HC Deb 03 March 1976 vol 906 cc1447-58

10.12 p.m.

Dr. Colin Phipps (Dudley, West)

I had hoped that the numerous hon. Members in evening dress had hurried back from their dinner parties to listen to the subject of this Adjournment debate, but the rapidity with which they are deserting the Chamber suggests that they were here for a more underhand purpose. [Inter ruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)

Order. Will hon. Members leave the Chamber quietly?

Dr. Phipps

Tonight's Adjournment debate concerns itinerants in the West Midlands. It might be useful if I were to begin by defining what is generally understood in the West Midlands by the term "itinerants". In West Midlands parlance, "itinerant" means a family living in a caravan moving from place to place in a nomadic way. It is not synonymous with the more familiar terms "gipsy" and "tinker". Indeed I understand that the number of genuine gipsies left in the United Kingdom is very small and that most of them are so busily occupied in casting horoscopes for ladies' magazines that they do not have the opportunity to move about in the way they did in the past. I take the genuine tinkers to be itinerant families engaged in the practice of mending pots and pans and so on. These are also now extremely rare.

The modern itinerants are essentially a post-Second World War phenomenon and have arisen largely through the housing shortage. These are ordinary families who have taken to living in caravans, moving around the country, normally within one specified area, along one specified route with which they are familiar, and following in general the practice of totting or of scrap merchants. They gather bits and pieces of metal from different areas and sell them, so that the bits and pieces become part of the scrap metal going into our metalliferous industry. The itinerants probably provide a rather important and useful service in this respect.

The problem with itinerants, as it relates to the West Midlands—and also, I believe, to many other of the larger conurbations, where most of the scrap metal is obtained—is that they have no permanent place in which to park their caravans. As they move around on their essentially nomadic circuit they stop at any convenient place, and within the urban areas this can provide very serious problems for the people living near them.

The principal problems that arise are very well understood by hon. Members. If a family in a caravan, or possibly even a group of caravans, stops at an unauthorised site, usually waste land in the middle of an urban area, that land is not supplied with the normal basic facilities of sewerage, waste disposal, electricity, gas and so on. The itinerants are, after all, families who are no different from other families, and they produce the same type of waste and the same type of refuse as any normal family. The difference is that they have nowhere to put it. Quite naturally, therefore, the site on which they settle becomes extremely unsightly and in many cases odious to the people who live near it. From this arises the very general anathema with which itinerants are regarded by the population.

That is not surprising. It is to be expected. Most people would not welcome a family living in a caravan moving on to land next door to them, with no type of sewerage or waste disposal facilities and living a nomadic life which is essentially different from their own.

I am particularly concerned with the solution to the problem as it affects the West Midlands, in which my constituency lies, but I do not for one moment believe that it is a specifically West Midlands problem. The same problem exists in all our major conurbations, and I hope that what I have to say will have some relevance to the rest of our major conurbations.

Within the West Midlands, at the last count it was found that there were about 350 itinerant families moving around the whole of the districts in the West Midlands, on a fairly well regulated course. The fact that they move around means that any particular area may be visited within one year by all 350 itinerant families. Indeed, any area may be visited by them twice or three times. This may, and does, give the impression that there are many more itinerants than is actually the case. When a family has an itinerant family living next to it for a week or a fortnight, it sticks in the memory, even though it was only for a week or a fortnight out of 52 weeks in the year that the itinerant family was there. Therefore, the impression grows that the numbers are very much larger than is the case.

The solution to this problem cannot be accomplished overnight. As most people of good will appreciate, it involves the settlement of itinerant families and their children going to normal schools so that they become part of the community and pay their rent, rates and taxes. One hears continual complaints that these are families which do not accept the normal costs within the society in which they live and that, for instance, they do not pay road tax on their cars, income tax and so on. In many cases this is probably true, and it causes great resentment not only among my constituents but to people throughout the country.

Until the itinerants are settled, the possibility of their behaving in the way in which most members of society expect them to behave is remote, because there is no sanction which we can employ against them. It is more expensive to put the head of a family in prison and to support his wife and children than it is to let him continue to live in the way in which he is currently living.

This is a problem of which my constituency, with the Dudley District Council, has had considerable experience, and I am pleased to say that people in the locality take a very humane and constructive approach to its solution.

According to the last count, there are supposed to be 350 families of itinerants within the West Midlands County Council area. At present there are permanent berths on nine sites for 115 of these families. That means that 235 itinerant families in the West Midlands are still without any form of permanent berths.

Following previous legislation, a district council providing a permanent site with 15 berths was able to become a designated area under the Act, which enabled that district to move on any itinerants who came into the area above the number of the 15 families already using the berths. Wolverhampton is a case in point. It is a district which has that designation—

Mr. J. W. Rooker (Birmingham, Perry Barr)

And Birmingham.

Dr. Phipps

As my hon. Friend points out, there are others. This means that Wolverhampton, for example, is able to move on its itinerants to Dudley, to Walsall, to West Bromwich or to where-ever there is an area which it not designated. Dudley has a permanent site which is in my own constituency, at Oak Lane in Kingswinford, with 15 berths. However, as a result of the difficulty which arose from districts moving itinerants on, Dudley is not designated because designation has stopped. Dudley is therefore unable to move on its itinerants.

I am glad to say that Dudley does not take the view that moving them on is the only sensible solution. A district can move them on and on without any kind of solution ever being found for the problem. The position of the Dudley District Council, which I support, is that the solution to the problem lies in all the districts in the West Midlands County Council area taking their share of the burden. Each district should provide sufficient permanent sites for all the 350 current itinerant families. On average, this would mean each of the West Midlands districts providing three sites with from 10 to 15 berths. That is not an exceptional number, and there is no doubt that it would greatly ease, if not solve, the problem.

We have found general acceptance for our own site at Oak Lane. There is always an initial outcry about the situation of a site. People do not like a site of this kind near them. However, if they visited the permanent sites which have been established in Dudley, Wolverhampton and other areas they would find that there is general acceptance of those sites. In my constituency there was considerable uproar prior to the development of the site. Since it was first occupied, not one complaint has reached me. I have not had a verbal or written complaint about the site since it was occupied.

The problem of providing permanent sites—I believe that they must be permanent and not temporary, which would not be a solution—is the cost. To provide 15 berths at Oak Lane cost Dudley District Council £110,000. I have the balance sheet here. It cost that amount of money because it was done to a standard which allowed a complete facility of every kind to be available to the itinerants. Clearly, in present-day conditions, it would be extremely difficult for most of the district councils to find that sort of money to provide sites and berths for itinerants. My council suggests that we begin—and I have had correspondence with the Department, which supports the idea—to develop permanent sites, carefully located, which would not be to the very highest standards but which would be developed over a period until the standards were as good as those already provided by the current permanent sites.

In Scotland, 75 per cent, of the cost of the provision of sites is provided by the Government, whereas in England and Wales that amount of money is not provided. Quite properly, my council wants to know why grants of this size cannot be offered also to English and Welsh councils. Even if they are not offered, however, one of the things I would like to press strongly is that we in the West Midlands and other areas are currently engaged in what is called a job-creation programme. In my constituency the programme is being used usefully to clear derelict sites—and the Black Country is famous for its large number of derelict sites. That is a valuable way of using the money, but it could usefully be provided also for the provision of sites for itinerants. To what more creative use could one put the money than by pro- viding sites for itinerants and work at the same time?

My Council asks that the Government should take statutory powers if necessary. If the Government are unable to do so, it suggests that they use all the powers they have to impress on the West Midlands County Council area that every single district council must bear its share of providing sites. It would be useless for Dudley district to provide two more permanent sites if the whole of the rest of the area provided none. Dudley district would then merely become the magnet for itinerants, and that is what no one wants.

If the problem is to be solved, it must be solved on a West Midlands-wide basis, also taking into account the county administrations around the West Midlands. I would like see the Government asking the West Midlands to ensure that each district provides its number of sites.

There are certain districts—Solihull is one—which refuse to provide sites. I shall not go into the reasons for their reluctance, but this dog-in-the-manger attitude will result in no sites being provided. We need pressure to be put on all the districts to provide sites, each district taking its share and the Government playing their part. If we do so, I believe that we can begin to solve what is an increasingly difficult problem which, if we do not solve it now, will become a flood of itinerants moving around the West Midlands and other conurbations within the next five years.

10.30 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Gordon Oakes)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Phipps) for raising the very difficult problems of the settling of itinerants in the West Midlands area.

I think it is very indicative that this is the second time tonight that the problems of itinerants in metropolitan areas have been raised. I listened with great interest to the remarks made earlier on Clause 12 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Bill. Moreover, this is the second time in just a few weeks that I have answered an Adjournment debate on this subject. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I make some general remarks on the current statutory position on gipsies, and current action being instituted by the Government, before I turn to the specific problems of the West Midlands which my hon. Friend so vividly outlined.

When I replied to the hon. Members for Streatham (Mr. Shelton) and Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) in January, I said that the problems of gipsies in urban areas applied both to London and to other metropolitan areas. We heard then, and have heard tonight, what some of these problems are. My hon. Friend engaged in some semantics but when I refer to gipsies I mean, in the words of the statute, persons of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin.

What we must accept is that such people are with us now; they are likely to remain with us; and, indeed, their numbers may even increase. More and more they are coming to urban areas, where they can carry on the livelihoods, particularly scrap metal dealing, with which they are now associated. In the jargon of planners they are becoming "urbanised", although I for one would dispute that term.

Like most people in this country, I would understand "urbanised" as meaning that one has an urban or a settled way of life, with a home, a job, and children at school—all the normal appurtenances of normal city life. In that sense of the term I do not think we can talk of gipsies as "urbanised". I prefer to say that gipsies are increasingly coming to live in, and move around in, urban areas where they have not traditionally pursued their nomadic way of life. What we are looking at tonight are the problems to which that gives rise and which have been described by my hon. Friend.

I would like briefly to describe the statutory framework within which we operate, the Caravan Sites Act 1968. My Department has been aware for some time that the 1968 Act is not working as intended. This Act, which came into operation on 1st April 1970, imposed a duty on local authorities to provide caravan sites in their areas. But not nearly enough sites are being provided. This means that unauthorised encampments continue to proliferate on as large a scale as ever. In the face of local hostility, many authorities find it easier to follow the time-honoured method of moving gipsies on preferably into the area of another authority, rather than try to solve the problem.

However, being moved on from one authority to another does not make the gipsies disappear—quite the reverse. Their numbers have increased substantially over the last few years. The movement of gipsies from one unauthorised encampment to another without their being offered any alternative stopping place which has even basic sanitary or refuse clearance facilities simply ensures that the maximum amount of offence is caused to the maximum number of local residents.

Today, nearly six years after the Act came into effect, about two-thirds of a gipsy population of perhaps 6,000 families cannot be accommodated on official sites. Wherever these gipsies park their caravans, they will be breaking the law.

Over the years the problem of gipsies has changed. The picture-book image of gipsies living a rural Romany existence in brightly coloured caravans is now totally out of date. Like everyone else, gipsies have become more urbanised and industrialised, and they have been moving to the heavily industrialised areas like the West Midlands.

Perhaps the scale on which the pattern of settlement was changing may not have been fully appreciated in 1968. Although it is only a few years since the 1968 Act came into operation, we must now look at how it is working. I do not think it is altogether working well. When a local authority tries to comply with the Act, it may well find itself in a difficult position because those around it have failed to fulfil their duties under the Act. Its willingness to cater for gipsies may cause it considerable problems with its electorate, perhaps exacerbated as itinerants are attracted to the site, because it is the only one in the area, and demands are made on it beyond those it was intended to meet.

I think that the general picture is unsatisfactory, for all concerned—for gipsies, as their traditional pattern of travel alters and they move into areas which can make provision for them only with great difficulty, and where their way of life is more markedly out of tune with their surroundings. It is unsatisfactory for local authorities and for their electorates. Both are concerned at the demands made by these people, at their impact on the accustomed urban environment and by the financial and administrative demands which making provision for gipsies entails. There is prejudice and distrust on both sides.

I would urge nomadic people that, just as in ordinary common courtesy one has to be much more careful in someone else's home than in one's own, so they and those who advise them should remember that the best and most suitable way in which gipsy families can help themselves and secure acceptance in the community is by demonstrating good behaviour in areas not accustomed to them.

Given this unsatisfactory situation under the 1968 Act, early in 1974 my Department carried out an internal review of the Act, as a consequence of which a departmental advisory officer was appointed. We have now decided that a further, more searching, review is needed, and, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Planning and Local Government announced last week, he has asked Mr. John Cripps, Chairman of the Countryside Commission for England and Wales, to carry out a study of the effectiveness of the arrangements to secure adequate accommodation for gipsies in England and Wales.

Mr. Cripps has been given the following terms of reference: To consider the effectiveness of the arrangements to secure adequate accommodation for gipsies in England and Wales, with special reference to:

  1. (a) the financial and administrative arrangements for the implementation of the Act; and
  2. (b) the provision for the exemption of local authorities and the designation of their area; and to report."
I am sure my hon. Friend will join me in welcoming that review, in thanking Mr. Cripps for taking it on, and in looking forward to his report.

I have dealt somewhat at length with the broad picture. I now turn to the specific problems of the West Midlands described by my hon. Friend. The Department's view at present is that the question of site provision in such areas should be looked at on a regional or sub-regional rather than a county or district level. The very nature of the gipsies' nomadic way of life—my hon. Friend used the word "itinerants"—obviously means that they cannot clearly be identified as belonging to one county or another, let alone one district or another. There is need for a strategy of site provision based on areas which have more regard to the pattern of gipsy encampments and the movement habits of gipsies than to local authority boundaries.

The Department has therefore initiated a series of meetings with county and district councils on a regional basis with a view to evolving such strategies. A meeting with West Midlands authorities took place on 30th July last year. Since then there have been two meetings with Yorkshire and Humberside authorities, and further meetings are planned in the North-West and Northern Regions.

The need to think in terms of a regional strategy is especially clear in the West Midlands. Not only has the region as a whole a large gipsy population, but the largest concentration is in the metropolitan county, whose duty of site provision under the 1968 Act is limited to the accommodation of 15 caravans in each district. There is a good reason for this limitation, in so far as it acknowledges the great pressures on land in urban areas.

Therefore, while it may be possible for the West Midlands County Council to do more than the bare statutory minimum, it would probably be unreasonable to expect it to accommodate all the gipsies at present frequenting its area. If the surrounding counties are reluctant to accept that they have a part to play here, they should bear in mind that the large concentration of gipsies in the metropolitan county may be due not merely to the means of livelihood which the conurbation offers but to the lack of official sites in the surrounding counties.

Following the July meeting a West Midlands regional working party was set up, with the task of reporting on a regional strategy of site provision. The working party has already met three times. It consists of representatives from the five county council departments, including the advisory officer and with representatives of the metropolitan districts attending as required.

The working party has, I understand, addressed itself so far mainly to establishing the facts of the situation—the number of gipsies involved, on which statistics are woefully inadequate, and the number and type of sites needed. I would not wish to seek to influence its conclusions, which must be based on its knowledge of the local situation. I think, however, because it is often the subject of misunderstanding, that it might be useful if I were to take this opportunity to make clear my Department's attitude in the matter of site standards.

The Department has never laid down any mandatory requirements regarding the standard of facilities to be provided on gipsy caravan sites—or, for that matter, on any other type of caravan site. Model standards were certainly prescribed in 1960, to which local authorities are required to have regard, but these were never intended to be applied rigidly and in any case they apply only to permanent residential and regular holiday sites. Standards for other types of site, including gipsy sites, have always been a matter for the discretion of local authorities.

In fact, it has recently become apparent that in many cases something well short of the 1960 model standards may best meet the needs of the gipsies themselves. A report on a two-year research project by the Centre for Environmental Studies suggests that types of gipsy sites should range from the present almost standard 10-to-20 pitch local authority sites to small plots and even temporary stopping places with, at the most, minimal facilities such as sanitation, water supply and refuse collection.

The need for a flexible approach by authorities to the matter of site standards was one of the main points stressed by the Department at the West Midlands regional meeting in July, and has subsequently been elaborated by my Department's representatives on the working party.

Not only may the needs of the gipsies themselves be best met, at least for the short term, by the provision of a lower standard of facilities than has been customary in the past, but current restraints on local authority spending clearly dictate a similar course, as my hon. Friend suggested.

I would not for one moment seek to minimise the seriousness of the situation in the West Midlands which my hon. Friend has described. I have tried to show that the Department feels real concern about the situation in such areas and that it has positive ideas for dealing with it. Indeed, we have chosen the West Midlands as the first region in which to seek to put these ideas into practice, and I have been reasonably encouraged so far by the response to the Department's initiatives.

It is true that there are black spots—authorities both inside and outside the conurbation which exacerbate the situation by continually evicting gipsies when there is no better place for them to go. On the other hand, there is evidence that some authorities are taking con structive—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, prsant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at eighteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.