My Lords, I support the amendment and draw your Lordships’ attention to my entry in the Register of Interests as a district councillor. I flagged up at Second Reading that I would be returning to this issue, and I support wholeheartedly the comments of the previous two speakers.
In 2004, while I was still the leader of Somerset County Council, the Government passed the Housing Act, of which Section 225 ensured that:
“Every housing authority must, when undertaking a review of housing needs in their district under section 8 of the Housing Act 1985 … carry out an assessment of the accommodation needs of gypsies and travellers residing in or resorting to their district”,
and prepare a strategy to meet those needs. Section 226 went on to provide guidance on how this was to be carried out. This significant step forward required councils to make assessments of the Travelling community’s needs. Of course, many councils had been doing this for a considerable time and making the necessary provision as a result; however, many were not—bowing to extremes of public opinion and abdicating their duty to provide accommodation for all types of people.
I am at a loss to understand why, apart from again bowing to pressure from certain quarters, the Government are now seeking to delete this requirement for local authorities to make provision in their housing needs assessments and local plans for sites for Travelling communities. The requirement is there now and is not arduous. Making it virtually impossible for Travelling communities to find permanent or temporary sites will only lead to an increase in what are known as illegal encampments. I will refer to this again later.
As we have heard, there are several groups of Travelling communities: Roma Gypsies, covered by the Race Equality Act; showpeople, including those in the circus trade, fairgrounds and historic seasonal fairs; and other Travellers, some of whom are called “new age” Travellers. The groups are distinct and have different requirements. I have long been an advocate of the need to provide permanent sites for individual Gypsy families, which will often include more than one generation. I have received a briefing from Friends, Families and Travellers and I have also met with representatives of the Showmen’s Guild and received a briefing from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Most of us will have seen at one time or another a group of caravans parked on a wide grass verge, in a lay-by, in a farmer’s field, or even in a town centre car park—the latter can be very disruptive to residents trying to park to do their shopping or visit the library. However, mostly the caravans are in the countryside and cause little problem. Sometimes the local landowner will allow them to stay, but more commonly legal action is taken to move them on. This is costly and, without legalised authorised sites to move them on to, only displaces them further down the road, or maybe over the neighbouring county boundary, where they become someone else’s problem.
In March 2015, guidance was produced by the DCLG, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice on Dealing with illegal and unauthorised encampments. Most of this dealt with moving the problem on and said:
“Public bodies should not gold-plate human rights and equalities legislation”.
Did any of them ever actually do this? The document might just as well have said, “Ignore it altogether”. This is despite statistics from January 2015 showing there were 593 more caravans on authorised sites than the year before—so not illegally camped.
Noon
A more positive document from the DCLG was published in August 2015, which gave very useful guidance for how provision might be made for sites for Travelling communities. In the same month, the responses were published from the consultation undertaken between 14 September and 23 November 2014 by the then Secretary of State at the DCLG. This second document reiterates the former publication, and paragraph 3.32 makes clear:
“The Government intends to review the implementation of the revised policies to consider their impact and ensure that they effectively support those persons who have a nomadic habit of life”.
Hurrah. However, there is reference to treating those who have previously travelled and now wish to be
static but still part of the Travelling community as requiring bricks-and-mortar accommodation in the same way as the settled community. This will have a devastating effect on some sections of the Travelling community.
When I met with the Showmen’s Guild, it was extremely concerned about the removal of the 2004 needs assessment. The ability to have accurate numbers of those in need is essential to meeting that need. To return to where we were in 2000, when there was no information available, is unhelpful in the extreme. On Monday, we spent some time in this Chamber debating how the needs of tenants and residents looking for homes have changed over the years. This is also the case for the Travelling showpeople and others. Previously they might have been looking for somewhere to overwinter, repair their equipment and recharge their batteries. Nowadays they are looking for permanent, 12-months-a-year sites where their elderly can stay and gain access to GPs and health centres, they can look after the children, the children can go to school and receive an education, and from which they can travel to other parts of the country to earn their living.
The Showmen’s Guild is self-financing and self-regulating, and those it represents live in close family units supporting each other. They are proud that they receive no government handouts. It has 4,500 members, who are the heads of families representing 25,000 people. They are Travelling showmen who go to fairs and circuses, as we have heard. They attend overseas fairs in Dubai, China and New York, bringing money back into this country and reinvesting in their equipment, which enables them to keep up with best in Europe. Examples of their presence are the Winter Wonderland fair, which is a multimillion pound business, and the King’s Lynn Mart, a fair which has been running for 800 years and is now run by Showmen’s Guild. The fair brings a wealth of business into the town.
When I met the showmen’s representatives, they said that spending time worrying about whether they were able to have a permanent base took their minds off the job, which was not helpful. They need a year-round base in order to make repairs to equipment. They have a long-standing tradition, which is now a 21st-century industry, and their attendance at annual local events can mean businesses report a 25% increase in takings. The Showmen’s Guild believes it is important to count numbers in order to make both five and 10-year site provision, and for local authorities to undertake this task.
I see from the DCLG website that the previous Secretary of State is now the UK’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues. During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities not only targeted Jews but other groups because of their perceived “racial inferiority”. This included Roma Gypsies. During this period, some 200,000 Roma Gypsies, were murdered in the so-called euthanasia programme, according to the Holocaust Encyclopaedia website.
Let us not forget the need to protect all peoples of diverse opinions, faiths and ways of life. It is a basic human right to have a home, and for some this will be a caravan, even if it is on the same site 12 months of the year. These people deserve humane consideration and to be treated with respect. Sections 225 and 226 should remain as part of the Housing Act 2004.