Illegal Encampments (East of England)

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

It is a pleasure and an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I am hugely grateful to the Speaker for granting me this debate on illegal encampments in the east of England, something that has been a particularly big problem in Harlow over the past year. I would especially like to thank Marysia Rudgley and the Harlow antisocial behaviour team, who have been working tirelessly to solve the issue, and individual Harlow police officers who I know have the best interests of Harlow at heart. Most of all, however, I would like to give special thanks to the local residents of Harlow, some of whom are here. Despite many of them suffering misery over the past year, they have been patient, kind and tolerant under the circumstances.

I should stress that I have nothing against Travellers as a community. I have nothing against their way of life, and I believe that they have a right to equality before the law. I appreciated speaking and meeting with the Travellers in Harlow, who have made their views clear to me, but like most residents, I cannot accept that it is acceptable for them to build illegal encampments wherever they like. Equality before the law means that everyone should be treated equally before the law, so in this debate, I will concentrate on four issues: first, the failure of the authorities in the east of England to deal adequately with illegal encampments; secondly, the failure of the police to uphold the law consistently; thirdly, the failure of our police and crime commissioner to scrutinise the police and to represent residents properly, as his job requires; and fourthly, what the Government should do to improve the situation.

According to recent Government statistics, 1,280 caravans were in unauthorised encampments on land not owned by Travellers in July 2014. Many of those were in the east of England. In Suffolk, there have been over 200 unauthorised encampments since 2007, and there have been high-profile camps across the region in places such as Wisbech, Basildon, Thurrock and Peterborough. However, few places have suffered as badly as Harlow and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price). Since October 2013, as of yesterday, 81 illegal encampments have been set up in Harlow.

I have been contacted daily by hundreds of residents in distress by phone, e-mail and on social media, with stories of alleged antisocial and intimidating behaviour committed by the occupants of the sites, and I have seen for myself the mess that each site has been left in. Every time the illegal camps are moved on, the occupants just create another site, often just down the road. So far, Harlow council has spent over £40,000 of taxpayers’ money dealing with the problem, and over 2,100 residents have signed my petition calling for urgent action.

The situation has become so bad that The Sun, the Daily Mail, The Times and national TV have covered the story in Harlow, and The Sun newspaper did a two-page spread on Harlow last week with the headline, “The town under siege by gypsies”. Harlow is a beautiful town. I am proud to live there and to represent it as a Member of Parliament, but illegal encampments are destroying our reputation, our quality of life and the peace and stability for many Harlow residents.

Initially, I would like to talk about the response of local authorities to the issue, and I want to make a number of points: the first is that adequate laws are available to be used; the second is about pursuing the occupants of camps for compensation; and the third is on the issue of needing more sites.

As I mentioned, I have nothing but admiration for the hard-working members of Harlow council’s antisocial behaviour team. They are the true heroes of this story, and they have been working day and night 24/7 over the past year to try to alleviate the situation. However, I am concerned that Harlow council as a whole has been reluctant to use all the powers available to it, and has given out confusing messages. For example, despite the Department for Communities and Local Government recommending that councils can use byelaws to deal with unauthorised encampments, Harlow council has said:

“It would be difficult to justify attaching this power to a main dwelling thus effectively making a person homeless.”

It has also said in communication with me that it cannot use section 77 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, as vehicles are frequently changed by Travellers. However, that also applies to caravans, and it seems surprising that the illegal occupants would be changing such big-ticket items so often as to make enforcement of the law impossible.

I hope that in this debate, the Minister can set out what powers are available to the local authorities so as to avoid any further confusion in such cases. I am also disappointed that in some cases, our local council seems slow to act, a point that has been echoed by colleagues from other councils across the east of England, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock. According to what is available on the Harlow council website, the local council did not approach the Department for help or guidance until 17 July 2014. That was nine months after the problem began, and the town had already experienced 35 illegal encampments during that time.

Another problem that many of my colleagues will have faced across the east of England is the mess that is left after an illegal encampment has been in an area, and I know my hon. Friend will speak about that. In Harlow, it has been particularly bad. Many residents have written to me complaining about churned-up mud on green spaces due to cars constantly driving on and off fields, and about fly-tipping and human waste. One mother told me that she could no longer allow her children to play outside as she had witnessed children from an illegal encampment using the local playground as an outside toilet. It would be helpful if the Government could clarify how such waste should be dealt with. Who is responsible? Is it the council or the Environment Agency? It is really disappointing that just one individual has been arrested for fly-tipping, and they were not even prosecuted.

Harlow council has said:

“With regard to public excrement while this is evidence of harm there is insufficient evidence at this time to show that it amounts to a public health issue that Environmental Health Officers could prosecute for”.

Yet one resident wrote to me saying that the land outside their home and their fence had been turned into an open public toilet, and they are now seriously concerned about their children’s health. Action must surely be taken urgently to stop that kind of thing. Furthermore, the council should be much more aggressive in pursuing the perpetrators for compensation. It is outrageous that hard-working Harlow residents have to spend thousands of pounds through their taxes on clean-up costs. The council says on its website that

“there is very little any Council can do to recover money from illegal encampments.”

I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify whether that is indeed the case.

Furthermore, I would like to address the issue of Traveller pitches. A spokesman for the Travellers in Harlow has said that they cannot leave because they have nowhere else to go. There has been a persistent criticism, mainly from those in the Labour party, that the Government have failed to provide enough camps. Indeed, I am disappointed that Essex council has not provided any transient camps, and that neither Essex council nor Harlow council applied for Traveller pitch funding from the grant available from the Government that was designed to meet the needs of the travelling community. However, I am not convinced that that would solve the problem in Harlow. Our town already has two legal Traveller sites—more than anywhere else in the county of Essex—one of which has 10 free spaces on it. Furthermore, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) will confirm when he speaks, when transient sites do exist, such as in Peterborough, they are rarely used. That has been confirmed by a BBC “Look East” report.

I certainly suggest that any further sites in Essex not be sited in Harlow. We already have more than our fair share. Furthermore, not having a transient site—this is the nub of the argument—is not an excuse to break the law. Many thousands of residents in my constituency do not have a home; they are on the waiting list for housing. They are not allowed to set up illegal encampments, or camp on private or public land, so why, when certain individuals set up illegal encampments, does everyone seem to allow that to happen? We cannot allow one group of people to break the law. We cannot say, “Yes, because of their situation, they are allowed to break the law,” because otherwise the whole of our society would break down.

I shall now talk about the police response to illegal encampments, focusing on the communication with residents and the inconsistent use of available laws. As I said, there are good examples of individual local police officers in Harlow going above and beyond their duty to help residents. I have also, though, received many complaints about allegations not being taken seriously. One lady got in touch to say that her car and property had been damaged, but the police did not even come to see the damage. To date, only 11 section 61 notices have been served, despite there having been 81 illegal encampments. I have been told by the police that guidelines from the Association of Chief Police Officers make use of section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 in this context complex. In the ACPO guidance, section 1.6 states:

“Decisions to evict or not must…be balanced (as directed by legislation and Government guidance), and be compliant with the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998, demonstrating legality, necessity, and proportionality, as well as principles of common humanity.”

Interestingly, in a letter to the Minister, the chief executive of Harlow council states:

“The Council is concerned about the differing decisions taken in respect of whether a Section 61 Notice should be used or not. We do not feel that the guidance provided by the Association of Chief Police Officers…is particularly helpful in this regard.”

I agree with Harlow council on that point: it is essential that section 61 notices be served consistently. I would appreciate it if the Minister confirmed today that the ACPO guidelines are exactly that. They are not tablets of stone from Mount Sinai. They are ACPO guidelines, not the law, and the police do not have to follow them. I and the residents of Harlow fear that the police are using the ACPO guidelines as a convenient excuse for inaction and are hiding behind issues such as human rights. As the residents always say, “What about the human rights of residents and their families to live in peace, without fear and without having to face antisocial behaviour?”

The council has also said that section 62 of the same Act, which can be used when Travellers trespass on land and are not using pitches available to them, cannot be used because no legal sites are available. However, as I mentioned, there are 10 pitches that could be made use of in Harlow, and if that is such a necessity to prevent criminality, it is even more astonishing that neither Essex nor Harlow council applied for Traveller pitch funding when it was available.

Even if it is not possible to issue section 61 or 62 notices, the police could use section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002, which deals with vehicles being used in a manner that causes “alarm, distress or annoyance”. Surely that applies to cars or caravans driving aggressively down, and blocking, cycle paths.

The lack of action is sadly resulting in a serious loss of faith in the chief constable of Essex. One resident recently wrote to me about a group of caravans parked illegally on the roadside by a school:

“The police were contacted by one of the other parents and the school’s headteacher. The police simply recorded the information but don’t appear to be doing anything about it”.

I have also been written to and telephoned by residents about police driving past and seeing Travellers driving up and down cycle paths, but simply ignoring that. Sadly, I then get residents asking me what would happen if they did the same—if they parked their car on a cycle track. I can only conclude that the police would usually, and should, take action in such circumstances. As I said, it is so wrong and so dangerous that many people in Harlow now believe that those individuals who occupy illegal encampments are above the law.

Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock, I have written to the Home Secretary asking for an inquiry into whether the chief constable of Essex police is upholding the law properly, and whether his response until now has been appropriate. I welcome the agreement of the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims to a meeting with me and my hon. Friend to discuss these matters.

I say again that although I respect the contributions of individual officers, residents of Harlow believe that the police are more concerned about the human rights of Travellers than those of law-abiding residents, and that the police are hiding behind ACPO guidelines while trying to put all the burden on the local authorities and the courts.

It is incredible that my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock and I have had to write to three Cabinet members—the Justice Secretary, the Communities Secretary and the Home Secretary—because of a lack of confidence in the chief constable of Essex police and the police and crime commissioner. I do not think that there have been many occasions on which two MPs have written such a letter.

It is to the police and crime commissioner that I want to refer now. The problem is that we have a police and crime commissioner who still has no proper Essex-wide strategy to deal with the problem of illegal encampments and who does not hold the chief constable to account on this issue, represent residents or, as many residents have told me, respond to residents in a timely fashion.

Following the joint letter that I wrote with my hon. Friend to Cabinet Ministers, I received a letter from the police and crime commissioner that I found astonishing. In the letter, he states:

“We must encourage residents to report incidents of concern to them to the police, but I know from close contact with the police there have been relatively few of these and when the allegations you have often repeated on air have been investigated the reality is not as you tend to represent it.”

I ask my police and crime commissioner what planet he is living on. He should not just do the odd public meeting, but come properly and meet Harlow residents. He should go knocking on door after door and actually represent the people who elected him. Even Harlow council is at odds with that view and has said:

“The experience in Harlow is such that regrettably criminality is often associated with illegal encampments.”

I would like the police and crime commissioner to think about his statement when he hears the following stories and explain to Harlow residents why he thinks that there are “relatively few” incidents, which does not reflect reality.

Let me tell hon. Members about a few of the incidents. A group of young men shouted abuse at one elderly lady while she was walking her dog and followed her to the shops. She was so scared that the police had to come and take her home, although no action was taken against the men. She did not go out for several weeks, despite its being Christmas, and became seriously ill because of stress.

One family told me that tools were stolen from the back of a van. They told me that despite the fact that they knew who had taken them and they were on an illegal encampment nearby, the police just said that they should claim on their insurance and should not go and try to get their tools back. Several days later, they saw their tools being sold at a local DIY store car park from the back of a van. That is unbelievable. Then there is the husband who was punched by a group of about 20 young men but has lost so much confidence in the police’s ability to act that he did not report it. I do not believe that my Harlow residents are exaggerating, but I do feel that many have lost faith that the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner will act on their concerns.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend, I was astonished by the response of the police and crime commissioner when we raised these issues with him. I was copied in on an e-mail from a resident just today. The response to her complaint about encampments in Thurrock referred to working hard with people in Basildon to tackle them. It just shows a degree of complacency about reacting to the public. Frankly, when we introduced police and crime commissioners, we expected that that was where accountability would come from. I do not think that it is acceptable for the police and crime commissioner to shoot the messenger, as he has done in this case.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock —I call her friend in the true sense of the word—has been fighting similar problems in her constituency. We wrote our joint letter because we were so upset about the response of the authorities. It was not an easy thing for us to do, particularly given that the police and crime commissioner is a Conservative. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree with some of the things that I will go on to say.

The police and crime commissioner has also criticised my call for zero tolerance of illegal encampments. I quote his letter to me:

“I do need to make it clear to you that I believe you are doing little genuinely to help the problem and you are at risk of exacerbating it...too easily what you are saying should be a ‘zero tolerance’ approach is interpreted as zero tolerance towards travellers.”

I find that incredible. That is a Conservative police and crime commissioner saying such things. His letter continues:

“That cannot be right and I would urge you to be really cautious. As I say I do not intend to respond in public to what I regard as frankly insulting comments but I think you are on thin ice”.

Well, Mr Commissioner, that is our fundamental disagreement. I believe that we should have a zero-tolerance policy towards illegal encampments and illegality. I am calling for zero tolerance not towards any minority group, but towards people who break the law. I believe that the police and crime commissioner should represent residents and put in place a proper Essex-wide strategy on the matter, similar to the strategy that he has implemented for tackling domestic violence across the county. He has done good work on that.

The police and crime commissioner has complained about my use of social media to highlight the problem, and my response is simple. I will continue to use social media to highlight what is going on in Harlow, and I will urge every resident in my constituency to contact him on Twitter and Facebook when they have concerns about the authorities’ response to illegal encampments. I am sorry that he does not like that. I hope that he will tackle illegal encampments with the same passion and commitment as he has shown for dealing with domestic violence.

I turn to the changes that the Government should make. I recently took part in a debate with a senior police officer and the police and crime commissioner on BBC Essex radio, in which we expressed serious disagreement with one another. The presenter, Dave Monk, made an important point when he asked me, “Aren’t you all passing the buck?” On reflection, I believe that he was right, in a way. I will not say that it is simply the fault of the local authorities, the chief constable or the police and crime commissioner, because there is a lot more that the Government can do.

The Government have taken some significant steps towards dealing with the problem of illegal encampments, such as lifting restrictions inherited from the previous Government on temporary stop notices and strengthening the Localism Act 2011. There are still some deficiencies, however, and I want to raise three things: the law needs to be clearer; the law needs to be strengthened; and delays in the court need to be tackled.

The Government should look at clarifying existing laws, so that the authorities and the police are in no doubt about the powers available to them, but the law could be strengthened further by making intentional trespass a criminal offence. A law already exists in the Republic of Ireland to allow the arrest of trespassers who refuse to move after being asked to do so by the police. I am arguing that anyone who trespasses on public or private land, as do individuals who set up illegal encampments, should be seen as having committed a criminal offence rather than a civil offence. The Conservative party said in opposition that it would do that, and we must follow through with a proper pledge and make that happen.

The law must also look at ways to stop the game of cat and mouse that often occurs. For example, a group may be evicted from one area and prevented from returning for three months, but they will simply move down the road or return to the same area a few weeks later. That must be addressed if progress is to be made. If a group who have set up illegal or unauthorised encampments are eventually moved on by the police or the courts, the law should state that they cannot return to within at least 15 or 20 miles of that location, otherwise they will face criminal sanctions.

Delays in the court system must be addressed. When the antisocial behaviour team move on occupants of unauthorised encampments, one of the difficulties that they face is the length of time that it may take to secure a court hearing. In the worst cases, Harlow council has had to wait 14 days to obtain a hearing date. It would be helpful if the Government looked at what can be done to speed up the process. I am grateful that the Justice Secretary is coming to Harlow this Friday to tour the illegal sites, and we will speak to him directly about the issues that I have raised.

We have been living under siege in Harlow for the past year, and we are, sadly, a town in crisis. We have had 81 illegal encampments all over the town, which is simply unsustainable. We cannot continue in such a way, and we need serious action. So far, 2,100 Harlow residents have signed my petition calling for urgent action, and I hope that the Minister can ameliorate the situation by setting out some serious changes to the law. I hope that he can ensure that our police and crime commissioner holds the chief constable to account, so that our town can reach Christmas without being blighted by illegal or unauthorised encampments, antisocial behaviour and mess.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

Connoisseurs of parliamentary proceedings may find it wry that I have the honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I hope your mind is cleansed of those occasions when the roles were reversed and I may have had occasion to call you to order.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for giving us this opportunity to raise these issues—issues that I imagine a large number of Members have, to varying degrees. I am in his slipstream in what I want to say this afternoon. He is a doughty champion of Harlow and its residents, and he can rightly describe Harlow as his beautiful city. Equally, I hope he recognises that the district of Uttlesford, which comprises a large part of the Saffron Walden constituency, is continually cited as one of the most desirable places to live in the country. That, of course, adds to some of its problems, as people reading that fact may think about moving to the area. Those people may include Travellers, because we have regular visitations.

It would be hard for me to compare any of the situations in my constituency with the scale of the problem that my hon. Friend is confronted with in his; even my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) might take second place in the order of crisis, given the situation that my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow has described. There are many different situations, but too often, across the piece, those situations give rise to public fury; hence the involvement of Members of Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow has graphically described what can go wrong, and I recognise most of those situations as having also arisen at encampments in my constituency.

Those who know me will understand my particular concern, not only as president of the West Essex district cricket board, when an incursion in the village of Hatfield Heath interfered with the local cricket ground, causing a competitive fixture to be postponed at a critical time. An ordinary, very English activity that is traditional to villages was disrupted by caravans being parked on the ground. The pitch was scuffed—one remembers a test match that was affected by the pouring of oil on the pitch —and water was taken, causing total disruption. That is part of the general annoyance that has been caused. The general annoyance is that such disruption is a regular thing in the village of Hatfield Heath. Just as people think they have cleared one situation, there is an anticipation, borne out by history, that it will be repeated, which gives rise to extra annoyance. The annoyance is caused not just by that continuity, but by the regular reappearance of caravans, although they are not necessarily the same ones.

A quite different situation arose in Little Dunmow, where the houses came after the Gypsy settlement. There had been no particular complaints about the Gypsy settlement, which has been established for quite a long time, but once houses are built close by, some of the disturbances that come from such settlements become a source of difficulty—dogs barking at all hours of the night, shotguns being fired and stray horses wandering around. Although Essex county council has a Gypsy liaison officer, it is hard to imagine someone not invested with police powers, or anything of that kind, being able to control a situation and bring about harmony between the newcomers in the houses and the longer-established people on the Traveller site.

Uttlesford district council and the city of Chelmsford, the rural areas of which I also represent, are known to be looking for pitches to accommodate certain numbers at the Government’s behest. People are starting to ask questions. I accept the logic in trying to establish the requisite number of official pitches, because the theory is that, if those pitches are established, we can swiftly move on caravans that park on unofficial sites. There is nothing more infuriating for anyone than to wake up and find a caravan or caravans on greensward in front of their house, or in a field next door. People naturally expect the authorities to do something, but nothing is gained if all the authorities can do when they succeed in moving the caravans on is cause a second unofficial parking.

I see the logic in trying to have official pitches, and it all seems straightforward, but unfortunately it is not. Hopefully the Government can help, but we need to know exactly for whom we should be providing the pitches. Are they for itinerant Travellers, or are we also meant to be covering static caravans? There is an important distinction between the two. What criteria should apply? If Travellers can just turn up, whether on a village green that also hosts a cricket pitch or on an area by the side of a road such as a lay-by, surely there need to be basic facilities, otherwise we will see the unsavoury activities of human beings without any kind of facilities for ordinary toilet practices and so on. People will also have to search for basic facilities such as water, and there seems to be no advance provision. If a site is volunteered, there should be criteria and minimum standards; otherwise, it should not apply.

Highways issues should also be taken into account. The city of Chelmsford is battling with its need to provide an allocation, and it seems to have set its sights on a possible settlement at Drakes lane in my constituency. The road that serves the site is wholly inadequate, as there is surrounding industrial activity. What is the sense of encouraging provision for Travellers—in many cases, one expects, with children—where heavy lorries are pounding down an unsuitable lane? The scope for accidents is obvious. We need to know more about what we have to do and for whom.

I will not be censorious about the police, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow was, but the relevant bits of legislation covering all their powers are longer than the ten commandments. In all the different circumstances that could apply, such legislation helps to confuse the police about what they can do. It is often down to the status of the land. Is it private or public land? What are the rights of access for members of the public? If there are rights of access, how can we discriminate between one type of member of the public and another?

I am grateful to the police for coming together with all the local interests to solve—finally, we hope—the recurring problems in Hatfield Heath. The key lesson I got from those discussions was that a crime has to have been committed to make it easier for the police to apply section 61 of the 1994 Act. If that is the case, to put things at their simplest, we need to know what constitutes a crime in relation to the sorts of problems that my hon. Friend described.

[Robert Halfon]

My right hon. Friend will be aware of what section 61 states. If there are six or more vehicles trespassing on private land, the police can issue instructions under section 61.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

That was not exactly how it was explained to me by the police officer who came to the discussions at Hatfield Heath; but what my hon. Friend says demonstrates my point. There is uncertainty about what must happen. If the law is being applied unevenly because police discretion means variation from one place to another, that is not helpful to any of us.

To sum up, what we need and what the public are looking for is fairness. This is not a matter of discriminating against the travelling community, let alone those of the Romany tradition; it is a matter of fairness. If one person is not allowed to do something, why should someone else be allowed to do it without any kind of retribution being visited on them? That is basically what people want dealt with. If we legislators cannot provide a clear definition of what is or is not fair, we will continue to have very dissatisfied constituents.