Trespass

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Bone. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate.

I would like to begin by paying tribute to the more than 134,000 people, including 149 of my constituents, who signed the petition “Don’t criminalise trespass”. The petition set out that the Government’s manifesto stated that the Conservative party

“will make intentional trespass a criminal offence”.

It pointed out that it is

“an extreme, illiberal & unnecessary attack on ancient freedoms that would threaten walkers, campers, and the wider public.”

It expressed concern that that would, among other things,

“Criminalise ramblers who stray even slightly from the path …Criminalise wild camping, denying hikers a night under the stars”.

The petition shows great strength of feeling on this issue, which is part of our great tradition in this country of securing access to the countryside through protest. We have an incredibly important tradition of accessing the great outdoors, and are richly blessed with the diversity of landscapes that we can enjoy. That tradition is in activities such as walking, cycling, kayaking and mountaineering; it is in the activities of brownies, girl guides, cubs and scouts, and it is in our culture through the poetry of Wordsworth and the paintings of Turner, to name just two of the many artists and writers who have found inspiration in the power and grandeur of the natural world.

We have wonderful national parks, such as Snowdonia, the Lake District and the Peak District. The last one became the first national park in the UK almost exactly 70 years ago, on 17 April 1951. Our national parks give us access to breath-taking coastal scenery, such as that in Pembrokeshire, the south downs and the North York Moors. In my constituency, there is Caldy Hill, Thurstaston Common, Irby Hill and Harrock Wood, all owned and cared for by the National Trust, which does such an important job preserving such areas for the benefit of local people and visitors.

When we reflect on all that we have to enjoy, it is important to consider the invaluable work of individual conservationists, campaigners and protest groups that have delivered such riches to us, and have ensured that we can access those beautiful places. I am thinking of people such as Beatrix Potter, who bought large tracts of land in Cumbria specifically to preserve the landscape, and who left 4,000 acres of countryside to the National Trust, as well as 14 farms, when she died in 1943. Millions of people enjoy that countryside, in what we know as the Lake District national park.

Hundreds of ramblers from Manchester and elsewhere took part in the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932. Knowing our history is important: the mass trespass is widely credited with leading the Labour Attlee Government to pass legislation in 1949 to establish the national parks, playing a part of the development the Pennine Way and many other long-distance footpaths, and securing walkers’ rights over open country and common land in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. In 2007, Lord Hattersley described it as

“the most successful direct action in British history.”

In January this year, a number of organisations—including the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Friends of the Earth and the Ramblers Association—wrote to the Home Secretary, arguing that making trespass a criminal offence is

“an extreme, illiberal and unnecessary attack on ancient freedoms.”

They warned that

“It would send a signal that the countryside is not an open resource accessible to all, but a place of complex rules and regulations, where stepping off a public path could lead to a criminal sentence.”

Recently, the Government published their Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, and Labour opposed it on Second Reading. The proposals in part 4 of the Bill, on unauthorised encampments, create a new offence of

“residing on land without consent in or with a vehicle”.

However, more than 250 civil society groups are still concerned that the Bill threatens our right of access to the countryside, as they made clear in their letter to the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Justice last month. Liberty has pointed out that the provisions of the Bill will

“impact access to the countryside and affect the enjoyment of British land for recreational activities.”

Can the Minister tell us how the Bill is consistent with the Government’s commitment to

“opening up the natural world”,

as they stated in their 25-year environmental plan? The countryside should always be accessible to everyone and it is incredibly important that we follow in the tradition of those who have gone before us to secure rights of access.

The petition that is the subject of today’s debate also raises important concerns that legislation making intentional trespass a criminal offence could impact on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and I have to say that I was very shocked by the comments of the previous speaker. The Bill includes a new criminal offence of trespass with the intent to reside; until now, trespass has been a civil offence. The National Police Chiefs Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners have stated quite clearly that

“trespass is a civil offence and our view is that it should remain so”

and that

“no new criminal trespass offence is required”.

Why have the Government ignored that viewpoint?

The charity Friends, Families and Travellers has warned that making trespass a criminal offence would push Gypsies and Travellers into the criminal justice system merely for existing nomadically. It has pointed to an absence of places where Gypsies and Travellers are permitted to stop or reside. One of my constituents wrote to me to say that she is

“from one of the many Gypsy, Traveller and nomadic communities who will be directly and harmfully affected by the criminalisation of trespass put forward in the Bill.”

She said that

“We need more sites and stopping places where Gypsies and Travellers are allowed to be. Nobody should be made a criminal or punished for living a nomadic way of life.”

What is the Minister’s response to my constituent? What would he say to her about how this Government are treating Gypsy, Traveller and other nomadic communities?

The petition also raises concerns about the Government’s proposals to

“clamp down on peaceful protest, a fundamental right and essential part of our democracy”.

Numerous organisations have drawn attention to how the Bill threatens the right to peaceful protest. Three years ago this month, many of us gathered to see the unveiling of the first  statue of a woman in Parliament Square, which was of the suffragist Millicent Fawcett. She holds a banner that reads, “Courage calls to courage everywhere”. That unveiling was an historic moment for us democratically.

Protests and demonstrations have forged positive change in our country over generations, whether they were the actions of the suffragettes tackling the grotesque injustice of women not even having the right to vote, or, more recently, the actions of anti-fracking protesters who set up camp at places such as Preston New Road in Lancashire. The actions of those campaigners helped to achieve a moratorium on fracking, and now the Government say that fracking is over in the UK.

The numerous demonstrations for employment rights that have been spearheaded by the trade union movement have been crucial in furthering the rights of working people, and the protests of people up and down the country against the Conservative Government’s plans to privatise the national health service continue, showing the passion with which people believe in a national health service that is paid for through direct taxation and free to all at the point of need.

Without people being able to gather and show their opposition to issues of social injustice and attacks on the environment, the Government would feel as though they could do whatever they pleased. No Government should ever be given that opportunity. It is as important now as it has ever been to make it clear that we demand the right to protest. Any attempt to curtail that right strikes at the heart of our democracy.