GIPSIES

HC Deb 17 February 1967 vol 741 cc1040-50

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Howie.]

4.3 p.m.

Mr. W. F. Deedes (Ashford)

I make no apology for raising once again the subject of gipsies and travellers, although I am sorry to have to bring the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to the House on a Friday afternoon.

Numerically, this is a very small problem; administratively, it is rather a big one. That it should be a big problem may be in one sense a reflection of our times. In this very well-organised age we have nearly everyone so tidily arranged that a tiny minority of bold spirits who elect not to conform to residential standard patterns cause undue disturbance. I am not sure whether this is a reflection on them or on us. But I do not want to philosophise about the right to roam.

The centre of the problem is Kent, and that is what I want to discuss briefly. We have tried hard—harder than most other places—to deal with the problem sensibly. When I first raised the matter some years ago in a debate of this kind, the difficulty was of a rather different kind. The West Ashford Rural District Council had taken a rather brave initiative and had provided a camp for gipsies and travellers, though not without a good deal of local protest and pressure. Because at that time little else was being done in the county of Kent, this proved a magnet to travellers over a wide area, and the rural district council found itself in difficulties. I shall return to the result of that experiment.

Today the position is almost exactly the same, except on a different scale. The county is now taking action, or has taken action, and, because very little, if anything, is being done in the surrounding counties, Kent is suffering the embarrassments which formerly befell the West Ashford Rural District Council.

Although the Joint Parliamentary Secretary is familiar with it, perhaps I may outline the county position for the rest of the House. In 1962, Kent made a detailed survey of gipsies and other travellers in Kent and found that it needed about 120 caravans, providing accommodation on winter sites, to meet the demand. It decided on 10 sites for about 12 caravans each, which, in my view, from the experience we have locally, was a wise apportionment. It then discussed the proposition with the district councils in Kent and agreed to bear part of the cost—that is, the net annual cost—of establishing and maintaining the sites less any income which the district councils received from them.

I shall not weary the House with details, but Kent has made progress on most of these sites. I understand that three are in operation, including one in which my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) has a particular interest. Three more are in process of being established. There are three or four others which perhaps local Members of Parliament know more about than I do.

What has been the result of all this? Predictably, the glad news has got around, and inevitably it has brought a considerable influx from other areas. In January, 1966, the revised estimate of Kent's needs was 313 caravans, or accommodation for about 1,300 people. It is almost certainly more today, a year later. Therefore, in effect, since the survey was made, the need assessed and the plan put forward, the demand has trebled and Kent is confronted with the prospect of becoming a haven for travellers in much of southern England. I do not have to remind the Parliamentary Secretary that this is a county which is already taking enormous drafts of population from London and elsewhere under normal planning.

As the Kent Planning Committee observed with some justification in its minute of November, 1966, it has no wish to see Kent become a national reception centre for gipsies". In all the circumstances, that is fair comment.

I would add a word, which the Minister will be able to supplement, about the Government's rôle. As I understand it, in Circular 26/66 the Government invited all local authorities to endeavour to provide small permanent sites and to send their ideas to the Ministry within six months. I think that the answers were due at the end of the last month and——

Sir John Rodgers (Sevenoaks)

December.

Mr. Deedes

Six weeks ago. At the last count, 20 local authorities had sent answers, most of them I think authorities for whom this is not a very serious problem.

I will not describe the Ministry's activities as leisurely—that perhaps would not be fair—but they do not reflect the urgency which Kent now feels is involved. Moreover, having acquired this information, it is not clear to me how the Ministry proposes to implement the plan on the information which it has. It has no power to compel any authority to do what it does not wish to do. As things are, taking the best view, the problem will be shared among the willing horses. This may help Kent to a degree, but I am not sure whether it is the right answer to this problem.

There is a degree of urgency in this problem, and not only from Kent's point of view, because no effective action can be taken under highway law to secure the removal of gipsies and others who elect to pitch their camps or caravans along main roads—and well I know it. I am rarely without at least one such case on my constituency file. The Ministry of Transport suffers from the same difficulty on trunk roads, such as the A.20 which is rarely completely free of one or more problems of this kind.

Mr. A. H. Macdonald (Chislehurst)

Never free.

Mr. Deedes

The hon. Gentleman is right. Without statutory authority and sites, the invasions can be met only by cat and mouse methods which, in my experience, afford no satisfaction to either the cat or the mice. So, to go to the heart of it, we must have the sites—not just information, although that may be an important preliminary, but sites. How are we going to get them? That is the thing which I hope the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will tell us something about.

It will not be easy, but I should like to mention one factor which I think is helpful and encouraging. It should be made clear to local authorities that they will not be asked to provide these sites in perpetuity. These sites ought to be regarded, if not short-term, then as medium-term policy. The long-term policy must be to rehouse all these people and eventually to integrate them, to use the abominable word, into the community. The Minister is aware of this, because he limits planning permissions to 14 years. Local authorities should be made aware of it and encouraged to realise that they will not be landed with permanent sites for caravans through the years.

What has been done by my own rural district of West Ashford, which was the pioneer in this throughout the country, is an illustration of what can happen. On its site, at one time or another, something like 20 families of gypsies or travellers had to be dealt with. Today, all but one family have been rehoused, and the site is about to be closed down.

This is not a wealthy authority, it is a rural district council of rather smaller than average size. So, given a start the sites, this problem is not intractable. But we must get a start, and it is only the Minister who can achieve it. Can he do it by persuasion? I shall be glad to have his views about this. If not, how else will he do it? What he must not do—and this is the reason why I have asked for this short debate—is to rely on the good will of the county of Kent to solve this problem not only for itself but for everyone else as well. Up with that we positively will not put, and I look forward to hearing the Joint Parliamentary Secretary's plan of campaign.

4.13 p.m.

Sir John Rodgers (Sevenoaks)

I will not detain the House long, but I would like to say how grateful we are to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) for introducing this debate on the Adjournment, because this problem, although small in numbers, is extremely serious. It is particularly serious in my own constituency where we have already co-operated with the Ministry in providing one caravan site and we are in process of providing another. All we have achieved by our endeavours to cooperate with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is to provide a magnet for the caravans from neighbouring counties.

The right hon. Gentleman said that the population of the gipsies has increased something like three or four times in the last five years, and this is going on all the time. This is only making the whole policy of voluntary camps by local authorities in co-operation with the Ministry a nonsense and it is leading to the complete spoliation of our countryside.

There are, apparently, no powers to deal with those people who park themselves on the verges of trunk roads or minor roads. Above all, there seem to be no police powers to deal with the fantastic litter which is caused in many areas by these itinerant people. if I throw down a bus ticket, I can expect to be fined, but I could leave several dismantled cars, rubber tyres and everything else on the verges and the Minister and his Department, as well as the Ministry of Transport, apparently have no power to deal with that.

It is not sufficient for the Minister to make pious remarks about the matter. I was disappointed the other day, when I put down a Question, to learn that the Minister had ruled out any question of taking statutory powers and is apparently still relying on the voluntary co-operation of other counties. I should like to know on what he bases his optimism, since we have failed to get any co-operation from the other counties in the past four or five years.

4.15 p.m.

Mr. A. H. Macdonald (Chislehurst)

I am very glad that the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) has raised this matter again. I raised it in an Adjournment debate just before the Christmas Recess. The fact that we have another debate so soon afterwards shows the importance of the problem. I speak as a London Member representing a constituency bordering Kent, where we suffer deeply from the problem, too.

I was most interested to hear what the right hon. Member for Ashford said about the site in his constituency operated by the rural district council. I understood him to say that there is only one caravan left on this site now and it is about to be closed. I should love to know how the rural district council prevents new caravanners from coming on to the site. My local authority has had a similar problem, but we have found ourselves quite unable to stop new caravanners coming on as the old ones are rehoused. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman when he says that the final intention should be to rehabilitate the caravanners. I wonder whether the Parliamentary Secretary is aware that last Monday there was a discussion on this problem in the council of the London Borough of Bromley, of which my constituency forms part, and a deputation appeared outside protesting about it. I have a copy of the local paper here, and I see from the photograph that one man is pictured holding up a placard with the words, Caravans—if the law is an ass, put it right". An excellent sentiment. I have argued for legislation on this subject for some time——

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman must not argue for legislation in this debate.

Mr. Macdonald

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, if I have strayed beyond the bounds of order. It would be similarly out of order, no doubt, if I were to quote what appeared on another placard referring to the Parliamentary Secretary by name. I shall not read that into the OFFICIAL REPORT. Perhaps I can tell him about it later.

All these incidents and the comments made by hon. Members point to the urgency of dealing with this problem. It is now apparent that the caravanners are being organised. In a sense, this is a good development, because it offers an opportunity to listen to someone who can speak on their behalf and to work for a solution which will be satisfactory not only to the caravanners themselves but to the ratepayers and residents round about who see with mounting astonishment that nothing is being done about the litter, nothing is being done about parking on the highway. and so on. They regard this inaction with amazement. If the organising of the caravanners affords an opportunity to bring the parties together so that a proper solution can be found, it will be an opportunity which must on no account be missed.

4.18 p.m.

Mr. Eric Lubbock (Orpington)

I shall take only a minute or so to underline what the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) has said about the gravity of the problem in our part of the country. It is significant that four Members representing constituencies in the geographical County of Kent have taken the trouble to come here today to impress the views of their constituents on the Minister.

As far as one can understand from the Press, the other counties surrounding Greater London have not been troubled with this problem to the same extent as Kent has. There has been a certain amount of trouble in Essex, but that appears to be an isolated incident. Today, however, there are in the Chamber the right hon. Member for Ashford, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers), the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Macdonald) and myself, the Member for Orpington, all telling the Parliamentary Secretary that we have the same problem in our constituencies.

Somehow or other, we must be able to answer the questions which are put to us. Constituents say, "Why have you not been able to do anything about it when we have had trouble in our area for some years? All you tell us is that last June the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government initiated an inquiry with the local authorities, and this was supposed to be completed by December. But for some reason or other, he decided, after the inquiry was half-way through, that he would seek the views of the London boroughs and the Greater London Council. This means that the whole question has been deferred till 1st March".

Until the hon. Gentleman has had an opportunity to consider those replies, it is unlikely that we shall get very much out of him in the House. I urge him nevertheless not to treat this matter as one which can be put off indefinitely. There are very strong feelings about it. As the hon. Member for Chislehurst said, several hundred people have demonstrated in favour of action by the London Borough of Bromley.

People are writing to them and to me all the time, asking us what are we doing in the House to ensure that some action is taken and what are we doing to impress upon the Special Committee which has been set up by the London Borough of Bromley that the solutions which it has proposed so far are inadequate? We have far too many of these caravans in our borough. This is a problem, and all other local authorities, not only in Kent, but in all the counties surrounding Greater London must bear their fair share of what is a serious burden.

4.20 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to The Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. James MacColl)

I certainly do not complain of having this matter raised again on the Adjournment although it was raised in December, because it is a very serious matter. I understand the feelings and anxieties of hon. and right hon. Members. Kent and those parts of Kent which are now in Greater London, have a very distinguished record in comparison with other counties in this respect. I am not so sure that the only reason why Kent has a gypsy problem is because it has provided sites. It is one factor, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) has said. But it is an attractive county and itinerants, like others, move into areas which are pleasant to live in. Whether one is a stockbroker or an itinerant, one likes to live in Kent.

Sir J. Rodgers

Surrey and Sussex are also attractive.

Mr. MacColl

It is true as the right hon. Gentleman said that Kent is an area of very special pressure. When the right hon. Gentleman scolds me about some planning decision of ours, he makes that point and it is a fair one. There is more in this than merely neglect of other counties. Without going into the question of legislation, which would be out of order, I need hardly say to the right hon. Gentleman who was at the Home Office, that it is no solution to enforcing the law to have tougher and more ferocious laws instead. People must be caught and successful prosecutions obtained.

The important thing is to provide an adequate number of sites, and for the authority to enforce the law until it is shown to be inadequate.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) has introduced a Bill dealing with civic amenities, which we have been discussing upstairs. We have completely redrafted part of it dealing with the enforcement of control over derelict cars and this will be a suit- able addition to our powers. We have not been idle. We have sent out a circular to obtain information, because it is necessary to have the facts before we can begin to devise a policy. The information returning to us has provided a picture about the distribution of the problem over the country. It is bad in the South-East and the South-West, and fairly bad in the West Midlands. From the replies and I do not want to mention any counties by name, it would seem that the plurality have no problem at all.

A smaller number, but still a substantial number, seems to be making a genuine effort to do something. There are some who are thinking about this but not, we suspect, displaying any urgency. The smallest number are those who are doing nothing and ought to be doing a great deal. We intend to look at these in greater detail, perhaps going on to the ground to see the problems in the areas. Clearly we need to pay special attention to the South-East. The counties, with one exception so far, have given us the information we sought and we shall be studying it carefully. The Greater London borough's replies are not due until the end of this month.

We also have a sociological research project which has just been completed. It is a comprehensive report on the situation, the needs of the itinerant people and what can be done to meet them. In the words of my brief, this report is "before the Minister". Very often, this simply means that the subject is cosily tucked away at the bottom of the in-tray but I assure the House that my right hon. Friend and the rest of us at the Ministry are studying it very closely. We think that it is a very good report and hope to have it published because it would give some idea of the problems that have to be faced.

Mr. Lubbock

In addition to reading the report, which is no doubt valuable, will the right hon. Gentleman accept an invitation to visit Orpington to see the problem on the ground?

Mr. MacColl

I am always prepared to go on a jaunt with the hon. Gentleman where it would help, but I have seen one or two sites and something of the problems in practice. The hon. Gentleman, as has my hon. Friend, has brought constituents to discuss the problem. Once we have the final returns from the circular, we want to pick the areas rather than disperse our efforts too widely. We want to pick those areas where we can be most effective.

There is a danger, if we have too wide a campaign and give too much publicity to it, of making things difficult for the family which, for example, may have been living happily for years if not for generations on one site by allowing a herd of statisticians, sociologists, welfare officers and others to descend upon them and work among them. That would be dissipation of effort. We want to be certain of picking areas where there is a serious problem and undoubtedly the London and Home Counties area is one of those most affected and to which we should pay special attention.

We are and will continue to be in touch with the authorities contiguous to Kent, many of which are already showing that they are providing facilities. With this developing contact and when we have the new powers likely to come to us in the Civic Amenities Bill, we shall be a long way towards a constructive solution. What would be feeble and a failure would be merely to try and force itinerants off sites where they are, however much they may be unpopular in the area, without having other places for them. Everyone is agreed about the difficulty of keeping these two things in balance.

This is a very big problem and we are most anxious to co-operate with the local authorities. I have been asked what we shall do with a local authority which will not co-operate. We have no powers in this respect. But in local government a great many things are done by cooperation between the local authorities and the Government. I do not think that we shall find much difficulty in getting co-operation if we give a positive lead. Of course we want to give a positive lead and to be sure at the same time of what we are trying to do and not to ask them to incur unnecessary expense and have the wrong kind of sites. That is what should be done and what we intend to do.

Question put and agreed to.

House adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.