My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 82H, which has broad support across this House. This is a simple probing amendment that would seek to retain Sections 225 and 226 of the Housing Act 2004 in legislation, requiring local authorities to undertake a direct assessment of Gypsy and Traveller needs. I shall also speak to Amendment 82GD, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, which may point towards an alternative way forward.
I start by welcoming the publication of the Government’s draft guidance on Clause 115, which makes clear the duty of local authorities to undertake a specific assessment of all those whose primary residence is in caravans or houseboats, including Gypsies, Travellers and showmen communities. The very presence of this draft guidance is reassuring, and I am glad that the Government are making progress. I recognise that in the rush to get this guidance out it may not have been possible for Ministers and officials to consult all stakeholders about the content but I am sure that the Minister will reassure the House that all the relevant parties—including representatives of the Gypsy and Traveller communities—will be consulted extensively before final guidance is published. I know that there are a number of concerns about the proposed guidance,
not least the failure to define what is meant by a household —something which has led to a great deal of confusion and cross-authority discrepancies in the past, as authorities have defined it in different ways.
I understand that the Government’s stated intention behind Clause 115 is to remove a general perception that Gypsies and Travellers are given favourable treatment under planning law. I also recognise that under current legislation there is no requirement to perform a specific assessment of those residing in caravans and on waterways who are not part of the Gypsy and Traveller communities, and that this may result in such groups slipping through the net when local authorities assess housing needs. As such, I have no objection in principle to the expansion of the existing assessment requirements to cover all those residing in caravans and on waterways, as long as this is genuinely an expansion and does not threaten the current arrangements regarding assessment of specific Gypsy and Traveller needs.
With this in mind I will highlight two main concerns, which I hope the Government will address. The first is the total lack of mention of Gypsy and Traveller communities in Clause 115 and only the smallest mention of them in the draft guidance. It is important to bear in mind that some local authorities, often under pressure from the wider community to refrain from making land available for Gypsy and Traveller sites, are liable to seize on any excuse not to undertake a full and detailed assessment of Gypsy and Traveller needs. The Government’s own impact assessment seems to recognise that the failure to put reference to Gypsies and Travellers in primary legislation—relegating any mention to secondary guidance only—may give local authorities the impression that the importance of assessing those needs has been downgraded in the new legislation. Making it clear in primary legislation that any assessment requirements include a requirement to assess the needs of Gypsies, Travellers and showmen residing in or having recourse to a local authority is therefore essential to maintain the pressure on local authorities to carry out such an assessment.
The simplest way of ensuring that the Gypsy and Traveller communities are directly mentioned in primary legislation is to ensure that Sections 225 and 226 of the Housing Act 2004 remain in legislation, as my amendment proposes. I see no reason why the two pieces of legislation cannot stand side by side, with local authorities subsuming the Gypsy and Traveller assessment requirement within the broader assessment of caravans and waterways. There are, of course, alternative ways of maintaining reference to Gypsies and Travellers, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, being one of them. None of these amendments would in any way imperil the Government’s aim of expanding the assessment requirement and ensuring parity of treatment for all in the assessment process.
The second concern that I have centres on the categories of caravans and inland waterways that are proposed in Clause 115 and reflected in the draft guidance. The use of these simple categories fails to capture the nuanced differences in the needs of the groups for which this legislation is intended to provide assessment, and may result in an inadequate assessment process if these nuances are not made clear. The accommodation needs of those residing in static caravans,
for example, may be very different from the needs of Gypsy communities that are constantly on the move, which will again be very different from the needs of travelling showmen, who often require extra space for vehicles and equipment. I hope the Minister can confirm that these distinctions will be made clear in the revised guidelines and that any assessment will be required to differentiate between them.
What these categories ignore altogether, however, is the requirement that local authorities include the needs of Gypsies and Travellers living in settled, bricks-and-mortar housing in their assessment, despite this being included in the guidance. Given that any guidance issued is guidance only, can the Minister explain to the House how the Government intend to ensure that local authorities assess vulnerable Gypsy and Traveller families who might be abiding in bricks-and-mortar housing, perhaps only temporarily, when under Clause 115 there will be no statutory duty on them to do so?
I hope that everyone across the House recognises the importance of ensuring that local authorities are equipped to provide properly for the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers in their communities. A failure to provide a proper, robust requirement on local authorities to assess the needs of Gypsies and Travellers will inevitably hinder the provision of accommodation sites and space, which is only likely to increase the number of illegal sites, stoke community tensions and endanger a cultural identity that has endured for hundreds of years.
If the Government are committed to expanding the assessment requirement, that expansion needs to be done very carefully, building on the good work that is already being done to foster stronger relationships between local authorities and vulnerable minority communities. Indeed, I hope the Government might use these legislative changes as an opportunity to work with the Gypsy and Traveller communities to improve the assessment process, not undermine it. I hope the Minister can provide assurance that this will be the case.