CARAVAN SITES BILL

HC Deb 01 March 1968 vol 759 cc1919-2004

Order for Second Reading read.

11.6 a.m.

Mr. Eric Lubbock (Orpington)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

We have had a rather troubled week, but the House will find that the proposals which I shall outline today have all-party support, and a great deal of backing from non-political organisations outside this House, such as the Consumer Council, the National Council for Women, the Council for the Preservation of England, and so on. This Bill is two Measures in one. The first part of it deals with the problem of the 200,000 people living in caravans as their permanent homes.

This group contains proportionately more young and elderly people than the population as a whole, and it has a higher proportion of manual workers and fewer white-collar professional workers than average. It is relatively defenceless in other respects. In their general way of living these people are indistinguishable from the rest of us living in brick and mortar houses.

The second part of the Bill deals with the problem of the gipsies and other travellers—a group of about only 15,000 people, whose way of life, social mores and attitudes to amenities frequently bring them into conflict with the settled populations and local authorities. The thread connecting these two parts of the Bill is solely that nearly all the people with whom this Measure is concerned live in caravans.

It cannot be emphasised too strongly and too often that in all other respects there is no link between these groups whatever. Some people have criticised me for trying to do two separate things in this Bill and running the risk of confusing them in the mind of the public. As we go along, we shall help to underline the distinctions between the two problems and also display an admirable example of productivity by passing two Bills in the same time as either would have taken as a separate Measure.

Part I of the Bill deals with the 200,000 people who live in caravans as their permanent homes and who have hitherto been left out of the legislation on rents and protection from eviction. I would like to remind the House of something that the present Leader of the House said at the time of the passage through the House of the Protection from Eviction Act. He said: The first thing that I want to emphasise is that this is an emergency Measure to deal with an emergency situation."—[OFFICAL REPORT, 18th November, 1964; Vol. 702, c. 439.] I find, and have found over the years, that the residential caravanners' needs are no less grave than those of the rest of the victims of the housing shortage.

In the column by "The Lawyer" in the March issue of Mobile Home, it was stated: Surely the plight of a mobile home owner is worse if he is cast adrift, for he has to find another site for his home—more than an unencumbered tenant of a flat has to do. Indeed this search very often ends in failure, so that the wretched family evicted from a caravan site has lost not only its home, but also a substantial sum of money on the forced sale of its caravan at an artificially reduced price.

If the tenants of flats and houses faced an emergency in November, 1964, the people who live in mobile homes have had to face an emergency continually over very many years, but in 1964 this group had no powerful friends to state its case on election platforms or in the House. I am glad to say that at last it has made some good friends in high places, and at this stage I pay a sincere tribute to the Leader of the House, who was then Minister of Housing and Local Government, for all the assistance he has given, and thank the two Joint Parliamentary Secretaries for all their advice and help, as well as the sponsors in all three parties, whose advice I greatly value. The hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Macdonald), who is one of the sponsors, will deal with any queries arising in the debate at the end.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary, whom I am very pleased to see on the Government Front Bench today, and I have had many discussions on the problem. I should like to remind him of his statement in the Rent Bill Committee in 1965. He said: The more the hon. Member for Orpington kicks me in the pants about this problem, the better I feel, because it keeps me alive to the importance of it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee F, 16th June, 1965; c. 998.] I have had to administer a few kicks since then, but from now on I shall be very glad to give his bottom a short rest.

I have often said, and I underline it now, that it has never been part of my case that all caravan site operators are sharks and racketeers. I know excellent sites where the relationship between the landlords and residents is as good as one could possibly hope for. They have absolutely nothing to fear from the provisions of the Bill.

But even some of the better site operators adopt what appears to me to be a paternalistic, almost 19th-century attitude to their residents. One wrote me a letter objecting to a circular I had sent to his tenants. He said: May I suggest that your cause would benefit considerably more if in future your approach was made to our residents with our cooperation, which I assure you it would receive. I had to reply that it was an odd doctrine that residents in a particular class of accommodation, whether caravans, leasehold houses or flats, should be approached only through the owners of the land they occupy. That is a small point, but symptomatic of the attitude one sometimes finds.

If there may be only a very few really bad site owners, it is equally true that very few of the landlords in London were like the notorious Mr. Rachman. Yet it was largely as a result of a few villains like him that the then Tory Government established the Milner Holland Committee, and, following the change of Government in 1964, the present Government introduced the Protection from Eviction and Rent Acts.

I shall remind the House of some of the findings of the Milner Holland Committee, because of their very striking resemblance to some of the problems we are discussing today. The evidence the Committee heard about security of tenure brought home to us strongly the widespread feelings of anxiety even among tenants who have not actually received notice to quit. This was evidenced by their reluctance to report structural defects, to ask for rent books or demand any of the legal rights they could properly exercise as tenants. The Committee said: Those who suffer most from the lack of security of tenure are probably families with young children … who have the greatest difficulty in finding alternative accommodation. It is interesting to note in the Consumer Council survey, "Living in a Caravan", published about a year ago, that nearly half the caravan households surveyed had children. Three-quarters of them lived in caravans either because it was all they could afford—although caravan living can be surprisingly expensive—or because they could not find any other accommodation, so that this section of the community is particularly vulnerable.

I have been very grateful all along for the help given by the Consumer Council. The House will agree that its survey gave very valuable evidence bearing on the problem we are considering. Since it was published, the Consumer Council and I have received more than 100 letters dealing with the points raised. In over half of those letters eviction or the threat of it is mentioned. I shall not give a long list of examples, but typical of those we receive are two which I should like to quote. The first, from Towngate Wood, Tonbridge said: I would ask you not to use my name please, because I should certainly be turned off the site if you did. The other is from Holly Lodge, Lower Kingswood, Surrey where there are unmade roads, no electricity, disgustingly filthy toilets, no means of water or drainage, and three baths to go round 150 families—all for less than £2 a week. Pretty marvellous, isn't it? The letter says: Please do not mention my name as I do not want to get chucked off this site. However bad these conditions may be, there is a shortage of pitches at caravan sites and if people get checked off it is practically impossible for them to obtain another pitch, unless they buy a new caravan, on which the operator takes his commission.

As to actual evictions, as opposed to the fear of them, I do not think that they are as rare as the site operators' organisations frequently aver. I shall give just three examples from the many in my file. The first is a case in my constituency in 1966, dealt with in an article by Mr. William Rankine in the News of the World of 12th June, 1966, of a family, Mr. and Mrs. Close, with two small children who were evicted from the Barbecue site at Cudham. The article says: Mrs. Close, the mother of two, told me: 'Notice to quit came suddenly by recorded delivery letter. We were told to be off the site in a month. There are just three families on the site and we were all told to be off. We couldn't think why. The women just sat down and had a good cry. It will cost more than £100 to get on to another site'. Mr. Lacey, the owner of the site, said that he was evicting them because of work to be done, and said that it would be inconvenient to have them there while it was being carried out. I can vouch for the accuracy of that story because I spent a great deal of time with Mr. and Mrs. Close, but unfortunately, with the law as it then stood, it was impossible to prevent that eviction.

The second example is of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, of Capel Court Caravan Park, Dover, a particularly disgusting and nauseating example because unfortunately Mrs. Smith is 90 per cent. disabled and finds great difficulty in living in an ordinary house. That is why she has chosen to live in caravans. They were given notice to quit which expired this very morning, on the grounds that Mrs. Smith refused to buy a new caravan to replace the perfectly good one she already had. I told the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is the Member for Dover that I would raise the case, and he has been very active in trying to prevent the eviction. I had a letter only this morning to say that a last-minute reprieve had been given by the site owner because he was told that very undesirable publicity would accrue if he dared evict the family on the very morning the Bill was given its Second Reading.

The third example is taken from the March, 1968 issue of Mobile Home. The magazine states: Donald George, father of two children, lived on Cheshire's Yard Caravan Site in West Delph, Whittlesey, Cambridge, which was licensed for eight 'residential caravans' … and was owned by Mrs. Ruth Green. Then, towards the end of 1967, Mrs. Green gave Mr. George notice to quit—because she did not like two of his relatives. And Mr. George had to go. In Peterborough County Court, where the affair was finally decided, Judge Conolly Gage said that if a landlord didn't want you on his caravan site there was nothing you could do about it. 'Landlords,' he said, 'can be unreasonable, but if they want the land they are entitled to it'. He was only doing what the law told him to, he added, as a disclaimer almost. Those three examples illustrate the very weak position in which mobile home residents find themselves without the protection that such a Bill as this will give. What we are doing to cope with the situation is very much on the lines of the Protection from Eviction Act, 1964.

By this Bill we do three things. First, we make it an offence to deprieve someone of his pitch without a court order. Second, we give the courts power to suspend for up to 12 months any order for possession, and to fix terms and conditions during that period. Third, and very important, we give protection against harassment. In a recent court case, it was held that residential caravanners were covered by the harassment Sections of the Rent Act, 1965, but as it is important to put the matter beyond any possible doubt the Bill contains a Clause dealing with that point.

There are many other abuses with which I should have liked to have dealt, but in the time available it has not been possible to draft Clauses covering matters such as premiums and excessive connection charges, which one finds are a very frequent cause of complaint. The protection Clause will redress the balance of power between site operator and resident so that the resident is in a very much better position to resist petty tyrannies and extortions, of which many examples can be quoted.

I have had cases where electricity has been charged at up to 6d. a unit. It is all very well to tell a resident that he can take the landlord to court, but if he exercises that right the landlord can evict him, and is entitled to do so. The resident therefore chooses to pay up and keep quiet.

Some site operators impose inhuman rules. The operator of a site in my constituency at one time only allowed one child per caravan. If anyone dared have two children, he was kicked off. The operator has altered that rule: he wrote a letter to residents on 29th November last saying that he was graciously pleased to let them have two children. Nevertheless, if they have three children, they get the order of the boot.

Another rule commonly found is that no residents associations can be formed to stick up for the tenants. Site operators threaten that if people establish residents associations to try to stick up for their rights, those who have caused such associations to come into being will be evicted. With the protection afforded by this Bill, there will be no difficulty at all in tenants forming an association to act on their behalf.

Another rule—its existence came out in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Smith of Capel Court—is that caravans must be changed. One frequently finds that a site operator attempts to have a caravan changed, for no other reason, of course, than that he gets commission on the sale of a new caravan. The Bill will enable a resident to resist such a demand.

The Consumer Council dealt very thoroughly with lack of facilities. It is disappointing to see how slowly some local authorities have implemented the model standards provided in the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act, 1960. The Bill will make it possible for residents to complain to the local authority, and to agitate until their sites are brought up to the model standards.

I have been asked why local authorities are not treated in this respect in exactly the same way as the private site operators. Local authorities will be subject to the harassment Clause, but the courts will not have power to suspend orders for possession for which local authorities have applied. Local authorities are exempted from the Sections of the Rent Acts which grant security of tenure. I do not, however, rest solely on precedent.

I have three reasons for treating local authorities differently from private site operators. First, they are accountable to the electorate and are therefore unlikely to use their powers in an arbitrary or inhuman way. Secondly, they have a statutory duty to accommodate homeless families, and therefore cannot evade, as can the private operator, an awkward problem by the simple device of eviction. Third, in the course of my correspondence I have found very few cases of alleged arbitrary eviction or fear of it on council owned sites. There have been a few, but I have not been able to check all the details and there may be another side to the story.

Part I will give immeasurably greater security to tenants than they have now, and enable them to assert their rights without fear. It represents a holding measure, like the Protection from Eviction Act, and I hope that it will be followed soon by Government legislation of a more permanent kind which will give tenants a complete system of protection comparable with that enjoyed by the tenants of rented houses.

Part II deals with the problem of gipsies and other travellers. It should first be made clear that we are not speaking only of the Romanies, but of all those who follow a nomadic habit of life whatever their race or origin, except for travelling showmen and circus people. I have been asked by some residents associations in my own borough and in the London Borough of Bexley to consider the registration of the travellers in order to get over some of the difficulties of interpretation they see in the definition of gipsies in the Bill. I considered their views very carefully, but I think that such a provision would be thought objectionable and discriminating against the gipsies.

There is no real practical difficulty of definition for either local authorities or the courts. In the survey entitled "Gipsies and Other Travellers" carried out two years ago by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, it was found that the identification of gipsies created no significant problems. In the recent case of Mills v. Cooper, the Lord Chief Justice had no difficulty in placing a commonsense interpretation on the word "gipsy" where it occurs in the Highways Act, 1959.

In Bromley we have had very serious trouble over the last few years with the unauthorised use of land by gipsies, and the destruction of amenities they have caused in residential areas and in the green belt. These days, the gipsies no longer follow the traditional occupations of many years ago, such as horse dealing, handicrafts and fortune telling. According to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government survey, more than half of them deal in scrap metal, and particularly in car breaking—an activity that, overnight, can turn a beautiful area of countryside into a noisome slum.

The village of Pratts Bottom in my constituency had the experience recently of a large number of gipsies descending on it and creating the most appalling mess with their car breaking. The hulks of old cars were strewn over a wide area. The gipsies lit bonfires to deal with upholstery, creating the most frightful stench. Since the encampment had no sanitation, there was considerable risk to the health of people in that neighbourhood.

One reason why Bromley, and my constituency generally, has had far more than its fair share of the problem is that it has established a permanent site for travellers, in response to the exhortations of the Ministry of Housing Circular 26/66, while I am sorry to say that nearly all other local authorities have ignored the Minister's advice. As Mr. Charnley, Chief Planning Assistant of the London Borough of Bexley, said at a recent conference of public health inspectors which I attended: … experience shows that once it becomes general knowledge that a local authority is providing or likely to provide a camp site, it will have a considerable influx of gypsies and other travellers from a wide area. It has been obvious to me for some time that the London Borough of Bromley is shouldering a load which other local authorities have conveniently shuffled off on to us.

Since these other local authorities have been deaf to the Minister's appeals, the time has now come when a duty must be laid upon them to provide sites of their own.

Clause 6 will require county councils and the councils of London boroughs to provide adequate accommodation for gipsies residing in or resorting to their area". This means that there will have to be enough pitches, not only for the gipsies belonging to the area but for those who travel through it from time to time. It is difficult to say what proportion of gipsy families will be prepared to settle permanently on a site once it is provided for them, but my guess is that it will take many years before the population becomes static. There will always be a few who prefer to remain mobile, may be until a new generation has been through the schools and become assimilated with the general population and set up their own households in ordinary accommodation.

It may appear illogical at first sight to lay this duty on London boroughs but not on the county boroughs. The reason for excluding those authorities is that the Ministry's survey in 1965 showed that very few families were living in the county boroughs and it would be possible for them to live in the surrounding county and yet travel daily into the towns for work, whereas that would be impossible in Greater London which covers such a great area and where the traffic problems are unlike those in county boroughs.

Subsection (4) of the Clause is an important one. It gives local authorities power to provide working space for such activities as car-breaking in connection with gipsy camps. As I have said, over half the gipsies follow this occupation as a way of living. There is no question of making this a duty, but local authorities may find that it is the only way for the time being of concentrating the more offensive occupations of travellers into an area where they will cause least disturbance to the amenities. In the long run it may be that as gipsies settle down on the new sites they will turn to other work. Every encouragement should be given to them by local authorities to do so.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger (Ilford, North)

Will the hon. Member explain how this fits in with planning permission? This is an industrial use. I am not sure whether it is an untidiness in the Bill or whether in some way it does fit in.

Mr. Lubbock

It is an industrial use, but local authorities will have to have regard to their own development plans in deciding where the sites shall be established. It will not always be possible to locate them immediately next to residential encampments. Mr. Charnley, whom I have quoted, emphasised this in the remarks he made at the Conference of Public Health Inspectors. Whereas gipsies now carry on car-breaking activities in the immediate vicinity of their caravans, this may not be possible in future. They may have to change their habits in some local authority areas.

Clause 7 provides that the county councils will choose only the sites and acquire the land, while district councils will provide all the services and facilities needed, including management of sites. The charges for the pitches will be determined by the county council which will reimburse the district council with any excess in costs, over the charges received. At the moment there are about 3,500 gipsy families in the entire country. Only a tiny fraction of them are on authorised sites. If we make allowance for the natural growth of the population, which I think is larger than the average population of the whole country, taking a very rough figure of £1,000 per pitch, we arrive at a total cost at £4 million.

I emphasise that this will not constitute a new burden on the rates since a great deal will be recovered in the charges made for the use of facilities. Local authorities will not have to spend large sums of money on enforcement as many of them have to do at the moment. Some boroughs have a whole-time enforcement officer doing nothing but moving gipsies on from one area to another. Others, including the London Borough of Bromley, have spent money erecting barriers to stop gipsies using certain pieces of land. To an extent this will become unnecessary. Therefore I think the cost of these proposals will not be excessive when one takes into account the benefits to be received.

I appreciate that no one will like having one of these sites in his neighbourhood, but they have to be put somewhere. We have provided a right of objection in Clause 8. This requires the county council to consult the district council and any person particularly affected before finally deciding on a site. The Minister will need to have information about the proposals of local authorities. He will also need to have powers of direction over local authorities which fail to carry out their obligations, although I envisage that this power will be used only as a last resort. Once the duty is aid on local authorities I think they will get on and do the job. These matters are dealt with in Clause 9.

I come to the powers of local authorities to move gipsies from land on which they have stationed their caravans without permission. It has been difficult to apply existing powers which generally concern only land such as highways and commons. When those powers have been used successfully, all that has happened has been that the problem has been shifted to someone else. When adequate numbers of sites have been provided under the Bill, a new situation will exist. It will then be reasonable to give councils much more effective powers to remove caravans from any land on which they are stationed without the occupier's permission. This is done in Clauses 10 and 11. But only authorities which have provided enough sites will get the powers. So here we have a situation in which a stick or a carrot may be used. The stick is the Minister's direction and the carrot is the much stronger powers, once sites have been made available, for local authorities to move gipsies from land they are occupying without permission.

I hope that these important features will be the means of removing a minor, but a troublesome, problem. No one wants to force gipsies to conform to all the norms of the semi-detached society, but if they can have a place where they can live without coming into conflict with their neighbours—and if, above all, the children are able to attend school regularly as a result of the greater security provided by the new sites, I think they and the rest of us can learn to get on in harmony with each other.

The late Mr. Norman Dodds worked for 15 years, up to the time of his death in 1965, to find the solution to this problem of gipsies and other travellers. He never saw the fruits of his labour, but, had it not been for his ground work, I believe we should not have been discussing this Bill today. I should like to think that he would have approved of what I am trying to do.

If the House passes the Bill it will, first, remove a cloud of fear that hangs over many who live in mobile homes and give them renewed hopes of a comprehensive charter in the not-too-distant future. It will help local authorities properly to control the unauthorised use of land. It will give relief to quiet neighbourhoods and beautiful countryside which have suffered from invasions of the travelling people while at the same time it will give those travelling people a recognised place in the community.

Mr. Speaker

It will help the Chair if hon. Members who wish to speak against the Bill will let Mr. Speaker know, so that we can have a balanced debate.

11.39 a.m.

Mr. Alan Lee Williams (Hornchurch)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) on introducing the Bill. I welcome Part II in particular, which deals with gipsies. Although the hon. Gentleman began his speech by saying that the Bill was non-controversial, in many ways it is controversial, so I pay tribute to his courage in being a good liberal.

Ever since I became a Member of Parliament I have received more letters each day on the question of gipsies than on any other subject. This is because my constituency has plenty of green space left undeveloped where gipsies can come and camp. In the middle of last year on the disused site of the R.A.F. station at Hornchurch arrived 36 gipsy families, which gradually grew to over 60 caravans. The reaction from the local residents was immediate. They contacted me. They bombarded the local town hall. I received many petitions. Eventually I approached the Secretary of State for Defence to ask what the legal position was and whether he would consider removing the gipsies as they were on unauthorised ground and were obviously causing a nuisance. The Secretary of State agreed to do this and served notice to quit.

It came to the attention of the local authority that, if the evictions were carried out, the gipsy families would simply be moved on to the road and would then become a burden on the local authority. So the Ministry of Housing and Local Government interceded with the Ministry of Defence asking it to withdraw the eviction notices until such time as the local authority provided an adequate site. At the time this was a real test of my own liberalism on this question, because a number of my constituents were phoning me in the early hours of the morning protesting about this decision to defer the eviction notices. I was under a great deal of personal pressure.

On visiting the site I discovered that many of the complaints made by the local residents were justified, although, as is usual in cases of this sort, on occasion exaggerated. Nevertheless, in the space of a few weeks the site, which was no great attraction in any case but which was at least a tidy area, was turned into a rubbish dump. My hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will no doubt recall that I visited him with a delegation composed of people who felt very strongly indeed about this matter. The good result arising from the strength of feeling was that gradually all the residents recognised that it would be wrong simply to evict the gipsies from Hornchurch airfield so that they would become a burden elsewhere. Gradually a consensus emerged that perhaps eviction was the easiest part of the task, merely passing the problem on from one borough to another, and that it would be much better if legislation were introduced aimed at sharing the problem and making it possible for local authorities lucky enough not to have the problem to share the cost of providing permanent sites. I was therefore delighted when I learned of the hon. Member's Bill and I am delighted to see it before the House today.

Increasingly this will become a difficult problem, because as disused sites are put to use so the areas where gipsies can move will gradually become fewer. The most attractive thing about this proposal relates to the provision of permanent sites. Although a few years ago this would have been opposed by the gipsies themselves, because they have always liked their traditional freedom, they now recognise that freedom to move from one permanent site to another in no way threatens their existence.

On the other hand, I hope that the gipsies will in future become fewer in number, not because I myself am intolerant about the existence of a nomadic tribe of British people but rather because the quality of their life strikes me as being so poor. Although they have very expensive motor cars and caravans and have portable television sets and all the trappings of a high standard of living, the quality of their lives is very poor indeed. I think that their children will notice this simply by watching television.

I hope that much will be done to enable their children to move away from this nomadic life and lead a more normal one. The Plowden Report makes special reference to this problem in the following words: They —the gipsy children— are probably the most severely deprived children in the country. Most of them do not even go to school and the potential abilities of those who do are stunted. I hope that emphasis on integrating children into local schools will be an important part of the Measure. It will be one of the most difficult aspects. A local school near Hornchurch airfield has absorbed some of these children, but not without difficulty. There is much prejudice. Local residents by and large have a balanced view, but this is not shared by all. I have received threatening telephone calls because of what they consider to be my rather liberal attitude towards the gipsies. There have been threats to "burn them out" and to evict them forcibly if their children are allowed to go to the local school. This is the crux of the matter, but by and large I think that with good sense the problem need not develop.

In spite of the obvious difficulties which there will be in finding sites, the Bill faces up to the problem. In my own borough, which is the London Borough of Havering, attempts have been made to find suitable sites, but whenever a suitable site is located difficulties all of a sudden emerge. Owners of land will not allow it to be used, or a local authority, either the G.L.C. or another local authority, will decide that the land is not suitable for this purpose.

Part of the problem was touched upon by the hon. Gentleman. At present the gipsies insist, not only on living on their site, but also on working on it. The problem is to persuade the gipsies that they can live in one place and work in another. This is asking much of them, because they have been used to this existence where they live and deal with their scrap iron all in the same place. Unless we persuade them to accept this change of life, there will undoubtedly be difficulties, because most local authori- ties will take the view, "Let us find a site away from a residential area". So the gipsies will be put in areas where they are insulated from the community. This would be wrong. They must be close to the community, in spite of the immense difficulties involved. There must be an effort to integrate them as far as possible, with particular reference to the young.

In spite of the local tensions, which will go on because of the Bill, I think that it will be welcomed by most people of good will. I believe that most local authorities will respond to this challenge. They have not provided sites so far—this goes for my own area—because they are frightened that, if they do, the site provided will act as a magnet and that gipsies from all over the place will be attracted to their area. The Bill seeks to overcome this difficulty and it should be welcomed. Once again I warmly congratulate the hon. Member on introducing this worth-while and liberal Measure.

11.50 a.m.

Sir Lionel Heald (Chertsey)

I am glad to join the hon. Members for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) and for Chislehurst (Mr. Macdonald) in commending the Bill to the House on Second Reading It is an all-party matter and one which, essentially, should be dealt with in that way. Those who have been interested in the problem over many years, as well as those who are affected by it, will be grateful to the hon. Member for Orpington for using his good fortune in the Ballot in this way.

There has been a remarkable change in public opinion generally on the subject of caravans. When we were first dealing with the matter, those who lived in caravans were completely misunderstood; they were regarded rather as second-class citizens, and it was difficult to get any consideration for them at all. The atmosphere today is entirely different. On the other side of the picture, it is now recognised that the site operators are performing a valuable service and that, although, as we all know, unfortunately there are still bad cases, as the hon. Member for Orpington explained, there are many people today who can rightly claim to have elevated the whole question of caravans to a different level.

I hope that it will not be considered out of place if I explain briefly, from my own experience, the nature of the problem with which we are dealing in the caravan part of the Bill. As the hon. Gentleman explained, we are dealing here, in particular, with those who are essentially residents. There are people who like living in caravans, but, in my experience, I have been mostly concerned with those who would prefer to live in houses if they had them. When I went to my constituency in 1949, there had already been a large increase in the population owing to the war-time development of the aircraft industry and other industries associated with it in and around Weybridge. Since 1947 there has been a further increase in the electorate from about 45,000 to well over 60,000 today. Many of those who have come in have been skilled men, taking advantage of the opportunities in the industrial development which has taken place. It has been impossible for housing to keep pace with the requirements. These are people who live in caravans because they do not have houses to live in. They want to feel that they are just as much residents as anyone else, and today, I am glad to say, they are beginning to be able to do so.

At first sight, it might be assumed that they could be treated by the law in just the same way as people who live in houses. In fact, this is impracticable. I am certain that careful consideration has been given during the preparation of the Bill to the question how far it is possible to assimilate the law in its application to those two very different cases.

I understand that the hon. Gentleman has been fortunate in being able to persuade the Ministries concerned to take a very sympathetic view. Here, I wish to say that I have personal reason to be grateful to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), with whom we had talks even as long ago as before the last General Election. I hope that it will not embarrass him if I say that he has always tried to help on this subject. But it is not surprising, owing to the difficulty of it, that he has not found it easy to persuade the Government to take a definite line. However, I think that we shall hear today that they have decided that they must take a more definite line.

It is not true, as some people have suggested, that this is only a mouse of a Bill which does nothing. At the beginning, those of us, of all parties, who were interested in the subject, because we had seen it at close quarters, had the greatest difficulty in persuading public opinion that there should be real security of tenure for people who live in caravans.

That brings into focus another important point. The hon. Member for Orpington thought it necessary not to apologise but to say a word of explanation for having the Bill in two parts. In my view, he has done a great service in that, because there used to be a great deal of confusion. This was one of the troubles. People were thinking really of the gipsies. I say, in passing, that I am not at all sure about the definition on this point and never have been, because there are a lot of fine people among the gipsies and they will not want to be entirely assimilated to some other people who, though certainly nomadic, are not gipsies.

The general feeling in the 1950s was that anyone who lived in a caravan was vagabond, but that feeling has now largely changed. The Bill is an illustration of the change. It is a Measure supported by all three parties dealing with the straightforward principle that we should try as far as possible to give the same kind of protection to people who live in caravans as to those who live in houses. But I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that it is impossible simply to apply the housing and landlord and tenant law direct. There are many reasons why. Therefore, we can look upon this Bill as a definite step forward in principle but, as the hon. Gentleman said, a holding Measure which will call for a great deal more to stimulate thought and encourage further progress.

Several considerations must be borne in mind. One which causes me some concern is that it has been represented to me that it is not easy at present to have cases dealt with rapidly when they do arise and have to be taken to the courts and that, if the proposed provisions were to be laid at the door of the county courts, this would cause considerable delay. I am anxious about this, having in mind what is proposed for divorce cases. Quite apart from the possibilities in another Bill, it is proposed that divorce matters should be dealt with by the county courts. This will put an additional burden upon them.

Mr. Lubbock

Since the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I discussed this matter—I said that I would make inquiries about the time taken for possession orders in cases where the expedited procedure is asked for—I have been informed that, in cases brought under the Rent Act, the position was as follows. In the December quarter, 1967, where no expedition was sought, the time taken was 36 days. Where application for expedited hearing was granted, the average interval between issue and hearing was 14 days.

Sir L. Heald

There have been other instances, but this is probably more of a matter to take up in Committee. It is right to make it clear that, certainly so far as I am concerned I have appreciated this. As a result of the assignment of the question that we are now discussing to the county court, the jurisdiction of the courts will be divided because, of course, the offences of illegal expulsion and harassment will be tried by the magistrates. There is a feeling that the magistrates will have more experience of the background and will know something of the lives and problems of the caravan people, where these matters are relevant. There might be something to be said for them dealing with both types of cases, criminal cases and eviction cases.

One should recognise that the local authority is in rather a different position. The local authority is bound to provide accommodation, enabled to provide accommodation, or we hope will be, in cases where there is difficulty, where the site owner would not be able to do so. It is sufficient to say that there are a number of points which clearly desire consideration in Committee. I am sure that those concerned with those points, particularly the site operators, will appreciate that if they put forward reasoned views, amendments or additions to the Bill, these will be carefully considered and worked out in Committee.

The important thing, from the point of view of the Second Reading of the Bill, as in all Bills, is the question of principle. We are agreed upon, and I hope that we are making real progress towards recognising, the rights of those who live or are entitled to live, or in many cases who have to live, in caravans, to the maximum security of tenure that we can give.

With regard to the second part of the Bill, there are those who are very much more skilled than I am on this subject. We have had anxiety in my constituency about this. The hon. Member, with the assistance that he has had, has produced something in Part II which is a real step forward. I should like to associate myself with what was said about Mr. Dodds, who was a friend of all of us here, and who gave a great deal of thought to, and felt strongly about this subject. I am sure that if he were here today he would be very pleased to support Part II.

12.4 p.m.

Mr. James Wellbeloved (Erith and Crayford)

I am particularly grateful to be able to congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) upon having brought this Bill before us this morning. Representing the constituency of the late Norman Dodds, who so admirably represented it for 20 years, it is with some considerable pride and pleasure that I have been able to join with the hon. Member for Orpington and be a sponsor of his Bill.

I hope that the whole House will welcome Part I, which is designed to give security of tenure to caravan dwellers on permanent sites. I would have liked to have seen that part of the Bill go a little further, and deal with rent control and the payment of the premium. This is an emergency measure, as the hon. Member said, similar to the measure put forward by my right hon. Friends when we were first returned to power, to deal with an urgent need.

I hope that it will be possible for the Bill to be followed up by other measures going further into this problem. I want to concentrate on Part II because it is necessary, when debating this problem, for some of the words of the late Norman Dodds to be recorded. His campaign was entirely concentrated on one simple premise—that it was not possible for local authorities, however well-intentioned, however much they wanted to deal with this measure, to solve it. As has been pointed out, the moment that a local authority sets up a camp, with good intentions, it brings in a flood of travellers from other areas who make the problem, already large, insoluble.

This problem of the traveller can be dealt with only where the large mass of local authorities can be encouraged to begin to provide sites. This Bill provides that if they set up a site they will have some protection against the influx of travellers. Mr. Norman Dodds made this quite clear when he said, to quote a passage from his book "Gipsies, Didicois and Other Travellers": In England and Wales the local authorities, although having it in their power to take appropriate action, have preferred to treat gipsies and other travellers as human shuttlecocks, irrespective of whether they are collectively or individually good or bad. Unloved and unwanted they have been passed from one authority to another and frequently received back at the end of the line, only to start the whole pointless circuit in motion once again. How true. This new Bill means that we can at least make a start on ending this vicious circle of the travellers being "shuttlecocks" from one local authority to another.

It is with great plaeasure that I associate myself with the sponsors of the Bill. I hope that the House will give it a speedy Second Reading. If there are any problems—and I appreciate that there will be hon. Gentlemen speaking later with certain points to raise—I ask them to reserve their very pertinent points until the Committee stage where I am sure the hon. Member for Orpington and others will be only too pleased to listen to those points, and if they prove to be very important to the Bill, to meet them. I hope than the House will give an unopposed Second Reading to this great Bill, which will not only mean the end of the terrible situation that has faced the travelers for so many centuries in this country, but which will also be a permanent memorial to my dear friend and the friend of so many people in this House the late Norman Dodds.

12.8 p.m.

Mr. John Farr (Harborough)

I would like to join with other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) on the good use to which he has put his success in the Ballot. In this admirably produced Bill he has gone a long way towards providing a solution to these problems which always concerned the late Mr. Norman Dodds. Members of the House fortunate enough to know him remember how he really took the affairs of caravan dwellers and associated persons to heart.

I was lucky enough to be on the Standing Committee which considered the Caravan Sites Act, 1960, and I remember that hon. Members on both sides in Committee welcomed that Measure, particularly the powers of local authorities under Section 24 to provide sites for caravan dwellers. One regrettable fact which has made this Bill necessary is that most local authorities have done absolutely nothing and the few which have exercised these powers have been put in an unfair and equitable position thereby.

What has happened? Caravans have moved into sites provided by some local authorities—there are not many of them—and the strain has been intolerable. In this respect, many if not most local authorities have fallen down on the responsibilities and great opportunities given them in the far-sighted provisions of the Act. The real problem for caravan dwellers and gipsies is that when police move them from a site they often do not know where to go. They might move a mile or two away and remain there until again they are chased away. The present position is most unsatisfactory in four main aspects.

First, it is entirely unsatisfactory to the police, who have the unpleasant, difficult and painful job of moving caravan dwellers against whom complaints have been registered. It is not a nice job to tell a family, with babes in arms and elderly ladies, living in a caravan on a secluded site that it must go, perhaps in the depth of winter. Yet that is the difficult task which falls on many police forces. The police know as well as we do that, when they move these people on, in most county districts there is no recognised site for them to be sent to and that they are moving them merely out of the way until such time as they can find another temporary resting place. It is, of course, unpleasant for the caravan dwellers themselves to be moved in the depth of winter from a secluded site in the shelter of a country lane, arid they detest the present cat-and-mouse game they have to play with the police.

Secondly, one must also remember the position which local farmers and people living near places where gipsies may have encampments are put in because often trey are compelled to complain to the police simply because some—I do not say all—caravan dwellers do extensive damage. On a cold winter's day, if one sees a nice wooden fence beside a field which has no stock in it there is a temptation to stoke up the fire with it.

Thirdly, there is the problem referred to in the Bill of a great deal of litter being left, after these people have been moved on, as a result of the activities they engage in to secure themselves a living.

Fourthly, the local authorities are placed in an unpleasant position. I criticise many of them for having done nothing and they really to some extent have themselves to blame for problems arising when gipsies are moved along. In my constituency, a whole country lane was lined on both sides with abandoned motor cars stretching for a quarter of a mile. This is an unpleasant aftermath when gipsies have been moved on.

A letter I received today from the Chief Constable of the Leicester and Rutland Constabulary typifies the position of some of the county police forces. He says that he is constantly receiving complaints arising from the presence of gipsies and that most of these are made by farmers as a result of damage to fences and gates and of litter being left behind in ditches, which chokes up the ditch water course and causes flooding. He goes on: Often a problem with which we are faced is that we have no site within the Force area to where they may be directed which, in itself, gives rise to justifiable complaints from persons residing nearby. He concludes by saying that, in Leicestershire and Rutland, a recent census showed that there were 46 itinerant families with a total population of 205 adults and children, but that, following the recent expulsion of itinerants from the City of Leicester, this number is expected to increase considerably in the near future. That is the sort of problem in one county and it is typical of many rural districts.

The Bill is admirable. It is divided sensibly into two parts. I have only one possible addendum to suggest. The hon. Member for Orpington en passant referred to travelling showmen, who are in a special category. One problem I have come across concerns some permanent winter quarters for travelling showmen. In the summer months, spring and autumn, they are on the road with their shows and are adequately catered for.

In Lutterworth, in my constituency, there is a travelling showmen's site which has been occupied by three successive generations of the same family. The family has recently been told that the site is no longer available and the children, who have been going to Lutterworth schools—the same schools attended by their fathers—have been told that they cannot attend because their parents have to leave the site. At the moment, these people have no suitable permanent alternative. This is a problem which I hope the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind in Committee. I do not know whether such people could be accommodated on local authority sites but some solution must be found to the problem of those families who for generations have lived on winter sites occupied by travelling showmen. I have great pleasure in supporting the Bill and wish it a fair passage.

12.17 p.m.

Mr. Albert Murray (Gravesend)

I, too, welcome the Bill. If I had been lucky in the Ballot, this is the Measure I would have introduced because, since becoming Member for Gravesend, I have seen how the position of caravan dwellers on residential sites and of gipsies can be very difficult.

The situation on residential caravan sites is usually dependent in many cases on whether the site operator happens to like the colour of people's eyes. It has been shown to me, as Member for a division where there are caravan sites, that hon. Members have been quite helpless on occasion in dealing with particular problems.

The problems which arise on caravan sites cannot always be dealt with by M.P.s, as I am sure the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) knows. I had occasion in the past to take up the case of electricity charges, when constituents of mine were being charged a minimum of 10s. 4d. per week for the electricity they used, on the basis of a minimum of 7½d. per unit and a 12 unit minimum. The resale price of the electricity should have been 1.95d.

On taking this matter up with the local electricity board and other authorities concerned, I found that they were more or less helpless to do anything unless the persons being so charged wanted to take a civil action in the courts. But, of course, these people were always afraid to take civil action because of their fear of eviction. I have many letters from them which, if they have made a complaint about electricity charges or roads in poor repair, and so on, end by saying, "Please treat this in confidence because if it became known I had made this statement I would he evicted from the site."

In this day and age, it is completely wrong that this sort of thing can be done. We have introduced Measures dealing with eviction of house tenants, together with the Rent Act, 1965. I am only sorry that the Government did not take in residential caravans as well, although I know that there are difficulties. Just to stop evictions is not enough. For example, after a great deal of correspondence between myself and the site operator about the electricity charges, the minimum charge was lowered but another 2s. 6d. was put on to cover what were claimed to be "incidentals" of running the site.

We owe a debt to the Consumer Council, who services on this matter have been very valuable to those interested in the problem. Its survey, "Living in a Caravan", showed that almost half of the people living on residential caravan sites were young people between the ages of 16 and 34. What is more important were the reasons for their living on residential caravan sites. What stood out from the results of the survey was that, of the 522 people covered, 44 per cent. said that, if they had the chance of a house, they would move at once. Whilst we have a housing problem, whilst we have 44 per cent. in that sort of survey—and I am certain that 44 per cent. is a fair reflection of the 300,000 on caravan sites—we should give them some protection if local authorities cannot provide them with accommodation.

On the main point of the Bill concerning residential caravan sites I hope that there will be very little opposition, and that the Bill will not only get an unopposed Second Reading but will move speedily through Committee.

The problem of gipsies is also something I have had in my constituency. When a dear old friend, Norman Dodds, dealt with this problem for many years, one of the sites he became father-confessor and manager to was that at Cobham Woods in my constituency. It seems to me that many local authorities have said of gipsies and travellers, "Perhaps if we do not look, they will go away." There has been a problem all over South-East England and the Midlands of caravan sites springing up. If the people concerned feel that they can remain without anybody saying anything to them at a particular stage, then more move in.

Anybody travelling up the A2, as I do regularly, knows the eyesore of a site along the side of it. I am very fortunate, because the Strood Rural Council in my constituency is one of the very few rural district councils that has provided a site. Norman Dodds and I went to the former Minister of Housing, my right hon. Friend who is now Leader of the House, asking that county councils should have a statutory duty to provide a number of small sites with decent sanitary and hygienic conditions, where the children, about whom we should be really worrying, could go to school and not suffer the intolerable treatment they are so often given.

This week we have been talking a lot in the House about intolerance. There is a great deal of it towards gipsies. We have seen on television and in the Press large numbers of policemen evicting them from sites, moving them on to the road. Then they go along to another site and the same process starts all over again. We have seen local authority tenants having rent strikes because there are gipsies down the road, whilst local authorities do not deal with the problem in the provision of small sites. Without all the minimum necessary conditions on such sites, the problem will spring up again and again.

The Bill will go a long way to deal with many of the gipsies' difficulties. Obviously, they create problems. The A2 problem must be seen to be believed. But whilst there is no effective control those conditions will go on and on. Something must be done about the problem. There has been a witch-hunt against the gipsies. As Norman Dodds always used to say, they are human beings and must be treated as such and not be hunted from county to county, saying that they will go to a site where they know they will not be touched.

Although I would have wished that the Bill went further and provided rent control in Part I, it is to be welcomed today as a great step forward in the social conditions of those living in caravans on residential sites and on our roads.

12.27 p.m.

Mr. John Wells (Maidstone)

I, too, welcome the Bill and warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) on his success in the Ballot and considerable courage in bringing forward a Measure which will be by no means popular with his suburban, tidy-minded constituents.

I shall devote my comments to Part II. I have had an interest for many years in the problem with which it is concerned. In his speech on Part I, the hon. Gentleman castigated a certain site-owner because he limited the number of children acceptable in a caravan, and the hon. Gentleman said that this was most inhuman. It may be, but in any site where there are children, if they become a vast amorphous collection a definite lack of amenity can be caused to other caravan dwellers, and some such communal rules are probably necessary for the comfortable good organisation of a site. I hope that where a caravan standing is let to people on the basis of a contract that they are acceptable there in a small caravan with one or two children, if the family increases vastly and they are in breach of that contract they will not be protected by Part I, because the amenity of all people living on the site must be considered.

The hon. Gentleman's second point—and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald), whose great experience I profoundly respect, agreed—was that local authorities should be put in a special position. But to the ordinary man in the street the endless special provision for local authorities, however rational it may seem to us here, is very unpalatable. The public see that local authorities can up their rents time after time, and each hon. Member has had letters from old ladies who own a cottage or two, let at very modest rents, and who see that local authorities can up their rents while they as private owners cannot. Placing local authorities in a special position is unpalatable to many people. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider this point again when we reach the Committee stage.

I should like to take up one or two points which the hon. Member for Orpington made in connection with Part II. He said that he had immediately rejected the registration of gipsies as impractical and probably unpopular. I agree that probably it would be unpopular; there certainly would be difficulties. But I urge him to consider allowing in Committee a new Clause for the registration of those gipsies and travellers who still use horse-drawn vehicles. I will come to this matter later. I hope that, because of the particular difficulties of those who use horse-drawn vehicles, the possibility of registration in some limited form will not be far from his mind.

The hon. Member for Orpington said that it was pointed out in Mr. Charnley's excellent paper that gipsy sites properly set up by local authorities tended to attract other gipsies like flies to a honey-pot. This is undoubtedly so. We have seen this in Kent in which various local authorities have been fairly good in setting up sites. However, other counties, notably Essex—and I am glad to see the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Alan Lee Williams) in his place—have been very laggard. Consequently there have been difficulties in Kent and in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. We must take close note of what Mr. Charnley said.

The hon. Member for Orpington pointed out that he had made no provision in his Bill for county boroughs. I must draw his attention to page 80 of the survey entitled "Gipsies and Other Travellers". On that page there is a table which shows that 20 per cent. of the travellers in the West Midlands are living in the county borough areas. In the table on page 84 concerning South Wales he will see that Merthyr Tydvil had 1.8 per thousand and Cardiff 1 per thousand. This indicates that in certain areas, notably the West Midland conurbation and the South Wales towns and cities, there is a definite body of gipsies and travellers within the county boroughs. I hope that the hon. Member will not rule out the possibility of introducing in Committee a provision for county boroughs.

The hon. Member rightly pointed out that much of the cost of £4 million will be recovered and that enforcement charges would also be saved. But he failed to point out that gipsies become settled, as we have seen from the West Ashford and Hampshire experiments. Therefore, the odds are that many of them will seek council house accommodation. This must be a further hidden charge on the rates which it is impossible to assess. While I accept the hon. Member's palliative that the £4 million will not all be lost to the rates, there is a further difficulty which we must face. The hon. Gentleman rightly stressed that the powers of removal would be available only to councils which had provided sites. I draw his attention to what I have said about the West Midland conurbation and South Wales. If the county boroughs there do not provide sites, they will not have the power of removal.

We must look into the history of this problem. I will not go back to 1500, except in passing. But, in addition to the praise which we have all given to our former colleague, Norman Dodds, we must say a word of tribute to my former right hon. Friend, Mr. Harold Macmillan. The Kent survey of 1951–52 which was largely pioneered and urged by Mr. Norman Dodds had Mr. Macmillan's blessing. Had it not been for his personal interest and intervention, I do not believe that the pioneer survey in Kent would have taken place, nor that the consequent pilot scheme at West Ashford which started in 1960 would have taken place.

On 1st December, 1961, there was a notable debate in the House and in a memorable speech Norman Dodds set forth all the problems. Every one of us present remembers him with affection and pride at having served with him in a common cause. That day, Norman got as enthusiastic as he often did and said that he thought that the problem might amount to 100,000 people, of whom 20,000 were true Romanies. I am glad that my assessment was nearer the true figure. My guess was that the figure was 13,000, and the number given in the survey was 15,000. The enthusiasm of Norman Dodds has carried us all forward. I congratulate the Joint Parliamentary Secretary on the part which he has played since that time.

It was interesting that the 1962 circular received such a very poor response from local authorities. This shows the ostrich-like attitude of many local authorities. I congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on putting something of a bomb under them so that these extremely good statistics might be produced. The sad fact about the statistics is that because of the Kent survey, which had taken place only a few weeks beforehand, the Kent local authorities were not asked to repeat their work. Therefore, the Kent statistics are missing from the survey except from the point of view of certain global totals. As there is a greater concentration of these people in Kent than in any other county, there are certain inaccuracies in the survey. Statistics put forward in documents of this sort tend to be quoted as reliable for generations afterwards. This document shows that 52 per cent. of these people are scrap metal dealers because the survey was taken at the end of March, at the end of the winter season. Had it been taken on 22nd September, which would have been difficult, it would have shown that the majority were agricultural, and particularly horticultural workers. There is a shift in emphasis on occupation between winter and summer. Those who deal with this matter from day to day are aware that statistics tend to be quoted out of context and without the background facts being known.

I said that I would say something about the problem of dwellers in horse-drawn caravans. The survey says that there are only 188 such families, most of them situated in the North of England. I believe that this is one of the few inaccuracies in this good document. I have been in communication with Mr. Richard Wade of Peterborough, who will be known to many people involved in this problem. He assures me that the accurate figure for horse-drawn vehicles is nearer 300.

The survey is inaccurate because there are many single caravans. The dweller in horse-drawn caravans tends to travel on his own. On the day of the survey, the investigators tended to concentrate on the bigger lumps of the caravan population and therefore neglected, unintentionally, the single caravan. This is noticeably so in Hertfordshire, East Anglia and the Fens.

In recent months, many extremely unattractive, mucky caravans have been located near the junction of the A.20 and A.21 However, there was one clean and comparatively tidy horse-drawn caravan on its own about a mile from there. It has now moved on. The messy 34 caravans, as I counted them this morning are still there, whereas the horse-drawn one has moved on its way North.

I want to put this point about horse-drawn caravans to the hon. Member for Orpington and to the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Macdonald), who is to give an unofficial winding-up. In good weather, horse-drawn caravan dwellers can only move about 20 miles a day. On hilly ground and in the winter, they cover less than that distance. Would it be possible to insert a new Clause allowing for some sort of registration, so that these people might reasonably stop off at unauthorised places? I realise that there will be great difficulties for them under Clause 10, but there are only 300 families involved, and they tend to be older and superficially cleaner. They are not dealing in scrap metal, and there are no broken vehicles lying about. There is a special case for exempting them. They are a declining population, and if they are not true Romanies certainly they are nearer to them.

Mr. Iremonger

Clause 11 refers to 24 hours' notice having to be given of the intention to enter upon any occupied land. These are essentially nomadic people and, even though they may move only 10 or 20 miles a day, they will be moving every day or every other day.

Mr. Wells

That is not quite so. They want to move on because, rather like High Court judges, they follow a regular circuit. My hon. Friend is wrong when he suggests that they move every day. They move from time to time, but they cannot go far. Driving past each day, I noticed that the specific family on the A.20 whom I mentioned remained there for about a week or possibly a fortnight. These are the people who probably have the greatest part of true Romany blood in them. I will not bog myself down in differentiation of individual groups, because it is of little practical importance in discussing the Bill, but the great majority of travellers seem to have some Romany blood in them. It appears that they are descended from a population of Indians who arrived in Britain getting on for 500 years ago in about 1500. They are illegal immigrants. I cannot help feeling that the fact that they have not been assimilated in 500 years shows up a certain amount of humbug on the part of certain hon. Members in speeches that they made in the House earlier this week.

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman must resist the temptation.

Mr. Wells

The fact remains that these people have not been integrated, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington for seeking to get them properly integrated.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) said that he was uncertain about the definition. I think that the definition set out in the case of Mills v. Cooper indicates that this is a matter of employment rather than breeding.

The inaccuracies in the survey to which I have referred are made all the worse by the fact that the London boroughs of Bromley and Bexley were excluded by the chance of the change of local government boundaries. This is an area of England where always there has been a great concentration of gipsies. Of the 3,350 families in England and Wales within this category, nearly half are in the south-eastern region. It is for that reason that we are faced with this problem in the South-East. The next most numerous group occurs in the West Midlands, with 583 families. Then there are 461 families in the South-West. Further, it is known that one in three local authorities has some.

Clause 6 of the Bill says that local authorities must make provision. so far as may be necessary to provide adequate accommodation for gipsies residing in or resorting to their area. I want to take up those final words, "resorting to their area", with the hon. Member for Orpington. Shall we be assured that local authorities who have some passing connection with gipsies who come for seasonal employment will not be expected to provide accommodation for them? The possibility immediately raises considerable problems in the South-East, where they come for a short time and then go on their way. That is clear if one looks at the total distribution set out in the tables in the survey. I hope that the hon. Member for Chislehurst can give some indication of the way in which the sponsors' minds are working on this point.

Subsection (2) contains an exemption for the London boroughs. One realises that they are short of land. However, at the Thamesmead project for the Greater London Council there are still some 70 caravan dwelling families of the gipsy type. I understand that only about 12 do not want to move into houses. I should have thought that something could have been done for adjacent boroughs. Whether that is possible under Clause 6(3), I do not know. If it is, perhaps we could have some assurance that these London boroughs who have the problem will—

Mr. Speaker

With respect, are we not getting on to Committee points now?

Mr. Wells

Anyway, perhaps we could have some assurance on that.

It has been pointed out by a number of hon. Members that the problem is a rapidly growing one. It is estimated that there will be some 25,000 travellers by the year 1985, which is an increase of about 90 per cent. on today's figure. If these people are to be accommodated and settled, the first requirement above all others is education for their children. Norman Dodds laid great emphasis on this point.

The essential need is to get them to school regularly and, where possible, to provide special classes. That will need special teachers. Experiments have been carried out in both ways, putting them into their ordinary streams, which un- fortunately are invariably B-streams, and putting them into special classes. We need special teachers who will have sympathetic consideration for these gipsy children in schools which are adjacent to the new sites.

When the West Ashford experiment began, the village school was very nearly flooded with these children. There was a feeling of great hostility by the other parents. Once the scheme was working, that feeling of hostility was fairly rapidly overcome. Provided that the children can be educated, it is likely that this great increase in families will subside. Female gipsies tend to marry young and to breed particularly young. They are nearly completely illiterate, and there is an inevitable lack of knowledge of all methods of birth control. This is a self-generating problem.

On many of the sites already set up, a gipsy caravan site operated by a local authority is only a first step to council housing. The West Ashford site to which I have referred several times has already been closed for two reasons. First, it is remote from an urban centre and therefore work for the gipsies in their own occupations is scarce. Secondly, they have been housed, originally in substandard local authority housing, but, as their habits have altered, they have been moved into better housing. Similarly, in Hampshire local authorities have established these sites and have in turn led them on to living in local council houses. This should be the aim of local authorities, trying to get members of gipsy communities who want to move into houses established and conforming to the ordinary conventions of our society.

There will, however, always be those who do not wish to conform, and it is for those that it is essential to have places where the true nomad can be accomodated, but can move as he wishes from time to time.

They are in a further difficulty about employment. Long-distance lorry driving is the most normal source of employment which enables them to mix nomadic habits with conventional earning of a living, but here their very illiteracy causes a problem. Therefore, if we can get them first on to the sites and then into the schools, then they will get secure employment in the future.

Turning to the specific point of the sites and of the amenities which are to be provided, it is noticeable from the survey fiat existing camp sites, local authority, ordinary, or even unauthorised, in the South-East are those with the lowest level of amenities. This is a very serious situation. Those families resident in the South-East, where they are most numerous, have only 7 per cent. of the main amenities; that is to say, main water, w.c.s, and electricity are only available to 7 per cent. of the gipsy families dwelling in the South-East. What to them is more important than electricity or w.c.s are hard standings on which to put their caravans, because mud is the first enemy al a gipsy site. Therefore, the sites to be set up under the Bill must first and foremost have these amenities; hard standings and water must be the first aids. The hon. Member has quoted a figure of £1,000 for this. I think his figure is about right. I have two of these sites in my constituency and one in the area where I live, and there it has been possible to achieve very adequate sites at a slightly lower figure than that.

In considering the setting up of the sites we come to Clause 8 of the Bill and inquiries and the right of people to have their views put. In my area there have been some vociferous complaints about the siting of these places and there was the suggestion some years ago that compensation should be paid to owners of immediately adjacent property. I realise that this is in fundamental breach of the established compensation rules, but the fact does remain that the people who own adjacent property, as well as those whose property is compulsorily acquired, do have lasting blight.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) very rightly referred to torn up hedges and escaping stock. So long as there are open fires, as opposed to Botto gas in caravans, it is very tempting for gipsies who have been in the habit of using wood fires to tear up dry fencing posts for burning. Therefore, some specific consideration should be given to adjacent owners.

The hon. Member for Hornchurch referred to threatening telephone calls he had had. I myself have had several abusive ones. I do not think I would call them threatening, but abusive ones—when trying to put forward the reasonable views of these people. So I hope some help can be given to adjacent owners as well. Again, where there is small development, small housing sites being developed by small builders—I have one specific case in mind—where there is not only planning blight but effective housing blight, the small builder, the small developer, the sort of man who gets landed with that sort of site adjacent to a camping site, is in great difficulty.

I have made the point that gipsies tend to marry very young. They also tend, perhaps, to have a somewhat matriarchal society. Father is undoubtedly the boss, but when a man gets married he tends to move in with his wifes' family. This has certain peculiar effects on their mobility. It means that pregnancy and the female way of life has a seasonal effect on their desire to move. The point I am seeking to make to the promoter of the Bill is, that if these sites are to be established, one in three of local authority areas in the country, there must be some degree of overlap, some surplus number of places available. I hope, therefore, that when local authorities consider the allocation of sites to gipsies they will have sufficient sites to enable young marrieds to move into what may be called the mother-in-law's area rather than seek to tie the young couple to a camp site in the man's area. This, I think, is a very valid point—

Mr. Speaker

Order. I do not want to be discourteous to the hon. Member, but I would remind him that there are a number of hon. Members who wish to take part in this debate.

Mr. Wells

I think this is a valid point and I hope that the hon. Member will try as far as he can to encourage local authorities to provide an adequate supply of sites.

Finally, I should like to say something about Mr. Charnley's excellent paper to which the hon. Member referred. I should like to draw the attention of the House to the considerable planning problem which my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger) touched on, namely, the need for gipsies to have places where the can follow their occupations of scrap metal dealing and breaking. I hope that in the consultations which the promoter of the Bill will have with the Ministry some definite proposals will come forward. There is nothing about this point in the Bill at the moment. I hope that in the consultations, before the Committee on the Bill, thought will be given to enabling local authorities to set up work centres as well as scrap metal places where the gipsies can break cars, and so on. They have, of course, tended to have them near their caravans because they are frightened of thieving, and so on. I hope that the real fears of the gipsy population about thieving will be considered.

In conclusion, I repeat my congratulations to the hon. Member, and I hope that these few points which I have put forward may be considered in Committee.

1.0 p.m.

Mr. Michael English (Nottingham, West)

I am afraid that my welcome of the Bill will be a little more critical than that of other speakers. I welcome Part I as far as it goes, but it will cause difficulties to one category of persons. Many hon. Members have paid lip-service to the idea that gipsies may cease to move and will settle down over a period and have their children educated, and that the next generation or so will thus become integrated into the "permanently sited" community. I will illustrate how difficult it is for gipsies to do this and how the Bill might make it even more difficult in some respects and would not help in others. I hope that the Bill gets a Second Reading, but I hope that the points that I am going to raise can be dealt with later.

One likes to test these matters against personal experience. A family of gipsies in my constituency wanted to settle down to educate their children. They found a site and moved in several years ago and sent their children to the local school. However, they did not apply for, and therefore did not get, permission to use the site. This is not uncommon and there is a good reason for it. Hon. Members will know that, under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act, if the owner is aware of the use of his land by dwellers of this type, he must get appropriate permission and will have to spend a good deal of money fitting the site up.

The owner in this case was never asked for permission and never granted it. if it was not initially, the owner subsequently became the Nottingham City Corporation, which recently evicted the gipsies. I should explain that these were English Romanies and not Irish tinkers of the sort that the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) mentioned as often causing a great deal of trouble in the neighbourhood. I would not say that these gipsies were the most popular citizens in my constituency, but they were not responsible for much trouble. They are relatively few in number.

This eviction was not the act of a cruel and harsh local authority which simply wanted to evict gipsies, but of a city council which wanted to use the only remaining undeveloped land in my constituency for housing. The gipsies were evicted in the normal course of that process. This is unfortunate, but understandable.

However, if this Bill had been law, they would have had no protection from such an eviction, since Part I protects a caravan dweller but ties that protection to a residential contract, which would include what the lawyers call a licence as well as a contract. This is understandable also, but the hon. Member might consider some provision for protecting people who have been occupying a site over a period without objection from the owner or occupier. I use the words "without objection" instead of "with the permission", because there is a subtle difference. This may be desirable and, if it were done, the sort of gipsy who wants to settle down and educate his children and who is already doing so—that is the important point—might receive some protection from eviction in this way.

Nevertheless, this kind of eviction is not done by a hard-hearted council, but for genuine reasons to use the land for development. In the case that I mentioned, this had been intended for some time. However, those gipsies then had nowhere to go and might have been forced to take their children away from school. This could have been solved if the local authority had found them a site and some committees of the council—I think the health committee, for example—made such a suggestion. However, for the usual reasons of finance the finance and general purposes committee of the council turned down the idea.

This was paltry, because, if a local authority is clearing residents from houses, although I think there is no legal obligation, most local authorities, with the Ministry's strong support, assume an obligation to rehouse them, which can cost a considerable amount for subsidised houses. 'For a very small sum, perhaps the £1,000 which the hon. Member for Orpington mentioned, these gipsies could have been rehoused to their desired standards, but this was not done. Now they have moved and they are in the same situation, because they are sitting on a piece of land without the owner's permission and still trying to send their children to the same school.

Everyone will welcome the provision of Part II of the Bill requiring the provision of sites by local authorities, but I have one reservation. The Nottingham Human Rights Committee, which raised this case with me, as did some constituents with keen social consciences, hoped that the Bill would solve this peculiar local problem, but I was horrified to see that it will not solve it at all. This may not be the hon. Member for Orpington's fault, but it entirely excludes county boroughs from its provisions, although it includes London boroughs and county councils. Such an all-embracing exclusion is ridiculous, because there is a huge variety of county boroughs, from Canterbury to Birmingham, and although it might be desirable to exclude some, others should be included.

This is, to some extent, a permissive power. It lays a duty on local authorities, but only if they have a problem. Surely county boroughs with a problem should have the same duty: if they had no problem, they would have no duty. This omission is wrong. I understand that it is based on the Ministry's desire to exclude county boroughs. If that is not the case, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will deny it, and, if it is, I hope that he will explain why.

Clauses 10, 11 and 12 are a disgrace. They relate to the control of unauthorised encampments. The reason for my criticism is the words in Clause 10(1): … it shall be an offence for any person being a gipsy to station a caravan … on any unoccupied land … With the greatest respect to the hon. Member, whom I do respect for his liberal views, this is not what my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Alan Lee Williams) called it "a liberal Measure" in that respect. This is discriminating against a class of person. I recognise that the definition of "gipsy" is so worded as to exclude discrimination by race or origin, but it is discriminatory against persons according to their habit of life.

The tradition of this type of legislation is bad. The hon. Member for Orpington is following the same tradition as the bad legislation which some cities, particularly London, had, for example, about habitual prostitution—in making a point not of the act committed but the nature of the person committing it. This sort of thing should be discouraged from the legal point of view.

Under the Bill, if somebody takes a caravan away for the week-end—a normal, middle-class resident of a city—and places it on some unoccupied land, that is not an offence because he is not a person of a nomadic habit of life. I appreciate why the hon. Member for Orpington wishes to exclude such persons from the Bill. Nevertheless, that person would be doing exactly the same as a gipsy who took his caravan to that piece of land. Not every person who takes a caravan away for the weekend is of the utmost cleanliness in using land. In the minority of cases, great damage is done. But according to this Measure, an offence will not be committed. However, if a group of gipsies wish to settle down, then if their settling down takes the form of staying in one place during school term time so that their children may be educated, but they then, in wishing to retain something of their former pattern of life—which is neither unlikely nor undesirable—move temporarily to another piece of land, while they may not be causing a nuisance or be scrap metal dealers littering the countryside—one recognises that the Irish tinker personality also exists—they will be committing an offence under the Bill merely because they have a nomadic habit of life.

The hon. Member for Orpington should import into the Bill the premise that the act and not the habit of life of the person committing it should constitute the offence. It should not be beyond the wit of man to devise a clause to cover the case mentioned by the hon. Gentleman—of persons causing damage, making a nuisance by littering the countryside, conducting a scrap metal business and so on—and to make it a criminal offence. A person should not be classed as a criminal because of what he is, remembering that he may be doing exactly the same thing as another person who is not classed as a criminal merely because that other person does not have a nomadic habit of life. This is the discriminatory and disgraceful part of the Bill. When we make something a crime it should be a crime because of the nature of the act and not because of the nature of the person committing it.

Mr. Lubbock

The hon. Gentleman has partly answered his own question. If one of his Nottingham constituents wants to go to Devon for a holiday with his caravan, if the Bill did not contain the words "being a gipsy", his constituent would be committing an offence if he stopped for the night in a lay-by. We in this country have not made sufficient provision by way of lay-bys and so on, and it would therefore be unreasonable to apply this provision to all people who own caravans.

Mr. English

I appreciate why the Bill is worded in this way, but it has the effect of making it virtually impossible for people who have a nomadic habit of life to cease to be that way. At the more unfortunate times in our history we have passed bad legislation which breaches the principal to which I am referring—namely, of making something criminal because of the person who does it and not because of the act—and I fear that the Bill is also breaching that principle.

These three Clauses should be scrapped and a new provision inserted which makes it clear that if an act is illegal, it is a crime because of the nature of the act and not because of the type of person committing it. I hope that this weakness in the Bill will be cleared up. I have endeavoured to show that I support the Bill, although, as at present drafted, it helps least some of the people who we say we want to help; namely, the people who want to settle down and, in due course, in this or the next generation, become useful citizens. I am sure that the hon. Member for Orpington is sincere in this matter and I hope, therefore, that in Committee he will endeavour to solve the problems I have raised.

1.17 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Jones (Northants, South)

I wish to address my remarks to Part I of the Bill, particularly since the debate has got a little out of balance in trying to protect a limited number of caravan dwellers.

I was interested in the figures given by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) which show that there are about 200,000 persons in permanent caravan homes. He mentioned that he had received about 100 letters from either owner-occupiers or tenants, 50 of which had been connected with the subject of eviction. I do not deny the hardship involved for some of those who may be evicted, but one must bring some balance into the measure of the problem.

Part I is directed to the protection of people who own their own caravans and reside in them on sites, possibly paying a rental for the site, and for those who are tenants of caravans, in which their rents include the site rent and a rent for the caravan and probably the furnishings as well. We must assess why people in these two positions need protection. Perhaps they need protection from themselves, an aspect to which I will return. Either the tenants or the site operators are at fault, and I cannot believe that all the blame lies with the site operators and owners.

Responsible persons of adequate financial status who understandably like the life that permanent residence in a caravan gives do not run into the problems which those who have other difficulties find themselves involved in when leading this type of life. People of substance who buy a good standard caravan usually have it well fitted out and furnished and place it on an attractive site, which is probably well maintained and nicely laid out. They meet their obligations by way of the responsibility they bring to the managing of the site—good neighbourliness and the desire to have a well-run site. In these places people do not have the privacy which a house provides and they are living more in the open.

There are, therefore, substantial obligations on people who follow this way of life. A substantial number of people find this a satisfying, enjoyable and attractive way of life because of the mobility it offers and its out-of-doors environment.

Many of the families which find themselves in the difficulties to which the Bill is addressed very often do so because of their own inability to assess all the problems flowing from occupying residential caravan dwellings. It is here that the great problem arises. I join with those who feel that caravans as residences are not an acceptable form of housing. That point is appreciated by local housing authorities.

Not enough emphasis has been put on that aspect by the present Government, and by previous Governments. They have allowed the attitude to residential caravan dwellers to grow up in a way suggesting that this is an acceptable form of residential use. To me, it is unsatisfactory and substandard in many respects. The difficulties facing people with children, for example, are almost insurmountable. The policy of good neighbourliness is far more necessary for caravan dwellers than it is for those living in houses. There are also substantial financial obligations that are not appreciated by people of limited means taking up this form of residence—

Mr. Lubbock

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that the modern mobile home, with all its amenities—running water, flush toilets, and so on—that we find on really good sites, such as, for instance, Pathfinder, in Devon, is in any way inferior to more conventional accommodation. If he is, I recommend him to visit one of the better sites and see what can be done.

Mr. Jones

I recognise that view. I say that people with adequate financial status and means can afford to invest their money in this way, and pay proper site rent, and that is an acceptable form of life. But for most of those for whom the Bill seeks to provide those circumstances do not rule. The people for whom protection is now sought are those who get into caravans because they cannot get into houses. It has been pointed out that no less than 44 per cent. of people living in residential caravans would prefer to live in houses.

It has been said that people between the ages of 16 and 35 represent the bulk of those living in caravans. Because of persuasion and the attractions presented to them, they pay high prices, in the form of capital charges and site rent, for inadequate caravan accommodation. They are persuaded to make a small deposit, and, as a result, find themselves facing a high level of repayment and high interest charges. In those circumstances, they find it difficult to manage their own affairs..

That is the type of family which the Bill will tend to encourage to go into caravans, and that is what I am so substantially against. These people are encouraged to go into caravans which are a rapidly wasting asset, whereas the house purchaser has a rising capital asset. Our effort should be directed to lessening caravan dwelling as a solution of the housing problem. Caravan dwellers should be encouraged to get out of their caravans and buy houses. Preferably, however, they should not be encouraged to go into caravans in the first place, and that is what the Bill may tend to do—

Sir L. Heald

My hon. Friend is perhaps not acquainted with the problem with which some of us have to deal where there just is not the housing available. People come to work in an area in which there is not the housing or the prospect of housing. My hon. Friend should take that fact into account.

Mr. Jones

I do take into account, and I shall deal with a specific constituency point a little later.

Local authorities have been criticised for not making provision for caravan sites. I understand their reluctance to do so, because housing authorities would not accept that caravan dwelling was a sensible complement or help to the housing problem generally. Encouragement is a disadvantage, and the Bill will provide still further encouragement for the extension of the use of caravans for residential purposes.

I have been in correspondence with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has sent me a recent letter on a constituency point. It concerns the area of the Towcester Rural District Council, which is, in essence, a rural part of the country. We have two sites in Towcester itself—which is a parish—one containing 40 standings and the other 35 standings. In Blisworth, a village some five miles away, we have a site with 70 standings on it. In March last, following an appeal, the Blisworth site was allowed to be extended by another 14 standings.

My right hon. and learned Friend says that people go into a district because they cannot find housing. I believe that they go there because residential caravan accommodation is available, and it is occupied by people who do not necessarily come to work in that district. Very often they are retired people. Many elderly people have been taken off the sites in the Towcester rural district area and provided with council accommodation in the form of old people's bungalows. It is a substantial disadvantage to a local authority to find encouragement given to the use of caravans for permanent residential facilities.

On the question of the policy of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, which finds itself unable to look at the housing consequences of a planning decision to allow an extension of residential caravan sites, I quote from a letter of 28th February sent to me by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, in which he states: Over the years decisions of the Courts have made it clear that the other material considerations must be matters which are properly the concern of planning e.g. the suitability of the site for the development proposed, the design and appearance of any buildings to be erected, and the effect of the development on local amenity, including its effect on traffic using nearby roads. A decision based on matters which were not germane to planning would be invalid. The effect of a planning decision on the local housing situation may not be germane to planning, but we have a negation when planning powers and the responsibility which the Ministry has for housing are in contradiction. I know that it would be difficult to make any provision in this respect, but the problem should be recognised and tackled.

The hon. Member for Orpington has not entirely explained how these two Parts of his Bill tie up—one dealing with residential accommodation and the other with provisions for so-called gipsies. I entirely agree that there ought to be some solution for problems relating to the latter. I think this is a transitory and inadequate Measure so far as it concerns Part I. It will protect the families I have referred to who find they are unable to manage their own affairs. To some extent they have been held to ransom by being persuaded that caravan accommodation is a proper and adequate form of living and then they find they are undertaking financial obligations far beyond their ability and unwisely keep putting their money into caravans which depreciate so rapidly. I would much rather that these people relied on the housing and welfare authorities to enable them to overcome the difficulties in which they find themselves.

Although I am sympathetic with the aims of the sponsor, I think the Bill is retrograde because it will tend to establish still further a wrong attitude to this problem. The hon. Member referred to 50 evictions. It is that type of family with whom we are dealing and this Bill will not be a solution in the long term to those problems.

1.32 p.m.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts (Bedfordshire, South)

I am sure the hon. Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) will forgive me if I do not immediately refer to what he said. I hope to come back to his remarks later in my speech.

I give full support to the two parts of this Bill. It is important to realise that the Bill has two distinct parts. The first caters for people who conform to normal methods of living and happen to live in caravans for the time being. In South Bedfordshire about 1,000 people come under that category. The overwhelming majority have come to the district to work in the car industry, which is booming. They have been unable to obtain traditional housing and are therefore forced to live in caravans. From a sample survey, we found that about 70 per cent. of them would like to move into houses if that were possible.

This Bill takes the first vital step in giving them some sort of protection, a protection associated with security of tenure. Many of us would wish that protection to be extended much further. We would like to see some rent control provision. We would like to see some protection given against some of the rackets—I use the word advisedly—which take place on some of these sites. I agree with what has been said to the effect that some site owners run their sites admirably. There is no question about that, but among site owners there are those who could teach Rachman a thing or two.

The situation in which electricity is charged for at two or three times the normal rate has been referred to. It is quite useless to expect people in this category to get involved in individual legislation against site owners. I suggest that my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary might consult the Ministry of Power and others to see if more protection could be obtained in this respect. Whatever may be the failings of the Bill in this direction, I welcome it as a first vital step in establishing some sort of protection for people who are conformist and in normal families living in this form of accommodation.

Also in South Bedfordshire we suffer—I mean suffer—from a very large influx of vagrants. They move in for the simple reason that this is a car manufacturing area where a large number of old cars are available for breaking down. I regret that this category of people are regarded as gipsies for they are not gipsies or Romany in any sense. As the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) said, there may be a small Romany element among them, but these are in no way troublesome. The great bulk of these people are mobile spivs, the sort of individuals who take to this form of life because it enables them to escape certain responsibilities and probably certain levels of taxation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Murray) spoke about intolerance towards some people of this kind, but residents in the Luton County Borough area have been very tolerant towards them. Enormous difficulties occur when householders see nearby country lanes converted into scrap yards. There have been suggestions about residents' wives and families being threatened by some of these people. This is not a gipsy or a Romany problem, but a problem associated with the mobile spiv who moves from one part of the country to another breaking up cars.

I hope that if, as is suggested, we have controlled sites they will be controlled in a real sense. I hope that will ensure that the sites are maintained on a satisfactory level with adequate health provisions. In Bedfordshire, perhaps belatedly, we have made some provision for this type of population. We have faced difficulties in providing the health arrangements. These sites should be provided, but there should be adequate controls to safeguard health and adequate supervision to ensure that the children go to school regularly. This is all important and it will be the ultimate solution to this problem.

If we provide these sites and prevent people parking ad lib, there will be a real hope that the situation will ultimately be controlled. When sites are provided, as they have been in Hertfordshire, there is often an influx from another area. This shows that if sites are provided people will come to them. The very successful experiments in Hampshire and other areas show that if the conditions are right people can be persuaded to settle down on controlled sites.

I welcome this Bill. I think it is a good Bill and a great step forward. It provides for the decent caravan resident, the ordinary chap who lives in a caravan because of his job. It affords him some measure of protection for the first time. The other half of the Bill protects mobile spivs from themselves. It enables better conditions for children and protects the community from some of the less desirable social habits of these people.

1.40 p.m.

Mr. Oscar Murton (Poole)

I listened with great interest to the speech made by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), who unfortunately has temporarily left the Chamber, and to the speeches made by other participants in the debate. At one stage I wondered whether we should ever reach the Bill, first because of a procedural difficulty arising from urgent Government legislation yesterday, and secondly because the Bill was an inordinately long time in being made available to hon. Members. We had little more than a week in which to consider it. I hope that this does not mean that at the last moment difficulties were found in preparing it which should it be accorded a Second Reading, will cause trouble in interpreting the Clauses.

Meantime, the hon. Gentleman did not waste his time, because a fairly massive publicity campaign was mounted by some of his friends during January and early February to obtain signatures to a petition. I may have misheard the hon. Gentleman, but I thought that he said that 200,000 people were living permanently in residential caravans and mobile homes. I was told on fairly good authority that the figure is 330,000.lb/> I am told that there has been an associated campaign by the Consumer Council and that 100 letters have been received from caravan residents complaining about the conditions in which they live. I understand that 50 per cent. of the complainants did not specify the nature of their complaint. Chapter II, page 7, of the study "Living in a Caravan" conducted by the Consumer Council states that of 450 letters received in answer to the Council's published invitation in September, 1965, to caravan dwellers to provide information about their own circumstances of residence only 75 per cent. expressed dissatisfaction with their experiences. This means that about 330 letters were received from a caravan population of 330.000, which is not an overwhelming burden of complaint.

Mr. Lubbock

The figure of 300,000 is a very rough figure given by the site operators' organisations on the basis of caravans sold. Since then, the 1966 sample census figures have become available and the figure is known to be nearer 200,000.

Mr. Murton

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for giving me that information. I queried the figure, but he was not at that moment in the Chamber. It would be better to say that there are between 200,000 and 300,000 permanent caravan residents.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not think that I was being unduly critical. I do not intend to indulge in carping criticism. I merely wanted to be certain that the matter was kept in fair perspective. We are discussing an extremely small minority of cases of hardship and injustice. There is some truth in the assertion that much of the support which bona fide caravan dwellers have given to the Bill arises more from an imagined fear of eviction and possibly of harassment, another serious point which I will discuss later, than from an actual experience of either.

Having said that, I want to make it clear that I have every sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's motives. If I differ from him, it is only in the way in which his aims should be realised. The last Conservative Administration produced the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act, 1960, which conferred effective powers on local authorities for controlling caravan sites. It was the intention, to quote Ministry Circular 42/60, that these powers should he used in a positive way. The Act was well-intentioned and well conceived, controlling, as it does, the size, layout and location of sites, but it has not always been enforced to the extent which it should have been by a number of local authorities. This is probably the main reason why the hon. Gentleman has introduced the Bill.

I believe that the cases of hardship amongst caravan dwellers which are our concern will be found to have occurred on sub-standard sites whose licences should have been revoked if the conditions attaching to those licences had not been fulfilled. The 1960 Act empowers councils to carry out work and charge site owners for it if the standards are unsatisfactory. Councils have the ultimate sanction of powers of compulsory purchase.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) said that site operators perform a form of public service. Properly constituted residential caravan parks rarely, if ever, give any cause for complaint by the residential owners who have pitches upon them. It is important to realise that in April, 1967, 96 per cent. of all caravan dwellers were owner-occupiers. This runs counter to the belief of the general public that they were tenants. Thirty-eight per cent. of the residents had bought their caravans outright. The other 58 per cent. were buying on hire purchase terms. The excellent book "Living in a Caravan" produced by the Consumer Council gives this and many other interesting statistics.

It must be admitted, however, that in recent years Government legislation has dried up the availability of privately rented accommodation in permanent structures. For this reason, undoubtedly many younger married couples use a caravan as an intermediate stage to obtaining a permanent home. It is hoped that this situation can be remedied by another Administration, if not by this one. There is to some extent a free market in caravans. We should be very wary before embarking upon legislation which would extend to the rigid protection of caravan sites.

Having said that, I wish to make clear that there is no disagreement among all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken today on the question of preventing harassment and unreasonable eviction. As regards the latter, I am told by the National Caravan Council that the National Federation of Site Operators and the Council have worked steadfastly to stamp out abuses and to give caravan residents some security of site tenure by means of a standard form of agreement. This standard form of agreement is published as an annex to "Living in a Caravan". If the Consumer Council's recommendation that that standard agreement should be included as a condition of a site licence had been followed, it might have gone far towards avoiding criticisms of the kind we have heard today.

In my view, that condition should have been made mandatory. I have discovered the somewhat remarkable fact, which makes it difficult for site owners, that there is a marked reluctance on the part of many caravan residents to enter into such an agreement, presumably on the ground that they did not wish to be tied down to a particular site for a certain length of time. That is another side of the argument. We have heard comments today mostly from the point of view of residents who, one might suppose, were permanently placed on one site.

The abuses about which we have heard would, I think, rapidly disappear if local authorities were more positive in their approach to the 1960 Act. There is a shortage of licensed caravan parks, and there has been a marked reluctance on the part of local authorities to sanction new ones. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) when he says that caravans are a substandard form of accommodation. Moreover, I regard as entirely wrong in principle the statement which we have heard in the House today that local authorities are right in not increasing the number of caravan parks. I acknowledge that there are planning difficulties—these were clearly set out in Circular 42/60—but, after all, the total caravan stock amounts to no more than ½ per cent. of Britain's total number of homes. In my view, local authorities would do well to look with more favour and less apprehension at the question of providing good caravan parks in greater numbers than now exist. Removal of the present undoubted shortage would do much to remove some of the abuses.

The argument that caravan parks can be unsightly is merely one of planning. I can think of many rather unlovely modern estates of permanent housing, too. I see no reason why caravan parks skilfully sited should not be a reasonably good amenity in the countryside.

The Consumer Council study tells us that there are a good many people, mostly over 55 years of age, who say that they would never live anywhere but in a caravan. They should in no way be discouraged if they wish to do so. The demand is there. The caravan industry is prepared to meet it. The only way in which it can be met is by the provision of further caravan parks.

We have heard today criticism of excessive pitch premiums and excessive rents. The construction of a well-found caravan park is, I am told, an extremely expensive undertaking. When I discuss the second part of the Bill later, I shall mention the calculated costs incurred by a local authority in providing a site meant for 24 gipsy caravans. At this point, I say only that the cost, excluding acquisition of land, amounts to nearly £16,000. I note with interest a cutting from the East Grinstead Courier reporting that the local authority at Lingfield has recently been given financial approval by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to go ahead with a £70,000 caravan site for 71 caravans in Common Road, Lingfield.

That report corroborates a point which I intended to make. A cost of about £1,000 per pitch would be quite normal for a private residential caravan park. I do not wish to take sides in the matter, but, when it is said—the point is made in the Consumer Council survey—that pitch premiums are sometimes excessive, it should be remembered that, when costs rising as high as £1,000 per pitch are involved, it is common commercial practice to offer an intending renter the choice of either paying a modest premium followed by a low rent or, if he would prefer it, a rather higher rent. I make no comment on that, but I think that the occasions when an excessive pitch premium has been charged must be very few. If the practice of charging a premium exists, it is done, obviously, to enable the site operator to recover some of his capital outlay at an early stage. He may well have to spend many thousands of pounds to bring a site up to a high standard, the sort of standard which we all wish to see.

Mr. Lubbock

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the National Caravan Council itself deprecates the charging of premiums and prefers that the operator should recover the costs to which he has referred by way of rent?

Mr. Murton

I accept that. I have had no discussion on that point. The only problem there is the level of rent. The full economic rent in the local authority case which I mentioned a few moments ago works out at about £4 10s. a week. That is a considerable figure, particularly in comparison with the figure of 30s. for an owner-occupied pitch which the Consumer Council study in 1965 gave as the average rent. I do not want to go into the rights and wrongs of it. If the National Caravan Council is against it, I am sure that its view is right. I merely mention the point and the reasons why the other practice had arisen.

A minor matter in the debate, perhaps, but one which has a major consequence in people's minds is harassment in the form of turning off the electricity. I have gone into this rather carefully because it seems a peculiarly brutal thing to do. In one or two of the cases which I have been able to track down, I found that it was done because an individual caravan occupier had failed to pay the electricity charges and the whole site was to be cut off by the statutory undertaker. In order to prevent that and protect the rest of the occupants, the site owner, having failed to obtain an assurance from the individual concerned, was forced to act on his own. There is that side to it. We must be careful not to take up a rigid attitude about this type of accommodation becoming permanent, instead of normal housing. At least one professional organisation, the Association of Municipal Corporations, to some extent agrees with this view, although I should not like to say that those who wish to live in caravans should be prevented from doing so.

The question of these matters being referred to the county court has been raised. With the threatened—perhaps "promised" would be a better word—legislation on divorce, and with the other overwhelming problems which the county courts face, I am not convinced that the expedited procedure works with the facility with which, in the past, we have had assurances from the Treasury Bench that it does. I am referring to the Rent Acts. I therefore appeal for the magistrates' courts not to be overlooked, because it may be possible for them to assist in this matter. They are familiar with the problems that arise—particularly following the 1960 Act—and it might be of great assistance if the magistrates' courts were brought into this.

Clause 1(2) and Clause 4(6) seem to clash somewhat and I am worried about the question of the exemption of local authorities. Without wishing to say whether or not local authority sites should be excluded from the Bill, those Clauses do not make the position clear.

Tribute has been paid to the late Mr. Norman Dodds. I wish to pay my tribute to a man who campaigned hard to resolve the problems of the gipsies and travellers. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington on the second part of the Bill, and his acceptance of the task of promoting legislation which enables positive directions to be given for the provision of properly organised sites for these itinerant people.

Few hon. Members representing constituencies south of a line from the Humber to South Wales are not familiar with this problem. The map provided in the Ministry's survey shows that, of the 15,000 travellers known to exist in England and Wales, no less than four of what one might call their encampments are in and around my constituency of Poole, which is a large number when one thinks that the boundaries of the borough encompass in total only about 16,000 acres.

This is a difficult problem and I appreciate that many other constituencies, notably those in the Midlands and the South-East, are faced with it. We all agree that the ultimate object must be to persuade these travellers to relinquish their nomadic way of life and settle down so that their children may be educated. It is to be hoped that, ultimately, they will settle down and lead a more orthodox manner of living. Experience has shown that unless they become static inhabitants, no district council has found it easy to persuade public opinion to accept these travellers in their areas. While the great majority of people favour the humane treatment of our gipsy folk, it is to be deplored that frequently these folk are driven from place to place. It is a difficult matter for them to be accepted as close neighbours and the Ministry's survey sets out only too well the difficulties which can arise.

Particularly is this so with what I call the modern form of traveller. Previously the occupations of these folk, of the original Romany, were concerned with making flowers out of wood shavings and so on. Today, however, big business has entered their lives. About 52 per cent. of the travellers in my part of the world are scrap metal dealers, but unfortunately they do not carry all the scrap metal with them. Often they leave behind the residue of the carcases of motor cars and other pieces of equipment from which they have removed the more valuable metals. I was interested to note that, in addition to 52 per cent. of them being concerned with scrap metal dealing and dealings of other sorts, agriculture accounts for about 30 per cent of their activities while 2 per cent. of them are known to be retired. These figures show that even this way of life must have certain benefits.

There has been a tendency on too many occasions by adjacent local authorities to move these unfortunate people on because their manner of living has become either unsightly or an embarrassment. In many cases their presence on grass verges has been regarded as a downright nuisance. Trouble has occurred when a local authority has set up a proper site to settle its own problem, but has found that the site has been flooded with new arrivals. This has somewhat naturally discouraged other local authorities from following the example of some of the more forward-looking authorities.

In my view, the Bill does well to place the responsibility on county councils to take the initiative in finding suitable sites. I say this with no disrespect to district councils and I am certain that, for smaller authorities, the situation will be made easier from the point of view of their responsibility in this matter, largely because county councils are more remote from local pressure. Nevertheless, I appreciate that there may be some difficulty where district councils will not approve of the sites which the county councils may consider appropriate for these permanent encampments. It is important, therefore, that there should be resort to the Minister for his adjudication.

I am somewhat troubled by the omission of county boroughs from the responsibilities which county councils will have. I hope that the Minister will explain why this omission has occurred. If one considers the density of the traveller population, one sees from the Ministry survey that, per thousand of the total population, some county boroughs, such as Merthyr Tydvil, Wolverhampton and Cardiff, have a considerably larger number of travellers than the counties. Looked at from the other side—the number of travellers per thousand acres—one naturally gets colossal figures for the county boroughs, with Wolverhampton having 21.4, Cardiff with 14.1, followed by Luton, Leicester, Walsall and so on. One can understand this because, if it is worked on the calculation of travellers per 1,000 acres, there is enough evidence to make one wonder whether it is wrong not to include the county boroughs as well.

I do not think that there will be any great problem in relation to the larger districts and the non-county boroughs. Poole already has land allocated and plans prepared for a fully equipped site for 24 caravans. But these provisions will not be cheap. The Poole site could well cost £47,000, including land acquisition—and it is for 24 caravans only. The estimated cost of running it, including loan charges, will be about £5,000 a year. The cost per caravan pitch would be £210 12s. a year, or £4 1s. a week. That brings us back to the original problem of rental of the site.

Obviously, one could not charge that figure to these itinerant people and if moderate rents of 25s. per week per caravan and 7s. 6d. per vehicle were charged, there would still be a deficit on each pitch of £2 8s. 6d., with a comparable deficit for the whole site for the year of about £3,116. There is also the difficulty that perhaps not the whole site would be fully occupied during the year because of the seasonal activities of many of the people who would occupy it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) drew attention to Clause 6, dealing with passing gypsies—those resorting to a particular place. This is a problem, but Poole has thought it out, as many other non-county boroughs and districts have no doubt done.

Poole expects to have to produce a staging area of minimum standards and facilities, in addition to the permanent camp, where it can count heads, take a census and see how many are moving through and do not intend to settle and also try to identify its own travellers from the travellers of other districts and of other counties. One aspect of the problem here, of course, is that, the more one tries to stabilise the position, the more unstable it becomes.

The other reason Poole is taking this action is because Canford Heath, where three encampments are situated, is Poole's one large area of countryside. and something must be done to preserve the amenities of the residential properties surrounding it. This is a problem which many local authorities have to face.

I want to end by dealing with Part III. The National Caravan Council is a little troubled about this because the hon. Member for Orpington has tried to do something about twin units—the two halves of a caravan of a more luxurious kind which can be taken in separate sections and bolted together on the site. These usually even have the distinction of a front porch, a verandah and french windows. I do not think that it is a difficult problem but I doubt whether this Bill is the right place to deal with it. Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary happy about this? Would it be better to cover this aspect by an Amendment to the 1960 Act?

Again I congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington on this Bill. I know that he has had help and perhaps support from the Ministry. On the financial provisions, he may be debarred from suggesting—because it is a Private Member's Bill—that the Ministry should look with favour, in the light of experience, on producing some form of minor Exchequer grant to help county councils and possibly county borough councils, if these were later included in the Bill, if it is found in practice that the costs of providing these sites escalate and become in the nature of a burden on the ratepayers.

2.16 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Arthur Skeffington)

It might be to the convenience of the House if I make a few comments now, although, as hon. Members will appreciate, my speech does not necessary conclude this interesting debate. On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, of my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary and of the rest of us at the Ministry, I congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), not only on his success in our Parliamentary lottery but on his prescience and determination in introducing the Bill, which will do so much good for two very deserving sections of the community who need both protection and help.

I thank him also for the determination he has shown on the subject over so long a period. I was glad to note that the Consumer Council's report mentioned his efforts and we want to be associated with the Consumer Council and others who have thanked him for the part he has played. As has been said in the debate, we at the Ministry have been very glad to co-operate with him as far as we have been able, and I am sure that, with the good will expressed by right hon. and hon. Members, the Bill should have a speedy passage to bring its relief to these two deserving groups of the community.

I also thank the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) for the very kind reference he made to my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), who is my colleague at the Ministry and who has also been associated with this problem for a very long time. I am sure that my hon. Friend is grateful for those comments. It is also fair to place on record the very great interest not only of my right hon. Friend the present Minister, who for many years has taken a close interest in the gipsies and their problems, but also of his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who has been very anxious for additional protection to be given to caravanners and gipsies.

There is no doubt that the Bill will afford substantial relief to the two groups covered—the caravanners and those commonly termed as gipsies. Perhaps I should reiterate the figures as far as they can be accurately estimated for both categories. The figure of 300,000 mentioned in connection with caravans is not accurate, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out. I think that it arose from the Consumer Council's report and was probably based on the sale of caravans.

Part I of the Bill deals with permanent residential occupiers of caravans and the Registrar-General's Office says that a reasonable estimate for England and Wales is about 173,000. It may be a little more than that, but the problem is no bigger than 200,000 and probably lies between 173,000 and 200,000. It is estimated that they are living in about 73,000 or 74,000 caravans. We are not sure about the number of sites, but there are probably about 1,700 privately-owned sites which have been licensed for residential use, and 100 owned by local authorities. These only refer to sites with six or more caravans; there are some other small sites.

The figures for gipsies have been established by the Ministry's Survey: there are about 15,000 in England and Wales in about 3,400 families. As the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), who has apologised for having to leave for an important engagement elsewhere said, it is to be regretted that, so far, only 18 local authorities have provided sites for gipsies. This is unfortunate and regrettable, but it is all the more reason for gratitude to those which, among other preoccupations, have made some provision.

The largest concentration is in the South-East, with about 1,400 families, and the West Midlands, with 583. At the time of the census, there were some gipsies practically everywhere, but the greatest numbers were in Kent, Worcestershire, Essex, Surrey, Staffordshire, Gloucestershire and Buckinghamshire.

The hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) referred to the interesting and useful survey of the Kent County Council. It is true that it was not included in the Ministry's Survey, but Circular 26/66 referred to this census, which showed that there were 313 caravans with about 1,300 persons. We are grateful to the County Council for carrying out this useful research in advance.

A large number of these gipsies literally have nowhere to rest their caravans. In the Foreword to the Survey, the Minister of Housing said: … the report reminds us of the remarkable fact that for most traveller families there is nowhere they can legally put their home; they are within the law only when moving along the road. This is an astonishing commentary on the state of the law and, perhaps, on the legislative attention which we have given the problem in the past.

I know that the hon. Member for Orpington tried to include caravanners in the 1964 Protection from Eviction Act and the 1965 Rent Act. They could not be included then, because the relationship between landlord and tenant is different from that between site owner and caravanner, but it was always realised that Measures to give protection for caravans must be introduced as soon as possible. We are glad that Clause 1 goes to the heart of the difficulty by applying provisions to the licences or contracts under which a caravan is stationed on a site as a residence.

Part I provides two worthwhile protections. It will protect the caravan dweller from arbitrary eviction, which must always be objectionable to the House, and from the harassment that sometimes goes with it or precedes it. It makes it a criminal offence to evict caravanners without a court order and for any person to interfere with their peace and comfort or to withdraw facilities—a famous way of achieving the evil intent of getting the caravanner to give up his occupation. Responsible site operators, of course, do not like this conduct and have their own codes, which are certainly a step in the right direction. But the Bill goes very much further. It gives protection against eviction, except with an order from the county court, not only during the operation of the caravanner's contract but also after it has ended. Even after his death it will protect the widow or other member of his family who was living with him. The court is expressly empowered to suspend eviction for up to 12 months at a time and to extend any period of suspension which it grants. If a site operator terminates a weekly or monthly contract of a site and demands a higher rent and charges, all the circumstances can be considered by the court before a possession order is granted. The court could consider all the circumstances of the case, and if it decided to make a suspended order, could fix reasonable terms for the caravanner.

This is a considerable new protection which will be welcomed by every permanent residential caravanner. Removing the fear of arbitrary eviction removes also the difficulties which have often prevented the caravan owner from making a reasonable ordinary protest about his conditions. I can draw a parallel here which, although it may not immediately be welcome to every member of the Opposition, is correct. In the Leasehold Reform Act, the very fact that we gave a lessee the right to buy his freehold, whether or not he exercised it, meant that the parties were placed on more equal terms. That is one thing which this Part of the Bill does.

The Bill will give immediate protection under these two very important heads, but it is still recognised by the Government that more permanent and comprehensive legislation is required. I am happy to give the assurance asked for by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford and other hon. Members, that it is the Government's intention to introduce that legislation at the first moment that we have the Parliamentary time to do so. I confirm that undertaking, so as to put it on the record, for my right hon. Friend who is now Leader of the House, who was listening when the hon. Member introduced his Bill.

Part II, which provides for gipsy camps to be provided by county councils and London boroughs gives more effective power to control unauthorised camping by gipsies in areas where camps have been opened, and is also an important general social provision which will be widely welcomed.

Hon. Members have referred to the remarkable work for gipsies over many years by the late Norman Dodds. I was very glad that, in the Forward to our publication, "Gipsies and other Travellers", we quoted a remark of his which reflected his philosophy about this problem: There are good and bad gypsies … Whether they are good or bad, they are all human beings. We are taking a notable step forward in this recognition today. With this legislation and the provision of permanent camps, the task of integration should become much easier, particularly for the children of gipsies.

I would here like to put on record one thing which I saw for myself from the practical work of Norman Dodds.

Not far from where I live, Norman Dodds, at his own expense, equipped a temporary camp. It was remarkable how the children were accepted into the village school. It made an enormous improvement, not only in their happiness and learning, but in their attitude to life. The way in which they were accepted, once they started to go regularly to school, showed the enormous benefits of having a permanent site. I am sorry that it could not continue, because, apparently, it was not an ideal site. In any case, once our late colleague was no longer there to foot the bill, the site had to close. This was a demonstration, not only of the good which can be done, but of the practical application of Norman Dodds. Not only did he speak in the House, which was right and proper, but he did what he could practically outside the House with considerable success.

We believe that with the establishment of a number of camps properly equipped for the itinerant traveller we shall begin to tackle the problem of annoyance and nuisance which arises from sites which may not be equipped in any way. My right hon. Friend the Minister is particularly anxious to work out a general code of conduct with gipsy organisations so that the sites can be organised in the best way for the inhabitants, but, at the same time, to prevent the squalor which exists sometimes because the sites have been on inappropriate places such as roadside verges and wasteland. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Murray) referred to a site which he and I know very well and which we see sometimes on our way to the House.

Mr. Lubbock

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that local authorities should equip camps to the 1960 Act model standards?

Mr. Skeffington

I agree. I was not excusing any authority which had not done what might have been done. But with properly established camps and a code of conduct, which I hope will be worked out with those representing the gipsies, we shall have the elements for a framework which will give them a much more assured future and remove a source of irritation for many householders which they undoubtedly suffer because of unauthorised camping.

Part II imposes a firm duty on local authorities in relation to finance and staff. Since we are exhorting them not to increase their numbers of staff and to make the best use of existing staff, it may be that we cannot immediately implement this part of the Bill. However, I give an assurance that as soon as conditions allow nothing will stand in the way of implementing this part of the Bill. But we must be logical in our approach to the local authorities.

I should like to reply to what the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Merton) said about the position of the county boroughs. They have power to set up sites under the 1960 Act, because they are the planning authorities. We cannot compel them to do so because some are in entirely urban areas where the land would not be available in any case.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) was critical of Clauses 10, 11 and 12. No doubt hon. Members who serve on the Com- mittee will want to consider whether his fears are justified. We take note of his remarks.

The hon. Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) gave a warning. He did not want the Bill to be an encouragement to people to live in caravans if they could get houses. I do not think that he has anything to fear. My experience is the same as his and that of the hon. Member for Orpington. Most people would rather be in a house, but many people have not been able to obtain a house because of the insufficiency of houses at the right price. That is a point which we must consider. We can have further discussions on the planning point he raised. I think that it would be out of order to deal with it now.

The Bill makes a notable step forward for two groups of people who, through no fault of their own, have suffered many trials and a good deal of harassment. We shall do all we can to speed it on its way to the Statute Book. With the good will which has been shown by every hon. Member today, we can hope for a happy and quick passage for this very desirable Measure.

2.35 p.m.

Mr. James Allason (Hemel Hempstead)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) on introducing this all-party Measure.

There are two standards of caravan and caravan dweller. There are the mobile homes which are excellent little flats. There are smaller caravans which are lovingly looked after and beautifully kept. It is ridiculous to pretend that these are sub-standard or a cheap form of housing. But against that there are many thoroughly unsatisfactory caravans. They are damp, have inadequate facilities and are most unsuitable for children. They are usually the ones in which children are to be found. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary is a little off beam in suggesting that people live in caravans only because they cannot find a house. It is a matter of location.

People have come to my constituency, cannot get houses and move into unsatisfactory caravans. They have come from areas of high unemployment to live in prosperous areas. Then this is a burden on the local authority. What is the local authority to do? It cannot keep open house for anyone to come to live in an unsatisfactory caravan. This is the difficulty and what my hon. Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) was attacking. I hope that he was not attacking the really good caravans. There is an attitude that there should be no caravans and that everybody should live in Parker Morris standard houses. But we know that this is not possible, so let us have a high standard for caravans and caravan sites.

There are not enough caravan sites which come within Part I of the Bill. This is the trouble. Because there are not enough sites, effective restrictions are imposed on tenants by site operators. Some site operators have acted pretty harshly. There is, therefore, clearly a case for being able to go to court for protection against harsh site operators.

Equally, it is of great importance from the local authority's point of view that Clause 4(6) should prevent a court from making an order which conflicts with the site licence or with planning permission. If that were not so, there would be a tendency to overrule the local planning authority. We shall see now that, if a site is not being operated properly, there will be a sanction against the operator in that his site may be forced to be vacated, even at the expense of unhappiness for those on it. If only there were more sites provided, this would not be such a severe disadvantage.

I turn now to Part II of the Bill, and I must protest at once at the common use of the word "gipsy". I prefer to use that word only to describe the Romany. I have a constituency interest here in that, about 60 years ago, when the King of the Gipsies died in my constituency, he was ceremonially cremated in his caravan, and gipsies came from all over the country for the funeral. I do not know whether the custom still operates among present-day gipsies, but they are the true Romanies, and I have great respect for them.

Sir Douglas Glover (Ormskirk)

I am listening to what my hon. Friend says with great interest. Under the Bill, would my hon. Friend's local authority have to provide a satisfactory site for all gipsies who came to the sort of funeral about which he was telling us?

Mr. Allason

They would only be passing through. However, that is really a Committee point.

There are three separate types of traveller to be considered. There are the true Romanies. There are the itinerant caravanners of United Kingdom origin, who have various reasons for taking to the life. In some cases, they enjoy it. In other cases, it is because their type of work makes them want to go to the Kent hopfields at certain times of the year. The third type has been referred to as Irish tinkers. They seem mostly to be of Irish origin, and they tend to cause the most nuisance. Most of them go in for scrap dealing, and they seem to be flooding into the country at a tremendous rate.

They have very little by way of expenses once they have equipped themselves with their mobile caravans. They pay no Income Tax, Selective Employment Tax, or rent. There is a considerable amount of money to be made in scrap metal dealing and car-breaking. As we know, they leave a filthy mess behind them. I share a border with the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Gwilym Roberts), and there is a wonderful game of Tom Tiddler's ground, with travellers moving over the border between Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, leaving behind a disgusting mess on each occasion.

The hon. Member for Orpington envisaged this trade continuing. I should have hoped that, by the 1970s, we should have ceased to break up cars in this disgusting way. There are machines on the market which destroy cars and sort the metal, handing it out ready for reprocessing. Our present arrangements are extremely unsatisfactory, and travellers would be much more acceptable if they did not engage in their horrible methods of scrap dealing.

The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South paid tribute to Hertfordshire, and I am grateful to him, because it is one of the few counties to take the lead. Even so, it has not achieved for travellers all that it would wish. A special camp for Romanies was set up on the private initiative of Barbara Cartland, the novelist, and they can come and go freely. In addition, Hertfordshire has tried to tackle the problem by setting up a series of camps for those who are Hertfordshire born, the idea being that those born in other counties might be requested to move back to those counties which should have the responsibility of housing them. However, this does not tackle the growing problem of the Irish tinker. We shall still have the horrible mess on our commons and road verges, and clearly it is necessary to make provision for these people. That has started, but it is uphill work.

It is essential to have social workers looking after and trying to persuade them to accept the normal decencies of British life and allow their children to be educated. However, once we persuade them to allow their children to be educated, we are faced with the desirability of keeping them permanently settled, and that creates difficulties.

Local residents are the people who are really to be pitied. They have to put up with a great deal if they find a site for itinerants on their doorsteps. However, as such a site is operated for a longer time and the people are subjected to a civilising influence, one hopes that conditions for local residents will improve. I agree with the hon. Member for Orpington that scrap metal working must be separated from such a site. preferably at a considerable distance.

I believe that the sites should be small. A village in my constituency has accepted a site for two caravans, and it is to be congratulated. In that way, there is some hope of assimilating travellers into the community. A site for eight caravans creates difficulty, but an even larger site must create appalling problems because it is never possible to get the standards of all those living on it reasonably high, remembering that a lot of them will not settle and will tend to move on.

When there are sufficient sites available, at least there should be no more roadside filth. On the other hand, there is the danger that it will encourage more itinerants to come here. I have described the attractions in operating as an Irish tinker, and I see the danger of even more flooding into the country. Equally, if there are ample sites it becomes easy to move from one area to another, to the detriment of the education of their children and to the detriment of the civilising influences.

The Bill provides a reasonable balance between the needs of the travellers and the protection of the public, which is even more important.

2.50 p.m.

Mr. James Davidson (Aberdeenshire, West)

I do not intend to delay the House long, but I have one specific point to make. I certainly do not rise to oppose this excellent Bill, but I wish to oppose very strongly what is stated in the very last line of it, This Act does not extend to Scotland or Northern Ireland. My hon. Friends and I have protested about this in various ways by informal approaches to Ministers at the Scottish Office. I have also written to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, to put the case for including Scotland. I know that I have the full support of my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) in this effort to get Scotland included, and I hope Ministers will bear this point in mind.

I cannot quite make out the reasons for the opposition to including Scotland. I believe that most of the opposition comes from the local authorities, not from the Scottish Office itself. There is no real basis for it. It appears to me to be just simply a kind of inertia, a reluctance to take on new responsibilities, a desire to be left undisturbed.

Hon. Members may wonder if there is a real need in Scotland for this Bill. I would say emphatically, yes. The 1966 sample census was, to my mind, wildly inaccurate about Scotland. The figures given to me by my own local authority, Aberdeenshire County Council, show that there are no fewer than 350 families living in caravans in Aberdeenshire alone. Figures from Inverness show that there is a very large number living in caravans in that county, too. These figures do not tally with the figures given in a letter from Lord Hughes.

Lord Hughes wrote: I would not of course wish to challenge the figures of families living in caravans in Aberdeenshire which the County Council has given you of which 186 were in the Aberdeen County Council area. The 1961 Census however showed 3,276 caravans being used as permanent dwellings in Scotland on a 10 per cent. sample, and its conclusions, when they relate to small numbers, as with caravans, must be treated with some caution. For what it is worth, however, the total Scottish figure for 1966 shows a drop to 3,030. According to my figures, based on accurate figures given to me by Aberdeenshire County Council, the number of caravan dwellers in Aberdeenshire alone has more than doubled since 1966 and there would therefore seem to be double the families living in caravans in Scotland at this moment, compared with the 1966 census.

Lord Hughes went on to say: Our views on the desirability of extending Mr. Lubbock's Bill to Scotland are not based primarily on the relatively smaller proportion of residential caravan dwellers in Scotland although that is one factor which we took Into account. Our main reason is that we have no evidence of abuses in this matter in Scotland. Furthermore the County Councils' Association, whose members would be bound to know if any significant problem existed in their areas, have advised us that they do not consider that there is a problem in Scotland of sufficient magnitude to justify legislation. Needless to say, however, we are very ready to look at any evidence which can be produced. Even if there were an established need for legislation there is still the difficulty, which will be well known to you, of trying to deal in one Measure with the very difficult law of landlord and tenant on the two sides of the Border. As I expect you know, Mr. Lubbock's Bill is likely to be a temporary measure only. If and when it can be shown that we have a problem in Scotland of sufficient magnitude to justify legislation we can consider dealing with it in a separate Scottish Bill. I disagree very strongly with the view which has apparently been expressed by the County Councils' Association. I do not believe it has looked at the matter very thoroughly, and I shall do my best to see, before any permanent legislation is introduced, that the Scottish counties do look into the matter.

I have seen in my own constituency a very rapid expansion of the number of caravan dwellers over the last year or two. I could take anybody to a caravan site where there are several caravan dwellers who have been in their caravans for anything up to seven or eight years. One family I know have two children of school age working for their O-levels and who have to come back from school and do their homework in this very small caravan on the edge of Dyce Airport, with not only the difficulties of lack of space but of aircraft noises.

I do not agree with the view that has been expressed by certain hon. Members that caravans are not substandard accommodation, though I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington that a caravan can be very acceptable. Indeed, there are some families who prefer to live in them, but I do not think this is the case where the family have children, particularly if the children are of school age and not of the same sex. This raises very great difficulties and there are many people I know living in caravans who are waiting for houses and want to move into them as soon as they can.

The Protection from Eviction Act, 1964, applies to Scotland. Considerable anomalies may be raised in the position of caravan dwellers. They will be protected in England but they will not have protection in Scotland. My hon. Friends and I believe that permanent legislation could be introduced apposite to Scottish conditions.

I repeat that I believe that the reluctance to include Scotland in the Bill is really due to inertia and lack of interest among Scottish local authorities, when we have clear evidence of Scottish conditions which will show the Scottish Office that Scotland should be included.

I intend to touch only very briefly on Part II of the Bill. We have tinkers in Scotland. They are called tinkers there. No disparagement is meant, although there is an old expression in Aberdeenshire "a bit tink" if one does not behave very well, but it is meant more as a joke than as a term of deprecation. They are an important element of the rural population though not a very large one, and they play a significant part in the potato harvest. In certain parts of Scotland they suffer from the same sort of problems and they are subject to harassment and are criticised for leaving mess behind them when they move on after their car-breaking activities. Nevertheless, they are in every respect human beings with the same rights to consideration which other members of the population have and can get.

I would like to refer in passing to the fact that a number of hon. Members seem to have drawn a rather illiberal distinction between those they call Irish tinkers on the one hand and English Romanies on the other. It seems to me to show some element of racialism in their attitude. One hon. Member mentioned said that Romanies or gipsies were of Indian origin and came into this country about 500 years ago. If this is the case there is an interesting position arising in Scotland because I understand most of the tinkers are said to have borne the name of Smith or McPhee and the McPhees are a family of pipers, and we all know that in the Indian Army they play the bagpipes. I wonder if it is possible that McPhee is an Anglicisation of a Gaelic name meaning son of the illegal immigrant.

To conclude, I fully appreciate that this Bill is of a temporary nature, but I must refer once again to the shortsighted attitude of the County Councils Association on this matter, and I give notice that I shall try to bring in an Amendment to the Bill to get Scotland included. In the absence of any Minister from the Scottish Office—and they were clearly told that we would be raising this matter in this debate—I ask the Minister who is present to mention the points I have raised to his Scottish colleagues in the Scottish Office, and to ensure that in any future comprehensive legislation including the provisions of this Bill Scotland will be included.

3.0 p.m.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger (Ilford, North)

The House will have been grateful to the Minister for being present during the debate and for the care he showed in answering the points that had been raised. However, I hope it will not be taken amiss if I say that the House always appreciates the consideration and courtesy of Ministers when they refrain from answering debates on Private Members' Bills until all those hon. Members who have substantial points to raise have raised them. It is not a derogation of the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Macdonald), who will be winding up for the sponsors of the Bill, when I say that while I shall address my remarks to him, I would rather they could have been answered by the Minister. I trust that the Minister will assist me and my borough council by considering these matters because, being closely concerned with this problem, we need a reply from him.

The House should give the Bill a Second Reading, although I have sub- stantial doubts on some important details of it. I am concerned only with Part II, which deals with gipsy encampments. I wish to raise questions of practical application, with special reference to my constituency of Ilford, North, in the London Borough of Redbridge, which contains some thousands of people closely affected and who would probably fall into the category referred to by one hon. Member as "suburban and tidy-minded". I hope that that remark was not meant in any way as a criticism of my constituents.

These constituents of mine, who are respectable ratepaying citizens, have suffered dire and continuous nuisance for many months because of a gipsy encampment in their midst. I am primarily concerned with their rights and it is our duty to protect them. They are entitled to this protection. This does not mean that I or they are oblivious to the grievances of the travellers or of their rights as human beings and fellow countrymen. They must be fairly considered, but they have no right to exist as parasites at the expense of ratepayers and taxpayers, and I hope that the effect of the Bill will not be that they will be so encouraged.

The trouble in Ilford arises from a gipsy encampment on the grass verge of a Ministry of Transport trunk road. The Minister of Transport refused to allow her agents, the borough council, to turn these gipsies off, as it had done in the past, because the Minister of Housing and Local Government claimed that this was a social problem and that they would have nowhere else to go. Therefore, it was claimed that the Minister should not use her rights and powers to move this nuisance from the doorsteps of my constituents. Now there is deadlock because the Minister of Transport has suggested—the suggestion was made at a meeting which I arranged—a solution. It is that the borough council should be allowed to exercise its rights, as the Minister's agents, to turn them off, on condition that it—this one borough council—should supply a permanent site locally.

The borough council is public-spirited and amenable and I think that it may be inclined to comply with this arm-twisting, as it seems to me, solution. I have no standing in the matter on this decision, although I must say that it struck me personally as peculiarly invidious and unfair, most unfair because other local authorities in the area should be asked to take their share in contributing to the capital cost and in coming up with as much land as they could make available. After all, it is only by chance that these gipsies happen to be a few hundred yards to the east or west, and so in my constituency. It would be unfair if my borough were to be compelled to provide a site, which would instantly act as a magnet and draw a lot more travellers into this area. It is particularly unfair because I think that the land which the Minister has his eye on and hopes the council will choose was bought at great expense from the Corporation of London to provide a much-needed public park for the amenity of the inhabitants. It would be ironical if this place, which was to be a place of pleasure and public resort, should be turned into what will seem to the inhabitants and neighbours a source of permanent public nuisance. It is unfair also that the decision should be wished upon a council without the inhabitants of the wards affected being able to make their objections known before it is a fait accompli.

If Part II can be amended to meet my anxieties, I welcome it; but only if these substantial anxieties can be met. A great deal needs to be done and I hope that the hon. Member for Chislehurst will say how far my borough can hope that the Bill will be made more acceptable to it. Will the exempted London boroughs bear no share in all this? How will exemptions be decided? What are to be the criteria and by what procedure will they be applied? Will a conference be possible of London boroughs in appropriate groupings so that their resources can be fairly assessed and the contribution which each is to make agreed?

Will we be able, when considering the responsibilities of London boroughs, exempted and unexempted, to oblige contiguous county councils to "chip in"? In my case, it would be the Essex County Council. The affected area includes a number of London boroughs and a substantial part of the County, which latter might be able to make a much more appropriate contribution if only the assessment and agreement were made at a conference called by the Minister at which the equity of the matter could be thrashed out.

Will the exempted boroughs be obliged to take a share in the capital cost of the sites? If this is a social problem, which must be solved nationally and dealt with by Act of Parliament, it is unfair that any more than its fair share should be taken by any one group of ratepayers, those in any one borough. I hope that Clause 6(3) can be amended to overcome these substantial objections, which I am sure will be felt by the ratepayers in my borough.

Next, can it be written into the Bill that no cost will be put on the ratepayers or the taxpayers? Can it not be made mandatory that rents for sites shall be economical, so that they shall service the entire debt arising out of the capital cost? Can it, also, be made clear that boroughs shall be obliged to charge to cover the cost of compulsory clearing of the land of the debris which these gipsies will leave after carrying on their business as car breakers?

May it be clearly established that these sites will not be on green belt land? Many constituents of mine resent the extremely narrow interpretation of green belt provisions when they want to carry out minor building operations, and if they see such land, which they cannot build on or use, turned over to these people of this occupation, there will be even greater public resentment.

May it be clearly established also that the green belt is not to be breached for industrial use? As the hon. Member made clear, if these gipsies are to be settled, it will have to be in the place where they live, which may well reserved in the development plan for residential use. Therefore, other land will have to be provided for them of which they can have industrial use to carry on their trade. Let this land not be in a green belt area.

Further, may it be possible to have the use-classes order under the Town and Country Planning Acts amended so that car breaking is a scheduled occupation; in other words, that specific planning permission will be needed for car breaking? If not, we shall find in industrial areas, where light industry is carried on which is of no great nuisance to residents in the neighbourhood, that this highly obnoxious trade is carried on in the manner peculiar to the gipsy people which causes great resentment among local residents.

May we have the sites, when they are made available to gipsies, subject to proper open inquiry so that private objectors as well as local authority objectors may object? What will happen otherwise is that sites will be designated, and there will be an outcry and uproar from local residents who will hold their local councillors responsible for what has happened. That would be quite unfair to the local councillors. There should be a public inquiry beforehand so that the odium can be put where it rightly belongs, and the planning authority be made to answer objections. Without some such provision, a quite unfair load would be put on the elected representatives on local councils.

I am very unhappy about the use in Clause 6 of the words "adequate accommodation". Is the accommodation to be adequate in quality or adequate in quantity? They are very distinct requirements. Who will determine the standards of quality? Who will determine what is an adequate quantity of accommodation in any given borough? The magnet effect will be operating, and it will be very difficult for anyone to determine in advance how large a site should be provided.

Also in Clause 6 are the words … residing in or resorting to … They seem very unspecific, and pregnant with uncertainty and mischief when the Measure comes to be applied. In that connection, it would be helpful to have some comment, preferably from the Minister, on the timing of the putting into operation of the Measure. Otherwise, we shall get a very dangerous distinction arising from the fact that borough A may provide what may seem to be adequate accommodation which will act as a magnet to the borough, and borough B will, perhaps, not have to provide any accommodation at all. Is it not possible for all sites to be designated and made available to the gipsies on a specific date written into the Bill? Unless something like that is done, this legislation will lead to an enormous amount of muddle and confusion when it is first put into operation.

Mr. Lubbock

Once borough A has provided the sites it will have the power to control unauthorised use of land, and will no longer act as a magnet because the gipsies will soon get to know that it has power to move them on. So they will go back to borough B simply because it has not provided the sites, and that will be an incentive to borough B to get on with the job.

Mr. Iremonger

I have had a certain amount of contact with the gipsies in my constituency, and I would say that, with the best will in the world, their grasp of social and juridical concepts is not great—it is, perhaps, tenuous—and whether they could undertake the interpretation of a highly sophisticated Act of Parliament I very much doubt. However, I put the point to the hon. Member with all good will. He might see whether he can do something during the Bill's passage to avoid this happening, as I think it will, though he may be right in saying that it will not. I think this Bill can help to solve the problem, but a great deal of bitterness will result unless the anxieties I have mentioned are fully examined and the interests of local residents are considered in the light of them.

3.15 p.m.

Mr. A. H. Macdonald (Chislehurst)

I wish first to make one or two brief remarks about my feelings on the Bill and, secondly, to reply to some of the points raised, particularly the detailed points raised by the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger) and the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells), although to some extent those might be more satisfactorily dealt with in Committee.

When I think of Part II of the Bill I am reminded that the survey "Gipsies and Other Travellers", published not long ago by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, noted in its statistical survey of the problem that Kent was the county which suffers most. The Report also said that the kind of area which suffers most is the outer suburbs of large towns. The Report did not put those two points together, but I do so. I have little doubt that the area which suffers most particularly from this problem is the south-eastern suburbs of outer London. It will be observed, and it is no coincidence, that three of the six sponsors of the Bill—50 per cent.—represent south-east London suburbs. I intend no disrespect to the other three sponsors, indeed I am delighted that they are joining in this, but my constituency is among the areas which suffer particularly from this problem.

I join with other hon. Members in offering congratulations to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) on his decision to introduce a Bill dealing with this subject. I count it an honour, for the reasons I have mentioned, among others, to join with him in sponsoring the Bill. This Bill, I believe, will be especially welcomed in the London Borough of Bromley, of which my constituency forms a part as does the constituency of the hon. Member for Orpington. Bromley is one of the relatively few authorities which has been progressive in this matter and which has taken positive and active steps to set up a site for travellers, a site which is in operation now.

It has taken those steps and done its share and the result has been that it is regarded as a "soft touch" by travellers generally. As hon. Members have remarked, the existence of a site acts as a magnet and more and more travellers come into the borough and the territory surrounding it. So the last state of affairs is worst than the first. The residents find an influx of travellers to their area. Naturally, and very understandably, they ring up the town hall wanting to know what has been done. They cannot understand why apparently no action has been taken.

I am sure that by requiring other authorities to do what my authority has done, the Bill will be of particular assistance to Bromley and those few authorities which have done their fair share. I have dwelt on this point because in the borough there has been a certain amount of criticism of the council and its gipsy committee for not doing something about the influx of travellers. I can well understand the reasons for the criticism, but I have always felt that it was misdirected and that, within the powers available to the council, the council and its gipsy committee has done all that could be done and has acted properly in setting up the site. This is a case where virtue has been ill-rewarded. The Bill will put this anomaly right and in my constituency and in my borough will be particularly welcomed.

I shall now seek to reply to a number of the points which have been raised. I hope that I shall strike a just balance between giving an adequate answer to the points and not going too deeply into matters of detail which should properly be dealt with in Committee. The first speakers gave a general welcome to the Bill. I was especially interested to hear the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) and for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Gwilym Roberts), because they approached the Bill from quite different aspects. My hon. Friends the Members for Erith and Crayford and for Gravesend (Mr. Murray) approached the issue from the standpoint of the gipsies. One would expect this from the successor of the late and beloved Norman Dodds. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South approached the issue from the standpoint of the residents. I admit that this tends to be my standpoint and, I think that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Alan Lee Williams).

It is interesting to learn that, with these different standpoints, we can all come together and support the Bill. Two of us are sponsors of the Bill. This suggests that the Bill strikes a just and fair middle course between the complaints of the travellers that they are being harassed and the complaints of the ordinary residents that a nuisance is appearing on their doorstep and that nothing is being done about it.

I was glad to hear the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) say that caravan dwellers are not, and should not be regarded as, in any sense, second-class citizens. Conflicting reasons have been given for their residing in caravans, but, whatever the reasons, there cannot be any ground for treating them as citizens whose rights are in some respect less than those of the rest of the community. There are difficulties in making the law correspond exactly, but it is right that we should remember that these are citizens entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

The hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) made a lengthy speech which I was pleased to hear, because I felt that it was the speech which I would have made if I had been in his position and not been a sponsor of the Bill. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman has been forced to think deeply about this issue, as indeed I have. Some of his points can be discussed in Committee; but one or two should be dealt with now.

On the question of the number of sites to be provided, it is important to recognise that provision must be made which will allow for the fact that many of these people are transients. We must expect that this transient way of life will continue; and, therefore, the total number of pitches in aggregate must exceed the total number of gipsy families. I need not elaborate on that. The reason is obvious. I hope that that assurance will go some way to satisfy the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Gentleman pointed out, also, that these people move about for employment, going into farming areas during the summer and then coming back. I think I am right in saying that residence in a caravan on a farm site for the purpose of work on a farm is exempted from the provisions of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act, 1960, so I do not think that there would necessarily be any difficulty on that point.

The hon. Gentleman raised another point which I did not like at first, though I understood his reasons for it later, namely, the suggestion that horse-drawn caravans should be registered. I understand why he makes that proposal, and perhaps we should consider it in detail in Committee, but I offer to the House at this stage the thought that, if the Bill is to be successful, there must be a harmonious relationship between the residents on gipsy sites and the residents in the surrounding area. This will not be easy to achieve. Therefore, we must, if we can, devise a Bill which will be reasonably acceptable to both parties. I fear that a proposal to introduce the concept of registration in respect of some travellers, even if a relatively small number, might well not be acceptable. Indeed, I go so far as to say that it is unlikely to be acceptable to those people, even though I now understand the hon. Gentleman's reasons for putting the suggestion forward.

Therefore, although we might do well to consider it in more detail, we should always bear in mind that we should be unwise to adopt a proposal which, though it had administrative merit, would detract from the acceptance which the travelling community might otherwise give to the Bill.

Mr. John Wells

I am quite happy to forgo my idea of registration. It was merely an alternative to excluding horse-drawn caravans from the provisions of the Bill altogether, which I should regard as the greater evil.

Mr. Macdonald

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. Both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend spoke of the thorough desirability of establishing gipsy sites in association with the education authority, so that the children could be properly educated. Many hon. Members have spoken of the lack of education received by gipsy children. There is a school in my constituency which at present receives an appreciable number of gipsy children from an unauthorised site. There are some caravans parked along the verge of the A20 in my constituency, and, while they are there—which is not always very long—the children from them attend, for some of the time at least, at the school.

I visited the school and spoke to the headmistress. I was interested and encouraged to find that her reaction was one of rather gladly accepting the challenge. She recognised the problem, but she considered that education authorities should meet it and be glad to make particular efforts to deal with these children. It was a most encouraging response.

The hon. Member for Ilford, North raised a number of points, some of which were matters for the Minister and not for me. I think it right that the London Boroughs should be the authorities to provide sites. If this is so, then it is also reasonable that London boroughs such as Westminster, where there is neither any room to provide sites nor any need for them, should have a procedure open to them by which they may claim exemption. It may be true that the Inner London boroughs would rush to claim exemption, but to apply for exemption is not the same as getting it. If exemption is granted to some or many of the Inner London boroughs, this question arises: what financial arrangements should be made?

There is in existence the London Boroughs Association, a body not entirely without influence. I have little doubt that this problem would be discussed by that body if it were thought that some of the boroughs were evading their responsibilities in this way. I have reason to think that the deliberations of the Association carry a certain amount of weight with its constituent bodies. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman has a point that something stronger than merely discussion in the Association should be considered, and this matter can be gone into further in Committee.

The hon. Member for Ilford, North and others talked about county boroughs. There are reasons for their exclusion. Hon. Members will see from the Bill that the Minister has a duty to supervise the extent to which sites are provided. If inadequate or insufficient sites are being provided, the Minister has a duty to take certain steps. If we had a multiplicity of authorities providing sites, this duty on the Minister to exercise a measure of control might be more difficult.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) I think recognises that not every county borough has this problem and that it would be unreasonable to write into the Bill a provision that every county borough shall have a duty to provide sites. I understood him to say that certain specified county boroughs should be named in the Measure, but a great deal of controversy might arise if that were done.

Mr. English

When my hon. Friend reads my speech he will see that I did not say that. I suggested that it would be wrong to totally exclude them all, and I went on to say that they should all be put in, with the Minister given power to leave out those which satisfy him that the problem does not exist in their areas.

Mr. Macdonald

There are weighty arguments against the inclusion of county boroughs, but in view of the evident opinion, expressed in all quarters of the House, that county boroughs should be included—I say this having spoken to the promoters of the Bill—I am sure that the matter will be given careful consideration in Committee.

Mr. Iremonger

I was not talking about county boroughs. I was referring to county councils next door to London boroughs which might not be brought into any conference in discussing which authorities should take their share in the provision of sites. That is another matter, which we can go into in Committee, and I do not ask the hon. Gentleman to deal with it now.

Mr. Macdonald

I had intended to come to the question of cost, but in regard to the larger issue which the hon. Gentleman raised. This is a difficult question and it is better to come out straightforwardly at this stage, because the House should not be misled.

I cannot envisage a situation in which the provision of the sites required under the Bill will be able to be done without charge upon the ratepayers. There is bound to be a charge, in my view, and it is well to make that clear. On the other hand, we should bear in mind that local authorities are already spending money in exercising a measure of control over the travellers and that it is surely preferable to spend money in a positive way to try and find a solution to this problem rather than in a negative manner in trying merely to shift these people on and unload the problem on someone else.

The question of cost is already being faced, therefore, and the provisions of the Bill will not impose costs as though none whatever were being incurred already. We might as well bear in mind, in addition, that expenditure under this heading will rank for grant and will, therefore, not fall entirely upon local ratepayers. In addition, those who occupy the pitches will have to pay rent. It will be for the local authority to determine what this shall be and it will do so from knowledge of local conditions and of what these people may reasonable be expected to pay. Some money will come in from that source.

I fully agree that work sites should be separate from home sites and in areas where there is planning permission for industrial use. I suppose that local authorities will naturally charge the commercial rent and will, therefore, get money in in this way as well. In an adjacent borough to my constituency—not in Bromley—I am advised that there is a site in an industrial area in the ownership of the local authority which is unused and derelict because it is awkwardly shaped and cannot be used for a factory. No money is coming in for that site, and there is nothing to stop the local authority from designating it as a site where carbreaking and similar activities of the gipsies could be carried on. In that way, there would be a source of income for the ratepayers where there is none now.

There will obviously be a certain burden on the ratepayers under these provisions but I do not think that it will be as heavy as all that. Nor do I think that it will be significantly in advance of what is being spent now in a negative way to suppress or stash away this problem. It will be for the local authority to determine where these sites are to be found, but I would be very surprised if a local authority established such a site in the Green Belt. But that is a matter for the local authorities and we should permit them to make their own decisions in this matter.

Other points raised by the hon. Gentleman were really Committee points, but there is the question of adequacy. Adequacy in relation to quality is to some extent dealt with in the 1960 Act, and this Bill is linked closely with the Act, resting almost entirely upon it. Quantity will to some extent be for the Minister to decide, because, under Clause 9, he will have the duty to conduct a general survey to see what sites are being provided. He will, therefore, be in a position to take an overall view and determine whether or not adequate sites are there.

A significant point was raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson). He asked why Scotland was not included. I could not, and would not wish to, prevent Amendments in Committee, but there are three reasons for this. First, the Scottish law is significantly different from that of England and Wales, so different provisions would be required. Second, the Bill is introduced by the hon. Member for Orpington. I, as a Member for an English constituency—although I have Scottish ancestry—cannot speak about the prevailing political opinion in Scot- land, but, in a world of shadows, one thing is luminously clear: if an English Member introduced a Bill to alter the law of Scotland, there would be a great deal of comment.

Third, the Bill is based on the known facts in the survey "Gipsies and Other Travellers", so that we know where we are going, and that survey did not extend to Scotland. I do not dispute the existence of this problem in Scotland, but it has not been surveyed and quantified in the same way. I sympathise with the point, but we should be certain about these problems before legislating, and we do not know much about the problem in Scotland.

Mr. English

My hon. Friend has not referred to my remarks about Clauses 10, 11 and 12. Would he assure us that the provision will be removed which makes a whole class of people prospective criminals merely because they are that class?

Mr. Macdonald

I am sorry that I did not reply to that weighty and serious criticism. I would resist this suggestion because, although Parliament should not dictate a man's way of life, it is proper to require that he shall pay his dues to the community. Up to now, the nomadic way of life has not been altogether satisfactory in this respect. If we provide sites for these people with security and without harassment, but where rent may be paid, we should offer some definition of those concerned.

It is the way of life which may be criticised. It is wrong for people to travel around like what one hon. Member described as "mobile spivs" without paying rates, rents or taxes. We are trying to deal with the problem. We are not talking of specific acts so much, although these are offensive, but of a way of life which is incompatible with that chosen by the rest of us, unless we can introduce the just provisions of the Bill. For that reason, although I understand my hon. Friend's arguments, which were good and sensible, I am inclined to think that the Bill should remain as it is and that we should rest content with the definition of "gipsy", which is based on what the Lord Chief Justice said.

In addition to giving thanks the hon. Member for Orpington, may I give thanks to my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for something which he said. Part I is simply a holding exercise. It deals with the problem of people on caravan sites in much the same way as the Protection from Eviction Act did. With respect to the hon. Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones), this is necessary. I do not think that we shall deal with this problem by retaining the right of site operators to evict people at their whim or by having shorter site licences, which would make properly conducted sites an uneconomic exercise. We are right to deal with the matter in this way.

There is, however, a host of questions about rents and premiums and the vexed question of the rating of caravans. These are matters which need to be considered. Caravanning has grown up unexpectedly; it has caught us by surprise. We need to give further thought to this matter. Therefore, I was delighted and pleased to hear the undertaking given by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that there would be further legislation on this subject.

I hope that the House will give a Second Reading to this excellent Measure. There will be ample opportunity to discuss detailed points in Committee.

3.46 p.m.

Sir Douglas Glover (Ormskirk)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) on being lucky in the Ballot and on presenting the Bill. I do not speak as an expert in this matter, but I think that he will have to be careful in Committee. We often set out in legislation to remove one wrong and if we are not careful we produce another wrong which creates just as much difficulty as the wrong which we have tried to put right.

Clause 3 deals with the protection of occupiers against eviction and harassment. I support the hon. Member for Orpington in his intention, but he will have to be careful about protecting the right of a site owner if he has a bad tenant. Somebody may wish to introduce an Amendment in Committee on this matter. It is not much use protecting occupiers against eviction and harassment and therefore giving them security of tenure if they become bad tenants and make the site into an eyesore and create trouble and make themselves unpopular with the other caravan dwellers. The hon. Gentleman must try to introduce a proviso in Committee which will provide a long stop for the site owner so that he will have protection in keeping his site in a decent condition.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear that point in mind. There is a tendency for people to be so seized of a problem that they are not aware that they may be creating other problems in trying to put it right.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).