Gypsies and Travellers (Hertfordshire)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs. Dean. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) on securing the debate. She has done a service to her constituents, as well as to those in Hertfordshire as a whole. I also congratulate her on the thorough and sensitive way in which she explored the subject. It needs sensitive handling for the sake of everyone, including Gypsies and Travellers, as well as local residents and communities. Local residents and communities need to be heard, and their views must shape decisions. They must feel that they are part of the process. Hertsmere borough council, for example, is seeking early consultation with Hertsmere residents and is holding a series of meetings in July in each of the principal communities to seek people’s views on sites. It is committed to consultation, listening to local residents and reflecting their wishes, in so far as it can. I have three points to make. The first adopts the concerns that my hon. Friend so ably raised about the nature of the process. It strikes me as bureaucratic and remote from ordinary people. However, as I said, that must be the case when regional governments are involved. District councils, such as Hertsmere, are closest to local people. Local people can get in touch with their local councillors, and meetings can be held locally so that people’s views can be taken into account. District councils are very much on the receiving end of the process, and local people may be left feeling that many decisions have already been shaped before the issues reach their district council—the level at which it is easy for them to have their say. We must be clear that the Government have initiated the process and that they require local authorities to undertake it and to meet in full the need for sites that are identified by housing assessments—something that the Government do not require in respect of the need for affordable housing, which is identified by the same housing needs assessments. The Government require regional planning bodies to produce figures for Gypsy and Traveller sites right down to the level of individual district authorities. One is bound to ask whether it is appropriate for regional planning bodies to go into that level of prescription and detail when regions are so remote from local communities. Have local people’s views shaped that process? At the end of the day, the regional government is required to produce something described as a ““single-issue revision””, which is what I was given when I got my homework wrong, and I say that as somebody who is no fan or enthusiast of regional government. In the east of England, we have never been asked whether we want a regional government; we simply have one. When people in other regions were asked whether they wanted one, they said no. Having seen the way in which the process has been placed in the hands of regional authorities—I am not necessarily criticising the authorities themselves—having looked at what the Government have required them to do, and having seen the way in which the Government have put such a premium on them, it is easy to understand why people were not instantly attracted to the idea of regional government. The process seems to bear out all the concerns that people expressed about regional government. My second point is on a separate matter. What account has been taken of the green belt when making those requirements of local authorities? The Government’s planning circular on Gypsy and Traveller caravan sites skates over the problem. Paragraph 49 states:"““National planning policy on Green Belts applies equally to applications for planning permission from gypsies and travellers, and the settled population. Alternatives should be explored before Green Belt locations are considered. Pressure for development of sites of Green Belt land can usually be avoided if the local planning authority allocate sufficient sites elsewhere in its area in its LDF””—" local development framework—"““to meet identified need.””" I shall break away from that Government statement, because it is somewhat disingenuous. It would be difficult, to say the least, for an authority such as Hertsmere to provide sites that were not on the green belt, because almost, if not all, the sites identified in Hertsmere and in south-west Hertfordshire are on the green belt. Are the Government saying that local authorities can apply normal green belt principles and refuse to permit such development? Or are they saying that the authorities cannot take such a course and must provide the sites, but that the Government are not prepared to take any responsibility for that? I wonder which is true. The regional planning body, to give it credit, is more realistic than the Government about the green belt. I wait to hear from the Minister the Government’s approach towards the green belt in that regard. My third and final point is how confident we can be that the process that the Government are instituting will address the problems. The objective is to meet the local need for sites for Gypsies and Travellers, but the sites that could be established as meeting that need might be in private hands. There is no way in which site owners can be required to meet the needs of local Gypsies and Travellers. A requirement cannot be placed on site owners to meet local needs, and there is nothing that local authorities can do to ensure that pitches on those sites are occupied by local families. Annexe C of the Government’s planning guidance specifically deems as unacceptable local authority criteria that allow applications from Gypsies and Travellers to be refused. Presumably, a site owner from outside the area could decide to buy a site inside Hertsmere, St. Albans or elsewhere in Hertfordshire and fill it with people from a long way away. The Government could ostensibly say that the objective of local need had been met, even though it had not, because people had come from some distance away to occupy the site. That would be a worrying scenario and I hope that the Minister will throw some light on it. People in Hertfordshire know that we are under the same pressures from Gypsies and Travellers as we are from other people. Many people from outside the area want to come and live in Hertfordshire.