Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities: Inequalities

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Whitaker on securing this debate today and pay tribute to her and the work she does in supporting the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. I also welcome the report by the Women and Equalities Committee of the House of Commons. It has produced an excellent report and I was pleased to see that this time the Government made a response relatively promptly. The report sets out the very real challenges that the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities face and that they have the worst outcomes of any ethnic group in various areas, including education, health, employment, criminal justice and many others.

It is also true that local authorities and other providers of public services have failed these communities, in many cases by not understanding their specific needs as a distinct ethnic group, and that policymakers, both at a local and national level, have not helped in the way they should have to help address the needs of this community and produce better outcomes for them. I was struck that the report drew out the failure to deal with matters on a strategic basis as probably the biggest failure, and everything else flows from that.

My noble friend Lady Whitaker set out some of the prejudice and bigotry that this community suffers, such as not being able to register with a GP and problems in schools. These are really shocking failures and it is wrong that this community has suffered prejudice for many years and through many generations. It would be good if the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, could set out what specific actions she thinks the Government have to take to try to combat this very deep-seated discrimination, prejudice and racism.

There is a lack of trust and there is a stop-start approach to projects and initiatives. The report talked about how good work is funded, but it is very stop-start in nature; people move on and the good work falls back. I think people in these communities have the right to expect better support and better protection from the law—laws which apply to everyone in the UK—and their children deserve support as well to ensure that they get a proper education. That is their legal right. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans highlighted, there is good practice and we should celebrate where there is good practice and acknowledge good work takes place. The noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm of Owlpen, challenged local authorities to do more—and I endorse her call. But let us be clear: the racism and bigotry that this community suffers clearly impinge on the behavioural response of some local authorities. There is no question about that whatever, and that is not good.

I agree with the comments made by my noble friend Lord Judd, and I am also delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, taking part in this debate. His contributions today were, as always, very thoughtful and useful. I miss our debates across the Dispatch Box, but we are now in the same corridor, so we see each other on most days anyway. I also join with the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, in congratulating Tyson Fury. The noble Lord was absolutely right in his analogy with Muhammad Ali after Fury won the World Boxing Council belt and became world champion at the weekend.

The report raises many challenges for Government at a national but also a local government level. It will be good to hear from the noble Baroness, when she responds to the debate, what plans the Government have to address the very serious issues that have been outlined here. It was good to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, about where government is beginning to work on cutting across these, because the only way to get these things right is to get other departments to address these very serious issues. I look forward to the response from the noble Baroness.