Unauthorised Encampments

Laura Pidcock Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)]

This conversation will undoubtedly be difficult, because it is about a clash of cultural norms: those of settled communities and their culture to aspire to live in one permanent place, and those of nomadic peoples. I want to challenge some of the things set out by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton). Regarding the conversation about antisocial behaviour increasing when unauthorised encampments are in town, I would like to know whether there is statistical, rather than anecdotal, evidence to substantiate that claim.

[Wendy Morton]

I point out to the hon. Lady that the simplest way is to come and talk to some of the constituents in my community who have actually been affected. They will give her plenty of evidence and stories of their own experience of antisocial behaviour.

[Laura Pidcock]

I also represent an area in which the highest ethnic minority is Gypsy and Traveller people, in County Durham. I asked for statistical evidence to substantiate that claim, rather than anecdotal. There is antisocial behaviour in my constituency from non-travelling communities. Time and time again in debates such as this, complex social issues are racialised. [Interruption.] I was about to say, before the objections, that I have heard many people say that this issue is about a minority. I want to talk about the presumption, which I have heard in this debate, that it is about our communities versus the Gypsy and Traveller communities. They are one and the same thing. If Travellers or Gypsies are in our constituencies, they are our constituents at that point.

The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) said that many look on trailers and envy how luxurious they are. Those are people’s homes. The average cost of a trailer is well below the average cost of a house. I thought that that was a particularly spurious point.

What do Members mean when they talk about dealing with the problem or the situation? Where do they suggest nomadic people go? I know that it is difficult and causes tension in communities, and that it is frustrating when a nice piece of land next to someone’s home or an unused piece of land is taken up by many trailers. That is difficult for communities, because they have expectations about what they live next to, but no critical analysis has been done of the structural reasons why Gypsy and Traveller people might end up on that disused bit of land. What structural Government policies have resulted in that situation?

I also challenge the presumption about gold-plating human rights. The report from the Traveller Movement, which is absolutely fantastic, sets out in clear language how persecuted such communities have been for centuries. On a number of social indicators—all, I would argue—the outcomes for Gypsy and Traveller communities, as well as Roma communities, which are not the subject of this debate, are worse than for others. It is difficult to hear people conflate antisocial behaviour, waste on sites and all the associated problems with a cultural identity. The idea that Gypsy and Traveller people should be mentioned at all is difficult. As I said before, antisocial behaviour in my community is often not due to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. Of course, not all Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people will be angels, but let us not use cultural identity as a point in the argument.

There are solutions. Helen Jones of Leeds GATE argued—I think this was brushed aside—in favour of negotiated stopping, which rests on mutual negotiated agreement and a short-term social contract issued by local authorities. Unauthorised encampment is often the result of insufficient provision of permanent pitches, which then overflow on to transient sites, which essentially become permanent sites when they should be transient. Negotiated stopping would offer short-termism, with many conditions by which Gypsy and Traveller people would have to abide. Yvonne MacNamara, CEO of the Traveller Movement, agrees that negotiated stopping is a solution. The solutions are staring us in the face. Let us not allow the demonisation of these communities to stand in the way of those solutions. Let us work towards peaceful solutions for nomadic people, as well as for the settled people in our constituencies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Of course there are children in settled communities who do not stay on, but she will understand that a large preponderance of Traveller children are regularly on the road. It is difficult for them to be in school regularly, and the quality of home education, if it exists at all—

[Laura Pidcock]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Selous]

No, I will not take any more interventions, because other people want to speak.

As someone who believes passionately that every single community, including the Gypsy and Traveller communities, should have the life chances available to all children in this country, I think that we need to do better than that. The race disparity audit is a wake-up call. Many aspects of our planning and education system do not work for Traveller children, and we need to take that seriously.

I believe in the melting pot view of society. I believe that if we all live alongside each other, by and large, we can get along well together and have good community cohesion. A small story: two gentlemen came to see me at my surgery a couple of weeks ago about some local authority repairs that had not been done. I dealt with the gentleman who had a case, and took it up with the local authority. It turned out that he was a Traveller, in his 60s, who was unable to read or write, and his neighbour, who was not a Traveller but a member of the settled community, had come along to help him.

Is that not a lovely story? That is the sort of Britain that we want: people from different communities coming together to help each other. If that gentleman had lived on one of the private sites in my constituency, sadly, it is unlikely that he would have had a friend in the settled community who could have come along to assist him with his case. There are serious questions about the separation of Travellers, and I would like the Government to reveal more about the race disparity audit, and how the majority of Travellers who live among the settled community compare with those who live on separate Traveller sites. That would help the issue.

Sadly, many privately owned Traveller sites in my constituency are ungoverned space. The local authority cannot gain access without a warrant at times, and vulnerable tenants sub-letting caravans send me hair-raising stories, even today, about being intimidated in the middle of the night and so on. That is not good enough. There have been instances of modern slavery. I worry about those vulnerable people sub-letting on traveller sites. Modern slavery is occurring, and the police and the council cannot get to them to protect them properly in the way that all of us would like them to be.