Unauthorised Encampments

Wendy Morton Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered unauthorised encampments.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and to lead today’s debate following Monday’s well-attended debate in the main Chamber. I thank hon. Members for attending. I know that we are always balancing constituency pressures with the pressures of being in Westminster, so it is good to see colleagues from around the country, not just my own west midlands region, and from all sides of the House.

On Monday, we heard stories from across the House of how unauthorised encampments bring chaos to local communities and blight our green and open spaces. It is the impact on our communities that I will touch on, because that was the driver for my calling for the debate. However, on Monday we also touched on some other important Traveller issues relating to education, modern slavery and health inequalities. Those are equally important, and I think we all agreed that they must be considered as well. I also mention that the vast majority of Travellers live alongside our settled community in absolute harmony. I am talking about the minority: a small group who are making the lives of my local communities challenging.

I will focus on unauthorised encampments, how they affect local communities and blight our open spaces, how we can seek to prevent them and consider the process for evicting Travellers from these sites, and how we can come up with a new solution for what seems to be an ever-present situation. Before I begin in earnest, I thank the Minister for the contribution he made to Monday’s debate. I know that he, like many of us here, has first-hand experience of the issue, and I welcome his announcement of a call for evidence to address the way that this issue is dealt with. I assure him that, if appropriate, I will make a submission to his Department’s consultation, and will encourage my constituents to do so.

First, I will touch on some of the background to the problem in my own constituency of Aldridge-Brownhills, and one or two statistics. I think we like statistics in this place. There were 22,004 Traveller caravans in England in January 2017, of which 2,860, representing 13%, were parked on unauthorised encampments. That might not seem high to some, but, as many of us here know, the effect on a local community when a large encampment arrives can be massive. In my constituency it is not uncommon for these encampments to have more than 50 caravans plus vehicles.

Many of those vehicles are luxury caravans and vehicles, which my hard-working residents could only dream of affording. Up to 26 September this year, there were 68 unauthorised encampments in the borough of Walsall alone. The estimated cost associated with those set up on council land was about £200,000, and there are costs associated with encampments that arrive on private land and, sometimes, on housing association land as well. That money could and should be going back into our communities and into the services that we all value and want to see strengthened.

The problem is not a new one for the borough of Walsall, nor is it just a problem for my constituency within the Walsall borough; it also affects the constituencies of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) and of the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). The issue has been ongoing for the last few summers, but this year things have come to a head. I believe that the local authorities try to act, but most of the time their actions are not quick enough to ensure that members of the settled community are not adversely affected. The Travelling community seem to understand the law and the hoops that the council must jump through before moving an encampment on, and each encampment seems to follow a similar pattern.

[Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour on securing the debate. She rightly talks about the issues facing Walsall; I read about them regularly in the Express and Star, because those issues affect a number of constituencies, including mine. I recognise that local communities are really affected, particularly when we see the Travellers coming on to local parks.

[Wendy Morton]

I absolutely agree, which is why the focus of today is that impact on local communities, local residents, and sometimes local businesses. It is often local community groups that normally use green spaces on a Saturday morning.

I was talking about the process and pattern that often seems to occur. Before it is evicted by a court order, we see the encampment simply move to another site. The Travellers set up camp while the council works on the eviction process, and just before the council serves the necessary order, the encampment packs up and moves on—often down the road to another site in the same borough—only for the same process to repeat itself. That cat-and-mouse merry-go-round comes at great cost to the taxpayer. Enough is enough. It must be brought to an end. It is time to seek some solutions.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I apologise, Mr Davies, but I will need to leave the debate early; a school from my constituency is visiting. I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. I am interested in what she says about this being a pattern that is repeated each year; I know that other colleagues will make the same point. Does she agree that it is helpful if local authorities actually undertake what they should, which is to secure a five-year supply of deliverable sites—and does she know whether her authority has done that?

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her contribution. I think transit sites and allocations are part of what is actually a much bigger issue. I will come on to some of those points later.

Mess is so often left at these sites. The state that some of the sites are left in following an eviction is quite simply a disgrace. There are masses of litter and household waste, while industrial waste is commonplace—be that bricks or leftovers from building work. I have seen huge piles of garden waste, which often appears to be from work carried out by members of these sites then brought back to the encampment and dumped.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend: this is about the impact on local communities when waste is left on a site. These are recreational spaces—in my case, on Park Road football field in Cheadle—and are left in a terrible state afterwards. There is also quite a substantial clean-up cost to the community, which leads to that feeling of real resentment against the unauthorised encampments and the Travellers.

[Wendy Morton]

My hon. Friend makes a helpful intervention. It is often the waste left behind that creates the tension within our communities. On one occasion, I was due to meet a constituent at a site in my constituency from where an encampment had recently been moved on, to see the state it had been left in. Shortly before I left my office, the constituent called and advised me to bring a pair of wellies. When I arrived at the site, I sadly realised why I needed them: because of the state the site was left in. It is not uncommon for human excrement to be left on those sites. For members of the council’s “Clean & Green” team to have to go and clean up these sites is really not fair, not acceptable and certainly not what the council tax payers of Walsall borough pay their council taxes for.

Recently, after Travellers moved on from an encampment at Aldridge airport, there were, in addition to the waste we have sadly come to expect, four empty boxes that had contained TVs and even a car. Sadly, that was again left for the council to clean up. Surely the cost burden of cleaning up that mess should not fall to my local residents. Some councils are now successfully prosecuting fly-tippers, so is it not time to start prosecuting and fining Travellers for the mess that they leave in their wake? As well as the costs that come with repairing the destruction of public land and the clean-up of waste, there are wider societal costs.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady mentioned Travellers on green sites, a cause of considerable distress to residents, but such groups quite often also set up on industrial estates. They disrupt the businesses and very often there is, coincidentally, a significant peak in crime, so those industrial estates get hit both ways.

[Wendy Morton]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is remiss of me to have concentrated on green and open spaces, when we have seen encampments on car parks as well, and at one of our local supermarkets. When I talk about the impact on local communities, I mean communities in a very broad sense.

There is much anecdotal evidence, as any of the constituents who have contacted me will attest, that with an unauthorised encampment comes a rise in antisocial behaviour and crime. Local pubs have had to close due to unruly behaviour. I have heard stories of local shopkeepers who have spent a weekend fending off fake notes, because even accepting one fake £50 note can wipe off a small shop’s profits for the day. Many residents have contacted me after their homes, cars and gardens have been vandalised and damaged.

On the August bank holiday weekend, one of my local football clubs, Walsall Wood, which is run by local community volunteers for children and young people in our community, fell victim to an illegal encampment. The 50 or so caravans arrived on Thursday evening. Local residents, staff and members of the club all contacted me. Understandably, they were concerned about the impact that it would have on the club, which had a series of games planned for that weekend. Due to a previously obtained injunction, the council was able to move that particular group on that Friday evening, but some games had already had to be cancelled that day. I think that some were cancelled on Saturday too, but most were able to go ahead. Unfortunately, however, the pattern continued, and that group of travellers simply moved down the road to Aldridge airport, where the height restriction barrier had been left open. They set up camp there over the bank holiday weekend.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the measured tone that she has set for this debate. Does it surprise her that there are often examples of forced entry clearly having been used—for example, angle grinders on gates or huge boulders dragged to the side, sometimes in front of witnesses? Does she agree that the police need much greater powers to intervene and move people on where that is happening?

[Wendy Morton]

I will come on to some of the powers and the need to look at the legislation later in my speech, but I agree. We have often seen examples of locks being broken. That just heightens tensions within our communities because people say, “How can you make a site secure when a lock is broken or something is left open?”

The final example I want to touch on today—I am sure other Members will want to give their own—is of a convoy of caravans that arrived on the car park and surrounding areas of Aldridge community centre on 29 September. I am sorry, but the behaviour of the Travellers in this case was absolutely shocking. Members of the public who were using the community centre reported feeling intimidated. There was kicking at the doors of the community centre and someone had to stay there all weekend to provide security. Worst of all, human faeces were posted through the letterbox. What sort of behaviour is that? It is not acceptable, and yet that group was able to stay there until the morning. Understandably, we are left asking how that can be.

I turn now to how to deal with the issue. It was really interesting to hear from other Members on Monday, and we have heard some examples today as well about the issues that they face and possible solutions to these illegal encampments. There was talk of strengthening the law around sections 61, 62, 77 and 78 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. On Monday, there was much discussion of the Irish Government’s solution. Ireland has made deliberate acts of trespass a criminal offence and there has even been suggestion of a three-strike rule for the impounding of vehicles. Surely we should be looking to explore those things a little further.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. This was a significant problem in Ireland, but the Irish Government eventually legislated and Ireland now has a law that criminalises acts of deliberate trespass, which, as I understand it, has significantly deterred illegal incursions in Ireland. Does the hon. Lady not feel that there would be real advantages for us if we were to take advantage of Ireland’s experience and introduce a similar law here?

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention; I know that he speaks from experience in his own constituency. We really need to look at this area of legislation. We need to look at the problems that we are facing in the communities and a little further up the line at some of the root causes. That is an excellent example and hopefully something that the Minister will take on board, as, to be fair, he did on Monday.

In February this year, the West Midlands police and crime commissioner held a summit on unauthorised encampments in recognition of the fact that we have quite a challenging situation across the west midlands. There were several outcomes from that summit, two of which involved working with local MPs to change legislation—I am conscious that there are colleagues from across the west midlands here today—and specifically section 62 and the notion of better protecting private business. It was a little disappointing that I did not hear from the police and crime commissioner regarding those proposals until I spoke to his office last month to ask for those outcomes, but perhaps these debates and my phone call prompted some action. At least we have some proposals, ideas and suggestions; they have to be welcomed as ones that the Minister and his team could consider.

Currently, section 62 can be used to direct Travellers to leave an unauthorised encampment only if there is a suitable pitch for the caravan, or each of the caravans, on a relevant caravan site that is situated within a local authority’s area. Clearly, for an encampment of more than 50 caravans, that is quite a challenge even for the police to handle, so we need to find a better way of addressing that. One suggestion is to change the law to enable local authorities to work with neighbouring authorities or with a wider combined authority so that Travellers can be directed to sites across local area boundaries. I urge the Minister to consider that, particularly in the west midlands, because Aldridge-Brownhills is part of the Walsall borough, which is geographically quite compact. It is not a huge borough. We are, in turn, part of the West Midlands combined authority. Again, I urge the Minister to look at whether there is some scope to make change there. I am aware that Sandwell Council has recently opened a transit site and Birmingham City Council is preparing a site, so perhaps consideration could be given to those as well.

[John Spellar]

As a Member of Parliament representing part of Sandwell, I draw attention to the fact that the number of illegal encampments has about halved as a result of the new site. Equally significantly, those that are set up are moved on quickly by the police. Might it not be an idea simply to change the law to cover a police authority area? That would simplify this for the police and they could therefore direct the Travellers to an encampment within their police area.

[Wendy Morton]

That is another sensible solution, which I hope the Minister takes on board. I know that lots of other Members want to speak, so I will press on and take fewer interventions to make some progress.

The wording of section 61 makes it clear that a senior police officer can direct Travellers to leave land if they believe that two or more people are trespassing with the purpose of residing there for any period. Reasonable steps to ask them to leave must have been taken, and one of the following must apply: any of the persons present must have caused damage to the land or property on the land or used threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards the owner of the land or his family or agents, or those persons must have between them six or more vehicles on the land. That is another good example of where the police can and should be using the existing powers.

We have touched already on the Irish Government’s answer. Without going over everything again, I urge Ministers to look at that seriously. However, as I said on Monday, we need to find long-term solutions, but my constituents are also looking for short-term protections.

Many members of the travelling community clearly understand the law surrounding the eviction process. We have seen that all too often in Aldridge, particularly with regard to locks missing from gates and sites being left open. That prompts the question: does the council’s left hand know what its right hand is doing? Could local authorities work more closely with other authorities to tackle this problem? There are also questions about how to secure sites so that members of the public can use them for the reasons for which they were originally intended, while stopping Traveller encampments springing up on them. Aldridge airport is a very good example of that.

On some sites where injunctions have been obtained, some protections have been put in place, but a Walsall Council report from January 2016 showed that further plans to protect 14 sites across the borough would cost just over £68,000. The report concluded that there is currently no budget for implementing those measures, yet the council has had to spend more than double that figure so far this year in evicting Travellers from some of the sites that perhaps could have been protected under the measures. I do sometimes wonder about the logic.

On injunctions, I want to mention at this point some of the work that Walsall Council has done. It gained a borough-wide order, based on the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, against persons both named and unnamed. In addition, it managed to obtain an order restraining the named defendants and persons unknown from trespassing on 12 sites in the borough. I praise Walsall Council. It has taken some steps, and some of my local residents now have sites that are secure but that they can still access. Sometimes there are calls for a borough-wide injunction, but I am not necessarily convinced that that is the answer. It does not really solve the problem; it simply moves it to another borough. The costs and difficulty of obtaining such an injunction would be massive and, again, would fall to council tax payers. Also, I fear that sweeping powers such as that can easily be abused. Negotiated stopping is another often cited solution, but again that is not ideal, either in the short or the long term.

I will move on swiftly and draw my comments to a close, Mr Davies. I would like to say much more, and perhaps the Minister will let me have a meeting with him in the future, but for now I will conclude. Unauthorised encampments are the single biggest issue in my postbag and email inbox. The issue causes anger and frustration in my constituency and, clearly, across the country. I welcome the Minister’s commitment on Monday to a call for evidence, because it is not good enough for public bodies just to gold-plate human rights and equalities legislation. It is time for us all to come together and for the police and the council to work much more closely together, using the powers available to them, to prevent these encampments from appearing in the first place and to speed up the eviction process. It is for the Government to look, through consultation, at the effectiveness or otherwise of the existing laws. No single community should be above the law. We need to recognise that with rights must come responsibilities, and with responsibilities will come respect.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)]

This conversation will undoubtedly be difficult, because it is about a clash of cultural norms: those of settled communities and their culture to aspire to live in one permanent place, and those of nomadic peoples. I want to challenge some of the things set out by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton). Regarding the conversation about antisocial behaviour increasing when unauthorised encampments are in town, I would like to know whether there is statistical, rather than anecdotal, evidence to substantiate that claim.

[Wendy Morton]

I point out to the hon. Lady that the simplest way is to come and talk to some of the constituents in my community who have actually been affected. They will give her plenty of evidence and stories of their own experience of antisocial behaviour.

[Laura Pidcock]

I also represent an area in which the highest ethnic minority is Gypsy and Traveller people, in County Durham. I asked for statistical evidence to substantiate that claim, rather than anecdotal. There is antisocial behaviour in my constituency from non-travelling communities. Time and time again in debates such as this, complex social issues are racialised. [Interruption.] I was about to say, before the objections, that I have heard many people say that this issue is about a minority. I want to talk about the presumption, which I have heard in this debate, that it is about our communities versus the Gypsy and Traveller communities. They are one and the same thing. If Travellers or Gypsies are in our constituencies, they are our constituents at that point.

The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) said that many look on trailers and envy how luxurious they are. Those are people’s homes. The average cost of a trailer is well below the average cost of a house. I thought that that was a particularly spurious point.

What do Members mean when they talk about dealing with the problem or the situation? Where do they suggest nomadic people go? I know that it is difficult and causes tension in communities, and that it is frustrating when a nice piece of land next to someone’s home or an unused piece of land is taken up by many trailers. That is difficult for communities, because they have expectations about what they live next to, but no critical analysis has been done of the structural reasons why Gypsy and Traveller people might end up on that disused bit of land. What structural Government policies have resulted in that situation?

I also challenge the presumption about gold-plating human rights. The report from the Traveller Movement, which is absolutely fantastic, sets out in clear language how persecuted such communities have been for centuries. On a number of social indicators—all, I would argue—the outcomes for Gypsy and Traveller communities, as well as Roma communities, which are not the subject of this debate, are worse than for others. It is difficult to hear people conflate antisocial behaviour, waste on sites and all the associated problems with a cultural identity. The idea that Gypsy and Traveller people should be mentioned at all is difficult. As I said before, antisocial behaviour in my community is often not due to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. Of course, not all Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people will be angels, but let us not use cultural identity as a point in the argument.

There are solutions. Helen Jones of Leeds GATE argued—I think this was brushed aside—in favour of negotiated stopping, which rests on mutual negotiated agreement and a short-term social contract issued by local authorities. Unauthorised encampment is often the result of insufficient provision of permanent pitches, which then overflow on to transient sites, which essentially become permanent sites when they should be transient. Negotiated stopping would offer short-termism, with many conditions by which Gypsy and Traveller people would have to abide. Yvonne MacNamara, CEO of the Traveller Movement, agrees that negotiated stopping is a solution. The solutions are staring us in the face. Let us not allow the demonisation of these communities to stand in the way of those solutions. Let us work towards peaceful solutions for nomadic people, as well as for the settled people in our constituencies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

As the hon. Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) noted, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) spoke of “gold-plating” human rights and equalities legislation. I took the time to read the article written by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills on the subject of this debate, and I have to say to her that one’s ethnicity, social group or how one identifies oneself does not make one a better person. Human rights are not held because someone lives in a house; they are held because someone is a human being. And someone’s human rights are not lessened because their lifestyle is different from the lifestyles of other people.

The hon. Member’s article argues that

“the pendulum has swung too far away from local residents who have faced these repeated traveller incursions”

and that:

“Residents are tired of the anti-social behaviour, noise, rubbish and mess—which can be household, domestic and even human—that so often accompanies these incursions. The Council is left to clear up the mess—and the taxpayer to pick up the bill. Enough is enough.”

Those passages in the article on her website advertising this debate represent the kind of prejudice and intolerance that strain—[Interruption.] No, I am going to continue. They strain relationships between people. Coming from a parliamentarian, they represent the kind of rhetoric that, in my experience, has left small children at risk of violence. I spoke with a Traveller mother recently who told me that her children have grown up thinking that stones and bottles being thrown at their caravan windows by members of the settled community—the community that has so often been referred to today—is normal. That is unacceptable.

I understand that—

[Wendy Morton]

On a point of order, Mr Davies.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

I hope that it is a point of order.

[Wendy Morton]

I just wish to make it very clear that in all the things that I have said about this subject in debates I am representing my community and my constituents, and on no account do I ever use the word “ethnicity.”

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. As the hon. Lady knows, that is not a point of order, but what she has said is on the record, and what the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith says must be heard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Morton]

Time is short. I thank you, Mr Davies, for chairing the debate. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members from across the country who have contributed to this important debate. I am very encouraged by the response of the Minister. I welcome his review, and I am sure that I speak on behalf of so many of us when I welcome the chance to work with him to address this sensitive and challenging issue faced in so many of our constituencies.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered unauthorised encampments.