Caravan Sites Bill [HL]

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Friday 29th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for his steadfast campaigning on behalf of the Gypsy and Traveller communities. It is not always a popular cause but that has never deterred the noble Lord. I should also mention my noble friend Lady Whitaker who, unfortunately, is unable to be here today. She would have been strongly supportive of the noble Lord’s Bill.

This is fundamentally an issue about planning and whether current policy will deliver sufficient and appropriate sites for the Gypsy and Traveller communities. Our approach in government was to seek to press local planning authorities to set aside enough land for sites through targets in regional spatial strategies. This sat alongside the legal obligation in the Housing Act 2004 for every local housing authority to include in its housing needs assessments an assessment of the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers residing in or resorting to its district.

As noble Lords will be aware, regional strategies have been scrapped by this Government but we should be clear that the duties under the Housing Act 2004 remain. It is important also to ensure that local authorities are mindful of their equality duties. Ample evidence has been provided by Gypsies and Travellers to the CLG Select Committee of the multiple cases of discrimination that their communities endure. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred to that, and particularly the discrimination that is exacerbated by the language used in many of our national newspapers.

Regional strategies may not have been perfect but regional and district targets for additional pitches were beginning to work. What has replaced regional strategies? As we have heard from the noble Lord, in March this year the Government introduced a revised planning policy for Traveller sites to sit alongside the National Planning Policy Framework. The requirement placed on LPAs to undertake an assessment of need and to work collaboratively across borders is not unfamiliar. Use of a robust evidence base and the requirement to identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide five years’ worth of sites against locally set targets are of course to be commended. But we know that there can be a huge gap between what the paper policy says and what happens in practice. We know that the Irish Traveller movement has expressed concern about the destiny of the evidence base accumulated in connection with RSSs. Given the centrality of local development plans, it has, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, also raised concerns about its capacity, on a comprehensive basis, to engage sufficiently with local authorities as local development plans are drawn up. Perhaps the Minister can say whether the Government accept this point and how they propose to address it.

We hold to the view, and argued it during the passage of the Localism Bill, that the duty to co-operate is an inadequate replacement for any strategic approach to planning with limited sanctions when LPAs do not take it seriously. Co-operating on the provision of Gypsy and Traveller sites will be a stern test of the policy. Can the Minister say how the Government propose to monitor what is happening in practice? What systems are in place to assess whether local planning authorities are taking this duty seriously?

The Bill is predicated on the assumption that the new policy, in so far as it is new, will not deliver for the Gypsy and Traveller communities. Evidence from history might give the noble Lord some justification for that view. Clearly councils cannot be forced to grant planning permission when they simply do not have sites or where it would be outwith normal planning considerations. We support moves further to accommodate and respect the rights of the Gypsy and Traveller communities, but there are real issues about forcing councils to grant planning permissions in such a blanket manner. A community building approach is what we would support and is what we delivered in government.

At the end of the day, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is entitled to know what the Government will do when LPAs do not follow the guidance, do not undertake a robust assessment of need, do not identify sites and do not co-operate with neighbouring authorities to address need. At what point should the Government step in and insist? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.