HC Deb 02 May 1962 vol 658 cc1163-72

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

10.41 p.m.

Mr. Norman Dodds (Erith and Crayford)

On 20th January this year, the Dartford Rural District Council evicted from the Darenth Woods at Dartford nearly 300 gypsies and other travellers, with about 80 caravans, 26 horses, one donkey, and sundry other things. With few exceptions, those 300 people are still living now, three-and-a-half months later, with their caravans parked on the grass verge of one of Britain's busiest roads, the A.2. On their way to London, visitors arriving at Dover from the Continent see one of the most appalling sights which anyone could ever see in any country of Europe. Indeed, I doubt that such a sight can be seen in any other European country.

For three-and-a-half months, these people have been without lavatories, dustbins or litter bins. There is one water pipe for most of them about a mile away. During the Easter weekend, I saw the amount of litter left at a beauty spot by visitors during a few short days. Is it beyond imagination to appreciate what must be the state of the district when 300 people are living in these conditions day after day? Early-morning workers have told me that they have seen these human beings moving half a mile or a mile away from their caravans in order to attend to the requirements of nature. Many of them, of course, cannot do even that.

It seems as though the authorities in this country are paralysed and unable to do anything about this problem. Indeed, it seems that anything which could be done would only make matters worse. There is, in fact, no sign of anything being done to improve the situation. If we cannot solve this problem, I feel that we should give up all idea of overcoming the difficulties facing us in joining the European Common Market.

On the Monday following the Saturday when the evictions took place, The Times quoted Mr. Leslie Reeves, the chairman of the Town and Country Planning Committee of the Dartford Rural District Council, as saying: Once we get them on the main road, they become the police's problem, not ours". It seems that, like Mr. Micawber, someone is waiting for something to turn up.

On 14th February last, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport said: We have drawn the attention of the council, whom we regard as primarily responsible in this matter, to the fact that these people have been put on the verge of a trunk road without any authority. We must go through the normal processes here, and we have asked the council to deal with the matter urgently."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th February, 1962; Vol. 653. c. 1311.] That was in the middle of February, and we are now in the month of May.

The Times, in an editorial about the evictions, said: The eviction of about a hundred gypsy families from Darenth Woods, in Kent, savours too much of parish pumpery at its worst. A bureaucratic machine has been marshalled against victims whose helplessness merits sympathy.…Vague talk earlier about finding alternative sites for at least some of them has evidently come to nothing. This morning, I received a letter dated 1st May from the Minister in which he refers to his Department's letter of 30th January and also gives me information about a reply from the council of 6th March in which two resolutions referring to sites were mentioned. There are no sites in sight yet, and this is making matters very much more difficult. I have to tell the Parliamentary Secretary that that letter is a long way behind the times. He might as well know the worst now, and I shall quote from two of last week's newspapers in order to bring him and his Department up to date.

In the Dartford Chronicle of Friday, 27th April, there is the headline: Minister tells R.D.C. Gypsy Problem 'is now up to you'. There is nothing in the Minister's letter about having written to the local council. The report says: By evicting the Darenth Wood gypsies, Dartford Rural Council caused the new problem of the A2 encampment, and it was up to them to do something about it. That is, in effect, what the Minister of Transport has told the Council, and when his letter was read at the Town and Country Planning Committee meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Leslie Reeves (the chairman) said, 'I cannot accept this'". Mr. Reeves is reported as having proposed that the Minister be told that, as the gypsies were on his land, they were his responsibility and this proposal was carried by fourteen votes to five. That was last week.

In the Dartford Reporter of Friday, 27th April, I find this: In his letter the council, the Minister put the blame on the shoulders of the council…Mr. Reeves said that because the council had removed the gypsies from the woods—in the interests of good planning and health—it was being suggested that it now has a responsibility towards them. 'People are trying to make us the whipping boys over this', he said. "They want us to create a policy and then they can tell other authorities, 'Do what Dartford Rural Council have done'. 'No. This is a matter which must be resolved in Parliament, where the power lies'. I urge the Minister of Transport to realise that this is only one aspect of this matter. Will he at least convey to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government the fact that we cannot depend on the local council? In view of this, what do the Government propose to do; if not the Minister of Transport, then the Minister of Housing and Local Government?

I was surprised to read in the Ministry's letter this morning—and this is three-and-a-half months after the events I have described took place—that the Minister has no power to proceed against the local council. I shall be replying to that letter with some further details. Meanwhile, cannot the Minister of Transport do something now? It seems that when Parliament was considering the Highways Act, 1959, it did not visualise that a responsible local authority would do this sort of thing. As a consequence, there is no penalty for local authorities. Section 128 (1) of the Act states: If anything is so deposited on a highway as to constitute a nuisance, the highway authority for the highway may by notice require the person who deposited it there to remove it forthwith.… Yet in this case it was the local authority which deposited it there and I understand that in doing so the authority took an action under circumstances that Parliament never visualised. Parliament did not visualise that a public authority could do such a thing.

It is obvious from this case that people, not of their own volition, can have their homes taken from them and sold. Where will it lead to? I urge the Minister to look at this again because in the Guardian on 17 th April last, under the headline "Council clears gypsy camp", and the subheading, "Hundred moved on by police", appeared the paragraph: Police and bailiffs stood by at an encampment on Eastern Avenue, Ilford, yesterday, when more than a hundred gypsies were moved from the site. An Essex County Council solicitor, Mr. E. Peel, told the gypsies at 9 a.m. that they had to leave immediately, but three hours later several families were still there. Among them was a man who was lying seriously ill in his caravan, but in spite of pleas by his wife to let him stay, the vehicle was moved to a lay-by on the main London to Southend road. From the backwoods, where they were not required, they were moved—and this seems to be becoming the policy—to the main road. The article continued: In another caravan there was a woman expecting a baby. A doctor visited her and told officials that she was due to be in labour at any time and should not be moved far. She and her family were also transferred to the lay-by. Can the Minister say whether it is true that any local authority can now get rid of something unpleasant existing in some backwoods and deposit it on a main trunk road—which is, after all, the responsibility of the Minister? Should not this be seriously considered lest it develop into a regular occurrence? A tragedy might easily happen. On this main A.2 road no restriction is placed on the speed of vehicles. Some of them travel past this spot at 80 miles an hour and more. Four dogs have already been killed and on Easter Sunday a donkey was killed. I am amazed that a real tragedy has not yet occurred, but great responsibility will fall on someone if anyone is killed.

Already mothers are scared as their children run wild in the woods. There they live, a few feet from the main road. As I say, there is no restriction on speed—not even a temporary one—and only an A.A. sign appears to warn motorists. Should not drivers be given a warning? Many people on holiday from the Continent do not know of these people's existence and they should be warned about them.

Regarding litter bins, the Parliamentary Secretary said on 24th February last that they were provided only at lay-bys. Is not this a lay-by? Is not this the responsibility of the Minister? Since the local authority will not live up to its responsibility, litter bins are not provided. Is it not monstrous that while proceedings cannot be taken against the local authority which caused this trouble last January, proceedings have been taken against one of the people on the site because he got another little caravan? I refer to the case of the Bignall family. Since there was a husband, wife and five children living in the existing caravan he wanted to get another because the woman was having another child and could not lie in the caravan without being cramped up. As a result, they got another caravan but within a few hours the police arrived and nine summonses were issued. They had to get rid of the caravan. The woman had the baby after a lot of trouble, but it was born a cripple and died within four days. The chances are that if she had had a bed in which to lie longer the child would never have died. This, in England in 1962—and the authorities are paralysed.

We hear from the Kent County Council a lot of pious hopes about somebody doing something. It could do something. The Kent County Council has got land, but it is always preaching to someone else. There is a farmer called Barden who lives at Lone Barn Farm, Charing, near Ashford. For many years until 1956 he had a place where thirty to fifty caravans were kept. The place was closed down by an application of the Kent County Council. It has a hard-standing, water and so on. Why cannot it be used in an emergency?

The farmer, at my request, has made another application for permission to have twelve caravans there, and it has been turned down on the ground that this land is conspicuously situated in an area of great landscape value and that the stationing of caravans upon it would be injurious to the amenities of the locality. Is it injurious to put these caravans on this main road in Kent? The Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government should ask the local authority to reopen this matter. These people are not welcome when they are near built-up areas, and they are not welcome in the wide open spaces. One must come to the conclusion that the only possible solution would be that which Hitler used, namely, that they should be put into gas chambers.

I ask the Minister of Transport to recognise that he has a big stake in this business of gypsies and other travellers. I am not weakening. This thing is going to be won in the next few months, and there is only one way in which it can be done, and that is by pressure. If I am blamed for being emotional it is because I have seen so much. I am disgusted at this country, that this sort of thing can happen here. This cannot be seen in any other country in Europe—only in England and Wales, and nowhere else. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary has got this problem, but I ask him to believe that I am sincere. I am determined that something shall be done even if in some cases it means going against the law to bring attention to this matter.

10.57 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay)

I certainly do not dispute the sincerity of the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds), in bringing this matter forward on a number of occasions. Indeed, when he was speaking I found myself in complete agreement with him on several of the things that he said. I agree that this is a disgraceful situation. But, as I hope to show before I conclude, this is not a matter which is capable of a simple or a quick solution. Nevertheless, I hope I shall be able to persuade him that there are many of us who are concerned with this matter and, although not perhaps directly responsible, are only too anxious to try to do something about the problem.

This is a problem at the moment localised at this place on the A.2. As the hon. Member rightly said, there is some evidence emerging that the example set by this rural district council, this bad example, is one that might be followed by others, and that is, of course, very disquieting to my right hon. Friend.

I think I can best deal with this matter be briefly summarising so that they can be on the record what are the basic facts so far as we in the Ministry of Transport see them. As the hon. Gentleman said, we are concerned with a colony of caravan dwellers who were originally settled in the Darenth Woods at Dartford, on land which originally belonged to the Ecclesiastical Commission. The colony seems to have been tolerated by the Commissioners for some time, and I am told that the local police estimate that not more than about 10 per cent. of the people living there are genuine nomads. Many of them are people who have lived on that site in Darenth Woods permanently in caravans.

The local residents disliked this encampment intensely and the parish council finally bought the land from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and served notice to quit on the caravan dwellers. The Dartford Rural District Council actively supported the parish council in its campaign, and, as the House will recollect, there was a good deal of publicity about this event. As the hon. Gentleman said, on 20th January last the Dartford R.D.C. assisted in the removal of these caravans from the site in Darenth Woods on to the verge of the A.2 trunk road. I understand that the council provided vehicles and drivers to tow away those of the caravans which were not mobile, and local farmers also helped with tractors.

The council's engineer directed the operations, and the clerk to the R.D.C. was present. The police were on the scene in case a breach of the peace occurred—in fact, none did—and the owners of the caravans, or at least of those caravans which could move under their own power, were told that they would be treated on the same footing as those of the dwellings which were towed away. The consequence was that they all went to this verge of the trunk road, the A.2.

As the hon. Gentleman said, we are faced with a very undesirable situation. I am told that there are about 80 vehicles and about 60 to 70 families at present situated at this place. That amounts to about 300 people, including children, and they are accompanied by a let of animals. There is no sanitation. The verge is cluttered with vehicles, with miscellaneous belongings, scrap metal, and rubbish. The footpath is obstructed. The stretch of road is wide and fast and it is a clearway. There is, as the hon. Gentleman said, no speed limit, and some of the traffic signs are being obscured by the caravans and other things on the verge.

I think that it is only right, to put the matter into perspective, to say that I am advised that quite a number of the people living in these caravans do not appear to be in any way destitute, or to be genuine gypsies as we always understand the traditional term. I am told that some of them have very well equipped caravans—even equipped with television sets—and that some of them apparently have quite expensive cars. We are not, therefore, dealing with a group of people all of whom are destitute.

Mr. Dodds

I agree with that. It is not a question of money, but of finding a place in which to live. Irrespective of how much money they have, no one wants them. Even if they are not all gypsies, they are travellers who have lived all their lives in caravans.

Mr. Hay

I was not going to argue that point. I was merely trying to put the matter into perspective. I am trying to put on record the facts as we understand them. Some of these people conduct something of a business in breaking up scrap metal and selling it, and this is all going on on the verge of the trunk road. It is a highly undesirable situation.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is more sinned against than sinner in this matter. He has had this encampment of people put on a road for which he is the highway authority, on land which belongs to him. This has been done without his authority, without his permission, and certainly without his approval. Nevertheless there is the problem, and we have to see what we can do to help.

As the hon. Gentleman said, it is possible for legal action to be taken. Some legal action is open to my right hon. Friend to take. But I must make it clear that any action of that kind would have to be against the people who are there. I am advised that there is no action—at any rate, nothing which would be effective—which my right hon. Friend could take in law against the Dartford Rural District Council. Obviously, in present circumstances, at any rate, we should not want to take action against the people who are living on the verge unless we were absolutely forced to take it, and in the present situation we shall try to avoid that, but I must make it clear that if this situation degenerated even further and serious danger was being caused to traffic, we might have to consider it. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is concerned with traffic. This is a problem Which has been wished on him through no fault of his own. By Statute he has to look after the interests of traffic.

Let me pass from the legal complications to the practical realities of the situation. What is needed is a site or a number of sites on to which these people could move. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has no power to provide caravan sites. He is concerned with transport and with highways; he is not concerned with the provision of sites for caravans. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has no power to provide a site or sites. The rural district council has the power; powers are conferred on it under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act, 1961.

When the hon. Member asked the House in a somewhat rhetorical way, "Is it not true that the power resides in Parliament?", the answer, strictly speaking, is that it does not. At any rate, it does not reside with Ministers. It resides with the local council, and so far the Dartford R.D.C. has shown very little evidence of any desire to exercise the powers which it undoubtedly has. I hope that wiser counsels will prevail and that in the course of the next few weeks the council will come to the conclusion that it should be a little more forthcoming about this.

We in the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Kent County Council together are looking for sites, whether they be publicly or privately owned, away from the road, where these caravans could be put temporarily until some permanent arrangements could be made. So far, I must tell the hon. Gentleman and the House, we have not had much success. We shall certainly go on looking, but there is one thing about which he knows—he ought to know about it because he signed the document—where we have been able to help; and that is to make available a field for the grazing of the horses. It is a field which the Ministry of Transport owns and which will be required within a very short time, I am afraid, for road widening purposes. But we were prepared to give a licence for the temporary use of that field for grazing, and the hon. Member was kind enough to sign a licence on behalf of these people. It is a little thing, but it is at least something that we have done to try to help.

The Kent County Council is trying to persuade other rural district councils in its area to act and to provide a number of permanent sites each accommodating about twelve vehicles. One of the difficulties, which I am sure the hon. Member appreciates, although perhaps he does not sympathise with it, is that there is a great deal of local feeling about and objection to these people in the area. Perhaps—I do not know—their situation might be improved if they were to make a little more of an effort to be a bit more tidy. I have not seen the site but I have seen a number of photographs, and although I realise the difficulties under which they are living, perhaps they might—I do not know—do a little more to make the public criticism of them in that area a little less acute.

It is along the lines of trying to provide, first, a temporary resting place off the road and then more permanent sites for them that the correct solution lies. It is in that direction that we have the most hope. Although I must tell the hon. Member frankly that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has no powers in this case, he will certainly do all that he can to use his influence and to bring what pressure he can to bear on those who have the powers to try to deal with this very difficult problem, which is certainly not there of our choosing.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes past Eleven o'clock.