the future, including which aspects need to form part of the suite of proposals for national development management policies introduced in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023.

I now turn to the role of local planning authorities. Although the Government are responsible for setting the legislative and policy framework within which the planning system operates, including the national planning policy framework and the planning policy document for Traveller sites, it is for local planning authorities, who know their communities best, to prepare local development plans and make decisions in accordance with such adopted plans unless material considerations indicate otherwise.

I hope hon. Members appreciate that when it comes to police enforcement of unauthorised encampments, that is a matter for the Home Office and not for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. However, I can certainly pass back some of the concerns and the comments made to my colleagues in the Home Office.

When it comes to enforcement more generally, local planning authorities have a wide range of powers, with strong penalties for non-compliance. As the hon. Member for Bromsgrove mentioned, these powers were strengthened by reforms introduced in the 2023 Act, which were implemented earlier this year. Those reforms included longer time limits for enforcement action, and action to address a loophole with retrospective development, so that there is only one opportunity to appeal.

On the basis of the available powers, it is for local authorities to decide what action, if any, to take, depending on the particular circumstances of each case. That would include intentional unauthorised development, which would be weighed by decision makers in the determination of planning applications and appeals, as I recall the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioning. Ultimately, however, it is for individual local planning authorities to determine what weight they should afford to a relevant consideration based on the circumstances of a particular case, rather than Government mandating them to follow a particular course of action.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I support potential revisions to enforcement powers to give perfect clarity about how enforcement can happen in these circumstances. However, I want to touch on the Minister’s last point about intentional unauthorised development. Currently, that is dealt with as part of planning law, through a ministerial statement, rather than being formally in the NPPF—nevertheless, that does apply. Is he happy to maintain that situation, or will he look at that again? It is very important that that does form part of planning policy. Otherwise, planning authorities would have even fewer levers at their disposal to make sure that this kind of development does not happen. The problem is not planning policy; it is people who subvert the policy through other devices.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the hon. Member for that point. To answer him directly, on national development management policies, which I mentioned, we stated in the NPPF consultation—which is still open and closes on 24 September—that we were committed to creating NDMPs to provide more certainty and consistency about decision making in a range of areas. As part of that, we will look at all existing national policies, including the policy in relation to unintentional authorised development, as set out in the 2015 written ministerial statement.

I hope that gives the hon. Member some reassurance that as part of bringing in those NDMPs, we are looking at that particular issue, which I do understand. Those NDMPs will have to consulted on, so hon. Members from all parties will have an opportunity to feed in their thoughts about whether we have got the policy right in any particular area.

I thank the hon. Member again for giving the House an opportunity to discuss these matters, and I thank other hon. Members for taking part in the debate. I genuinely welcome and look forward to further engagement on this issue with Members across the House. In the interim, I encourage all hon. Members with an interest in how national planning policy relates to Travellers to respond to the consultation on a revised NPPF before the deadline of 24 September.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank the Front Benchers for their excellent contributions. The tone of the debate was generally very constructive. I think we are all on the same page in terms of local planning authorities having to fulfil their requirement to make sure that suitable provision is made for people who live different and nomadic lifestyles. I thank the hon. Members for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake), for Rugby (John Slinger) and for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) for their points.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) touched on the key point: we cannot have a planning system where it is easier to apologise than to ask permission. If that is the case, it creates chaos in the system. Everybody can play by those rules, and there will be chaos in terms of planning applications and wider society. It undermines faith in the system. That is the point I want to make. Whatever the protected characteristics of certain communities, it cannot be the case that in our society there is one law for one and another for another. That feeds the perception that we operate a two-tier society, and that cannot be right. It undermines the entire system.

I hope that the Minister will look at two things. As the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) rightly said, we should continue to look at bolstering enforcement powers. I also make it crystal clear that the recommendation for the planning application I mentioned was for approval despite the fact that the written ministerial statement from February 2019 said that intentional unauthorised development should be a material consideration in a planning application. Nevertheless, the planning officers recommended approval, which I think was totally wrong. I congratulate the planning committee who still rejected the application, but that might well go to appeal. I welcome the fact that the Minister is going to look at the full context of this. I hope he will make it even clearer in planning policy that somebody who is guilty of intentional unauthorised development will never be given consent for their application when there is such a clear abuse of process, and that that will not be tolerated.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the adequacy of planning policy for Traveller sites.