Localism Bill

My Lords, I am prompted to intervene by listening to what my noble friend Lord Shipley said about the Local Government Ombudsman's report and the reinforcement that we have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong. I am ashamed to say that I have not read the report myself, but I note with concern what it says about councils doing everything that they can to prevent homelessness, which is what the noble Baroness said, and what my noble friend said about the councils that failed to do enough to prevent homelessness. That can be so important at the critical moment when a person becomes homeless and may suffer the effects of the rest of their lives. I particularly wanted to say something on the subject in light of the fact that we are about to witness a case in which a council is deliberately making people homeless. I am talking about the case that your Lordships will be aware of where the local authority in Basildon is evicting 150 people from the Dale Farm Travellers’ site. That will take place at some point in the week beginning 19 September, so these people will find themselves dumped on the road imminently. Their homes will be placed in storage and it will have a vast effect on the lives of the people who are presently resident there, particularly the vulnerable people such as pregnant women, the elderly and the disabled. One woman is on dialysis. Although the local authority has made quite considerable efforts to find out who are the vulnerable people on the site, we have no idea how they will be dealt with when they finally become homeless. Therefore, my noble friend's amendment on the prevention of homelessness is germane to this episode. I would like to know what the local authority in Basildon will do when these people find themselves without a home, because their homes will be taken away and put in storage. They will be left on the roadside. How will we deal with a situation of that kind? Why can we not take national action to prevent this crisis? All it requires is for local authorities to discuss with the neighbours in the county of Essex how land can be provided for the small number of people who live on the 51 pitches that will be subject to eviction instead of scattering them all around the landscape. Culturally appropriate alternative accommodation has been identified, but it is far away in the distance. One site is in Suffolk where there may be 10 pitches and another is in Lancashire where there may be six. The families on the Dale Farm site are inter-related and very cohesive, and will be deprived of the social support arising from the fact that they have all lived together on the same site for 10 years and are mutually supportive. They have a network of local support: for example, from the churches and from some councillors, particularly Councillor Candy Sheridan, who has made enormous efforts to identify alternative land in the neighbourhood, and who was on the point of being successful when this Government came into office. I am very sorry to say that I think it was a direct result of Mr Pickles tearing up the regionalism agenda, which of course may be very good in general but does not happen to suit this particular case. In the Liberal Democrat manifesto, we entered a reservation against the abolition of regionalism. We said that as far as Gypsies and Travellers were concerned, we would retain the edifice of work that had been done through Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Needs Assessments, public inquiries and the redistribution of obligations between local authorities, which would have had a huge effect, particularly in Essex, where although Basildon had provided more than its fair share of accommodation to Gypsies and Travellers, some neighbouring authorities had done nothing at all. In the regionalism agenda of the former Government, there was some redistribution between the local authorities which would have brought those others into doing their bit; they have been able to back off from providing anything at all under the free-for-all that Mr Pickles has imposed on the country and on the Gypsy and Traveller communities. There is an example where not only has the local authority done nothing to prevent homelessness, it has actually deliberately caused it. Basildon is not entirely to blame in that the neighbours have done nothing, but I think that even at this late hour the Government should intervene, knock heads together and find alternative land so that 150 people are not dumped on the roadside.