Tony Lloyd
Main Page: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale) Gypsies and Travellers and Local Communities
Tony Lloyd Excerpts
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
I feared that I had come into the wrong debate. I am fairly certain that this debate is about Gypsies, Travellers and local communities, but the Minister finished his speech—I applaud his final remarks—by making a real point about the overwhelming majority of the travelling community, who are law abiding and who live settled lives, but against whom the disadvantages are enormous. The House ought to recognise that as well as recognising, as I do as a constituency MP, that the antisocial and illegal actions of some are unacceptable. We have to get the balance of our debate right.
I will come on to discuss unacceptable encampments, but the Minister is right to say that all communities must abide by the law. Most of the travelling community does abide by the law, and we need to place it on record that the Gypsy, Romany and Traveller community are our fellow citizens. That group probably faces the biggest levels of prejudice and discrimination in Britain, and the House has a duty to do something about that for our fellow citizens. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) shakes his head, but I hope he does not disagree with that point.
A YouGov and Traveller Movement poll, the results of which were released today, rather sadly show that 10% of our fellow people would still be extremely unhappy at one of their family members having a relationship with somebody from the black or Caribbean community and that 3% would be unhappy about a relationship with someone from the White British community. However, it also found that 42% of people in this country would be unhappy about a relationship with somebody from the travelling community. That demonstrates the level of prejudice that still exists in this country.
The various parts of the Traveller community are simply not homogenous. Some 75% of the Traveller community are actually not travellers and live in bricks and mortar, just like hon. Members from both sides of the House. It is a minority—something like 1,400 of the 22,000 caravans that exist—that causes real nuisance. Government Members have been absolutely right to say that when incursions take place, as they have in my constituency, that is unacceptable to the local communities who suffer the damage, but we must still say that Gypsies and Travellers are part of the local community in many places.
Tony Lloyd
I just want to make a few more points, but I will most certainly give way in a moment.
Many Travellers are in jobs—skilled, unskilled and professional—and some are public servants. I call to mind Jim Davies, a sergeant in the Thames Valley police. Along with Petr Torak of Cambridgeshire police, Jim Davies founded the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Police Association, which now has 100 members. Having spent a lot of time in recent years trying to increase the number of people from minority communities in our police force, I found it interesting that the Traveller community is one of the few groups with a proportion of people in the police that more or less mirrors its proportion in society more generally. Jim Davies, who has a Romany background, is about to retire after 30 years of serving the people of Thames valley and I applaud him.
Tony Lloyd
I will give way to my right hon. Friend first, and then to the hon. Gentleman.
John Spellar
Does my hon. Friend accept that the public view of the community will continue to be shaped by the appalling behaviour of the minority, who bring absolute chaos to their own communities, and by the perceived inability of the authorities to act, even though they can act under existing powers, as my own borough of Sandwell has demonstrated, by creating a site to which Travellers can be directed straightaway—within 24 hours—and by taking out orders against individual families who persistently break the law? When such action is taken, the public will be reassured and will live in greater harmony with the majority of the community who, as he is absolutely right to say, are acting peacefully and lawfully. We must deal with these rogue elements.
Tony Lloyd
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, but let us be very clear that if we were talking about any other minority community, the idea of stigmatising the majority because of the illegal behaviour of a minority would be unacceptable and atrocious. We must not stigmatise them. We should act against those whose behaviour is unacceptable and illegal, but we should not stigmatise them.
Bob Stewart
I actually lived in a Traveller community for a few days, and I must tell the House that one of the biggest problems is that people who act illegally are giving their children no chance in life because they cannot get an education. Most of the children under 17 in the encampment I was in, which was mixed, could not read. When I advocated their joining the Army, for example, they said, “Mister, you don’t understand. They wouldn’t have us.” It took me two days to understand what they meant: they could not read. This is something we have to crack.
Tony Lloyd
I am with the hon. Gentleman on that. Let me remind him, if I may, of Jim Davies, about whom I spoke a few moments ago—a Romany who spent 30 years serving the public in our police force. People like that are already the role model we want in that community.
Tony Lloyd
I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. I need to make a little progress; otherwise I fear I will be taking time off those who want to disagree with me later.
When a seven-year-old child says plaintively, “People don’t like us”, surely that should prick the conscience a little of those who want to stigmatise the whole of the travelling community. When we know that 77% of the travelling community have been victims of hate crime or hate speech, when we know that less than 20% would report hate crime or hate speech to the police because they fear no action would be taken, when we know that half of the Traveller community when seeking employment —the sort of thing we want them to do—have faced discrimination, and when we know from a recent survey that four in 10 of our fellow countrymen and women would not want their child to play in a Gypsy home, we know we have a problem.
The 2015 report of the Equality and Human Rights Commission made it clear that the position of Travellers is getting worse. As the Minister conceded, we still have massive challenges to face in many different areas. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) made a point about education. Some 57% of young people now get GCSEs with five grades from A to C, but among the Irish Travellers the figure is as low as 18% and among the Gypsies it is as low as 9%, so we know we have a problem. Another problem is when a teacher says to people in her class, “There’s no point in teaching you as you’ll end up tarmacking drives.” We have a problem in our educational system.
We know that people are denied access to our health services. One of the paradoxes is that not only does that lead to a 10% lower life expectancy among Travellers, which is outrageous in modern Britain, but it means it is less likely that Traveller children will be vaccinated, which matters to everybody. We know about herd immunity, and if we allow that to continue and do not ensure access to our health services, we will actually harm the health of the population more generally.
We know that there are more Traveller children in care. The Travellers account for 0.1% of the population, but only 0.03% of apprenticeships go to people from the Traveller community. Some 5% of our prison population is made up of people from the travelling community, and 8% of women in New Hall Prison are from a Traveller background. I say to the Minister that we must now have some proper accounting. The NHS does not count Travellers as a community of note, and that has to change.
Alok Sharma
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the way in which the NHS currently accounts for people is based on the breakdown in the 2001 census. He will know, however, that an ongoing piece of work in the NHS is looking at whether we can move to using the categories in the 2011 census, which includes Gypsies and Travellers.
Tony Lloyd
That is comforting, but it is six years since the census was taken. This is not a new phenomenon, and I think we really can and must do better. I know that this is not a matter for the Minister’s Department—he is in the invidious position of having to respond for the Home Office, the Department of Health, the Department for Education and so on, which is always like drawing the short straw—but he has to go back to his colleagues and say that this is simply not good enough. Proper accounting is the starting point.
It did not have to be this way; it could have been so very different. The previous Labour Government left a good legacy. The Equality Act 2010, along with subsequent case law, has made sure that Travellers are defined as a protected minority. The Housing Act 2004 provided a statutory basis for an assessment of the need for housing and caravan sites for Travellers. The periodical review of housing needs that local authorities are supposed to undertake was brought in under the previous Labour Government.
However, the Equality Act was flouted by the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Sir Eric Pickles, who was guilty of unlawful discrimination when he singly picked out Gypsies, saying that any application by Gypsies for a green-belt site would need special consideration. That was unlawful, but—let us be honest—it was also unacceptable. It was unacceptable behaviour to be so discriminatory.
Why was the assessment of need removed by this Government? Will the Minister tell the House that such an assessment will now be put back in place, because it ought to be there? The periodical review has gone, and where are the 28 commitments of the ministerial working group? Is the Minister determined, as I am, to do something to better the lives and the life chances of the Travellers? The 2016 draft guidance review of housing needs for caravans and houseboats has not been delivered in proper form. Where is it? The Minister made no mention of any of these points.
Under the affordable homes programme, £60 million was available for Travellers for Traveller sites. The Minister did not tell us how many new sites have been allocated. He did not tell us where the money is, or what it has been spent on. That matters, frankly, because I can tell the House that in the south-east, for example, only 10 of the 66 local authorities now have a five-year plan for the supply of Traveller sites. In the east and west midlands—this is of concern to my hon. Friends from the midlands—only 15 of the 70 local authorities across the whole region have a five-year supply plan.
We know that only a third of local authorities in London have completed a Traveller accommodation needs assessment. The Minister said that the Government have exhorted local authorities to complete such assessments, but only a third of London authorities have done so. In my own area, two local authorities actually believe they have no need for places for Travellers, which is not acceptable. The question is: what will the Government do about that?
Dame Caroline Spelman
The idea of a five-year supply plan in relation to an itinerant population is a difficult one. As the hon. Gentleman will have heard earlier, we have seen a doubling in the number of illegal Traveller incursions in the west midlands since 2011, and in my own green-belt constituency, which has provided 26 additional pitches, we have seen a doubling in the number of illegal travelling incursions in the past 12 months. The fundamental problem is that when we seek to move the Travellers to the new pitches, they do not want to go to them.
Tony Lloyd
I will come on to the point that the right hon. Lady makes in a few moments. Of course there is an issue with unauthorised sites. I have experienced it in my erstwhile role as a police and crime commissioner and as a constituency MP. Like many other hon. Members, I believe that the law is inadequate at the moment and that we need to look at changes.
Anecdotal evidence from local authorities suggests that those that are good—which provide sites—end up attracting the Travellers who cannot be placed elsewhere. That is a real issue because unless the power exists—it did, but the Government took it away—to insist on local authorities conforming to some credible plan, the burden falls disproportionately on the good local authority to the advantage of others.
Kate Green
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the case that he is making. He may also wish to comment on reports from friends and families of Travellers that certain rogue landlords who control sites put legitimate Traveller and Gypsy families under pressure to leave the sites, as they believe they will get more economic value from the sites if they can bring new tenants into the properties.
Tony Lloyd
My hon. Friend tells me something that I did not know and I am grateful because that should form part of the Government’s thinking.
Let me be clear: I do not countenance antisocial or illegal behaviour. Why would I, any more than anyone else? We are probably talking about 1,400 caravans that cause the problems. The Minister should not be too casual about his belief that powers exist. Sections 61 and 62 as operated by the police are not adequate because—not wrongly—they include a provision that the police have to ensure that there is a suitable, well-managed site to move Travellers to. That is a sensible provision, but it works only if such sites are available. We come back around, on this circular problem, that we can have all the powers we want but if the sites are not available, they will simply go round and round.
Andy Slaughter
My hon. Friend makes the salient point that since 2010 the Government have systematically removed both the carrot and the stick for local authorities to provide appropriate sites. Then they are puzzled by the increase in unlawful, unauthorised encampments. Is not the solution to provide sites? It is a very limited role for local authorities when broken down in that way, and then the problem would go away of its own accord.
Tony Lloyd
My hon. Friend invites one of my conclusions and I will come on to exactly that point.
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
Does the shadow Minister not accept that the problem with requiring the provision of authorised sites is that a county cannot accept unlimited liability for those sites just because it happens to be a popular place for Travellers to visit? Most local authorities have provided a reasonable number of sites, but demand exceeds supply. It cannot be down to the taxpayer to meet that demand no matter what.
Tony Lloyd
The hon. Gentleman is not right: many local authorities are not providing any sites and we need to establish that fact. If there are no sites, we will simply move people from one illegal, antisocial encampment to another, however much we operate the revolving door. That achieves nothing, and is neither rational nor fair to the communities who bear the burden of those illegal visitations.
Wera Hobhouse
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to include the boating community in the travelling community? Members of the boating community do not want to be moved around, but under the current provisions that is what is happening. It is important, when talking about the travelling community, that we also include the boating community, which is increasing.
Tony Lloyd
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point, and I am aware that the owners of berths are beginning to make moves against their existing tenants, which is not acceptable. If she will forgive me, the world of narrowboats and house boats is a very different one to that of Travellers, but she may have a chance to expand on her point later.
Tony Lloyd
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will make some progress. It is only fair.
The other point I make to the Minister about the law is the disparity between private land and public land. Normally, on private land it is possible to obtain action by bailiffs within 24 hours. With public land, that is rarely possible. Local authorities need to be under a duty to exercise a test of reasonableness, but within that it should be possible to align the actions that local authorities can take with respect to public land. Public land does not only belong to wicked councils, but may be owned by hospitals or schools. One of my hon. Friends was telling me about an incursion on to some playing fields in his constituency. It can take days and days to get any action on such incursions, and we need to look at the broad definition and bring public land into the realm of private land.
In Leeds, negotiated settlements have begun to take place. Encampments were costing some £10,000 each in local authority and policing costs. By negotiating with Travellers on stopping sites, the council has been able to establish better processes for, for example, the dumping of rubbish and the times of coming and going to the site. That has led to a significant reduction in the number of encampments and a saving of some £200,000 for the local authority and the police. That is the kind of sensible action that we should encourage.
The Minister’s speech was fascinating, but it was empty of real commitment—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
What would you do?
Tony Lloyd
The Minister has been talking for large parts of my speech, so he does not know what I would do. I talked about the need for a change in the law—not a review of the law—[Interruption.] I would be delighted to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr Marcus Jones
The hon. Gentleman has mentioned on several occasions that he would like to see a change in the law. Will he say how he would like to see the law changed?
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.
