Asylum Seekers: Bournemouth West

Debate between Robert Syms and Conor Burns

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

If someone does not have the right to be here, they should not be here. That is why I welcome the Prime Minister’s express commitment in his five-point plan to dealing with the situation more generally.

I said that I would return to Tom Roberts and the circumstances around his death. I want to use this opportunity to apologise to the family of Tom Roberts. They, and he, were profoundly let down by multi-agency failures. The man who is now serving a life sentence for the murder of Tom on Old Christchurch Road last year should not have been in the United Kingdom. Subsequent to his stabbing of Tom, it emerged that he had been found guilty of two murders in another country. Norway had denied his claim of asylum.

It subsequently emerged that although the man had told the authorities that he was 14 when he arrived, he was in fact 18. Dental records and reports suggested that he was an adult. He was placed with children at Glenmoor and Winton, a local secondary school in my constituency. His foster carer reported to social services that he was regularly carrying knives and was engaged in street fighting for money. The police were also made aware, yet he was allowed to go on and stab young Tom to death—a man who wanted to give his life in service to this country in our armed forces.

We let Tom down. There was multi-agency failure. I would like the Minister to use this evening’s debate as an opportunity to recommit the Government to making sure that we adequately test people who say they are children, and that we work out whether they are or not before we let them loose on the streets of our country. I hope that the Minister will feel able on the Government’s behalf to join me in saying sorry to Tom’s family for how his young life, with all his future opportunities and everything he could have given our country, was snuffed out in its prime when he was slain.

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case on behalf of his constituents and mine. There are some very real issues here and I am proud to be sitting next to him on these Benches.

[Conor Burns]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. We all come to this House to do right by those in whose name we serve, but I am highlighting tonight how I think we failed. There are very serious lessons to be learned by local authorities, social services, the police, Border Force and so on.

I am incredibly proud of our country’s record of offering hospitality and welcome to those in need. I would not want my remarks tonight to be in any way misinterpreted as meaning that I want us to walk away from that generosity of spirit—that offer of hope and opportunity to those who are genuinely in need. However, we cannot escape the fact that too many people are exploiting that good will to come here as economic migrants.

Our constituents are demanding that the Government take action. Ministers on the Treasury Bench, led by the Prime Minister, have confirmed the Government’s absolute determination to reduce and then eliminate the small boat crossings. Too often, constituents in Bournemouth West look at hotels that have hitherto supported the vibrant tourism economy on which much of our local area across Bournemouth and Poole relies. They see that area filled with people who are without hope, and who, I have to say, are waiting for more than a year for their claims to be processed—and that is before we even acknowledge the additional burdens that this places on my parliamentary team, who receive dozens of requests every day for updates on claimants’ status.

We must not be treated like mugs in this country, and I hope that the Minister will now reiterate the Government’s driving commitment to getting a grip of this situation.

Draft Dorset (Structural Changes) (Modification Of The Local Government And Public Involvement In Health Act 2007) Regulations 2018 Draft Bournemouth, Dorset And Poole (Structural Changes) Order 2018

Debate between Robert Syms and Conor Burns

Wednesday 16th May 2018 General Committees

[Conor Burns]

One normally says that it is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, but as I am not serving on the Committee, it is nice to be in your presence, Sir Henry. I am grateful to you for calling me to speak before my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch resumes his remarks. That guarantees that I might get in and get a few things on the record.

This is a rare occasion that every Member of Parliament for Dorset is gathered together in the same room. That should demonstrate to our electorates the seriousness with which we all approach the orders that are before the Committee this afternoon. I am pleased to see my right hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Bournemouth East has come back from his Ministry to join us in solidarity.

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I also make the important point that the proposals that have come from local councillors are made in full knowledge that there will be fewer local councillors in Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch and the rest of rural Dorset. Local councillors will be many of the biggest losers. That is because many of them feel passionately about protecting local services.

[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is absolutely correct. There are many people who will be making a sacrifice when these changes come into being; there are also many, I assume, who do not think it will be them and are supporting the proposals for those reasons.

My hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Christchurch has fought a doughty, determined, vigorous and principled campaign. I pay tribute to him for standing up for what he believes to be the interests of his constituency and community in Christchurch. He pointed out that I helped him a little bit in his campaign for re-election in Southampton, Itchen in 1992. I first met him some 27 years ago this October, when I enrolled at Southampton University. I suppose I had a little part to play in him now being a Member of Parliament for Christchurch and standing up for his constituents, because we were unsuccessful in the campaign that I participated in, so he was liberated from Southampton and able to seek the nomination for Christchurch, which he won back for us in 1997.

I pay tribute to the Minister and his predecessors. This process has been going on for a long time, through two general elections, three Secretaries of State, and countless Ministers for Local Government. On behalf of the chief executives and the leaders of Bournemouth and Poole councils, I also pay tribute to the officials in the Department, who have been incredibly professional in working through the proposals. In particular, I pay tribute to Paul Rowsell, who has been involved throughout and who our people in Bournemouth and Poole could not speak more highly of. I thank him for what he has done.

My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset spoke movingly about adult social care. I want to bear out what he said earlier. When the process began, he was far from converted to the cause of local government reorganisation, but he moved over time as we explored it. He has always been analytical and facts-driven in his approach to politics—there should be more like him—and the numbers ultimately persuaded him that it was the right course of action for councils across Dorset, including Bournemouth and Poole.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch had an exchange on council tax equalisation, on which I would like some clarity from the Minister. If we faced a position where council tax equalisation took place over 20 years, I would join my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch in opposing the proposals—although it would make no difference because I do not have a vote. We do not need anything like 20 years. It should be done in no more than six years, possibly with equalisation in year seven or maybe in a slightly shorter timeframe.

Navitus Bay Wind Farm

Debate between Robert Syms and Conor Burns

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to rise to address the House in this Adjournment debate. It is four years and two weeks since I stood in exactly the same place and made my maiden speech, which was in an Adjournment debate on student visas. I was pleased on that occasion to make significant progress with the Government afterwards. I hope that the same will be the case today. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is responding and the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), is in his place.

This is not a debate about the Government’s energy policy or about their renewables policy; those are debates for another day. This is about a particular proposal to build a wind farm off the Dorset coast. It is appropriate that we are debating it while councillors from across the country are enjoying the Local Government Association’s annual conference in Bournemouth and the stunning views from the wonderful conference facility. I recently conducted a survey on the proposed wind farm and have brought with me a small sample of the responses. They show overwhelming opposition from my constituents and others, and for good reasons.

I wish to discuss the potential impact of the Navitus Bay wind farm on England’s only natural world heritage site, the Jurassic coast, designated by the Government and UNESCO in 2001. That status, under article 4 of the world heritage convention of 1972, obliges the Government to protect, conserve, present and transmit to future generations the sites identified as being part of the cultural and natural heritage. A proposal for a wind farm of up to 194 turbines, each of up to 200 metres in height, is currently before the Planning Inspectorate for evaluation. It will be sited within full view of the Jurassic coast and its main visitor centre at Durlston castle. As part of the planning process for this proposal, DCMS submitted an environmental impact assessment to UNESCO. I wish to address the response of UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature to that environmental impact assessment.

In its comments on the environmental impact assessment, the IUCN raised a number of concerns about the potential impact of the proposed wind farm on the Jurassic coast world heritage site, particularly regarding the unique processes that shape the Jurassic coast and contribute to its outstanding universal value. If this outstanding universal value is compromised and the natural erosion processes on the coast are affected, the reason for the site’s designation as a world heritage site would be threatened. The IUCN notes, too, the potential for the proposal to affect the protection and management of the property. It states that

“in particular, the adequate protection of the wider setting of the property, recognized by the World Heritage Committee to justify at the time of inscription the lack of a defined buffer zone, will be compromised.”

As such, the IUCN said that

“any potential impacts from this project on the natural property are in contradiction to the overarching principle of the World Heritage Convention as stipulated in its Article 4”

as

“the completion of the Project would result in the property being presented and transmitted to future generations in a form that is significantly different from what was there at the time of inscription and until today.”

The first of a number of questions I would like to put to the Minister is this: what is his response to IUCN’s conclusions, and how will the Government meet their obligations under the convention to protect the setting of the site, as well as its listed outstanding universal values?

UNESCO does not make hollow threats. In 2011, there were plans to site a three-turbine wind farm development 10.5 miles from the shore near Mont St Michel in Brittany. As this threatened the setting of the world heritage site, the French Government acted to exclude wind farms from a buffer zone around the site. They were right to do so, as UNESCO is not afraid of removing a site’s designated status. The Elbe valley in Germany was removed from the list of world heritage sites in 2009 following the construction of a four-lane bridge in the valley which meant that

“the property failed to keep ‘its outstanding universal value as inscribed.’”

My colleagues would not expect me to say this, but my second question to the Minister is this: will he follow the French example and take action in England to protect the setting of our only natural world heritage site for future generations, thus avoiding the fate that befell the Germans?

I believe that if the Jurassic coast were to lose its designated status as a world heritage site, the tourism economy throughout Dorset would suffer drastically. Over 30 million trips were made to Dorset in the past year, some 5 million of which included the Jurassic coast, and evidence suggests that visitor numbers have increased since the Jurassic coast’s designation as a world heritage site. Given that Navitus Bay’s own research shows that 48% of people visiting the area cite the sea view as a reason for doing so, and that IUCN

“considers that the impact of the Project on the visitors’ experience and appreciation of the property in its wider natural setting is likely to be significant”,

it is by no means a leap of the imagination to say that the proposed wind farm will have a significant impact on tourism numbers.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

The fact that there are many Dorset MPs in the Chamber today shows that we fully support the compelling case that my hon. Friend is making. My constituents are very worried about this proposal and the impact that it will have on the local economy.

[Conor Burns]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and I salute his dogged determination in opposing this plan and, indeed, that of my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for South Dorset (Richard Drax), who are sitting behind me. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) would be present, except that he is on manoeuvres on Salisbury plain as part of his Territorial Army activities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), who is my parliamentary neighbour, knows about the vital impact on Bournemouth and the conurbation. Tourism is Bournemouth’s second most important sector of the economy after financial services and it is worth about £475 million to the town annually. It directly supports 8,500 local jobs, with a further 2,000 jobs indirectly dependent on visitors. Across Dorset as a whole, tourism is worth in the region of £1.7 billion annually and supports in the region of 47,000 jobs.

Given that 20% of summer visitors surveyed by Navitus Bay—they were surveyed by the development company itself—said that they would be unlikely to visit Bournemouth during the five-year construction phase and 14% said that they would be unlikely ever to return, the development would have a major impact on our tourism economy and change the nature of our town and conurbation.

May I, therefore, ask the Minister another direct question? Given the importance of tourism to Bournemouth and Dorset’s economy and the Government’s commitment to our long-term economic plan—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] I am not surprised that my colleagues expected me to say that—what steps will the Minister take to ensure that this damaging proposal does not go ahead?

Traveller Sites (Dorset)

Debate between Robert Syms and Conor Burns

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I am pleased that the House has disposed of its business rapidly so that we can have a proper debate on Travellers in Poole, Bournemouth and Dorset. In a minute, one or two of my colleagues might run into the Chamber having been caught by the collapse of business.

Before I start, let me say that I have just emerged from hospital, having had appendicitis, and I would like to thank Oliver Allenby-Smith, his team and all the nurses on ward B4 of Poole hospital, who have been nursing me for five days. I am now on the mend and able to represent here my constituents in Dorset.

We all recognise the importance of making provision for Travellers. My experience throughout my political career is that if we make proper provision we have the legal powers to move people on from inappropriate places. It was a retrograde step when the John Major Government decided to move away from paying for pitches, because that diminished the infrastructure for many of the Traveller sites and has caused us problems ever since.

The difficulty in Dorset is that in 1996 Bournemouth and Poole both realised their aspirations of becoming unitary authorities again, and therefore strategic authorities. However, consideration was not given to the boundaries of either authority, so both remained fairly tightly drawn. From central Poole or central Bournemouth one can get to rural Dorset in about 10 or 15 minutes, so there is logic in having a policy for Travellers that encompasses not only Dorset county council, but the two other strategic authorities, Poole and Bournemouth.

Under the Housing Act 2004 Poole undertook a review of the housing need of Travellers. It carried out a consultation on the number of sites and came up with 20. It reduced that to three sites within its boundaries. One of the joys of having a local authority with no overall control is that the committee then decided to consult on all 20 sites. So I have many concerned and worried constituents who think they may well have a Traveller site in their own back yard.

I would like more co-ordination and co-operation among the three authorities. They all want to work together, but there are certain things that are causing a problem. One of the issues relates to policing, which does not impact directly on the Department for Communities and Local Government. The issue of joint transit provision is not one that strategic authorities are able to consider, because the Criminal Justice Act 2004 does not give the police powers to move Travellers across strategic authority boundaries. In Dorset, joint provision between lower-tier authorities is possible because under Dorset county council the higher tier is the strategic authority. Poole and Bournemouth do not have this opportunity because they themselves are both strategic authorities. Those authorities therefore have to provide facilities within area. That is not necessarily an easy fix. It seems bizarre that Dorset has one police force, the Dorset constabulary, yet under the law as it relates to policing, the force cannot move Travellers across Poole, Bournemouth or Dorset because they happen to be unitary authorities. That needs to be dealt with.

I would like a Minister to set out when we are likely to get the Travellers review. It would be helpful to see what obligations the local authority has. Does the Localism Act 2011, which introduced the duty of co-operation in plan-making, set out whether that will override other duties? What we need is co-operation among the three authorities. It is logical and it follows from our history and our geography that they should work together. Both Bournemouth and Poole are happy to make their contribution in financial terms, but the very tight geographical boundaries that both have make it extremely difficult to identify sites which do not have another purpose. In my constituency in Poole, for example, the only green area we have is Parkstone golf club. To the west is water, and to the north is an area of outstanding natural beauty and green belt, so identifying an efficient site within Poole will be extremely difficult.

Then there are the issues of permanent sites and transit sites. It is important that there should be transit sites. The advantage of Poole is that the transit site could easily be only a few miles up the road in rural Dorset, yet at present we seem to be precluded from taking action. I should like more information on what is envisaged. Earlier this year the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) replied to a written question on Travellers from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke). My right hon. Friend said that he understood that there was widespread concern about rules and guidance on Travellers sites. He stated that the Department for Communities and Local Government had published the new draft planning policy for Travellers sites for consultation in April 2011, but I still do not think we have clarity.

On a number of occasions I, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole and my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) and for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) have tried to pin the Government down to give us more specifics, but the Government have not been able to do so. The situation is difficult. Logic demands a collaborative approach among Dorset, Poole and Bournemouth in discharging our duties towards Travellers. We have not been able to do so because of slight legal impediments, the police impediment that I set out, and the lack of clarity.

I hope that the Minister will be able to set out clearly the requirements under the Localism Act 2011. I had great hopes of the Act. This is the great new dawn for local government. The Act specifically introduces a duty to co-operate in plan-making, although there are no definitions of what the duty consists of. The authorities are meant to come together to agree a plan strategically. This is, in effect, what is happening between the three strategic authorities, Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole, with the joint Gypsy and Traveller work. However, that does not mean that we can offload our responsibility to provide appropriate sites, and we would not wish to do so.

We are in a state of flux. The borough council wants to do the right thing, but because there is no overall control, it has consulted on too many sites and there are many worried people. Our geography and our history mean that identifying appropriate sites is very difficult. As I stated, we went from 20 sites down to three and consulted on the three. One of the three sites under serious consideration, which was in the Branksome triangle, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West, is already being used for car parking for Liverpool Victoria and is therefore in employment use. It is very difficult for us to identify a site that could be used as a permanent or a transit site without losing employment land. We want to do the right thing, but that is extremely difficult because of our history and our geography. That is why I hope for some answers from the Minister.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the Adjournment debate. Does he agree that one of the major issues that we face is uncertainty, which is upsetting and unsettling many members of the local communities that we both serve across the Bournemouth and Poole conurbation?

[Mr Syms]

I agree. That is an important point. As a local politician, I am trying to get some certainty, as I am sure is my hon. Friend, so that there is a much clearer sense of direction. Therefore, we need a few more answers from Ministers. If we do not get them tonight, clearly we might need to have further meetings with the Minister concerned. The uncertainty means that people are becoming much more worried than they need to be, not least because Poole is consulting on rather too many sites, some of which are not appropriate, and worrying a lot of people. My postbag is filling up with letters from people who have genuine concerns, as I am sure is my hon. Friend’s. Poole wants to do the right thing.

[Conor Burns]

One thing that is causing considerable anxiety locally is the fact that our councils are being forced to do the consultation that they are now undertaking. My understanding is that the consultation is part-funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government and that it is a central Government requirement on local government. The point my hon. Friend made a moment ago about definition and clarity around the Localism Act 2011 is extremely important in relation to the Minister's response.

[Mr Syms]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I think that the 2011 Act is a landmark piece of legislation, and we have high hopes that it will transform local government. He is right that we need a little more clarity on whether it will offset some of the other requirements that the Government have put on Poole. We want to do the right thing and provide sufficient sites. We want to provide what we have a duty to provide and to pay for it, but the difficulty is that he and I have extremely compact constituencies. It is difficult to find appropriate sites in our constituencies, yet there might be appropriate sites five or 10 minutes away from the conurbation. However, because we have unitary and strategic authorities it is very difficult to do that and leave Dorset constabulary in a situation where it can move Travellers on if it has to.

I know that Bournemouth has problems with Travellers on occasion and a number of temporary sites to deal with them at certain times of the year. Later in the debate I would be interested to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West set out his constituents’ concerns on what is a difficult and worrying subject, but one on which we as politicians need to get more clarity. Essentially, we want three authorities to work together on this, which is the whole thrust of the 2011 Act and which they want to do. We want to combine financially and make provision for Travellers in the appropriate way; the most appropriate way might be for the three authorities to make that provision on a collective basis. That might mean not necessarily having the sufficient number of sites within the boundaries of Bournemouth or Poole.

We need more clarity, and I hope that we will get it from the Minister. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West has similar views and concerns to mine and I would be interested to hear them, so that the Minister may reply with conviction and give us more reassurance on this very difficult policy issue that our local councillors have to comply with. That is really all I have to say. I am pleased to see the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) in his place and am sure that he will respond brilliantly to the debate. If we do not get the answer we demand tonight, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West and I will look forward to further meetings with Ministers so that we can meet our objectives of providing for Travellers, safeguarding our constituents and getting efficient and effective local government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Conor Burns]

I am delighted to see the hon. Gentleman back in his place after his no doubt successful visit to the Falkland Islands—and this on Commonwealth day. As he knows, sometimes Governments of all persuasions need a little push, and it is our constituents who are giving us a push as those sites go out to consultation.

The current consultation, which is being carried out by Baker Associates throughout Dorset and funded to the tune of some £300,000 by the Department, is profoundly unsettling the communities that my hon. Friend the Member for Poole and I serve. One proposed site out to consultation at the moment is Lansdowne, right at the heart of Bournemouth, known locally as the gateway to Bournemouth and visible from the Wessex way.

[Mr Syms]

As I said in my contribution, the real problem is that Bournemouth and Poole local authorities became unitary without the boundaries being looked at. Both areas are very compact, and finding suitable sites is difficult unless we do so on a Dorset-wide basis.

[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend makes a valid and compelling point which I wholly agree with and endorse.

My final point is that those communities, which include some elderly, vulnerable and frail people, are worried that our councils have gone out to consultation on specific sites. There is an excellent campaign being run on the Lansdowne site by a lady called Alex De Freitas, who has mobilised local traders and residents to put across their concerns.

We really want to hear tonight a compelling answer of some urgency from the Minister as to when our local authorities will be able to move away from that consultation and take up the very sensible powers with which they were presented in both governing parties’ pre-election offerings to the British people: the opportunity to come together and to make provision across multiple-authority areas, thereby giving the police the powers to move on the illegal encampments that do so much damage to the communities that my hon. Friend and I serve.

I, like my constituents, look forward with eager anticipation to the words of reassurance that will doubtless now flow from the Minister at the Dispatch Box.