Gypsies and Travellers and Local Communities
Debate between Mark Francois and Laura Pidcock
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.