Matt Western
Main Page: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington) Gypsies and Travellers and Local Communities
Matt Western Excerpts
Tony Lloyd
If the Minister had been listening, he would have known that I talked about bringing private land into conjunction with public land and about making sure that the police’s powers could be used more effectively. The police are frustrated. I talked about the problem of section 62 and the fact that at the moment the police have to have an alternative site.
The reality is that we have to couple the use of those powers with the investment in sites, which Conservative Members are reluctant to do. When the comment was made that Government cuts to local government had had a serious impact on the capacity to provide sites, it was met with a howl of derision from Conservative Members, who once again want to protect austerity except when it affects their constituents.
We need to see investment in sites. We need to know where the £60 million has gone from the affordable homes scheme. We need a Government who have a genuine commitment to reduce the level of discrimination in our society. I sympathise with hon. Members who face problems from antisocial and illegal behaviour by Travellers, and those should be dealt with, but—as I began by saying—the lot of many of the travelling communities is unacceptable. One Traveller says, “As a PhD student I have been treated as an oddity or as incompetent by my peers and professors.” Another said, “I went for a cleaning job. When I told the pub owner where I lived, she said we don’t serve your sort and I won’t employ you.” I have read of someone saying to a nine-year-old child, “I’ll burn your caravan down while you sleep. Dirty thieves, you should’ve been deported, even the young one.” That was to an English-born child. When that happens, we know we have a problem. We can rail against the minority of illegal Travellers—we can and they will—but let us make sure we also deal with the real issues that affect this community which is so badly discriminated against. They are our fellow citizens and they deserve better from this House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) has finished. He cannot give way. He has concluded with an excellent peroration. This will be a lively debate, as it should be on such an important subject, so I am afraid I have to impose an immediate time limit of seven minutes on Mr Mark Francois.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
With your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall breach the normal partisan rules of the House and say that the Minister of State made what I thought was an excellent speech, in which he balanced the humanity that should inform us all with the frustration and annoyance that affect so many of our constituents. I felt that he spoke very well indeed, and that his words were matched by those of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd).
May I home in on what we are actually talking about this evening? We are discussing Gypsies and Travellers and the impact on local communities. I think we have accepted that 76% of the people who identified themselves in the census as members of the travelling community are in fact resident, but it is other people about whom we are talking. I will not stigmatise them by saying that they are of a particular ethnicity or origin, or that one can tell where they come from by their accents, because I do not like that. Everyone in the Chamber knows what we are talking about here. Let us talk about the people who are having an impact on our constituents, because they are the people who have chosen to live outside the law. To live outside the law you must be honest, and the problem is that people who are living outside the law are causing great distress and great pain.
It breaks my heart that many of us who are of Irish origin or have Irish backgrounds feel that, in many respects, we are stigmatised by the association with Irish Travellers, when the truth is much more than that. Ealing does not contain verdant fields and great open spaces where the lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea and the plowman homeward plods his weary way, but we experience regular incursions by Travellers.
Matt Western
In contrast, we have a lot of greenery around us in Warwick and Leamington, and the summer saw a significant rise in the number of communities setting themselves up in the constituency. The authorities are under huge pressure, and I really feel for them, because they are hamstrung by the planning laws as they stand. They are also not aided—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman must sit down. This is an intervention, and interventions are meant to be very short. A great many Members wish to speak, so I cannot allow people to make speeches in the form of interventions.