Trespass

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I want to begin by thanking everyone who signed the petition and all the individuals and organisations that have spent a lot of time, in the various consultations and processes around this issue, giving their views. It is clear that there is a very strong community of organisations, from all kinds of backgrounds and interests, that are coming together to give their view and to oppose what the Government are seeking to do. I thank those individuals and organisations.

I thank the hon. Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher), who I thought gave a very balanced view, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) said; and I thank my hon. Friend, who is so principled and so practical in everything that he says—I hope that the Minister was paying close attention. Indeed, I thank all colleagues who spoke in the debate. We have heard about both the importance of keeping our countryside open as much as possible for as many people as possible and about the other side of this issue, which is the prejudice and harm that the legislation will do to the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities. That was very well articulated by several hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), who made a really powerful case. I thank everyone for their contributions.

As we have heard, over 140,000 people signed the petition against the Government’s proposals. That is not surprising, given the moral and practical problems that the Government are introducing with the proposals. The Petitions Committee’s online survey was really interesting and asked petitioners for their views. As has been said, over 84% of respondents told the Petitions Committee that

“the criminalisation of trespass would have a ‘major’ or ‘moderate’ effect on how they live their lives as they do today…Many respondents were concerned that criminalising trespass could increase pre-existing tensions, mistrust, and lack of understanding between their local community and Travellers. There was consensus that more needs to be done to provide authorised sites for Travellers.”

As I mentioned, a broad coalition—from the NSPCC to Liberty, from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities to the Ramblers Association, and from the police to Shelter—is united in the view that the proposals put forward by the Government would be wrong and unhelpful and would go against our basic rights. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is designed to criminalise the act of trespassing when making an unauthorised encampment. What is proposed in the Bill on the trespassing of unauthorised encampments is deeply concerning and unnecessary. As one of the responders to the Petitions Committee’s survey put it:

“The criminalisation of trespass will simply exacerbate an already fraught relationship. Gypsies and Travellers will still camp but there’ll be more prosecutions, more distrust, more public money spent on legalities”.

Other people who have a nomadic lifestyle have told me that they feel that they will no longer be able to live on the road in the way that we have seen in this country since the 16th century, and that the Bill risks criminalising their way of life. Failure to comply with a police direction to leave land occupied as part of an unauthorised encampment is already a criminal offence, but the proposals create a new offence of residing on land without consent in, or with, a vehicle. The broad way in which the definition is drafted seems to capture the intention to do this as well as actually doing it—the intention can be criminalised as well—with penalties of imprisonment of up to three months or a fine of up to £2,500, or both. The loose drafting of the wording in the legislation invites problems with its interpretation, and it is simply not fair to put that on the police. If someone were to drive in a car, park it and walk somewhere in order to wild camp beneath the stars, what does “with a vehicle” cover in the legislation? How far away from the vehicle would the campers have to be in order to escape carrying out a potential criminal offence?

The major concern that the Opposition have with this part of the Bill, and that is articulated in the petition, is that it is clearly targeted at Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and such criminalisation could breach the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010. When the powers in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 were first debated in Parliament, it was stated that the powers were intended to deal with “mass trespass”. In the new Bill, however, even a single Gypsy or Traveller travelling in a single vehicle will be caught by the offence. What constitutes

“significant damage, disruption or distress”

is subjective, particularly as there needs to be only one vehicle, and what constitutes the intention to cause

“significant damage, disruption or distress”

is even more subjective. That is in part why the measures to increase police powers on unauthorised encampments are not backed by the police, as we have heard. When Friends, Families and Travellers researched the consultation responses that the Government received, it found that 84% of the police responses did not support the criminalisation of unauthorised encampments.

In her opening speech, the hon. Member for South Ribble quoted the Minister as saying he wants to ensure that the police have the powers they need. Actually, they believe that they already have the powers they need. Senior police are telling us that the changes in the Bill relating to unauthorised encampments would only make matters worse. They would add considerable extra cost to the already overstretched police and risk potentially breaching the Human Rights Act.

The views of the National Police Chiefs Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners were clearly put in their joint submission to the 2018 Government consultation.

They state:

“Trespass is a civil offence and our view is that it should remain so. The possibility of creating a new criminal offence of ‘intentional trespass’…has been raised at various times over the years but the NPCC position has been—and remains—that no new criminal trespass offence is required. The co-ordinated use of the powers already available under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 allows for a proportionate response to encampments based on the behaviour of the trespassers.”

Why are the Government determined to lock up Gypsies and Travellers against even the advice of our own police?

The police already have extensive powers in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to move on unauthorised encampments. As of January 2020, just 3% of Gypsy and Traveller caravans in England were on unauthorised encampments. Some 419 of those caravans were on sites not tolerated and 275 were on tolerated sites. Police and campaigners tell us that the evidence is not there for these new powers to be necessary at all and that many more authorised encampment sites should be provided instead. In their joint response to the Government’s consultation on unauthorised encampments, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and the National Police Chiefs’ Council called for the shortage of transit sites and the lack of accommodation provision to be addressed.

In a ministerial statement on 8 March 2021, the Home Secretary stated:

“As of January 2020, the number of lawful traveller sites increased by 41% from January 2010.”—[Official Report, 8 March 2021; Vol. 690, c. 22W.]

Friends, Families and Travellers has pointed out that

“this is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.”

It says that the 41% referred to by the Home Secretary is in fact

“an increase in transit provision and the Ministerial Statement fails to include this key component of referencing ‘transit’.”

That amounts to about 101 additional transit pitches, which is 10 a year over 10 years, whereas the number of permanent pitches has gone down by over 500 since 2010. Friends, Families and Travellers goes on to say:

“This misrepresentation of the figures leads people to believe there has been a much greater increase in site provision than there has. In fact, the Government published figures show there has been an overall 8.4% decrease of pitches on local authority Traveller sites.”

The Government should be focusing on ensuring that local authorities have the resources they need to provide more space for Traveller communities to legally reside. By taking an enforcement approach to addressing the number of unauthorised encampments, they are overlooking the lack of site provision. Friends, Families and Travellers notes:

“There are other solutions to managing unauthorised encampments, such as negotiated stopping, whereby arrangements are made on agreed permitted times on stopping and to ensure the provision of basic amenities such as water, sanitation and refuse collection.”

The Conservative party manifesto commitment and the Government response to the consultation refer to littering as a problem. Why do the Government not consider providing more authorised camping sites with proper refuse facilities? If a family are asked to move on, where are they supposed to go if there is no authorised encampment in their area? Why do the Government think that confiscating someone’s home, putting them in prison and fining them is the answer?

The legislation that the Government seek to introduce would cause harm to Gypsy and Traveller communities for generations and threaten their very way of life. It is impractical, misleading and adds nothing useful to the law that already exists to tackle problems such as rubbish and antisocial behaviour, which we all abhor and which the Government claim they seek to address. I urge the Government to rethink these harmful proposals.

This debate has been a good opportunity to raise concerns about the forthcoming Bill, which we will discuss in more detail in Committee. I end by asking the Minister to answer the following questions in his response. Can he provide an update on the progress of the national strategy to tackle Gypsy, Roma and Traveller inequalities, which was announced by the Government in June 2019? We have heard nothing since then. Under the provisions in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, what would happen to a Traveller family in a single vehicle who are residing on a highway and have nowhere else to go?

Can the Minister clarify the Home Secretary’s claim that there has been a 41% increase in site provision? Can he confirm that that applies only to transit provision and that permanent site provision has significantly decreased? Can he confirm that the provisions in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill on unauthorised encampments are not in breach of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010?

Will the Minister look at different approaches, such as that of the Welsh Labour Government, who have placed a legal duty on local authorities to ensure that the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers are properly assessed and that the needs for pitches are met? As an example of the current lack of provision for Gypsies and Travellers, only eight of 68 councils in south-east England have identified enough land in their areas for Travellers to live on. Will the Minister tell us where those Gypsy and Traveller families, who will otherwise be criminalised, are supposed to go?

Finally, does the Minister agree with the multiple concerns raised by the police, and what is he doing about them? What is he doing to ensure that the Bill, if passed, does not damage our rights as British people and cause more harm than good?