Gypsies and Travellers and Local Communities

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

If I may continue, while it is right that we seek to deal with illegal encampments, which are perpetrated by a small percentage of the Gypsy and Traveller community, we need to do everything we can to improve the life chances of that community. The Gypsy and Traveller community has had poor life chances for too long, and it is the ethnic group with the lowest educational attainment and the worst health outcomes.

When it comes to education, we expect schools to have data and evidence-led approaches to support all their pupils—whatever their backgrounds. High proportions of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils claim free school meals and benefit from our strategy to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils through the pupil premium. We have invested £137 million in the Education Endowment Foundation to help schools understand what can raise disadvantaged pupils’ attainment. As for access to healthcare, the Government have commissioned research to investigate which approaches to community engagement are most likely to be effective at enhancing trust between the Traveller community and mainstream healthcare services. That project is due to report in November this year.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s announcement that the Government will consult on solutions to this difficult problem. If I heard him correctly, he said that they will consult on whether existing powers can be better used, but will he confirm whether the consultation will consider whether new powers are necessary? Will it cover both of those things or just the first?

[Alok Sharma]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Colleagues and constituents will be welcome to write in to the intended consultation with all their views on the current powers or on additional powers that they think may be necessary.

NHS England is working to improve access to healthcare and health outcomes for Gypsies and Travellers. In November 2015, NHS England produced guidance for GP practices to clarify the rights of all patients, including patients from the Gypsy and Traveller community. The guidance includes the responsibilities of providers in registering patients with a GP practice and was complemented by the publication in March 2017 of a patient-facing leaflet to support people from Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities to register with a GP. The Prime Minister launched an audit in August 2016 to look into racial disparities in public services stretching right across government, and it will be published shortly. My Department will act upon the recommendations that emerge from the audit and will also publish a new integration strategy in the coming months.

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[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

The whole issue of Travellers is one that resonates deeply in my county of Essex, not least because of the events at Dale Farm several years ago, when Councillor Tony Ball and Basildon Council took action to uphold the law and clear one of the largest illegal Traveller encampments in the country. I note that a number of my Essex colleagues are in the House this evening: my hon. Friends the Members for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), for Clacton (Giles Watling), for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), for Southend West (Sir David Amess), for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) and for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart). That shows the degree of concern among my colleagues in Essex about this issue. Indeed, I understand that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have also had some issues in your Essex constituency with regard to Travellers. Essex is here, one way or another, in very significant numbers.

It is important to stress that many Travellers are law-abiding, but it is also true that unfortunately a minority do cause a number of problems for people in the settled community. From my own experience, we can divide these problems broadly into two categories: first, those caused by non-travelling Travellers, which I will explain in a moment; and, secondly, those caused by travelling Travellers. Non-travelling Travellers are not people who move regularly from place to place. They sometimes breach planning guidelines and regulations to develop buildings, quite often in the green belt, by laying hard core in breach of planning controls and then seeking to build properties thereafter.

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

Being a Traveller is not about the frequency with which you move. It is very remiss of the right hon. Gentleman to call people who are not moving at any given point “non-Traveller”. Being a Traveller is part of your ethnicity and I do not think it is up to him to define their ethnicity.

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[Mr Francois]

I am just talking about Travellers who are not travelling. This is the point I am trying to make. It is sometimes a misnomer to call these people Travellers, because they are not actually travelling at all. They are merely seeking to exploit weaknesses in the planning system to try to develop properties where others cannot.

We have had exactly that problem at an area in my constituency called Hovefields in Wickford, where Travellers have attempted to do that, despite two High Court injunctions to the contrary. Travellers have recently laid many tonnes of hard core on land at Hovefields and have then sought to expand the existing area of their properties upon it. Local members of the settled community have been subject to harassment and intimidation when they have sought to protest to the council about those changes. I am sure the whole House condemns that behaviour. Basildon Council is continuing to pursue the matter through the courts, but, as the Minister will be more than well aware, the whole process of enforcement in relation to breaches of planning regulation can be very cumbersome indeed.

[Andy Slaughter]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Francois]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who I know has a big Traveller problem in Hammersmith.

[Andy Slaughter]

Interesting point. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Dale Farm. I had the opportunity to visit it twice with the late Rodney Bickerstaffe and the late Lord Avebury. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has ever been there to talk to the Traveller communities. I just want to be clear that he is not making a link between someone’s ethnicity and their ability to follow planning regulations.

[Mr Francois]

The point I am making is that I believe all people should be equal before the law. I shall go on to explain exactly why that should apply.

Basildon Council—I spoke many times to Tony Ball, who was in charge of clearing Dale Farm—is continuing to pursue the matter through the courts. However, as the Minister knows, that can take a very long time. It is deeply frustrating to some of my constituents that they are expected to respect planning law—for instance, if they wish to build an extension to their domestic property—yet it would appear that some Travellers sometimes take little notice of the planning regulations by which others are expected to abide. What we are asking—I reiterate the point—is that all people should be equal before the law; otherwise, how can we expect to uphold the current planning regime? I therefore ask the Minister to consider—as part of the consultation, which I warmly welcome—whether anything further can be done to strengthen the enforcement powers of local authorities against such deliberate breaches of planning regulations. We all know it goes on and we all know it has been going on for years. It is about time the Government did something to try to bring this practice to an end.

The second category, the travelling Travellers, are those who do move from place to place. Some—I say again, some—of these Travellers move across the country establishing temporary encampments, quite often on public land such as car parks, other parks and open spaces. This has been a particular problem in Essex in recent years, including in my own constituency. As the Minister said, councils have the opportunity, working with the police, to serve so-called section 61 notices to move Travellers on, but very often that just results in them moving to another public open space where the whole rigmarole starts again. The current powers available to police and local authorities do not act as a deterrent to people who wish to break the law in this way.

I understand that Ministers are now considering whether changes need to be made, and I take tonight’s announcement of a consultation exercise as a very positive development. I believe we should now look across the Irish sea for a solution and adopt the Irish Government’s system of making such deliberate acts of trespass a criminal offence. In fact, the Irish system is one reason why so many Traveller families from Ireland now come to the United Kingdom. By making this change, I believe that we could provide a very real deterrent to those who seek to trespass quite deliberately on public land. To echo what was said from the Opposition Benches earlier, prevention would be better than cure. I have discussed this issue on a number of occasions with Roger Hirst, our very active police, crime and fire commissioner for Essex, and can tell the House that he is also firmly in favour of adopting the so-called Irish option.

In summary—I know many Members are keen to speak—I congratulate Ministers on securing this debate and on seeking to ascertain the will of the House on this important issue. In the debate, I think Ministers will hear calls from both sides of the Chamber for something further to be done to help to reduce the problems that some Travellers sometimes cause some communities. The time for action is now. I very much hope that Ministers will listen to the House and that following the consultation—they can take this speech as a submission to it—they will finally determine to adopt the Irish option and provide the real deterrent we have needed for so long.

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[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I start by saying how much I appreciated the speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), for Stockton South (Dr Williams), for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) and for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), the last of whom so ably chairs the all-party parliamentary group for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma. They have given at least some balance to the debate.

I was dismayed, as I am sure other colleagues were, by the title of the debate. “Gypsies and Travellers and local communities” immediately suggests division. Gypsies and Travellers are part of local communities, and there is an inherent contradiction in the title of the debate. I am sorry that some of the comments we have heard today have echoed the calumnies and untruths that appear in the media, especially papers such as the Daily Mail, The Sun and the Channel 4 Gypsy wedding series. I have heard it repeated that Gypsies are rich, and that there is one law for Gypsies and Travellers and another for the settled community.

Last month, the Traveller Movement published its excellent report, “The last acceptable form of racism?”, which my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale quoted. I fear that that is what it is. Let us recall the statistics, rather than unfounded rumours. Three quarters of Gypsies and Travellers live in bricks and mortar, so only a quarter are in caravans, let alone travelling at any one time. When one breaks that down into how many are in unauthorised encampments, it comes to 4% of that 25%. So we are talking about 1% of the total at most. Just as the vast majority of Gypsies and Travellers are not causing any nuisance or problems for their neighbours, so those people who do cause such nuisance are not necessarily Gypsies or Travellers. I regret the elision of ethnic groups with antisocial behaviour, the flouting of planning laws and so on.

I saw a survey today that said that

“37% of parents would be unhappy (just four out of ten would be happy) with their child going to the home of a Gypsy/Traveller for a play date. Again, this compares with just 5% for Black Caribbean and 2% for White British.”

In one way we should celebrate that no division was found—as would probably have been the case 30 years ago—between how the black community is regarded compared to the white community, but what an indictment it is that people can show that degree of prejudice. The people answering that survey are not inherently racist, but they have picked up so much from the media. It is not from their own experience, because most people do not know Gypsies and Travellers in their own communities. I hope that the House gives no succour to such views.

There is a history to this, which includes the Caravan Sites Act 1968 and what the last Labour Government did in requiring local authorities—and giving them the funds—to provide legitimate sites. I am afraid that the Conservatives in office have taken that money away and removed the requirements on local authorities. Conservative Members then throw up their hands and say, “Look at this increase in unauthorised sites.” If there are transit sites with facilities and if there is negotiated stopping, we do not get conflict. We do end up with local authorities saving money, and Gypsies and Travellers living in harmony with the settled community.

[Mr Francois]

If I may contradict the hon. Gentleman, Basildon Borough Council has a considerable number of sites for Travellers, yet it still suffers from the sorts of problems I outlined in my speech. He is incorrect to say that if there are sites, we do not get problems.

[Andy Slaughter]

I thought the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, with all due respect, was one of the worst I heard today. I am afraid his intervention just confirms my view. He should remove the blinkers and prejudice from his own eyes before making contributions of that kind.

Let me end by speaking to those in the Gypsy and Traveller community, because they do watch these debates. I praise organisations such as Traveller Law Reform Project, The Traveller Movement, Friends, Families and Travellers, and the London Gypsy and Traveller Unit, who admirably represent those communities. There are, notwithstanding some of the speeches they will have heard today, many parliamentarians, past and present, who have done their best to represent Gypsy and Traveller communities. I particularly pay tribute to the late Lord Avebury, who introduced the Caravan Sites Act 1968 and was an advocate throughout his parliamentary lifetime; Tim Boswell, who is now in the other place; Richard Bennett from the Local Government Association; Julie Morgan, who used to run the all-party group; and Rodney Bickerstaffe. I will end by quoting from his obituary in The Guardian this week, which said:

“At one time his mother’s family were so poor they lived in a Gypsy caravan in a field. Unsurprisingly, given his unstinting championing of the underdog, Bickerstaffe was one of the few public figures to loudly champion the cause of Travellers over the years.”

I wish that more Members of this House would emulate Rodney’s example.