Caravan Sites (Amendment) Bill

HC Deb 05 February 1993 vol 218 cc587-651

Order for Second Reading read.

9.35 am

Sir Cranley Onslow (Woking)

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

I am glad to have the opportunity to invite the House to consider the Bill to amend the Caravan Sites Act 1968, and I am grateful to colleagues for coming to participate in the debate because I know that the subject is of wide interest.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells), whose Privatisation of Gipsy Sites Bill many hon. Members will recognise re-embodied in the Bill that I seek to bring before the House. I am especially grateful to him and to the Minister for all their help during the preparation of my Bill.

When I was fortunate enough to draw a place in the ballot for private Members' Bill, I did not find it difficult to choose the subject. The law relating to gipsy sites and the experiences of many people throughout the country need to be debated. The Conservative party recognised that at the last general election, when it included a commitment in its manifesto to reform the 1968 Act. That commitment was the result of discussion before the election.

Last autumn, the Government published a consultation paper on the subject, which I am sure we shall discuss in detail and which I shall take the House through, if I may.

I recognise that there may be difficulties in getting the Bill on to the statute book. When I chose the subject, I was conscious that, if I were to be successful, I should need the active endorsement of the Government and not merely of the House, because of the difficulties in getting private Members' Bills through, especially when the Standing Committees are already heavily loaded. Whether my Bill reaches the statute book or not, I hope that the House will value the chance to talk about the issues and to hear from the Government how matters are proceeding.

I remember that, in the early 1960s, when I was a local councillor on Dartford rural district council, we faced problems in Kent which were not so different from the problems experienced in my constituency and other parts of the country today. It is a long-standing problem. We must recognise that the social changes that have taken place during the post-war years have made the problem more intense.

This country has a long-established nomadic gipsy community, which has undergone great changes during the post-war years. The traditional and genuine gipsy, whom many of us remember from our childhood, is much rarer nowadays. One does not often find ladies in straw hats and long black skirts offering to sell one clothes pegs or bunches of violets that they have just picked from one's hedgerow. The pattern has changed. There are not so many opportunistic gentlemen offering to do a job and saying, "I've got half a load of tarmac, squire, and would be glad to do up your drive." Even that traditional gipsy activity seems to have diminished.

There are some genuine gipsies—I am glad to say that there are some in my constituency. But there are many other aspects of gipsy life that have brought the description of gipsy into greater conflict with the rest of society, which I regret. When we consider the matter today or on any other occasion, it should be our objective to harmonise and smooth the existence of gipsies in society, not to provoke confrontation. I certainly do not seek to do that today.

As change has taken place, many members of the gipsy community and many groups or clans of gipsies have become much more affluent and able to provide for themselves. I believe that many are much more anxious to do so. I hope that, in considering change, we can shed any idea of a dependency culture for the gipsies that may still permeate some people's approach to the subject. We must recognise that everyone has rights in the matter. There are undoubtedly rights that gipsies should enjoy, but communities and local residents also have rights, which it is our function to protect when they are threatened or infringed.

I shall interpolate one aim that my Bill does not have, and for lack of which it may be criticised. I do not set out to provide an answer to the problem of new age travellers, which has attracted so much attention and which causes so much concern in many parts of the country. My hon. Friends may suggest that my Bill should have covered that subject, and there may be an opportunity for them to make their views known on that important issue.

However, I did not believe at the outset that it would be possible in the compass of a private Member's Bill to bring before the House the sort of measures needed to deal with the serious problem presented by new age travellers.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tony Baldry)

indicated assent.

Sir Cranley Onslow

I see that my hon. Friend the Minister is indicating assent—he may recognise that it is a proper subject for the Home Office rather than for his Department. However, I hope that both Departments will get the message that there is a need for amending legislation, even if I am not seeking to bring that legislation before the House today.

Mr John Marshall (Hendon, South)

An urgent need.

Sir Cranley Onslow

Yes—as my hon. Friend says, there is an urgent need. Those of us who spend time in the west country or Wales know what a tremendous menace to rural life some aspects of the new age travellers can present.

I shall set out the background to the problem and take the House through parts of the Government's consultation paper, with which hon. Members are probably familiar, but which needs to be placed on record today. The need to reform the Caravan Sites Act 1968 was recognised in the Conservative manifesto, which contained an undertaking to review that Act, with the aim of reducing the nuisance of illegal encampments.

In 1965, before the then Eric Lubbock introduced his Bill to the House, it was estimated that there were 3,400 gipsy families—about 4,750 caravans in England and Wales. Even then, they presented problems that needed to be dealt with, and the result was the 1968 Act. The Act places on local authorities a duty to accommodate all those whom the Act defines as persons of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin", who were residing in or resorting to the local authority area.

Once a local authority was deemed to have provided sufficient pitches, it could apply to become designated by the Secretary of State. The effect of designation was to make it a criminal offence for a gipsy to station a caravan within the designated area, and to enable the caravan to be removed. In that way, it was intended that there would be sufficient pitches for travellers across the country and that each local authority area would accept its fair share of travellers.

When he introduced the Bill, Eric Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, said that he expected it to

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."—[Official Report, 1 March 1968; Vol. 759, c. 1930–31.] The House knows that, in the years since the 1968 Act, those hopes have not been fulfilled; the problem has become worse, not better. In 1965, there were 3,400 gipsy caravans; in January 1992, the Government's latest count when they published their consultation document, local authorities counted almost 13,500 such caravans, and there were an estimated 9,900 gipsy families in England and Wales. Of those, more than 4,500 were on unauthorised sites—only 1 per cent. fewer than in 1981.

Only 38 per cent. of English local authorities have achieved designation under the Act in the 24 years that have elapsed, despite the fact that, since 1978, the Government have made available a 100 per cent. grant to meet the capital costs of gipsy sites and, so far, the cost to the Exchequer has been £56 million. That is an expensive and ineffective way of dealing with a problem that we cannot ignore.

I am sure that there is no disputing the need for reforming legislation—I hope that there will be agreement on both sides of the House on that. The site provision is not keeping pace with the growth in the number of caravans. In their consultation paper, the Government state that there is no reason why the need should automatically be met by public provision. That is one part of the consultation paper which my Bill brings before the House.

The Bill aims to open the way so that the provision of gipsy sites is no longer a local authority responsibility, but those who want to establish such sites—whether gipsies or operators seeking to provide sites for gipsies—are able to use the established planning process to obtain consent for what they want to do, like any other citizen. Equally, local residents and others who are affected by the planning application have and can enjoy the full rights of objection and the full opportunities of appeal and public inquiry which the process gives.

The Bill is not an attempt to deny gipsies their sites or to deprive them of the opportunity to establish themselves in permanent or semi-permanent encampments, but simply a recognition of the need to redress the balance by altering the answer to the problem.

If people doubt whether gipsies or others are willing or able to respond to a new set of circumstances, I can tell them that there are private gipsy sites up and down the country which are operated perfectly successfully. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford will be able to say something about the willingness in the gipsy community to recognise that they can and should make provision for themselves. It would not be taking dignity away from them; it might be giving them more dignity, if we gave them the opportunity to do just that.

Mr. Ian Taylor (Esher)

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and neighbour. These are problems that we know about only too well in Surrey. Will he consider the difficulty in one part of my constituency, Elmbridge borough, where there is a private gipsy site? There are no planning problems, by and large, and no other local problems. The trouble is that the pitches on the private gipsy site, because of timing difficulties, were not counted in the borough's qualification for designation, and that has caused a great deal of local grievance.

Sir Cranley Onslow

I can well understand that that may be—the more so when there is competition between districts and boroughs for designation under the Act. That leads to applications being handled rather hastily by local authorities in a county such as Surrey, where local authorities often seem anxious to pass the parcel from one to another by seeking designation and by unloading their problems on to their neigbours.

Mr. Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden)

Does my right hon. Friend recall that, under the regime before the Caravan Sites Act 1968, it was quite difficult for gipsies to obtain planning permission? The ball was in their court to try to make provision for themselves. Does he think that, if the initiative were given back to them, there might have to be additional measures or guidance to ensure that we did not revert to the pre-1968 situation and that gipsies did not find it difficult, for all the reasons that we understand, to obtain planning permission?

Sir Cranley Onslow

That is a perfectly fair point. I am sure that the Minister recognises, as did the consultation paper, the need for planning guidance to prevent just such a situation from coming back to plague us. It will be necessary to give all planning applications full, fair and proper consideration. I do not believe that that is impossible. Some aspects of the present regime operate unfairly against those whose interests are affected. I am sure that my hon. Friends will want to point that out, based on their own experience.

Many of the sites that are chosen as official gipsy sites are not chosen because they are good sites, on planning grounds; they are merely chosen because they happen to be available. One hears people say, "There is an old tip over there; it would make a good gipsy site." People feel some sympathy for that argument. I do not advocate taking any piece of wasteland, however unsuitable it may be, even if it is thought suitable for consent for planning a gipsy site. We must tackle the problem constructively. I hope that this meets the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst).

We must also recognise that, in practice, enforcing the provisions of the 1968 Act against illegal encampments is difficult. That Act, too, needs reviewing. As matters stand, and as the consultation paper points out: A landowner whose land is not in a designated area and who is aggrieved by unlawful camping can only seek redress by initiating a civil action at his own expense. Landowners can apply to the court for an order of possession if they believe their property is unlawfully occupied, and special procedures are available through both the high court and the county court to assist landowners to obtain relief as quickly as possible. But many landowners may find"— I think "may" is the wrong word; many landowners will find— that these procedures consume time and money and, if the campers return later or simply camp again nearby, they may be ineffective. That is civil service talk for saying that the Act is not working.

We all have experience of the difficulties and the distress that landowners may experience dealing with the problems with which they are suddenly confronted. They come under great pressure to protect not only their own interests but those of their neighbours by dealing with illegal camping. Such camping is a great nuisance in any given locality.

The consultation paper also points out that other pieces of legislation are in place—the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 and the Environmental Protection Act 1990—and that they, in theory, strengthen powers to act against illegal encampments. Both Acts, however, are relatively new and correspondingly untested. I do not know what the courts will make of them, but I believe that there is no alternative to giving greater powers to local authorities, landowners and the police to act swiftly and effectively against illegal encampments.

The Government set out in detail in the consultation paper their proposals to deal with illegal camping. I am glad to see that it notes: The Government considers that the existing powers … provide insufficient means to respond effectively and speedily to unlawful on illegal occupation of land. A straightforward and speedy remedy is needed. We all endorse that. The proposals speak for themselves, but it would be interesting if the Minister told us what reaction his consultation process has produced on the part of local authorities and police forces.

It was notable that, when setting out the alternatives, the Government invited views on whether local or highway authorities should be empowered by magistrates courts to seize caravans whose removal was obstructed or resisted, or which returned in breach of a prohibition order. The Minister may already have been told that that might cause more problems than it solved. If a caravan were seized and its owner were taken away, the other members of this family would remain, needing a roof over their heads, and the social problems of physical restraint applied to vehicles are not to be ignored—even if some of the vehicles are not particularly roadworthy. That is another feature of the problem with which many colleagues, I am sure, are familiar.

The consultation paper also states:

The number of caravans on private gipsy sites in England and Wales has increased by 114 per cent., from 1,400 in 1981 to nearly 3,000".

That goes to show that the private sector solution is recognised, and that the gipsy community has responded to it. The privatisation of sites, would bring a solution nearer. I am happy to leave to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford to outline that to the House. I hope that he will have an early opportunity to contribute to our debate. It is a new and constructive idea, but it does not appear in the Government's consultation paper. I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend explain these worthy proposals in more detail.

I do not speak for myself alone when I say that we look forward to seeing many of these ideas embodied in legislation as soon as may be. As the concluding paragraph of the paper states: the present arrangements are satisfactory neither for local authorities, for local communities, for landowners, nor for gipsies and travellers. The public resents the unlawful or illegal occupation of land, however it arises. We must deal with that.

I spoke about how the present handling of applications for gipsy sites makes matters worse rather than better. The consultation paper says that gipsies enjoy a privileged position, but I do not think that that is how they would see it. An application for a gipsy site does not follow the route of an ordinary planning application. The privilege—if that is the right word—is enjoyed by the local authority, not by the potential occupants of the site that the local authority is obliged to provide. It is no exaggeration to say that, under the present Act, local council powers are undemocratic and outdated. I shall illustrate that with two examples from my constituency.

In my constituency, there are two local authorities—Woking borough council, the whole of which is covered by my constituency, and Guildford borough council, part of which is in my constituency. Neither of those authorities can yet apply for designation, because, in the view of those who settle these matters, they do not have the requisite number of pitches. Each has one 1968 site, and both sites are in my constituency.

Both those councils are under pressure, as are other councils in Surrey, following the issue of a direction under section 9 of the Act by the Secretary of State which requires the local authority, in terms, to get on with it or suffer the consequences, whatever they may be. For some time, pressure has been building as neighbouring boroughs in Surrey have managed to become qualified for designation, and that pressure has increased on Woking and Guildford.

To my knowledge, since their establishment, neither of the existing sites has caused any trouble. The occupants conduct themselves perfectly peaceably, and I get no complaints from their neighbours. The arrangement is perfectly satisfactory, probably because both sites are in fairly isolated areas, although that does not necessarily conform to the Department's current guidance.

The search for new sites has caused the greatest concern among my constituents. There have been prolonged searches all over Guildford borough, which extends widely along the north downs, and there have been strong local objections to every identified site. Finally, about 18 months ago Surrey county council chose a piece of land that was to be left surplus by the construction of a major bypass in the Blackwater valley. That bypass was to go through an established mobile home settlement and would leave a slice of land enclosed by the new road and the Aldershot gasworks, some industrial development, and its Rushmoor council boundary. It was about as far from Surrey as one could get without actually going into Hampshire.

The mobile home owners had been perfectly happy to live on the site, and some of them wanted to return when the road was completed. However, I do not think that any hon. Member would be happy if he were consigned to live there. There are strong objections to it on social grounds, and certainly from the neighbouring borough council and residents of my parish of Ash. It is not an ideal site, but from the council's point of view it has the great merit of being available. The council did not need a public inquiry process and, because it owned the land, it did not need a compulsory purchase order, and the Act enabled it to apply to the Secretary of State for a grant.

The local parish council and the mobile home residents were not consulted before the decision in a way that I or they would recognise as consultation, and the local community felt, with some justice, that over time they had played a full part in helping to assimilate a gipsy community into their area.

When I first came to the constituency it had a large gipsy settlement called Surrey Borders which it has assimilated, mainly into council housing. That part of Surrey has had a gipsy community for a long time, but that factor in itself made matters worse, because many people said, "We have played our part. Why should we share a burden that could well be taken elsewhere in the Guildford borough? The other site in the borough is only two or three miles away. Why pick on us?" Whatever one's view of the argument, I firmly hold the opinion that people who object should be entitled to have their objections heard and fully considered. The matter should not be rushed through.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that far too many local authorities are looking for as many sites as possible in order to become designated so as to ensure that other people have to pass on? Does he also agree that there is little or no consultation with gipsies to find an area to which they would want to go? Some of the chosen sites are totally inappropriate for gipsy needs, and the site finally designated is the last place that they would want to go.

Sir Cranley Onslow

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and my example is a perfect demonstration of what he identifies. The way in which the issue was handled made communal relations in the parish much worse, because it stimulated an antagonism between the settled gipsies and the rest of the community that had not been a feature of local life for many years.

Mr. Ian Taylor

My right hon. Friend and I are neighbours and understand these problems only too well. Part of my constituency is also in the Guildford borough. and some of the alternative sites that he describes were in my constituency. The difficulty is that two communities in my constituency were concerned that they were on the list, and that sets one community in a borough against another. That is a matter of great local concern, which cannot properly be solved by the current legislation.

Sir Cranley Onslow

I agree with my hon. Friend. Without going more deeply into the matter, I can say that politics also comes into it. Often, and with some justice, there is a feeling that decisions about the location of gipsy sites are taken to plant a problem in an area that is not necessarily represented by a member of the majority party on the borough council, if I may put it delicately. I think that my hon. Friend recognises what I am talking about.

None of my constituents in Ash have any confidence in the workings of the 1968 Act, and I do not blame them. In the other part of my constituency in, the community of Knaphill in Woking borough, the situation is every bit as unsatisfactory. The pressures there have been similar, but there is one difference—whereas Guildford borough council ultimately agreed to go along with the chosen site at Ash bridge, Woking borough council vehemently disagreed and lodged a section 8 objection to the application, which has been forwarded by Surrey county council to the Secretary of State, for the establishment of a gipsy site on land at Barrs lane, Knaphill.

I do not expect any hon. Member to know Barrs lane. It is a pleasant piece of open woodland which has been enjoyed by the local community as an extension to the adjoining recreation area for many years. That is one of many reasons why there is particular opposition to the establishment of a gipsy encampment.

That site was first considered because it was thought to be available. It was in the ownership of a property development company that had failed to secure planning permission to build houses there—and quite right, too—and which thought that it could solve its problem by offering the land to Surrey county council on a free sale, so that it might then be able to buy it and use its ownership to establish a gipsy site. Again, that would have circumvented the public inquiry process that one would otherwise expect. That is another example of the privileged position enjoyed by a county council, which acts to the detriment of the communities that the local authority is supposed to represent.

I am conscious that this is a long story, and that I will have to condense it. I pay tribute to the local community for its responsible attitude in getting together and making its objections. The Knaphill action group is lively, and is 100 per cent. representative of the local community. It has conducted a skilful, persistent and, so far, successful campaign to ensure that the processes for which the present law provides—inadequate though they are—are fully used.

Thanks to the action group's representations, the site was eventually dropped from the short list. The local residents were so encouraged by that that they banded together to buy the land from the property company's receivers, so that they could dedicate it to the Woodland Trust and thus ensure that it would be enjoyed in perpetuity as a local amenity. That demonstrates the community's strength of feeling about the Barrs lane woodland.

Unfortunately, in circumstances not wholly clear to me, the site was returned to Surrey county council's short list without much notice and with virtually no discussion, and chosen as the preferred second site in Woking borough. It would be hard to exaggerate the strength of local disquiet at those events.

My hon. Friend the Minister knows of my strong belief that there should be a public inquiry, and the inspector ought to conclude that the site is wholly unsuitable for a gipsy caravan encampment on general grounds of public amenity. The fact that the site is available has no bearing on its merits, but that is the way in which the 1968 Act works. I hope that those two examples show what is wrong with the Act, and that my hon. Friend the Minister will say that he is taking action in those cases that will in effect restore the balance of democratic decision-making.

The present position is intolerable. Repeated incursions by parties of travelling gipsies on to roadside verges or other areas of accessible open land—car parks, sites earmarked for redevelopment, public parks, and so on—is intolerable and must not be allowed to continue. The theoretical rights of removal from public or private land should not blind us to the fact that they are ineffective, expensive, and cumbersome and that something more effective is needed. There is great public anger in areas where incursions occur about the damage they cause and the nuisance they provoke—not to mention the trouble and expense of securing eviction and restoring the land to its former condition.

The 1968 Act, as it currently operates, leaves behind a mess. It is time that that mess was cleared up, and I am glad to give Parliament a opportunity to start doing so today.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes)

I call Mr. Tony Baldry.

10.14 am

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tony Baldry)

rose—

Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is usual and customary for the House to hear speakers from both sides of the House, and then for the Minister to intervene later. It is unfortunate that the Minister, instead of listening to the various points that are to be made, is intervening at this early stage.

Madam Deputy Speaker

It is for the Minister to choose when he wants to intervene, and it is for the occupant of the Chair to decide whether or not the Minister has caught their eye.

Mr. Baldry

It may be helpful to the House for me to intervene at this stage to outline the Government's approach to the Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow), and the reform of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 more generally. The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) can be assured that I will listen to everything that every right hon. and hon. Member says. I hope that he, likewise, will be present throughout the debate to hear everything that my right hon. and hon. Friends have to say. It is noteworthy that, on such an important matter, the Opposition Benches are marked by the scarcity of occupants.

I welcome also the involvement of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) in this issue. This Bill takes forward initiatives originally taken in my hon. Friend's ten-minute Bill of last November.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on having brought forward this measure. The issues that it addresses are of concern not only to his constituents but to many others. The Government will not oppose the Bill, although clearly we shall need to examine closely in Committee the detail of its provisions.

The Caravan Sites Act 1968 was introduced 25 years ago with all-party support. It was a private Member's Bill introduced by the then Eric Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, with the support of the then Labour Government and the Conservative Opposition. It sought to respond to the need to provide sites for gipsies and to tackle the problem of illegal camping. The Act defines gipsies as persons of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin, but does not include members of an organised group of travelling showmen"— and so on. Not all gipsies are travellers, and not all travellers are gipsies.

Parliament was concerned with the people who had and have a recognisable identity in the social history of this country, who were of a nomadic habit of life, and who either resided in a particular area as their more or less permanent residence or regularly resorted to an area during the year for a particular purpose—such as those who went hop-picking in Kent or strawberry-picking in Somerset in the appropriate season. Before 1968, their rights, other than when moving from place to place, were questionable, and provision for them was negligible.

Lord Avebury's approach was straightforward. He estimated that there were 3,500 gipsy families in England and Wales. In the event, that figure appears to have been an underestimate, but it was clearly accepted by Lord Avebury and the Government as reliable at the time.

The intention was that each local authority should make a fair provision of gipsy sites reflecting the number of gipsies resorting to that area. Once such provision had been made, the local authority concerned could apply for designation—and once it was designated, it could take action against unauthorised camping by gipsies in its area, which became an offence. A magistrate could, on the complaint of any designated local authority, authorise that authority to take necessary steps to remove caravans. If a local authority failed to make proper provision of sites for gipsies in its area, the Secretary of State could issue a direction to that authority requiring it to provide an appropriate number of sites.

The Act was thus said to contain a carrot and a stick. The carrot was that authorities that made reasonable provision could become designated and thus have greater power to deal with unlawful camping, and the stick was that any authority that dragged its feed could have a direction issued to it by the Secretary of State.

As will be gathered from a reading of the report of the Bill's Second Reading, it was introduced on the basis of at least three rather important premises. First, it was assumed that the travelling gipsy population was unlikely to grow, as more and more gipsies moved of their own accord into more settled accommodation. The Minister, Arthur Skeffington, said at the time:

with this legislation and the provision of permanent camps, the task of integration should become much easier, particularly for the children of gipsies.

Secondly, it was assumed that local authorities would be keen to make suitable provision, because that would enable them to achieve designation and thus be able more easily to deal with unlawful camping in their areas. The third premise was that the exercise could all be achieved by authorities in a cost-neutral way, in that the money that they spent in providing pitches could be recouped in rate and rent receipts. Lord Avebury said:

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."—[Official Report, 1 March 1968; Vol. 759, c. 1980, 1929.]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking has observed, all those premises have proved wrong. Since 1968, the gipsy population has grown: In January last year, there were some 13,000 gipsy caravans in England.

Mr. John Marshall

Does my hon. Friend agree that many of those so-called gipsies are not gipsies at all, but ne'er-do-wells who are anxious to move from one site to another, to avoid paying their community charge, to avoid sending their children to school and to live off social security? To call them gipsies is to misuse the term.

Mr. Baldry

I was going on to say that the 13,000 figure excludes nearly all those who are more commonly known as new age travellers. They do not fall within the statutory definition set out in the Caravan Sites Act. My hon. Friend is right: many other people are causing concern, but are not included in the statutory definition of a gipsy.

As for the second premise, depite the passage of a quarter of a century, only 38 per cent. of local authorities in England have made sufficient provision to enable them to become designated.

Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley)

I agree with that figure of 38 per cent. Earlier, the Minister referred to the "carrot and stick" approach. How many times since the passage of the 1968 Act has the Department used the stick?

Mr. Baldry

I shall come to that shortly.

Many local authorities seem to have been incapable of identifying suitable sites in their areas, agreeing on acceptable sites or coping with local controversy over any proposed sites. My right hon. Friend's description of some of the difficulties that he has experienced in his constituency is evidence of that. The Secretary of State has now issued directions to three local authorities—Avon, Hertfordshire and Surrey. Indeed, so slow was the provision of sites by local authorities that the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 gave powers to the Secretary of State to make 100 per cent. grants to local authorities for the costs of site provision, thus confounding the third premise on which this legislation was based—that it would not result in greater public spending.

So far, £56 million has been spent direct by the Exchequer on funding gipsy site provision, and as a result there are now around 6,000 caravans on public gipsy sites. I can think of no comparable 100 per cent. open-ended, demand-led grant made available by my Department, or indeed by any other Department. Despite all that, there are still some 4,300 gipsy caravans parked illegally in England, and the number is growing.

The intention behind the original Caravan Sites Act was commendable. Introducing his Bill, Lord Avebury said that it would 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."—[Official Report, 1 March 1968; Vol 759, c. 1930–31.] We have no quarrel with those aspirations, which had the support of the entire House at the time. Sadly, however, the Caravan Sites Act has failed to deliver as envisaged. Action is now needed, and my right hon. Friend's Bill is a useful step in the right direction.

Mr. Ian Taylor

The Minister mentioned the issue of an order against Surrey. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) and I are particularly interested in that. Does my hon. Friend recognise that, despite the availability of 100 per cent. grants, the difficulty lies in identifying the permanent site in a way that the local population can accept? That is a matter of grave concern. Although the Minister clearly has a duty to implement the terms of the 1968 Act, there is great local resentment at the insistence that such a requirement should be imposed local communities.

Mr. Baldry

I understand my hon. Friend's point, which illustrates the concern felt about the identification of suitable sites. That has been part of the problem experienced by many local authorities over the past quarter of a century as they have tried to provide sites in the way envisaged in the 1968 Act. As I have said, the premises on which the Act was based have all clearly failed: that is why action is now needed.

Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest)

One of the principal problems of the 1968 Act was the fact that it diffused responsibility for site provision between district council, county council and, to a certain extent, central Government. It was also seen as unfair by many communities—particularly my community in Wyre Forest—because the more sites the council provided, the more it was expected to provide. A honey-pot effect was produced: as an area became known as a place where gipsies were accommodated, more came, and more was expected by both county and district councils in regard to determining designation by central Government.

Mr. Baldry

I am sure that all hon. Members accept that the original Bill was presented with all-party support and the best of intentions. For reasons that I have given, which I expect to be reinforced repeatedly today, the premises on which it was based have all been found wanting and, given the experience of the past quarter of a century, the legislation needs to be reformed and action needs to be taken.

We have made it clear that people who wish to adopt a nomadic existence should be free to do so, provided that they live within the law in the same way as their fellow citizens. We have no quarrel with people pursuing a nomadic life style, provided that they do not expect either a privileged position under the law or entitlement to more support from the taxpayer than is available to those who choose a more settled existence.

We believe that gipsies and travellers, like other citizens, should seek to provide their own accommodation, seeking planning permission where necessary like everyone else. Of course, the vast majority of gipsies have already gone a considerable way towards making their own provision. They have almost always bought their own caravans and trailers and, in those circumstances, it does not seem unreasonable that more gipsies should make a provision for their pitches. Three thousand caravans were accommodated on private pitches in England in January 1992.

Indeed, the National Gypsy Council, in its response to the Government's proposals to reform the Caravan Sites Act 1968—I hope that hon. Members will read the response—made it clear that it welcomes the concept of private site initiatives for gipsies. It states that, in its opinion, private sites are beneficial to all concerned: to gypsies because they offer them the security of a legal home and a base from which they can send their children to school, to local authorities and central government who are spared the expense of developing and managing sites, and to the local settled community by the reduction in numbers of unauthorised encampments". It also says: private gipsy sites are in locations where the gipsies who live on them will want to be, they suffer none of the problems due to incompatibility which are sometimes found on local authority sites, and once private sites become established, families on it quickly prove themselves to be good neighbours". The latter point was tellingly made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking, and I am sure that it will be echoed many times in the debate.

I appreciate, however, that many gipsies feel that the planning system is prejudiced against them and that when they make applications for planning permission, they are too often turned down by the local planning authorities as a result of local prejudice. I do not accept that the planning system is stacked against gipsies. I have to accept, however, that it is the gipsies' perception that it is.

I am determined to remove the suspicion and tension which frequently arise in relation to gipsy applications for sites. The planning system must not only be fair but be seen to be fair for gipsies and their neighbours. We shall issue fresh planning guidance as soon as possible on the factors to be taken into account in determining planning applications for the establishment of gipsy sites.

We shall require local authorities to include in their development plans policies for providing such sites. We shall seek to encourage authorities to look positively and impartially at planning applications. It is important that planning committees are not swayed by local opposition based on prejudice, which, of course, is not and must not be a planning consideration. I trust that, as a consequence, gipsies will have the confidence increasingly to make their own provision through the planning system.

Sir Cranley Onslow

I am delighted that fresh planning guidance is to be issued, and I look forward to studying it, but will the Minister take the opportunity to say whether it will differ significantly from the present guidance?

Mr. Baldry

As the consultation paper makes clear, we believe that the planning system should be fair to the gipsy population, but that it should offer them no privileges. My right hon. Friend referred to such a privilege, which gives gipsy sites preferential treatment in the green belt. Way back in 1968, that was thought to make sense, but we do not believe that it makes sense now. Therefore, the new planning guidance will be fair, but will put gipsies on an equal footing with everyone else who makes a planning application. That will be in the best interests of the gipsy population and the community as a whole. The gipsy population will know that they are being treated fairly and impartially, as can everyone else.

Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow)

I welcome the Minister's statement that no preferential treatment is to be given to gipsies. Gipsies may feel that they are being prejudiced against in planning applications, but that applies to almost everyone who makes a planning application these days. In my experience, when anyone applies for planning permission, the neighbours will almost automatically object, so gipsies should not believe that they are different from the general public in that respect.

Mr. Baldry

As a Minister with responsibility for planning, I have some sympathy with my hon. Friend's point, because many people who have had planning applications go against them feel that the system was stacked against them. However, the important point is that the system must operate fairly and impartially, and the gipsy community must have the confidence, through the planning system, increasingly to make their own provision. Incidentally, that is what the gipsy community has persistently asked for.

As long ago as 1982, in a paper entitled "Gypsies and the Planning Laws", the National Gypsy Council drew attention to the fact that there were and still are those families amongst us who are quite capable of finding, buying and developing their own sites. We said that, economically, this was more desirable than sites being provided for these families from Public funds"— but then expressed concern about the planning system. It is imperative that the community is confident that the system will act impartially.

We also made clear last August our intention to adopt a fresh policy to guide the payment of Exchequer grants to cover the capital cost of providing gipsy caravan sites such that it should cease to be payable generally. In future, when considering applications from local authorities for Exchequer grant for the provision of gipsy caravan sites, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State will take into account the policy that grant should cease to be payable generally and all other relevant factors to which he must have regard within the existing legislation.

By seeking to encourage the maximum number of gipsies who are not at present on local authority or private sites to seek to make their own provision, we are, of course, hoping substantially to reduce the incidence of illegal camping. Illegal camping by gipsies or other travellers can affect the lives of whole communities, and we are determined to tackle the problem.

Illegal camping can cover a wide range of situations, from a single caravan camping unlawfully without authorisation on someone else's land, without permission and perhaps for a period of weeks, to a very large number of people congregating and camping on land for a weekend as part of a rave.

Clearly, reforms of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 will not cover every eventuality of illegal and unlawful camping. There is clearly a distinction between the unlawful occupation of land by gipsies who wish to remain there for some time and the problem of a sudden, large-scale but short-term incursion by new age travellers. The consultation paper issued by my Department last August set out some clear and coherent proposals to tackle illegal camping by gipsies.

We have received nearly 1,000 formal responses to our consultation paper. I have made sure that a list of those who have responded is available in the Library. Generally, there is a clear recognition of the problems inherent in the existing legislation and an acknowledgment of the need to review and reform the Caravan Sites Act 1968.

Reaction to individual proposals has been varied, some of it, I am bound to say, has verged on the hysterical. Some respondents have managed to work themselves up into a sufficient state to make their response in particularly strong language, and I do not believe that such commentators can have read seriously what we have proposed. I do not believe that, in a mature democratic society, it is unreasonable for the Government to try to ensure that, as far as possible, unlawful camping does not take place.

That, after all, was the firm intention of the legislation when it was first introduced with all-party support some 25 years ago. It would be surprising if, in the intervening period, there had been any waning of the commitment to the rule of law and to trying to ensure as far as possible that there should not be unauthorised use of land and that farmers, village communities and local neighbourhoods should not be afraid of, or have to experience, a sudden incursion into their community of gipsies camping illegally. Such action was not acceptable in 1968 and is not acceptable now. We are determined to take the necessary measures to ensure that communities are protected from unlawful camping.

Mr. Ian Taylor

My hon. Friend has kindly placed in the Library a list of all those who made representations, many of them somewhat excitable. Has he asked the Home Secretary whether he has placed in the Library a list of all the police authorities that have made representations? My hon. Friend will be aware that there is profound concern about the real powers of the police, both under the existing arrangements and under the proposed new arrangements.

Mr. Baldry

If my hon. Friend goes to the Library, he will see that the document lists police authorities as well as all the parish and other authorities that have made representations.

Given the range and number of responses that we have received from local authorities, county councils, police authorities, members of the public, farmers, landowners, parish councils and, not least, gipsies, travellers and travelling groups, it must be right for us to consider the responses carefully before introducing detailed proposals to bear down on unlawful camping.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking mentioned one proposal in our consultation paper that has clearly caused some concern. On the other hand, we need to consider how Parliament can make provision to prevent circumstances arising in which, if unlawful camping is prevented in place A, those who are moved do not simply go down the road to another field 200 yards away. Those are not easy issues.

We shall act as speedily as we can to ensure that we can introduce legislation consistent with our manifesto commitments as soon as parliamentary time can be made available. As part of that exercise, I shall listen carefully today to the views of hon. Members from all parties.

My right hon. Friend's Bill has provided the House with a first opportunity to debate these issues in detail since the general election and since the publication of our consultation paper. Given that the original Bill was introduced with all-party support back in 1968 and that this is the first opportunity that we have had to debate the present Bill, I find it particularly disappointing that not one representative of the Liberal Democrats is present. After all, it was a Liberal Member who introduced the 1968 private Member's Bill. I do not know whether we shall hear from an Opposition Front-Bench spokesman today. It would certainly be useful to know where Labour stands on these difficult issues.

In any event, we have the responsibility of government, and we are determined to take forward and tackle these difficult problems. We are determined to pursue the objective of the 1968 Act, which is to ensure proper provision of sites for gipsies, while bearing down on unlawful camping.

10.42 am

Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South)

The problem of illegal camping by gipsies will not in any way be solved by the Bill, which in my view will make the situation immeasurably worse.

I have always been concerned about illegal camping sites, which undoubtedly cause difficulties. Gipsies are an amalgam of various kinds of people; like all people, they defy ready classification. The idea that at one stage gipsies were all people in nicely painted caravans singing folk songs with guitars while a horse pulled them gently round meandering country lanes has never been accurate, even if it is a nice image to conjure up.

Gipsies do not fall into that category today. They sometimes cause a nuisance. They sometimes collect scrap and they sometimes burn scrap and tyres on sites. When they camp on illegal sites without any sanitation, they may cause offence and difficulties to those who live in the adjacent area. Concerns about those difficulties are properly communicated to local representatives—whether the local authority or the local Member of Parliament. Local people feel a sense of injustice when gipsies take over a bit of open land in a smoke-free zone and start burning rubbish. After all, if the rest of the community emitted smoke from their chimneys, the local environmental health officer would be round with the threat of prosecution. I fully recognise the sense of injustice and outrage that people feel about illegal camping.

As I have explained, my judgment of the Bill is not based on the rosy romantic view that travellers are guitar-strumming Romanies. I am examining the realities, and it is on them that I base my judgment of the Bill. I want illegal camping to be reduced, not increased, and I believe that illegal camping will increase as a consequence of the Bill.

Shortly before the general election of 1987—hon. Members will appreciate the sensitivity of the situation—a group of gipsies camped on a site in what was to become my constituency of Bradford, South. The site was a former railways goods yard which had been earmarked for a transport museum. All hell was let loose. Local people rightly objected very strongly when, in an area landscaped at a cost of £250,000, trees were torn up and vehicles driven over a recently reseeded and returfed area. Roses that had been planted by local people were picked by gipsy children, who had been allowed—indeed, encouraged, it was suspected—by a small group of councillors to do that. There were two sides: local residents and groups of gipsies encamped in the area. I suspect—I have no proof—that the gipsies were encouraged to camp on the site by councillors and officials. The designation of that area as a local transport museum was opposed because it had been promoted by West Yorkshire metropolitan county council, about which the local authority in Bradford was less than enthusiastic. The gipsies were used as pawns and local residents were encouraged to react by saying, "Whatever you do with the land, get the gipsies off it: if you use it for industrial development, it will at least be occupied and our difficulties will not be repeated."

Mr. Nigel Evans

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that in some instances local authorities designate and spend large sums of money on sites to which gipsies do not particularly want to go, and which they wreck simply because they are not interested in staying there?

Mr. Cryer

I have no experience of that. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt be able to elaborate on that view in his speech.

In the case to which I refer, the gipsies were being used as pawns. Fortunately, the outcome was positive. The gipsies were removed and transferred to other sites and the land remained designated for use as a transport museum. Instead of saying, "Now that we have got rid of the gipsies we can forget about it," the local community association in Low Moor in my constituency organised a number of transport galas on the site to emphasise that it would have a good public use. I am happy to say that we have had a grant from the Government to develop the site, although not in quite the way that I had expected. I should have preferred a stronger emphasis on transport rather than on estate development; it appears that the grant was not given for wholly altruistic purposes. Nevertheless, after a very controversial start, the museum is going ahead with the support of the local community.

Had the local authority not made strenuous efforts to clarify the position, the outcome of the election in 1987 might have been different. The House will no doubt be delighted to learn that the Labour majority in 1983 of 100 was tripled to 309 in 1987; the House will be even more gratified to learn that the majority is now just under 5,000.

For some reason that I cannot fathom, Bradford was subsequently apparently targeted by gipsies and a fair amount of illegal camping took place. I received a number of complaints with which I sympathised. More recently, the local authority refurbished the two caravan sites in the Bradford metropolitan district area. As a result, all the caravans had to be moved off those sites, albeit temporarily. The refurbishment also caused camping problems.

Mr. Oliver Heald (Hertfordshire, North)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the problems are far less in the north of England than in the south? Kent and East Anglia have a far higher proportion of unauthorised camping than any other part of the country.

Mr. Cryer

I cannot make a judgment about that, but if the hon. Gentleman believes that illegal camping has not been a problem in the north, he is mistaken. There was a real problem in Bradford two years ago, which has been solved to some degree by the completion of the refurbishment of the two local authority sites.

It may be argued that a metropolitan borough the size of Bradford could provide more sites, but there are always difficulties with providing sites because of the problems that arise from the activities of some gipsies. The local authority refurbished the sites and increased the number of pitches from 32 to 47. As each pitch can accommodate two caravans, the sites at Mary street and Esholt provide a total of 94 caravan sites.

I hope that this debate will follow a tenor of concern about the provision for gipsies and not the tenor of the Conservative-controlled Pickles administration in Bradford.

Mr. Irvine Patnick (Lords Commissioner to the Treasury)

It was brilliant.

Mr. Cryer

The Government Whip, who should not speak in any case, claims that that administration was very good. However, there were many disadvantages—that is why that administration was thrown out neck and crop in the local authority elections.

Although the refurbishment had started, the Conservative administration to which I have referred stopped it. That was unfair, unreasonable and arbitrary, particularly when the refurbishment was not a call on local authority funds but part of a 100 per cent. grant from the Department of the Environment. Stopping the refurbishment was also dangerous. The builders were removed and jagged edges and holes three or four feet deep were left on the site. Children on the site could easily have fallen over and injured themselves. I hope that the concern of the House will be superior to that of that Conservative administration.

As £1,241,953 has been spent on the refurbishment of the two sites to which I have referred, I am critical of the fact that the Bill proposes the repeal of obligations of local authorities. All local authority sites will be removed from local authority ownership. They will be sold with a 76 per cent. discount and, if they are not sold within 12 months, they will be sold without a reserve.

It is outrageous that public investment should be placed in jeopardy and handed over to a private landlord for a paltry sum. It is true that the Bill also provides for recognised gipsy organisations to be considered as owners, but if the sites are not sold, even at a discount, or are sold at auction without a reserve, clearly the future of such sites might be in severe jeopardy. The sites do not even have to be sold to a recognised gipsy body at auction. That is a severe criticism of the legislation, particularly when such a great deal of taxpayers' money has been invested in those sites. I want taxpayers' money and the taxpayers' investment to be protected and not simply handed over to organisations that may or may not prove to be decent landlords. Those landlords may not provide proper facilities or ensure that the travellers who stay on the sites contribute to the community by paying a reasonable rent.

The nomadic way of life of travellers has been criticised. Indeed, that criticism was encapsulated in an intervention from the Conservative Benches. It is said that travellers move around to avoid the poll tax and that they are living off the state. That criticism, which is frequently heard, can be refuted if sites are provided on which travellers have to pay rent and contribute to society at large. We must always bear in mind, too, that children are involved. Any criticisms of their parents are visited willy-nilly on the children. That is generally accepted to be extremely unfair. The greater the number of permanent sites, the better, as they provide an opportunity for children to participate in an unbroken educational process.

I have heard many criticism and comments about illegal sites. I have always pointed out that Bradford takes its fair share of the burden of site provision and that other local authorities should do the same. That was envisaged in the Caravan Sites Act 1968, but, as the Minister said, that provision is not being applied universally. As a result of that, three directions under section 9 of the 1968 Act are in operation requiring local authorities to make provision. I believe that there should be more directions.

If the Bill is enacted, local authorities such as Bradford, which try to provide adequate sites, will still bear that burden while local authorities that have done nothing will escape scot-free. That is simply not fair and the burden on local authorities which have sites will almost certainly increase. If there is no possibility of a local authority providing a site, where will the magnet occur? It will occur in the local authorities that have already provided sites. Attention will focus on those authorities and gipsies will move to those local authorities rather than to local authorities that do not provide sites. The latter will be able to turn around and say, "The obligation to provide sites has been completely eradicated, so we are not going to provide sites, and the Department of the Environment is not going to issue a direction so you will have to go somewhere else—not here."

Mr. Nigel Evans

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if there are more directions, there will be more sites to which gipsies do not want to go in the first place? That will create problems. Would it not be better to follow the course described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow)? We would then have sites to which gipsies want to go. They will get together and submit planning applications and will not experience the resentment of local people. If the gipsies do that, they will have followed a proper consultation process and the situation will be much better than if they are directed to go to a site where they do not want to go in the first place and where the local people will resent them.

Mr. Cryer

I am not opposed to private sites. Private sites provide a useful supplement to local authority sites, but there are not enough local authority sites. If we place a question mark over local authority sites, we do not necessarily gain more private sites. Private sites supplement local authority sites, and that is fine. It has been made clear today that the criticisms apply to any site. Few people want a gipsy site at the bottom of their garden or in their back street. Such criticisms will always exist.

Shifting the matter to the planning process so that gipsies will be able to have the sites that they want will not work, because the planning process is subject to objections and controversy. I do not share the view of the right hon. Member for Woking about consultation. I have been able to cite some unhappy examples of a lack of consultation. When Bradford, Leeds and Kirklees sought sites, there was massive consultation. Consultation is always a dangerous process for local authorities to undertake. They undertake it, as a matter of fact, with the best of intentions and with an idealistic view, but the local authorities always come out of it badly. Wherever they propose a gipsy site, there is always controversy. They undertake some consultation, but, whatever the process, whether it involves a local authority or private planning, applications will be fraught with massive controversy.

Mr. Pike

Was it not always possible to have private sites, which Opposition Members certainly do not oppose, long before the 1968 Act? The fact that the 1968 Act has not been able to deliver public sites, in conjunction with the ability to deal with private sites, shows that there has been a failure to solve the problem because we do not have adequate private or public sites.

Mr. Cryer

I have outlined the massive controversy in Low Moor in my constituency. Gipsies invaded a former goods yard beside the transport museum. Curiously enough, while people were raging about that, within a couple of hundred yards of very angry meetings, there was a private site which everybody accepted and were perfectly comfortable with, so things worked perfectly well. Private sites can be acceptable. In that instance, there was planning permission and people got on well with the travellers who were living there. That is ideal, but the removal of any local authority participation and a dependence on private sites and planning processes will not be a solution: there will always be controversy.

Mr. Gill

I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument and I have some sympathy with it. One can speak only from one's own experience. There are two local authorities in my constituency, one of which has designation, the other does not. In the case of the local authority where there is no designation, a private operator would have provided a site, all things being equal, but I am afraid that all things were not equal. Under the Bill, there will be a greater prospect of that private operator and other private operators being able to make the provision which, for the past 25 years, has not materialised in one of the district councils in my constituency.

Mr. Cryer

I do not think that private provision should be encouraged at the expense of local authority provision—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]—because private provision can only supplement local authority provision. I am all in favour of that, but I am not in favour of removing the obligation on local authorities to provide sites. It is too soft an option.

I wrote to every local authority within the area of Bradford and nearby. I have written to Craven and Kirklees local authorities, for example, and I wrote to Leeds local authority long before it produced a site, amid much controversy. I wrote to Calderdale local authority asking it to provide sites because Bradford was taking the burden, and also asking why it was not prepared to share that burden. I am happy to say that some local authorities are seeking sites, but I do not want to remove that obligation, because too many local authorities will take the soft option and do absolutely nothing. The private solution does not guarantee that sites will become available.

Mrs. Judith Chaplin (Newbury)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one problem is that local authority sites are often much larger than private sites? That is what upsets many of the people who object to them, because they have a large provision with many facilities while private sites can be much smaller and thus do not arouse the same animosity as large sites arouse.

Mr. Cryer

I share that view, because it is prudent to have half a dozen smaller sites rather than one or two large ones. They can be made much more harmonious with the surroundings and the burden is shared more equally by the community. A large site means that a certain area is taking the whole burden. In the case of Bradford, 500,000 people are taking the burden. A large number of small sites scattered throughout the area is a much more harmonious solution. That is a perfectly legitimate argument to advance, but I do not think that it is a sufficient ground to eradicate the obligation on local authorities. Certainly in Bradford, many people have criticised local authorities for not being prepared to share what they regard as a burden.

Sometimes people live in harmony with one another, and that is a great achievement, but the correct perception of travellers is not one of guitar-strumming Romanies living in wondrous harmony. Such a perception is based on folk tales and folk lore. Sometimes people can be objectionable. Sometimes their children throw bricks at doors. Sometimes they burn scrap tyres, and so on, to the general horror and discomfort of the neighbours. Making provision is a sign of a tolerant and civilised society. It is easy to make provision when people are not awkward and slip easily into the surroundings. The difficulty is in making provision when it is a conscious effort and a burden. Of course, that burden must be shared by many people and must be reduced as much as possible when a decision is made.

Mr. Heald

One of the points made by the National Gypsy Council is that local authorities do not always focus on what is required for a good gipsy site. The effect of clauses 2 and 6 would be that organisations such as the National Gypsy Council would be able to acquire sites currently in local authority control. If the discounts are allowed, about £40 million could be transferred to bodies that would then become powerful independent site associations tailored to gipsy needs and able to push forward the process of buying private land for gipsy sites. That is surely a laudable aim, giving people independence—I am approaching the point at which I am making my speech.

Mr. Cryer

I am not opposed to people being independent, but I oppose handing over a total investment of £56 million to bodies that are given preference in the legislation, but which in some cases will not be able to raise the ante for all the money; I do not think that they should be given that opportunity, anyhow. If local authorities have made bad judgments about sites, either because they are too large or because they are on tips that happen to be available and convenient at the time, those difficulties will not be altered by handing over the money.

Conservative Members argue that a private planning procedure will enable gipsies to seek sites that they feel are most suitable to their needs. That is a rosy view of what the planning process is likely to produce. There is no reason why that process cannot go on at the same time as local authorities make provision. I argue strenuously that the Bill will be the soft option for local authorities because there is no provision whatever to guarantee an increase in the number of pitches available to the gipsy community at large.

Mr. Gill

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman and I have different ideological bases, because he represents an urban area and I represent a rural area. From my experience, when a district council wants to find a site it says, "We will look here, there and somewhere else", and automatically there is opposition. The community gangs up to oppose whichever site the local authority may have designated.

Under the changes proposed in the Bill, landowners will volunteer sites. That will get over the first hurdle, because nobody is volunteering sites at present. In the changed circumstances envisaged by the Bill, and given the changed circumstances that affect the economy of rural areas, I am sure that the market will work and sites will become available. The fact that sites have been offered rather than—

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order. This is becoming a speech rather than an intervention.

Mr. Cryer

I am sure that the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) will make his own speech when the time comes. The idea that the volunteering of sites will provide a solution is not necessarily the answer, because people volunteer sites now. The hon. Member is right that I represent an urban area and he represents a rural area, so I cannot speak for rural areas and I do not attempt to do so.

When sites have been volunteered, they have often been subject to the sort of controversy that the hon. Member suggests is allied only to the local authority process. All sites will be subject to controversy unless they are completely isolated from local inhabitants—by and large, that is the reality—or unless people have complete conformity with and acceptance and understanding of the way in which travellers live. That might happen, and it would be a splendid thing if it did, but on the basis of past human experience it is unlikely to happen.

I wrote to the Calderdale local authority several years ago asking it to provide a site. When this argument was being hotly discussed at meetings in 1987, the Conservative candidate said that there was not a single area in Calderdale flat enough for a site. That was completely nonsensical. Since then, I have pressed Calderdale local authority to produce a site, but it has not done so. There have been one or two suggestions. Control of the Calderdale local authority has now switched to the Conservative party, and there is no prospect of a site being produced. Undoubtedly, the local authority is waiting for this legislation so that it can say, "We will not have a site." That is very unfair. The legislation will bring a sigh of relief from local authorities.

Why on earth should Bradford provide sites? My constituency goes to the edge of the Halifax constituency. Why should my constituents bear the burden while other areas have the obligation removed? It is a mark of a civilised society that we collectively make such provision. On the other side of my constituency is Craven local authority, which stretches into the Yorkshire dales—an area with a romantic image that the gipsy traveller in a horse-drawn caravan would find absolutely perfect because it is rural; yet there is not one site.

When I write to local authorities, I receive assurances that they will consider the matter and that it is under review. The obligation is on them to share the contribution to a group of people who cause difficulties from time to time but who, in the main—like everybody else—want to contribute to society and have a place in it. Gipsies have a particularly distinctive way of life. I am sure that the House recognises that obligation, so we have make provision. The provision must be nationwide, not on an arbitrary basis, as it will become if the legislation is passed.

Mr. Nigel Evans

I accept that the provision must be nationwide, but it must be where the gipsies want to go. The report from the National Gypsy Council refers time and again to local authorities that do not understand the culture of gipsies. Local authorities come up with hare-brained ideas and spend many thousands of pounds on the gipsies, but, because they do not properly understand the culture of the gipsies, it is money which the gipsies say is absolutely wasted. It would be much better if the gipsies were allowed to select where they want to go, apply for planning permission and go through the proper consultation process. The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) seems to think that the state or the local authorities must be the font of all knowledge, but they are not.

Mr. Cryer

I am not saying that at all. I have made it clear that private provision can happily supplement local authority provision in some cases. Let us suppose that a local authority provides a pitch with 20 sites. The pitch is taken over and the landlord says, "I don't think it is very comfortable; we will reduce it by 15". That sort of thing can happen. Such cases will place a question mark over the provisions of the Bill.

There is no reason to suppose that travellers especially want not to go to Halifax, Skipton or other parts of the Craven area. Indeed, I should have thought that they would like to do so. Those local authorities should have the obligation that has existed since 1968 and which they have failed to honour in the provision of sites.

The Secretary of State should have the power to make a direction. It is rarely used; it is not some sort of centralised Marxist state direction, but simply an attempt to provide for a group of people who have a perfect right to their way of life, which, by and large, is different from that of the vast majority of people who like a stable, house-based existence. It is a mark of our society that we are prepared to make that sort of provision.

In addition, I argue that local authorities are accountable to some degree. Councillors are elected from all the political parties in the House. When Conservative councillors express their views at local authority elections, they do so because they are accountable and they are subsequently held to account, as are Labour and Liberal councillors. The idea that local authorities are some sort of Soviet imposing unyielding and unheeding decisions is simply not true.

It might be argued that, by and large, gipsies do not have votes because they have not registered to vote and that their views might be ignored, but that is not so. In many local authorities where gipsies have sites, there is not much electoral advantage in providing them; it is an example of altruism at work. It should be heart-warming to learn that people are prepared to make decisions and to make an effort without consequent electoral advantages being sought at the same time. It is a good thing that people should be altruistic, that they have ideals and apply them. Local authorities are accountable.

The idea that local authorities are completely divorced from the needs and aspirations of the gipsies is not true. Only local authorities can afford to employ, for example, gipsy liaison officers—as Bradford does—in an attempt to build up a relationship between the local authority and the gipsies. We should surely want that. Do we want people to remain for ever outside the system of democratic administration that we have built up over the years? Do we want them to remain an alienated, isolated group?

Mrs. Chaplin

rose—

Mr. Cryer

I shall just finish this point. The fact that the local authority provides education for gipsy children inevitably means that the local authority is brought into contact with the gipsy community. That is a strong means of maintaining a link with gipsies and understanding their wishes and aspirations.

Sir Cranley Onslow

There is nothing in my Bill or in my approach to the problem that seeks in any way to put an end to the gipsy liaison officer system. Those posts will be just as necessary after my Bill, or something like it, reaches the statute book. However, the system under which we are obliged to live due to an outdated Act promotes confrontation and creates communal tensions which ought to be avoided.

Mr. Cryer

I was not criticising the promoter of the Bill. I was replying to an intervention by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) and was making the point that the operation of local authority services perforce brings local authorities into contact with gipsy communities. They therefore understand the hopes, aspirations and needs of travelling people, even though they may not always deal with them adequately. What human institution deals adequately with all the people all the time? We do not, because of inadequacies of structure and humanity and because of the way we live, work and breathe. Nevertheless, the democratic structure of local authorities leads to some accountability.

Conservative Members cannot complain about the controversy created when local authorities propose sites and yet argue that local authorities impose their wishes on the community. The community often acts so strenuously against such a proposal that the local authority has to withdraw it amid a storm of protest. That is part of the democratic process. People should have the right to object to proposals. I do not believe that planning system will be devoid of the right to object to proposals, as implied by Conservative Members. Planning procedures nearly always lead to controversy—whether they relate to gipsies or to other issues: a factory, a tannery, or whatever. Objections will not go away, because such proposals are controversial.

I understand perfectly the anxiety and concern that are caused by the creation of illegal gipsy sites. My aim is to reduce illegal camping, but we shall not achieve that aim by removing the obligation on local authorities. I call on authorities such as Craven and Calderdale to select sites and to demonstrate that they want to fulfil their obligation to provide sites for a range of travelling people.

I should make it clear that my remarks, like those of every other hon. Member today, are not directed towards the new age travellers, who create different problems; we are concentrating our remarks on the traditional travellers, provision for whom has been made under the 1968 Act. It is unfair if local authorities do not fulfil their obligations. The provisions of the Bill will fritter away a great deal of public investment that was made in the best of spirits and with the best of intentions. I am not prepared to accept that. I believe that private sites should supplement local authority provision; I am not opposed to them. According to the figures provided by the Minister and the promoter of the Bill, we are short of sites. The January 1992 count showed that there were 13,500 caravans and about 4,500 unauthorised sites. My criterion is whether the Bill will increase or reduce the number of authorised sites. I believe that it is likely to reduce it and that it will encourage illegal camping. I therefore oppose the Bill.

11.24 am

Mr. Bowen Wells (Hertford and Stortford)

I very much welcome—as, I believe, does the House as a whole—the initiative shown by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) in selecting this subject for his private Member's Bill. As the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) said, it is a serious subject. This is a difficult question to solve and it must be tackled in a sensible, deliberate and logical manner.

It is common ground, I believe, that a civilised society should show tolerance and a capacity to accommodate the nomadic way of life that traditionally has been led by the gipsy people, but we should not let tolerance descend into licence and into threatening, disruptive and violent behaviour against the settled community and other property owners. That is entirely wrong, and something which the House should set its face against.

It seems to be that for 25 years we have had the solution that the hon. Member for Bradford, South advocates and supports—a compulsory obligation on local authorities to provide sites. However, that has not worked. Faced with the fact that it has not worked, and faced also with the growing number of so-called gipsies—nomadic or itinerant people, anyway—we have to seek a different solution. It has to be a solution similar to that to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) referred. It has to be acceptable both to the gipsies and to the communities through which they pass or in which they encamp for the winter.

I want to draw the attention of the House to the difficult situation in my constituency. I know that communities throughout the home counties, including Surrey, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking referred, face similar problems. We have been seeking a gipsy site. It may surprise the hon. Member for Bradford, South to hear that sites throughout east Hertfordshire have been sought for the last 25 years, and that we have not yet found an acceptable one.

I have, for a variety of reasons, vigorously opposed every site that has been proposed. My objection has usually been connected with the inappropriateness of the site and the very disruptive effect on the environment that gipsy sites would have. I very much welcome the Minister's proposal that gipsy sites should not be allowed on green belt land if settled communities cannot also settle there. The rules on green belt land should apply to gipsies, just as they do to any other members of the community.

The Minister's proposal today will remove a great deal of the anger and frustration and the sense of unfairness and injustice that many members of the settled communities would feel if they were not allowed to live on green belt land while gipsies were allowed to place their caravans there.

That brings me to the serious incident that occurred outside Hertford last year. East Hertfordshire district council has been unable to provide a site. As the Minister said, his Department had imposed a direction upon Hertfordshire, as on Surrey, to provide gipsy sites, on pain of being taken to court if they failed to meet their obligations. Therefore, Hertfordshire renewed its search for a site.

I thoroughly deprecate the decision of the county council on where to place this site. The only site suggested by county council officers that was acceptable to the Conservative-ruled county council happened to be in the only district represented by a Labour member. As an example of an objective way to seek a proper gipsy site, what could be more cynical or wrong? It was on green belt land immediately outside the town of Hertford, alongside a combined council and private housing estate, which had enjoyed—and still enjoys—beautiful views of countryside, green belt and woods which also provide recreational facilities for the people of Hertford and the Sele Farm estate.

After that land was proposed for a gipsy site, what happened? Like keeping poultry—it is the same with gipsies—once a site on which gipsies may be entitled to camp is designated, it attracts all sorts of other nomadic vagabonds. And so they came—in large shiny caravans pulled by Land-Rovers and Jaguars of recent vintage.

Sir Cranley Onslow

And Mercedes.

Mr. Wells

Yes—accompanied by Mercedes, and the odd Shogun.

They first arrived about 18 months ago and arrived for the fourth time during the election campaign. They came in large numbers on a bright summer's day—they are not to be found in Hertfordshire in the winter. They began to terrorise the town of Hertford. They vandalised public places and destroyed local areas amenities, and their children invaded the local school swimming pool. They swam in the pool, unguarded and at night, and they wrecked facilities.

Mothers did not dare let their children play in the play areas on the housing estates because of the so-called gipsies' children. I would not call them gipsies—I am not quite certain what to call them. They are travellers of some kind, but they are certainly not gipsies of the kind that the hon. Member for Bradford, South so romantically described—the gipsy with his horse-drawn caraven—and they were serious operators.

They proceeded to offer their services making drives, gardening and clearing areas of wrecked cars and lorries, which they brought to that beautiful field to deconstruct, burning the tyres and wiring. Plumes of black smoke arose from that beautiful site, day in and day out. People in Hertford stopped taking holidays, as they dared not go away. They had to stay in their properties to protect them from vandalism and burglaries, which shot up at that time.

No one can tell me or the House that we should permit the settled population to be terrorised and vandalised and to be deprived of the amenities of their homes and property in such an appalling manner. We cannot stand by and let that happen.

Another consequence of the invasion needs to be considered separately in another Bill. The Commission for Racial Equality became involved. As the candidate for Hertford and Stortford, I was appalled by the desecration and lack of respect for property, and the inability, or unwillingness, of the police to do anything about it. I was also concerned about how difficult it was to remove those people.

I held a public meeting during the election campaign, and I introduced a Bill under the ten-minute rule, which excited the Commission for Racial Equality to make a complaint. It seemed to have the capacity to command police resources to investigate whether, as a candidate, I had committed an offence against the racial equality laws. One afternoon, soon after the general election, I was solemnly interrogated by a senior superintendent, a sergeant and two constables in Hertford police station for two hours. The police then reported to the commission on whether it should take out a prosecution against me for committing such an offence.

What a waste of police time, and what an outrage. As a candidate and a representative, am I not entitled to put forward the views of the people of Hertford and to speak out against the outrages committed by people who had invaded the land near to their property? If we are denied that opportunity because of the Race Relations Act 1976, it must be one of the most undemocratic laws ever to be passed by the House.

I condemn the Commission for Racial Equality for even beginning to take up the case. The National Gypsy Council subsequently sent me some interesting evidence about the people who had denounced me to the commission, and told me that they were not gipsies, never have been and could not claim to be. The commission took up their case and condemned all of us who objected to the sort of behaviour that I outlined. In a letter to me dated 6 January 1993, the National Gypsy Council told me that those people had nothing to do with gipsies, and should not be thought of in the same way.

Mr. Nigel Evans

Does my hon. Friend agree that if he had been found guilty of inciting racial hatred because of his remarks about the antics of those people, the whole country would be guilty, because they, too, would have deplored such actions if they had taken place in their area?

Mr. Bowen Wells

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right. The Commission for Racial Equality needs to think through what it is doing.

I objected, on obvious and sensible domestic grounds of common law and practice, to behaviour that is unacceptable, whether or not it is the behaviour of gipsies. The Commission should be careful about the way in which it uses its powers. I am not an admirer of its activities, although I am a passionate adversary of racial hatred and prejudice.

We must consider how to find a solution to the problem. First, we must not forget that there are many different types of travelling people in this country. I do not believe that there has been a major increase in the numbers of those I would call gipsies, whom I would describe in the way that the National Gypsy Council would like them to be defined in a new Bill—someone who has links with families of traditionally nomadic habit. That is as good a definition as any that I can find.

We should make provision for people of traditionally nomadic habit to carry on their way of life, tolerantly and sensibly. I do not think that there is any disagreement in the House about that. Many people, however, seek to live in that way. Some are genuinely homeless and find the way of life more congenial than living in hostels provided by local authorities or living in appalling housing conditions in some of our towns. They find that it is better to be out in the open air in a ramshackle truck than with the sort of people with whom they would have to share accommodation in those circumstances. I have much sympathy for them, but I do not believe that they can be allowed to do that at the expense of the settled community.

Those living on caravan sites, whether gipsies or not, should be entitled to all the social benefits available to anyone who is without work or, for some reason, needs housing benefit or income support. The nomadic community living on caravan sites should be entitled to social security benefits just like the settled population. In that way, we should be able to take care of the homeless people, who can also move to recognised sites with water, electricity, sanitation and waste disposal. All those who camp on and invade the countryside have none of those facilities and create a serious health hazard for the settled community and themselves, apart from leaving someone else to clean up the mess that they leave behind.

We can deal with the homeless, provided that they can find places on legitimate sites and pay what they can for those sites through housing benefit. As such benefits are, or should be, available in every case, we shall be able to provide for those people on private sites, as the private site owner will be able to pay back the costs, and possibly make a modest profit. My right hon. Friend's Bill proposes selling sites to gipsies, to whom I have just given a narrow definition.

However, there are a number of different gipsy organisations. When the Minister considers legislation, he may wish to find a broader definition of "gipsy". I believe that the term should be narrowly defined, as those who are not traditional nomads must live like the rest of us. They can live as they like, but they must live on legitimate, licensed gipsy caravan sites and pay for them. Those sites must be hard standing, with proper sanitation, waste disposal facilities and running water. Those who live on them must have the ability to educate their children—an important issue which we should all support. It is an offence not to send one's children to school, so we must make provision to enable those people to do so.

We should use the money that we have made available to provide sites for gipsies—many of whom are not rich, unlike the shiny caravan owners in Hertford, but of modest means. But their organisations are not insignificant. They can organise themselves and have the ability to manage sites. They are currently managing a site in Leeds. Through their management of the sites, they can make them acceptable.

They will begin to find the sites acceptable, as they will not have to share them with many other people whom they do not know, and with whom they have nothing in common and often fight vigorously before moving on. Many such people live in the countryside because they do not want to live on the council sites, which are open to a wide range of people as defined in the 1968 Act.

In the Act, gipsies are defined as persons of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin, but does not include members of an organised group of travelling showmen, or of persons engaged in travelling circuses, travelling together as such". That is as wide definition. Who is a "person of nomadic habit"? I would say that it could be anyone who decides to go to live in a caravan for a week, which is far too broad a definition.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertforshire, North (Mr. Heald) said, we can provide resources. Gipsies can sell sites to raise money if those sites are in the wrong place and use the money to establish separate sites, which they can manage, own and keep clean. As a result, they will become acceptable. I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking gave an example of a gipsy site that had been perfectly acceptable for many years. Gipsies can have such sites, provided that they are administered and managed by those who want them—not by a remote official or someone established in a hut and employed by the local council simply to monitor what is going on. That is the way forward.

We may have to introduce provisions to help some of the groups to borrow money initially. They will not have property against which they can provide security, but they will be acquiring a property. We may have to think of a way in which we can give some assurance to lending institutions, or possibly establish a fund from which gipsies can borrow in order to finance the purchase of sites. Representations have been made to me by people who say that would love to purchase sites but they do not have the money. We could make the money available through the discounting system envisaged in the Bill.

We must sell the rest of the sites or we shall be leaving the local authority in charge of a site that it will have to continue to administer. Gipsies or organisations that do not purchase sites using the 76 per cent. discount clearly do not want to do so, and in such cases the sites must be disposed of. The sensible way to do so is to auction them, despite what the hon. Member for Bradford, South said. Those sites may than be used for caravans or for other purposes, but they will certainly have a value, even if the itinerant community does not want them.

Mr. Cryer

The legislation does not seem to contain a safeguard to prevent an attractive gipsy site in an attractive district from being purchased at auction by a developer and turned into development land, which would reduce the number of sites and hamper the provision. If all sites are simply auctioned to the highest bidder without any protection, that might be the outcome.

Mr. Wells

That scenario is unlikely. If the site is attractive, the gipsy community will want to purchase it using the 76 per cent. discount. Even if they do not do that, if the site is so attractive, I am sure that the gipsies will bid for it at auction, and I do not believe that there is a problem. Those sites that are clearly not wanted by the nomadic community and which they do not buy at the 76 per cent. discount rate should be sold and put to other uses.

There are many other sorts of travelling people. I have spoken of the homeless and the traditional gipsy or nomadic person, but there are many others. Where are the Irish at this time of year? They inhabit our land, coming to this country in droves from Ireland and living in large caravans. The gipsy liaison officer in Hertfordshire tells me that they come only in the summer and go home to Ireland in the winter. There is no reason why we should provide gipsy caravan sites, or even settled homes, for Irish itinerants and tinkers who harass our communities during the summer.

Mr. John Sykes (Scarborough)

Is my hon. Friend aware that they are able not only to come here to live at the taxpayers' expense, but to vote here?

Mr. Wells

I am well aware of that, and have long resented it.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)

I am appalled by the remarks that have just been made about Irish people. Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that, under the 1949 treaty, there is absolute freedom of movement of people between Britain and Ireland? People from this country can go to live and work in Ireland and, in just the same way, people from Ireland can come to live and work in this country, and can vote in both countries. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the 1949 treaty and subsequent legislation should be amended?

Mr. Wells

Yes, I certainly am—and the sooner the better. I would not like the Irish people to think that I am condemning them all, but there are some itinerant people from Ireland who come here and behave badly, and I do not think that we should be compelled to provide sites for them to live on.

Mr. Corbyn

The hon. Gentleman seems to be heading off in a curious direction. Precisely what legal means does he propose to adopt to stop certain Irish people coming to this country? Apart from the prevention of terrorism legislation, which applies to people from any country, there is no legal provision to stop Irish people coming here. Is he seriously proposing that the relationship between the people of this country and the people of Ireland be fundamentally changed—

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order.Before the hon. Gentleman resumes his speech, may I point out the nature of the Bill we are discussing? It seems to me that we are rapidly heading towards wider issues that are not germane to it.

Mr.Wells

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker: I was about to say the same. The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) was about to open up a different debate, but I do not propose to join him.

There are undoubtedly problems with itinerant people from Ireland, and they need to be dealt with. We should not be required to make permanent provision for them in either caravan sites or settled homes.

The Bill deliberately excludes new age travellers, but they do come under the 1968 Act, so they are not entirely a separate problem. To be sure, this is a public order matter and a social security matter. It is shameful that the nation has to bribe these people with social security money to stop them breaking the laws of the land. What disgusting behaviour we have driven ourselves to.

We have to protect ourselves from this problem and I urge the Minister to press the Home Office, the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister to bring in legislation implementing the provisions of this Bill, the ideas in the consultation document and the views of the Home Office. A comprehensive Bill must be brought before Parliament so that we can properly provide for traditionally nomadic people and stop the vandalism perpetrated by all sorts of other people who take to the roads in the summer months.

We must provide for those who wish to live in caravans by giving them sites in the private sector and by giving them social security benefits to pay for those sites if they are impecunious or unemployed. That is the sensible way forward to ensure equality for all our communities throughout the land.

11.52 pm

Mrs. Judith Chaplin (Newbury)

The Minister will know from the huge number of responses to the consultation document how much interest there is in this subject. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) on introducing this Bill.

One reason why the problem gives rise to such interest is that it concerns not just real travellers but new age travellers, not to mention all who fall between the two categories. All the measures in the Bill and in the consultation document, although plainly directed at genuine travellers, also affect new age travellers, who cause so much anxiety in most parts of the country.

It is important to remember the differences between these various groups, because there are different solutions to be sought for different types of traveller.

I have been slightly worried during the debate by the fact that hon. Members talked exclusively of putting these people on sites, as if they will stay there permanently. But the definition of a traveller is that he wants to travel. It is like getting on one's bike; these people travel in caravans and work in different parts of the country.

In many areas, such people come and do seasonal work from time to time. Huge numbers go to certain rural areas to pick fruit, for instance, and then move back to more urban areas in the winter. Then there are others who have moved into occupations such as collecting scrap. They, too, move around collecting it. It is, therefore, wrong to view the solution to the problem as merely finding places where these people can become permanent residents.

Some travellers come from Ireland and move around doing various jobs. They need temporary accommodation, which can often be provided by the farmer or other person temporarily employing them. Many of our roads are built by such people, so the person involved in road construction has a duty to provide a site where travellers can go without offending other people. He has a duty to provide the right site and facilities for them for as long as the work lasts.

Few people criticise any of this or are worried by it, but many people strongly criticise the huge numbers of people moving around the country who are known as new age travellers. In my constituency, we are fortunate enough to have a large number of attractive commons, and for hundreds of years the sort of itinerant workers whom I have described have moved around in small groups on the commons without greatly offending the local population. It is only since the war that their numbers have increased and that they have begun to cause distress to local people.

On beautiful commons such as Bucklebury or Burden Heath, people used to expect to see just a few travellers in the summer months; they would then move on. Not any longer. People are very worried, because larger numbers are arriving, settling for longer periods and doing immense damage.

The beautiful Hungerford common, just outside the town of that name, has been the scene of great difficulties in recent years. Three years ago, a large convoy of travellers stopped on the common and caused great distress to the inhabitants of the town. They then went into the town, many of them strangely dressed, and into shops, where they offended the local people. Indeed, they drove them away from the centre of town altogether, to the disadvantage of the shopkeepers there. All this took place on the May bank holiday, and it was most upsetting for the people of the town. The next year, exactly the same happened again, only there were far more travellers.

One factor that annoys many people is that the camps in which the travelling people live become virtually no-go areas for the police. It is intolerable that there should be such areas in parts of this country. Local people say that these people often do not even obey the law. Their vehicles are frequently unlicensed or uninsured. That should not be allowed, yet the police cannot deal with the problem.

One of the local farmers tried to prevent more people going on to his land by parking a tractor across his gateway to a field. The police came and did him for not having a licence for it. He had not used the tractor for a long time. That merely served further to ignite passions in the local community.

Many people believe that such congregations deal in drugs, and that is often true. That, of course, is illegal and many believe that it will spin off into their families and affect their children. It is unsatisfactory that we have still not grasped that problem and done something about it.

Such was the feeling about the Hungerford common invasion that local people rose up and demanded a solution. The police moved in the third year. They watched to see where the congregations of people were coming from, and cut off the approach roads with huge tree trunks. That enormous police presence stopped the congregation, but it is wrong that residents trying to enjoy a bank holiday should have to live in a state of police siege, which was the impression given by the number of police vehicles and personnel. I pay tribute to the amazing efficiency of the police who prevented the gathering, but the travellers simple moved to another area.

Mr. Pike

I understand the problem to which the hon. Lady refers, but how will the Bill help to deal with it?

Mrs. Chaplin

I shall deal with the link later in my speech.

My constituency has another large common, and for many years it has not been available for people to walk upon. It is, of course, Greenham common, which is known throughout the country as one of the key sites in the cold war which led to the banning of many nuclear weapons and movement towards peace.

Mr. Corbyn

The hon. Lady describes the problems in Newbury, Hungerford and Greenham common. I know the area well. Does she agree that the presence of nuclear weapons at Greenham common posed a far greater danger to the whole country than any number of new age travellers, tinkers, gipsies or anybody else?

Mrs. Chaplin

Most hon. Members, and most people in the country, believe that the presence of those weapons prevented the escalation of nuclear capabilities. Most of us maintain that there is still a need for an independent nuclear deterrent as an aid to agreed negotiation and a reduction in such weapons.

Greenham common is no longer used by the United States air force, which has returned to the States. Everybody would like to see parts of the common opened up again so that people can use it as they did in the past. Many people have visited the common's perimeter fence. Local people are worried that, when it comes down, hordes of people—new age travellers and others—may move onto the common and cause distress to the inhabitants of the area.

One of the problems with the Government's consultation paper is its narrow definition. It specifically mentions "caravans". It may surprise hon. Members to know that, although the cruise weapons and the USAF have gone from Greenharn, the Greenham women have not. I hope that the Government will look again at the consultation document to try to ensure that it deals not just with caravans but with illegal camping in tents and sheds and all sorts of temporary buildings. That problem must be dealt with, as well as the problem of caravans moving around the country. As well as large congregations of people, small numbers also upset those who wish to see an end to illegal camping.

As hon. Members have said, some travellers will no longer wish to travel. It is important to provide sites on which such people can make permanent homes, and they should be enabled to provide such sites for themselves. Some of them will wish to move into council houses, and I welcome the consultative document's proposals that that will be examined and encouraged. However, some people will wish not to move into permanent housing but to stay in their caravans on more permanent sites.

Some hon. Members have said that, although the number of sites has been increased, that has not solved the problem in the way that was envisaged when the Act was passed. The implication is that, because more sites have been provided, more people have taken up travelling, but I rather doubt whether that is the whole truth.

Nowadays, it is a great deal more comfortable to travel than it used to be. Caravan standards have been greatly improved, and some are infinitely preferable to some of our smaller houses. There has been an increase in the number of travellers, because many people prefer a caravan to a permanent home. Another factor in the increase is that some people have been unable to get houses or have to move around the country.

Mr. Ian Taylor

A gipsy in Surrey with whom I discussed the problem there said that gipsies resent many of the later definitions of gipsies and that the best definition in law should be that a gipsy is someone who, when travelling, uses the old-fashioned horse-drawn carriage. Does my hon. Friend agree?

Mrs. Chaplin

That would limit the definition to a very small number of people, who could probably be accommodated on about two sites. I am not sure that it is a realistic definition. There is a huge variety of reasons for travelling.

Given the rise in the number of travellers, it is important to increase the number of places to which they can go without upsetting other inhabitants. We need to look more carefully to see whether people want to continue to move around the country or whether they want to stay in one area and live in caravans. The Bill addresses the latter point rather more than the former.

It will always be incredibly difficult to find caravan sites that are acceptable, let alone popular with local inhabitants. Many counties still do not have designated sites. Even when it is possible that a private site will be opened, very often the local population feel instinctively that they do not want a site nearby.

In my constituency recently, a site was proposed on derelict land, well away from other houses, that had not been used for farming for a long time. From many points of view, it might have been a good site, but instantly, all those who lived within any distance of the area got together and said that they did not want a gipsy site there because they were worried about the effect on the value of their properties and the mess, the damage to the environment, the risk of burglaries, additional vandalism, and so on.

It may be unfair that people usually view travellers in that light, but the experience of many leads them to that conclusion—and travellers will have to overcome that prejudice when they look for sites.

The Bill embraces the privatisation or sale of all local authority sites, but perhaps that would be too restrictive. It should be possible, as in the case of council housing, for occupants or those coming to the sites collectively to purchase the sites from the local authority at a considerable discount. That is in line with many of our other policies—particularly for council housing—and would be a worthwhile way forward.

Nevertheless, local authorities should still be allowed —as the consultation paper suggests—to provide sites if they considered that appropriate. They provide a mix of housing for others, and there is no reason why the same should not apply to sites.

Local authorities should more carefully consider the sites that they provide. We can all give examples of sites comprising a relatively small number of pitches, provided at apparently enormous cost. Given that expense, one wonders why the local authority did not provided proper permanent housing rather than pitches.

Local authorities should not be compelled to provide sites of a very high standard—not because those occupying them should be denied good facilities, but because they may not be necessary in the light of the standards of the caravans themselves. Sites with relatively few facilities could be provided that nevertheless accommodated their occupants adequately.

Local authorities should also carefully consider the size of the sites they provide. One reason for antipathy to sites is their large size and their impact on an area. Perhaps fewer, smaller sites could be made available. That should be a discretionary power, with local authorities—if they attach a priority to providing such accommodation in their areas—being allowed as much autonomy as possible.

A larger number of private sites should also be available, but if that is to be done, planning regulations and rules will have to be re-examined. We are endlessly urging farmers, for example, to use their land in different ways and find alternative ways of improving their incomes. Farmers may have small sites that could accommodate a few caravans located near farm buildings equipped with a water supply and other facilities. They should be permitted to open them to caravans, and not be told that it is against council policy and prohibited.

Temporary planning permission should also be considered. Local people may feel concerned that a long-term site to accommodate a large number of travellers will destroy their environment. If temporary planning permission is granted for a small site, that consent could be revoked if it caused difficulties. Then local people might be more likely to give their approval.

The suggestion that travellers have a right to occupy a site for all time understandably worries local people, who do not know what may happen to their villages. Qualifications and standards that the site owner must observe could form part of temporary planning permission. If they were not met, consent could be revoked and the site closed. But unless temporary sites are made available, the problem of accommodating travellers will not be solved.

It has been said that travellers should not have privileges not enjoyed by ordinary people applying for planning permission. By and large, that is right. There may be an argument for more temporary arrangements in respect of sites than apply in other cases. If, as the Bill suggests, more small sites are provided, both by local authorities and private interests, there will be more accommodation throughout the country for people who want to pursue that way of life.

Once there is greater availability, it will be possible to clamp down on the illegal parking that so upsets and distresses those who live in the countryside. I welcome the consultation paper's proposal that a tougher regime should operate against those who park illegally. I hope that it will quickly be made law for local and highway authorities to act more speedily in moving on those who offend in that way.

Sometimes, local authorities do not act effectively. Many of us have experience of cases in which the authorities could have acted in moving on those who parked illegally but did not do so. Landowners often spend much time and incur considerable costs having people moved on from their land. When landowners start a legal action, they frequently find that the case cannot be heard for a long time because of the court's work load and they, therefore, experience difficulty in obtaining a possession order that will enable the caravans to be moved on.

There should be a means for landowners to take faster action, at lower cost, than now. The consultation paper makes no mention of action that landowners themselves could take to have people moved on more quickly.

There are many good things in the consultation paper, and the Bill adds to it in providing well for those who want to travel around the country or become more permanent dwellers. However, other ways of increasing the number of sites and of stopping illegal parking should be considered.

Last summer, we were all appalled by the huge groups of people who were moving around and causing terrible distress and disruption—acting in a way that was intolerable to law-abiding citizens. I think that even more important than the matters that we have discussed this morning is discussion of how that can be prevented, so that it does not happen again this summer,

12.19 pm

Mr. John Sykes (Scarborough)

I am pleased to have been called, and especially pleased to follow the interesting speech of my distinguished colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mrs. Chaplin). I am also pleased to speak in a week during which my constituency has had to suffer a small but unwelcome invasion by new age travellers for the first time.

My constituency has a unique history. Scarborough was originally a Roman signalling station, and then a Viking town. The people who settled there were led by a Viking called Scarli, which is how Scarborough got its name. Those who settled in the north of East Anglia became known as the north folk, which turned into Norfolk, while those who settled in the south were known as the south folk, which became Suffolk. The east Saxons settled in Essex and the south Saxons settled in what is now known as Sussex. Those who settled under King Hakon on Hakon's island became Hakonsea, now Hackney, and the island of Shells became Chelsea.

My excuse for that historical tour of England is my wish to draw the House's attention to the settled nature of our communities. The community in which I live with my wife and three children, and which I have the honour to represent, will be known to hon. Members as Scarborough and Whitby. It is so beautiful that 270 people applied for interviews in an attempt to succeed my distinguished predecessor, Sir Michael Shaw. Every summer, it attracts about 250,000 visitors and the number is growing every year; but it also attracts gipsies and, as I have said, it has already attracted an unwelcome invasion of so-called new age travellers and people who travel around in caravans generally. Fortunately, no one from Greenham common has turned up to date.[Interruption.] In comparison, even the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) would be welome in my constituency.

Mr. John Marshall

What—him?

Mr. Skyes

Yes, even him.

In August 1990, the Seamer road—the main road into my constituency—was invaded by so-called gipsies and travelling people, who parked in a field. There were about a dozen caravans and they stayed for about five days. They left an atrocious amount of rubbish and filth—a disgusting mess—and Scarborough's ratepayers had to pay to have it cleared up. It was said at the time that the council would have to find a permanent caravan park for so-called itinerant travellers at Weaponess. I objected in the strongest possible terms to the intrusion.

A large percentage of my constituents are old-age pensioners, many of whom live alone. It is difficult to express the fear, distress and profound anxiety caused to those people by the prospect of a nearby gipsy encampment. I raised several objections and, fortunately, the proposal was turned down, though one Labour councillor was moved to write to the newspaper complaining that gipsies had rights, too.

I am not talking about the old romantic show people —the old Romanies. I am not talking about fortune tellers. The plain, unvarnished truth about new age travellers and people like them is that, in many cases, they are dirty, lazy drop-outs, whose dedication to their way of life extends no further than the nearest benefit office, followed closely by the nearest pub.

I am in no mood to take lectures from Opposition Members about the rights of politically correct new age travellers. Opposition Members would soon change their tune if they woke up one morning to find their back gardens invested by new age travellers. Let us not listen to the likes of Andrew Puddephatt of Liberty, who attacks views such as mine—and those of elderly people—on the grounds that they are intolerant, distrustful and prejudicial. Let us dismiss out of hand politically correct editorials in The Guardian such as that entitled, "A home to go to". The Guardian's response to Government proposals was as follows: All nomadic people who travel through settled tribes are an easy target. They make easy scapegoats, particularly for politicians facing difficult elections … The document"— a document produced by my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning— is a deep disappointment given that Sir George Young, one of the Government's most progressive ministers, was in charge of its drafting. According to the newspaper, the document makes no attempt to put the increase in perspective … Seizing caravans from offending gypsy families might sound sensible, but what about the cost of placing the subsequent homeless families in bed and breakfast accommodation? That is a question that the newspaper should address to its bosom chums in Labour-controlled local authorities, where so many council houses are empty that we have lost count of them.

The Guardian goes on to say that none of the fundamental causes is even addressed in the consultative document. That is no more than the jargon of the left—a script straight out of the television programme "LA Law". As usual, its authors have managed to distance themselves from the facts. Conservative Members know the facts: the people who stand up for travellers are standing up for loafers and spongers, hiding their position behind a veil of wishing to preserve the gipsies' way of life at all costs. I believe that it is right to stand up for the taxpayer.

Why, for example, should the little man working behind a lathe in a factory pay out of his hard-earned wages to subsidise such a way of life? Why should the young husband and wife with a small child, who are just starting out in life, pay one penny of their tax to subsidise the way of life that the hon. Member for Islington, North is trying so desperately to preserve?

The Bill responds to the majority view in the country, and Opposition Members should do the same. They should listen to people such as the Mr. Gibson who wrote to The Independent of 2 September: Your article refers to the desire of the gypsies to preserve their way of life. I wonder if this desire includes events that have occurred here over the last few days. A couple of weeks ago, a solitary gypsy family, complete with lorry and caravan, parked behind a nearby empty warehouse unit. Within days they were joined by a dozen more families and since then our normally peaceful industrial estate has been overrun. Break-ins and damages are rife. Anyone silly enough to have a diesel tank has found the tank drained. In our case the culprit simply had to open a valve. More diligent companies who keep their diesel under lock and key suffered even more. Their valves and locks were smashed and the diesel then drained. To make matters worse our local police claim to have neither the manpower nor resources to nip the problem in the bud. No doubt the gypsies will claim that our problems are coincidental. In the meantime perhaps they could preserve their way of life elsewhere and their leaders could consider allowing the rest of us to preserve ours. Even the National Gypsy Council, whose last known address was Grengage street, Oldham, fully supports the Bill. It said:

A further progressive move would be for Local Authorities to encourage the provision of private sites by Gypsies. The Bill tackles the problem exactly where it should he tackled. It allows for further consultation and powers of removal and removes the duty of local authorities to find sites for these people. On behalf of the people of Scarborough, I am delighted to support the principle that underpins the Bill.

12.28 pm

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)

I begin by offering my apologies to the House for not being here for the beginning of the debate. [HoN. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] It's nice to be among friends. I had to undertake a hospital appointment on behalf of my son.

Mr. John Marshall

Where are they?

Mr. Corbyn

My friends are all around me, but not opposite.

Mr. Ian Taylor

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can the Chair clarify exactly where the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends are?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris)

That is not a point of order.

Mr. Corbyn

In an existentialist maner, my friends are all about me, so let that not worry anyone.

I was fascinated by the early part of the speech of the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes) and I wish that he had stayed in the same vein. However, he went on to display the most appalling series of prejudices, no doubt for the benefit of the front page of Scarborough's weekly paper next Friday. It is a great shame that he did not follow the traditions of some far more illustrious people from his constitutency, such as the Brontë sisters who wrote such wonderful works—I wonder how they would have described his speech—or Captain Cook from Whitby who displayed great humanity towards people throughout the world.

Mr. Sykes

rose—

Mr. Corbyn

I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will recount some of the prejudices that he displayed earlier or perhaps tell us which other prejudices he did not have time to display.

Mr. Sykes

The hon. Gentleman displays a remarkable knowledge of my constituency. He is extremely welcome to visit at any time. If he spoke to the people there, he would find that my views are those of the majority.

Mr. Corbyn

I have been to Scarborough and Whitby many times. They are both delightful places and I like them very much. The north Yorkshire moors are also very pleasant. They are spoilt only by the Fylingdales early warning system, but when that is removed the moors can be returned to their pristine beauty. I hope that that will happen one day, but one never knows.

Mr. Sykes

Fylingdales is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway).

Mr. Corbyn:

I am sorry. I did not know where the frontier lay between the hon. Gentleman's constituency and his neighbour's.

This issue is very important because it is extremely easy for anyone to whip up prejudice against people whose life style is different from that of the majority. I am not condoning criminal acts or break-ins; I am talking about the way in which prejudice is whipped up against people who have a different life style.

The history of this century in Europe is one of appalling prejudice against people with a different life style. Whom did the Nazis go after first in 1933? It was not the Jews but the gay, or homosexual, community and the gipsies, followed by the Jewish community, trade unionists and many others. The Nazis rounded up the gipsies first and put them in concentration camps to die. They murdered them in very large numbers, but they were able to get away with it because of the prejudice that they had earlier succeeded in whipping up against those people throughout Germany.

Another example of such prejudice is the way in which some of the former eastern European regimes whipped up prejudice against the Romany community from Romania and incarcerated those people in camps. Conservative Members used to protest against such things. They should remember that human rights is an international issue which knows no boundaries. If we are concerned about human rights in other countries, we should also be concerned about them in this country.

Mr. Nigel Evans

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that part of the problem is a matter of perception? It has already been said that "gipsy" is far too loose a term and is used to cover all sorts of people. Last summer there were many problems with new age travellers, and some people grouped them together with gipsies. The new age travellers displayed some dreadful antics: they invaded peaceful countryside, decimated peaceful villages, went on the rampage and had raves lasting two or three days, showing a total disregard for the area. Part of the problem is that some people perceive those travellers to be gipsies.

Mr. Corbyn

The hon. Gentleman can make his own speech later, but he should consider the fact that if large numbers of young people wish to congregate for festivals or other events, which I accept can sometimes cause a nuisance, there is perhaps a need to deal with that wish instead of merely driving away the problem. Driving the problem from one area to another does not solve it, but merely moves it down the road to another place. Unfortunately, the Bill does nothing to tackle the problems. It merely heaps greed on prejudice with the idea of selling off sites so that people can make a fast buck out of what was originally a public investment.

Norman Dodds, a former Member for Erith and Crayford, fought a long and lonely campaign to gain rights for travelling people in this country. He took part in the defensive actions of people threatened with eviction from sites all over Kent and the south-east of England. It is interesting to note that the farming community in Kent were happy to use the labour of travelling people to pick hops and fruit at certain times of year, while at other times they were more than happy to evict them from the sites. That happens in many places; it is a two-way process. We should recognise the great work that Norman Dodds did in that campaign, which was to culminate in the enactment of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. He will be remembered when those who can only display their naked prejudice have long since passed on.

As a former chair of the planning committee of the London borough of Haringey, I have some experience of dealing with the problem of travellers sites. From time to time, travelling people came to that borough, as they come to all London boroughs. They came mainly but not exclusively in the winter, and would look around for places to put their caravans. Usually, an enormous outcry followed, and the traditional response of the local authority was to seek a court order for possession of the land if it was council owned, an order under the environmental health legislation if it was owned by someone else, or an order under the Highways Acts if it was on a highway. Seldom was a successful court case brought against the travellers because they usually moved on in advance of the action.

I was never happy with the process because it seemed to me that we were avoiding dealing with the problem. When I was asked to sign an eviction order in respect of a group of travellers, I refused to do so. I thought it completely hypocritical of the council to keep evicting travellers without having made any attempt whatever to provide them with permanent sites. After a long campaign, permanent sites were eventually provided by Haringey under the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant).

Haringey now has a number of permanent sites for travellers and, so far as I am aware, they are fairly well run and fairly well used. Water and toilet facilities are provided and a sense of order prevails. That is surely the way to address the problem and far preferable to saying blandly, "We will move the problem on and, while we are at it, let us see whether we can sell off this land."

The operation of the 1968 Act has had its ups and downs. It has had a good side, in the sense that the Department of the Environment gives 100 per cent. grants for the provision of sites. The argument that they are paid for by local taxpayers is fallacious, as the hon. Member for Scarborough knows: all the money is provided by central Government. Obviously, taxpayers' money generally is involved in the provision of sites—and I hope that the hon. Member for Scarborough will consider the problems of tax evasion and abuse, especially the levels of taxation paid in the City of London and the record of Virgin Atlantic Airways and Richard Branson, who has registered most of his companies in the Channel Islands to avoid paying tax in this country. I understand that Richard Branson has managed to evade payments of £94 million in the process.

Mr. Sykes

I was merely standing up for the ordinary taxpayer—someone who may work seven days a week to make money to bring home to his wife and family—and it is about time that the Opposition did the same.

Mr. Corbyn

It is precisely those people for whom the Opposition speak. That is why I am drawing the attention of the House, and of the hon. Member for Scarborough in particular, to the problem of taxation as it applies to Virgin Atlantic Airways and Richard Branson and their tax haven registration. All the other companies in the City of London that operate from tax havens to avoid paying tax in this country are also selling people short. They are evading tax. The hon. Member for Scarborough should address his concerns about non-payment of tax to those companies. He would find a far greater source of revenue among those companies than anywhere else.

The 1968 Act gave local authorities the opportunity to provide permanent caravan sites and to claim 100 per cent. of the cost of that provision from the Department of the Environment. The difficulty is that there is no mandatory requirement on local authorities to do that until they are challenged for not making that provision. That is a weakness in the 1968 Act. There should have been a time limit on the requirement. It obviously takes time to provide sites, but some 25 years after the passage of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 many local authorities have yet to provide permanent sites for travellers.

Mr. Pike

Is my hon. Friend aware that when the Select Committee on the Environment considered the DOE's estimates, it criticised the Department for not using the stick in the 1968 Act, to which the Minister referred earlier, more frequently to ensure that more local authorities complied with the Act and provided sites?

Mr. Corbyn

Since the 1968 Act was passed, I feel that the Department of the Environment has not really wanted it. It has not done much to pursue its provisions and officials at the Department have not taken much interest in its operation. It is an Act of Parliament intended to provide permanent sites for travellers, but the Department of the Environment has done little to ensure that its provisions are carried out.

Little pressure has been brought to bear on local authorities to force them to implement the Act's provisions. Indeed, many local authorities, not all of which are in densely built-up urban areas, have achieved designation in respect of the 1968 Act. There are obviously problems about that legislation.

We must also consider the needs, problems and the contribution to society of the travelling community. For the most part, Conservative Members equate the travelling community with new age travellers, with Stonehenge and with problems. They should recognise that the traditional Romanies, who have travelled as itinerant labourers throughout Europe for many centuries, have a deep and respected culture. The general level of prejudice exhibited by so many Conservative Members reveals a deep ignorance of history and a deeply unfortunate streak of populism on their part.

When we consider the problems facing travellers in this country at the present time, if politicians whip up prejudices against individuals, that multiplies the effect of prejudice on other people. For example, the children of travellers are often not admitted to certain schools. The travellers also have problems obtaining health care and in some respects the level of chronic illness among travellers is far higher than among other people. We must do something about that.

The response of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities to the Government's document about the reform of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 is far more responsible than the approach taken by many Conservative Members. The AMA response refers to the problems facing local authorities if there is insufficient provision for travellers in terms of sites, education and welfare. Therefore, illegal parking and camping are primarily due to the fact that the number of designated sites has failed to keep pace with the increased number of travellers. If we are to deal with that problem, we surely need more and not fewer sites. According to the AMA, if sites are not being used, they are probably in the wrong place or badly managed. There is no excuse for that. Sites should be fully used if they are properly administered and in the proper place.

The other aspect of the Government's proposals, and the thinking behind the view expressed by so many Conservative Members, is to criminalise travellers. What possible purpose can that serve? What does criminalising people who have a different way of life achieve? We need a far more sensible approach than is revealed in the Bill or in many of the ideas expressed by Conservative Members today.

The Bill is fundamentally wrong on several counts. It fails to recognise that if there is a problem, it has to be addressed. It fails also to recognise that people have different ways of life and different styles of life. Surely different ways of life and life styles are perfectly acceptable in a pluralistic society. I do not believe that Conservative Members agree with that; they may say it, but I do not think that they believe it for one moment. They do not want people to have different life styles and different ways of life.

It is quite beyond me why we have the annual media obsession with problems at Stonehenge. May festivals have been held at Stonehenge for centuries, but we now have grotesque barbed wire all around one of the most significant ancient monuments in Europe if not in the world. It is an absolutely beautiful place. I remember being taken there as a child by my father, who has a great interest in such matters, to watch the sun rise at midsummer. Nobody can go near the place now—one cannot get within miles of it. There are police marksmen, police vehicles all over the place, closed roads, and closed this, that and the other. It is absolutely obscene what goes on there each summer. It is about time we started to consider people's rights to visit that ancient monument, albeit in a controlled way if there are large numbers of people, to prevent damage to the stones or whatever, but it is bizarre that we should surround it with a military-style operation to keep people away. It is about time we changed a few attitudes.

At the bottom of the Bill is what one finds at the bottom of most Bills from Tory Members of Parliament—a bit of asset stripping and a bit of greed. The Bill is about selling off sites which have been paid for by public money. As the hon. Member for Scarborough keeps reminding us, taxpayers bought the land. Yet the right hon. Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) proposes that sites be sold off for 75 per cent. below their real purchase price. Where is the value for money for the taxpayer in that? Why cannot sites remain in public ownership and public administration, with local authorities being encouraged to provide a sufficient number of necessary sites?

If we go down the road of attack, prejudice, and so on—there is much in what Andrew Puddephatt of Liberty has said—it will be extremely dangerous. I hope that the House will not support the Bill and that it will listen very carefully to all the submissions in respect of the Government's consultation paper on the operation of the 1968 Act. I hope, too, that hon. Members will recognise that we live in a pluralistic society, that there are different ways of life, that adults and children have rights and that we need more and better run sites, rather than a diminution in the number of sites, which can lead only to an exacerbation of the problems of illegal camping, illegal parking and criminalising people. That is a daft way to deal with the issue.

Too many Conservative Members spent too much time last summer reading the editorial columns of the Daily Mail rather than thinking through the issue and the problems which arise.

Mr. Heald

Has not one of the problems over the years been that London boroughs have been particularly poor in their provision for gipsies?

Mr. Corbyn

There is some truth in that remark. When I was a member of Haringey council, I was aware of that problem, and I raised it with the then London Boroughs Association, now the Association of London Authorities and the London Boroughs Association. We tried to persuade boroughs to provide sites in a wider area across London. Some achieved designation, but some did not. I am not particularly happy about that mix, because there is a need for urban sites as well as rural sites. It should not be just a rural problem. Coming from Shropshire myself, I recognise what the hon. Gentleman who represents the Ludlow constituency says. We need to understand that there is a requirement for urban and rural sites.

Mr. Heald

My constituency is Hertfordshire, North.

Mr. Corbyn

I apologise if I mentioned the wrong constituency. I understand that there is great competition among Conservative Members with the boundary changes and so on. I would not want to intrude on private grief. If I have caused a problem for the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald) I am deeply sorry, but long may it continue.

Those are the main points that I wanted to make about the Bill. I hope that hon. Members will not see fit to pass the Bill, but, instead, will listen to the responses to the consultation paper and come up with a more sensible and civilised solution. In the past, too many people have ridden on cheap prejudices against travellers. They should remember what happened in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, and what has happened in so many other places in Europe since then. We deny human rights to people at our peril: once we start to deny human rights to a specific community, it extends to every other community. We should remember that with great care.

12.50 pm

Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest)

I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this debate. Like my hon. Friends, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) on the excellent way in which he presented his Bill. He seeks to achieve a balance between the rights of travellers and gipsies—by providing them with adequate sites so that they can properly pursue their nomadic way of life—and the interests of people such as the residents in my constituency, who are entitled to live peaceably and sensibly alongside gipsies within their communities.

I have some sympathy with the arguments of the hon. Members for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) and for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer). I am the secretary of the parliamentary rights group. As a result, I recognise that human rights do not begin and end at Dover. People in the United Kingdom have the right to live according to their wishes. Equally, I recognise that the problem with gipsies has got completely out of hand in the past few years.

It is 25 years since the Caravan Sites Act was introduced. Plainly, it does not work. Not only do we have 4,500 caravans on non-authorised sites, but, for example, in my constituency we do not have a designation, despite the fact that 60 caravans are presently on council or authorised sites. Hereford and Worcester county council has the most sites in the west midlands.

As has rightly been said, since 1965 there has been a huge increase in the number of gipsy caravans. In 1965, there were 4,750. For some reason, the number has now reached 13,500. We have been told of the increase in the number of Irish itinerants. In the past 10 years, the number has grown by some 2,800.

In a brief intervention on an earlier speech, I said that the Caravan Sites Act means that the more a county or district council provides, the more they have a reputation for providing caravan sites for the itinerant community and, therefore, the greater the number of people who come to those councils. If councils do not have the power to move them on—as my own council does not at present—the sort of problems they cause can be legion, and not only in terms of cost.

It is estimated that the capital cost per pitch of a properly provided site is some£28,000, with annual maintenance per site of about £30,000, which goes on the bills of the local community charge payers. A number of hon. Members have referred to the mess and the appalling disruption which is caused by some—I emphasise some, not all—of the itinerant community.

I shall quote from two letters that I have received from constituents about the problems caused when itinerants occupied a site on the Birmingham road in Kidderminster. It was a couple of years ago, but, nevertheless it illustrates the point. One lady wrote: Last month there were at least 15 caravans parked there, and we had to suffer all sorts of abuse, stone throwing and noise. The mess they have left behind is appalling and is still there if you have time to view. I viewed the site and was able to verify what my constituent said.

Another constituent, a pensioner, wrote to me about the same site. He and his wife live next door to this site. They say: There are no toilet facilities on the ground, and the adults and children are using the bushes and backs of caravans as toilets. There is no water on the site, but the itinerants bring milk churns filled with water daily. There are cars and lorries, and an amount of old furniture around, and several dogs also. That illustrates some of the problems caused by itinerants who are less than responsive to the needs and wishes of their neighbours. There are no adequate facilities for the itinerants, a point which I wish to emphasise.

The Caravan Sites Act has proved grossly inadequate. Although 25 years have passed since its enactment, only 38 per cent. of local authorities have powers under it. Too often, it has been the cause of a ping-pong effect, under which individual districts within a designated county argue against having to provide additional sites. The result is delay in providing sites, or they are not provided at all.

Hereford and Worcester is aware of the inadequacies of the Act and of the fact that central Government, district councils and county councils have been playing off against one another in terms of their responsibilities under the Act after the judgment in 1988 involving Hereford and Worcester county council. In his judgment, Mr. Justice Mann decided that 18 years was sufficient for the county council to come up to designated standards, and that it was not sufficient to argue that it had not been instructed to do so by central Government.

Equally, the Caravan Sites Act is inadequate, in that it does not provide a sufficient incentive for the provision of private caravan sites, which is one of the aims of the Bill. The Act is far too reactive. What often happens, as I have seen at the Sandy lane industrial estate at Stourport in my constituency, is that a piece of land comes on to the market and is automatically grabbed by the county council as a potential site for gipsies, irrespective of its suitability.

Although no hon. Member has referred to this subject so far in the debate. I want to deal with some of the other remedies that are available to local communities who find themselves invaded by the anti-social activities of some gipsies.

The Public Order Act 1986 covers illegal acts of trespass, but the police tell me that that Act has a number of significant defects. First, unless there are 12 caravans on a site, it is difficult for the police to prove nuisance and use their powers under the Public Order Act. Secondly—even worse, particularly in terms of the problems that I have experienced on a site in Lickhill road in Stourport—if a landowner appears to give his consent by not himself taking any action, it is difficult for the police to prove trespass and therefore to take action under the Public Order Act. Thirdly, a circular was issued in 1991 by the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker), which hedged around the capabilities of the police to deal with trespass under the Act.

One of the points in the circular relates to the availability of other areas for itinerants who are to be moved away from a site. That condition frequently cannot be met. Far too often, therefore, police officers have to take a fairly circumspect line when invoking the powers of the Public Order Act.

Mr. Ian Taylor

May I add to my hon. Friend's list of problems? Surrey police have informed me that section 39 of the Public Order Act 1986 is effective only if there is public disorder. The problem is that often there is not public disorder but merely public dismay.

Mr. Coombs

That is a good point. The Public Order Act requires that there should be aggravated trespass. If people are just sitting around, although they may be acting in a messy and probably an environmentally distasteful way, it is difficult to use the provisions of the Act against them.

The Environmental Protection Act 1990 can be used against itinerants on the ground of nuisance, but, unfortunately, it takes far too long. One has to prove the nuisance and give an opportunity for remedy, but all the while, the nuisance continues, to the detriment of local residents.

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have just returned from outside the offices of the Department of Trade and Industry, where five women from "Women Against Pit Closures" are demonstrating. They are burning coal in a brazier and there is some danger that the police may take excessive action against them. Do you know whether the President of the Board of Trade is going to make a statement about the matter, either to show that there will not be excessive action—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I have had no request for a statement on anything.

Mr. Coombs

Hon. Members have already said that civil action, under the Town and Country Planning (Compensation) Act 1985, can be taken to remove a nuisance caused by unreasonable and irresponsible travellers on a site. However, that is an ineffective means for local residents to get quick action.

I know an example of the sort of problems that can be caused. About a week ago, I visited a site with three caravans in Lickhill road, near the centre of Stourport, opposite a number of residential properties. The police are having great difficulty invoking the Public Order Act. The authority is not designated, so the Caravan Sites Act 1968 cannot be used—principally because there seems to be some complicity between the owner of the site and the people on it. Too often, owners of private sites who have been denied planning permission decide to put pressure on the district council by "inviting" possibly unwelcome elements on to the site, which makes it difficult to deal with them under present legislation.

The law should be tightened up. I should be happy to do away with designation, although I am told that we are likely to have it in Wyre Forest during the next few months. It should be illegal for someone to trespass and set themselves up in a caravan or whatever else on someone's property, and we should be able to move them on. I hope that the legislation will also cover road verges, because a number of itinerants parked on verges are causing great problems in Chaddesley Corbett in my constituency.

As for privatisation, obviously I want as many authorised sites as possible for gipsies, because that will mean that we can avoid the problems that too often arise on unauthorised sites today. However, I am worried about clause 7 of the Bill, which makes it compulsory for all sites to go to the private sector. Wherever sites are—whether in public or private control—we want to ensure that they are properly managed. I agree with Opposition Members' comments on the subject.

I cannot understand how buying a site at a knockdown price—even at more than 76 per cent. discount—at public auction will encourage the owner to manage the site properly and will benefit local residents.

I agree with what the hon. Member for Bradford, South said about making the sale of sites compulsory. The interests of the taxpayer will not necessarily be looked after. If a 100 per cent. grant has been given to buy and equip the site, I do not see why all the benefits—including the 76 per cent. discount—should accrue to the National Gypsy Council, when it cannot necessarily be proved that the new manager will act more efficiently than the council has done.

The Bill is good as far as it goes, but it does not cover a number of important issues. At present, there are 4,500 caravans on unauthorised sites throughout the nation. In addition to the greater powers of compulsion inherent in the Bill, we should consider, as a matter of priority, the problem of unauthorised sites.

I was delighted to hear what my hon. Friend the Minister said about the Government's proposals on the planning implications of providing more gipsy sites. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mrs. Chaplin) that it seems illogical for the Government to argue for diversification in the farming sector, while not ensuring that local planning officers and authorities reflect that change by giving permission for small gipsy encampments and authorised sites on farm land.

Will the Government look at the recommendations of the Carnworth report? Recommendations 10 and 11 stated that, on planning grounds, stop notices should be capable of immediate effect—I understand that they are not at present. The report also recommended that district councils should be given the opportunity to apply to the courts for an injunction against threatened breaches of planning policy rather than breaches that have already occurred.

If the Government are to tackle the problem in the round, they should be maintaining grants, not abolishing them as the Bill does. It is unlikely that local councils, if it is their responsibility, or landowners, if it is theirs, will make large capital investments in the provision and improvement of gipsy facilities—which is what we want—given the rates of return that one of those groups is likely to face and the political opposition that the other is likely to encounter. The 100 per cent. grant regime should remain and I urge the Government to maintain it when they implement their consultation paper.

We must remember, as was said earlier, that gipsy communities have children, who are too often the unwitting victims of a policy that concentrates solely on enforcement, thereby shoving the gipsy communities around the country more effectively. The services available for gipsies and their children must be kept continually under review.

The Government should look at the police guidance in the Public Order Act 1986. They should clear up the apparent confusion on invoking the Act over the availability of other sites. They should also clarify whether the existence of 12 caravans on a site makes it virtually impossible to implement the Public Order Act.

When I read the Government's consultation paper, I was slightly concerned that they wanted to encourage nomadic people or those with a nomadic tradition into permanent housing. That would be grossly unrealistic. People are nomads because they like moving around. It would not be wise to spend a lot of taxpayers' money or time trying to encourage nomads to do otherwise.

That is my principal objection to the proposal, but I also believe that it would cause great resentment among indigenous communities where there are waiting lists for council houses—such as my district—were communities to see that the policy resulted in nomadic people, for environmental and public order reasons, being given priority on housing lists.

Mr. Corbyn

The hon. Gentleman is making a valuable point. Those who lead the nomadic life do so because they want to. Romania tried to make it illegal to lead this way of life—the Ceausescu regime tried to force those people into permanent accommodation, which led to a great deal of misery and destroyed their culture.

Mr. Coombs

That is to distort what the Government are trying to do. They want to encourage people into permanent accommodation. I say that that is unlikely to be successful.

In some parts of my community, particularly Jubilee drive in Kidderminster, large numbers of gipsies live in council accommodation. I do not want to tar all of them with the same brush, but they do give rise to a large number of complaints—right or wrong—from my constituents. That ought to be borne in mind when consideration is given to housing permanently those whose habits are nomadic. They are scrap metal dealers by trade, and they do not want to live in such housing.

Mr. Heald

One problem that the National Gypsy Council has identified is that these days a great many people who are not really from the travelling tradition call themselves gipsies. They have taken up this way of life in recent years because of the benefits system, and for other reasons. If we are arguing for the retention of some element of council provision, does my hon. Friend agree that we should distinguish between traditional gipsies and people who have just taken up the way of life recently because they think it is a good idea?

Mr. Coombs

It is very difficult to make the distinction in practice—and we must be practical. It is difficult to stop a particular family entering an authorised site purely on the ground that the family's pedigree is not thought to be good enough. We are left with the problem that a man, his wife, his caravan, his three children and his dog need accommodation. The council is interested in this matter, but in practice it is virtually impossible to make these distinctions.

I welcome the Bill in part—especially its enforcement provisions. They need to be much more rigorous and must lead to the ending of the designated regime under the 1968 Act. The Bill does not go far enough, however, to implement measures to improve the situation. After all, we are already 4,500 sites short of proper authorised provision for people of an itinerant way of life.

I agree that the best way of solving the problem is to allow gipsies to provide for gipsies, using many of the methods that the National Gypsy Council has suggested. I hope that the Government will bear those ideas in mind when they release their plans following publication of the consultation paper.

1.12 pm

Mr. Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden)

I had better start with the necessary disclaimer: when I refer to gipsies I do recognise the distinctions between them and tinkers and travellers and other itinerants. We have all been using the term gipsy in the widest sense, meaning no prejudice thereby to genuine Romany people.

I suppose that it is inevitable, however, that a debate of this kind will reflect some prejudices. The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) was no exception in that respect—he paraded some of his own prejudices before us. Perhaps some of the prejudices expressed in the debate reflect those of many of the people whom we represent. We cannot avoid the fact that difficulties have arisen and have caused strong feelings.

It is also inevitable that we should draw on constituency examples quite heavily in such a debate. The point agreed by most of us, nevertheless, is that the present law is unsatisfactory. I was surprised by the speech of the hon. Member for Islington, North, who seemed reasonably content with the state of the law. If anything, he merely wanted to build on and reinforce the 1968 legislation. The starting point for this debate and the background to it is an attempt to change that law to bring about some improvements.

Mr. Corbyn

My point, which I had hoped that the hon. Gentleman understood, was that the 1968 legislation was a significant step at the time. We should pay tribute to Norman Dodds for his part in that. The principle of site provision is important. I want to see it maintained and the number of sites increased.

Mr. Haselhurst

The hon. Gentleman took more than 20 minutes to try to explain what he meant. Perhaps I should not have given him an extra minute to repeat himself. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) is concerned about making effective provision. The argument from most, if not all, of my hon. Friends is that the present legislation is not helping to make the provision that we all accept is necessary. Hon. Members have struggled in the debate to find a better method of trying to meet an undoubted need.

The present law is unsatisfactory. It is bad for landowners and members of the public. An illustration of that has conveniently come to hand in a letter from a constituent who lives in Greenstead Green. He wrote to me a few days ago telling me that he had written to my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning in December and had not yet had a reply. I am sure that that will be noted. I have also followed it up in correspondence. My constituent's experiences have been brought to my attention only because of the delay in replying to a letter which was sent directly to a Minster. In the letter he gives an example of what has been happening in his area. He states: May I give you an example of what has happened particularly these past 2 years in this farming area of Essex.

In 1991 gipsies with 12 top of the range caravans"— there has been an echo of that in the debate— arrived here almost in front of our cottage and parked on the grass verge of the road. They said they had come from camps around London Airport. The results of this were my brother-in-law's field of wheat was used as a toilet, standing grain was trampled on, trees were stripped for fire wood and shooting went on in the woods. The grass verge became a sorting ground for old car bodies, fridges, and bits of metal. Items went missing from people's garden sheds, my wife's handbag with a lot of cash in it was stolen from our kitchen. The local district and county gipsy liaison officials have not enough authority to give real assistance. This year gipsies arrived to do pea picking for another farmer, he would not let them park in his fields. They camped in our 'set aside fields' which is not allowed under 'set aside' rules and we could not get them out. The district council foolishly served a notice on us to remove them as we had no 'Caravan Parking Licence'. This was a ruse on their part to save themselves paying for a court order to remove the caravans and pass the buck on to us. When the gipsies were told we would block the entrance to the fields unless they went, they became very nasty. We had to have a court order prepared which was going to cost £600 for one day for just one field. Fortunately the gipsies went the day before the court order was to be put into force, but they could come back a few days later and we would have had to repeat the routine. Small farmers cannot stand these costs. It took 8 men 2 hours to clear up the mess left by the gipsies. They had even used milk cartons as toilets and thrown them around the fields. We also found 5 tons of brick rubble have been dumped in a corner of a field. Those people are not exercising a right that should be respected. I acknowledge that everybody, including itinerants, has rights, but itinerants also have duties and reponsibilities under the law in the same way as every other citizen. The situation revealed by my constituent is a further example of how the present law is not working at all. It is also bad for gipsies themselves, because the demand for sites is accelerating away from the ability of local authorities to meet it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mrs. Chaplin) doubted whether the legislation was the sole reason for increased numbers, but I suggest that there is at least a coincidence. If a district council makes progress with providing sites, more caravans or travellers may arrive in that area—so the problem is never satisfactorily resolved. Genuine gipsies suffer under the 1968 legislation because others cram in to benefit from it.

The 1968 Act is also bad for local authorities. I know of the grief and difficulty caused to my local authority whenever it tries, as honestly and reasonably as it can, to implement that legislation. Whenever it alights upon a particular site, it is confronted by enormous difficulties because the local people do not have an image of the traditional gipsy but of car breakers and itinerants of the kind described in this debate. The district council finds itself involved in enormous expense, and great ill will is created between parish councils and district councils. We know how few local authorities have achieved designation as a result.

Against that background, I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking for seeking to get things moving, which will be the effect of his Bill if it is accepted by the House. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) who played a great part in adding to the momentum. Having heard about his experience at the hands of the Commission for Racial Equality and the police, we must all be glad that he was let out on bail to be with us today!

A dominant theme in today's debate is the Government's consultation paper and their indication that they intend to legislate. A common feature of the consultation paper and of my right hon. Friend's Bill is a desire to put the initiative back in the hands of gipsies—to place the onus on them to make an application which will be subject to normal planning laws, so that residents in the locality will have the right to raise any objections that they may have.

There are, however, certain differences of approach, notably in respect of existing sites. I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) doubts about whether it would be completely satisfactory to have them sold—particularly if it is done by auction, when it is unlikely that they could be acquired by gipsies. That would serve to diminish the number of available sites. As a great deal of public money was spent on providing those sites, it would be a pity if that happened. Legislation of the kind proposed by the Government and the Bill might have the effect of reducing demand. Some of us suspect that in the same way that the 1968 Act served to increase demand, so its repeal may reduce demand—to the benefit of the genuine Romany.

Another difference between the Government's approach and that of my right hon. Friend concerns enforcement. My right hon. Friend's Bill has an absence of enforcement measures. What action is to be taken? Is it to be a matter of seizing caravans whose owners offend against the law? I imagine that that would be difficult. If a caravan is towed away and kept in a pound, its usual occupants might simply follow it and squat in the caravan at its new site, just as they did before. Neither do we want to add to the difficulties of housing authorities in respect of their obligations under legislation for the homeless. If our legislation makes more people technically homeless, we shall be cutting off our nose to spite our face.

Although it is absolutely right to proceed in the direction in which my right hon. Friend and the Government appear to be heading, we should not delude ourselves about the considerable difficulties that remain. Reference has already been made to the difficulty of fitting genuine nomads into a more settled way of life. After all, people want to travel; although it is interesting to speculate on the possibilities of securing permanent settlement for some people, that may prove very difficult in practice.

In an intervention on my right hon. Friend I wondered whether, under a new dispensation, gipsies would obtain planning permission. The prejudice that we know exists is bound to be raised if an application is made. I am glad to learn that my hon. Friend the Minister intends to issue guidance.

Sir Cranley Onslow

May I deal with a point that I did not raise, but which has emerged during the debate? In the case of a private application, it would be perfectly possible for a number of smaller sites to be submitted for consent, and it is conceivable that a small site would attract less objection than a large one. At present, local authorities tend to go for large sites, and there is always the fear that they will enlarge them later. The private regime might encourage the development of small sites, which might ease the problem.

Mr. Haselhurst

My right hon. Friend has made a valuable point. We must try to ensure that gipsies are given a fair chance. We must tighten the definition of a gipsy, and deliberately seek to help those in the genuine gipsy tradition, rather than simply providing an easy life for those who have come in on the back of the old Romany tradition, causing great offence to the rest of the community.

My final point relates to the current interim position. The Bill would help to change that position. The Government have said, and all Conservative Members acknowledge, that the Caravan Site Act 1968 contains grave defects, but at present it is still in force. Meanwhile, various developments are taking place. Some instances have been mentioned. I shall mention another. Essex county council and Braintree district council propose to establish a gipsy site outside the village of Ridgewell, in my constituency—a proposal which is vigorously opposed by the whole village and by some neighbouring villages.

My constituents will find it difficult to understand the Minister's action if he gives approval, and a grant, to allow the site to go ahead, when there is no evidence that gipsies are clamouring to occupy that site in the northern part of Braintree district. People know that the Minister and the Government no longer believe in the existing legislation and want to change it at the first opportunity, and there will be tremendous bad feeling if such sites are commissioned with the use of public money.

I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to bear that in mind; a bad situation will only be made worse if, in its dying days, the Act is exploited to the full—or worse, if designation is not achieved. We could end up with the worst of all worlds: another site could be created at public expense, there could still be no designation and, as a result, it might be impossible to shift those who are still parking illegally, to the distress of many other citizens.

We have moved into a curious period. My right hon. Friend's speech, and my hon. Friend the Minister's response, underlined that. We are nearing the end of a certain era and a certain legislative regime. It would therefore be wrong for the Government to implement existing legislation too rigorously. They should show some restraint, until the imminent time when either my right hon. Friend's Bill becomes law, or their own legislation is presented to the House.

1.29 pm

Mr. David Nicholson (Taunton)

I shall be brief because I know that some of my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) wish to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) on introducing a Bill which has enabled us to have an extremely useful debate on the problem and on the Government's consultation document.

I especially appreciated some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst), who emphasised the fact that whatever legislation we introduce, prejudice will still exist. I was pleased to hear from the Minister that the Government are soon to issue planning guidance. Whether or not the Bill is passed, it will be some time before the Government will be able to introduce the legislation which will presumably flow from their consultation document. Therefore, for at least a year—probably more—we shall have to cope with the present system.

As I listened to my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking, I thought that it was excellent that the Bill would ban illegal camping, which is also the Government's intention. We can all support that. The Bill would also remove the prejudice that favours gipsies in the planning system—that is also the Government's intention—so that they can no longer locate a caravan site where a member of the public who is not a gipsy could not. That notion causes great irritation in my constituency and elsewhere.

However, the Bill would also remove the pressure on local authorities to accommodate the gipsy population and the potential gipsy population. Where will that admitted pressure fall? The planning guidance will be very important, and I hope that it will pay due regard to what local authorities have already done to accommodate gipsies. There would be considerable ill feeling if a new planning system allowed an expansion of gipsy encampments. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) mentioned the honey pot effect. It would be very controversial in hosts of communities if the "the more you have, the more you get" principle were to become established through loopholes in the guidance.

I think that the Minister is aware that we have had one or two difficulties in Somerset. It is not a party political matter. It clearly arouses great feelings in the immediate communities, but it should not be used for party political purposes in Somerset or anywhere else. I must tell my constituents and county councillors in Somerset that one community's nimbyism—"we don't want it here"—does not operate in a vacuum and is not without consequences for other communities. It can, and often does, leave neighbouring communities open to further development and planning pressures.

There is strong feeling in my constituency about recent developments in Somerset and about the long delay of almost two years before the inspector's report on the Middlezoy gipsy site was published. The reason for the strong feeling was that my constituents in North Curry, Wrantage, Stoke St. Gregory and Stoke St. Mary were worried that if the necessary action were not taken in the neighbouring authority, they would be open to further development. They have already suffered considerable development, so I await my hon. Friend's proposals with interest.

The Minister and his officials will be aware of Somerset county council's reservations about the consultation paper. For example, it points out that the Government have apparently been reluctant to use their powers of direction under section 9 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. In that connection, my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking indicated that the action in Surrey will create difficulties.

Up to the end of 1987, the Secretary of State had issued only one section 9 direction—to West Glamorgan county council, which had failed to provide any sites at all. On 30 October 1990, the Secretary of State served a section 9 direction on Avon. The total of official sites provided by Avon, which is next door to Somerset and whose actions have implications for Somerset, was one—one gipsy site in the whole of Avon. As Somerset county council said in its comments to the Department: It is no accident that our most serious problems with unauthorised encampments occur in the northern part of the County, along the border with Avon. It goes on to state:

The number of traditional gypsies … has remained substantially unchanged since the passing of the Act. Although this perception might not always be shared by people living in the vicinity of official sites, it is import ant to bear in mind that most gipsy families now own at least two caravans; an increase in the number of caravans does not necessarily entail an increase in the number of caravan-dwellers.

The big problem in Somerset has resulted from the emergence of new age travellers, who account for the increase in the numbers—although I recall my hon. Friend the Minister saying that his statistics excluded them, and that is an important point. The House should take into account the great difficulty of defining a gipsy. Section 16 of the Act refers to persons of nomadic habit of life". That definition includes travellers of any background who may recently have taken to the road, and may be interpreted by the courts as including people who travel only seasonally and have permanent winter quarters to which they return, as happened in the 1989 court case, Greenwich LBC v. Powell. New age travellers are usually fairly well aware of their rights in law. Armed with the knowledge that they are or may be gipsies within the meaning of the Act, some new age travellers are becoming adept at exploiting their status as a means of resisting eviction from the highway, from other county council-owned land in non-designated areas and from privately owned land. The law should be amended in that respect. In its response to a previous consultation paper issued in 1986, the National Gypsy Council suggested that the definition should be amended by the inclusion of a reference to the traditional gipsy trades and occupations. That might help matters.

I wish to refer to two more of the concerns expressed by Somerset county council. As we have heard, paragraph 24 of the consultation paper suggests that gipsies who become settled in an area should be encouraged to move into houses. I strongly agree with those of my hon. Friends who have said that that appears unrealistic. I hope that it will not be regarded as a way to solve the problem.

Mr. Baldry

I think that there has been some misunderstanding over the word "encouraged". Hon. Members appear to think that direction will be involved. The consultation paper states: he Government believes that it may be necessary to provide advice on education, health and housing which encourages gypsies and other travellers to settle and, in time, transfer into traditional housing. We are concerned to ensure that there are no barriers; it will not be a question of direction or compulsion. The proposal should be seen in that context.

Mr.Nicholson

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for that clarification.

Somerset county council says in its paper: The repeal of our duty to provide sites will not take a single travelling family off the road. All our experience of New Age Travellers suggests that they took to the road for a wide variety of reasons". The council also suggests that the Public Order Act should be extended to deal with raves, which have become a frequent and much-resented activity of new age travellers, especially in my constituency and neighbouring areas.

I appreciate the need for us to consider carefully the way in which we handle the traditional gipsy problem and the planning and resource problems involved. As hon. Members have said, the problems have been made worse through the advent of new age travellers. We saw outrageous activities by the new age travellers in the west country last summer after the summer solstice.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden explained, new age travellers cause considerable damage. More importantly, they instil great fear. Hon. Members may recall from their history books the "great fear" which existed just before the French revolution. That kind of fear began to occur in our rural settlements in Somerset, Devon and elsewhere.

Law-abiding people who pay their taxes and community charges resented the fact that the new age travellers often do not pay vehicle tax and that their vehicles are not properly insured. Those new age travellers obtained social security, and in Somerset it seemed that they obtained a drug substitute. Indeed, many new age travellers suffer from drug conditions. The massive police effort that was necessary last summer was also largely paid for by the community charge payers in Somerset and the other counties in the west country.

From the end of last July, we had a rather bad summer. There was quite a lot of rain. As a result, the number of new age travellers on the roads and the rave parties diminished. If we have a good summer in 1993, as I hope that we shall, the House can imagine what that might produce in terms of problems with new age travellers.

I implore my hon. Friend the Minister to urge the Home Office—there should be clear instructions from the Home Office to police authorities in respect of the co-ordination of their activities—the Department of Social Security, the Department of Transport, which polices the way in which road vehicles are managed, and the Department of Employment, to use their powers and, if necessary, to come to the House and obtain administrative powers to enable them to act. We cannot wait for the legislation that my hon. Friend the Minister envisages. We must have action this summer to prevent the problems that occurred last year with new age travellers.

1.41 pm

Mr. Ian Taylor (Esher)

I shall endeavour to tackle the problem as succinctly as possible, although it is not a problem which easily reduces itself to brevity. However, we have had a useful debate and I compliment my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Woking (Sir C. Onslow), on raising the matter for consideration.

The issue of gipsies raises great emotion. At the outset, I must state that genuine gipsies should not feel that Conservative Members are endeavouring to attack them or to cause further provocations. I have visited the official gipsy sites in Surrey and I am satisfied that they are well run. Very little damage is caused in the local communities as a result of those official sites. Some of the gipsy families are trying to integrate as much as possible and their children attend local schools.

The problems do not arise with the official gipsy sites once they are established. The problem is one of persuading people to accept a new official site in a community. The difficulties arise largely through a lack of understanding on both sides and they are exacerbated by travellers who camp illegally and cause the maximum damage. Many hon. Members have described such damage in this debate.

The problem is difficult because we need official sites. We must find a way to accommodate people who are basically itinerant. We must build bridges so that they do not feel more isolated from the community. However, we must do that in a way that does not appear to threaten existing communities.

My constituency, like many others, has suffered the kind of problems that have beset our countryside over the past few years. That clearly shows that the current legislation is simply not effective. I received a letter from a constituent within the past few days in which he points out that 21 caravans and a large number of lorries and other vehicles have appeared on land adjacent to him. The site has become polluted and there is general anxiety for the landowner, who is neither well nor young. The landowner has already spent more than £1,000 in legal fees, but he has been warned that, even if the gipsies were evicted, they could return to his land or to the adjacent land at any time in future and he would have to go through the whole process again.

There are many other cases in which itinerants arrive, make an awful mess and then disappear, leaving the local community to clear up. How can we move them on in the current circumstances of the law? Without designation under the Act, it is very difficult to do so. Hon. Members, local councils, county councils and the police receive much criticism. In other words, the Act is not only wrong but it is causing great public dismay with established institutions, which is unlikely to create any improvement in their standing.

I am delighted that the Government have brought forward a consultation document. There is no doubt that it is an overdue but, therefore, extremely welcome contribution to the debate. I am not entirely happy with every aspect of it, but I am not surprised about that because it is, as it states, a consultation document; there are opportunities for us to put our opinions. There is no doubt that the consultation document tallies considerably with some of the views that have been expressed by our county councils. In my case, Surrey county council has highlighted the fact that the proposals overlap its own ideas, for example the ability to reduce the length of time illegal encampments remain on a site, the ability to pursue a remedy via the magistrates court rather than the county court or the High Court, the ability of local authorities to act on all illegal encampments in their areas, and the prohibition of illegal encampment offenders from returning within a given area.

Those points are important in Surrey in particular. As I have remarked, Surrey county council is subject to a direction order under section 9 of the Act, which was made by the Secretary of State in 1989. It therefore needs to oblige local councils to find official pitches in order to bring them up to a state at which they can be designated under the Act. That is causing enormous difficulty, but, paradoxically, the difficulty is being made much worse by the consultation document.

A very controversial site in Cobham in my constituency has been chosen, slightly perversely by the Elmbridge borough council, and taken up by the county council. That case has created great local opposition. The Cobham action group for old common sense is determined to take the matter right through to the High Court. The problem that is now emerging is the status of the proposition. Should the county be pushing ahead? Will the borough benefit even if the site is approved? In other words, will there eventually be designated status that is worth achieving? I do not have time, because I wish to curtail my remarks, to answer my questions, but my hon. Friend the Minister should understand that local confusion and irritation are gaining apace. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking mentioned the problem that we have in another part of my constituency in the Guildford borough in which a pitch in my right hon. Friend's constituency is subject to similar controversy.

If we are to delay legislation for a while, there is no doubt that we should meanwhile attempt to clarify the issues. I take up some of the points that Guildford borough council has made. In some ways, it is not a matter of new legislation; it is a matter of tightening up existing legislation. Perhaps we could do that much more quickly. In the circumstances, perhaps we could make it much clearer that if the boroughs obtain designated status, if they make the effort to do it, they will be given even tighter powers.

I have asked before why the powers in the Epsom and Walton Downs Regulation Act 1984 have not been widened to make designation easier. Why should the Department for Education delay the approval of applications for new sites? Despite risks, would not it be possible to give limited self-approval to some local authorities? Such matters need to be thought out locally, where the controversy is.

I am concerned that, even under the new proposals, the ability of councils to act on illegally parked caravans and the ability of the magistrates courts to intervene might not be sufficiently effective. We need to examine carefully what sort of powers should be given to impose fines or whether seizure of assets—the caravans—will be made possible. The cost of clearing up after illegally parked travellers have moved on often needs to be found from somewhere. I see no reason why the travellers should not be obliged to make a contribution.

I am aware of the need for a debate as wide and as broad geographically as possible among colleagues so I shall cease my remarks. My final point is that people are concerned about the issue. We have delayed action for many years because the problem is complex. People will not forgive us unless we deal with the problem as rapidly as possible. Parliamentary time is difficult to find, but if we delay new legislation we should do our best to use whatever tactics we can to tighten existing legislation.

We should use all the Government's resources to deal with the problem because it affects the Department of the Environment, the Department of Social Security and the Home Office. Those Departments should concentrate on the best way to solve the issue so that further outbreaks of community anger do not occur.

1.52 pm

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley)

One of the reasons why we are debating this matter is the failure of the 1968 Act to address the problem of the provision of sites for gipsies. The fact that only 38 per cent. of our areas have been designated shows the great shortfall of provision.

Much has been said in the debate about the problems of gipsies. Much of the perception of, and prejudices about, gipsies are ill founded. Part of the problem has been the scenes that people have increasingly seen on television recently and the perception of the grouping of new age travellers and various other people—pseudo-gipsies, who are not the sort of gipsies to whom the hon. Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Cryer) referred: the sort of romantic Romany-style gipsies with a caravan and a guitar in the back. Unfortunately they are few and far between.

We have instances of Romany-style gipsies in my constituency, although I cannot vouch for the guitar. In my constituency, pseudo-gipsies have moved in alongside commercial properties in an area where there are no ,gipsy sites. Such areas are totally inappropriate for gipsy sites and there has been great hostility from the public about that.

Apart from the various stories that people read in newspapers and saw on television about the atrocious activities of some of those people during the rise of the new age traveller last year, there was a danger that some of the travellers would come into the Ribble Valley and mass encamp in my constituency. Obviously, there was a great debate about what the locals would do to get the new age travellers to move on.

One must remember that the farmers' workplace was involved. The farmers were extremely concerned about what action they could take, especially after they saw the scenes in which it seemed that the police were almost powerless to move the travellers on. The farmers' wives had a word with some of the new age travellers. I do not know what they said, but I can say that the travellers moved on. The moral of the story is that one should not mess with farmers' wives in the Ribble Valley or probably anywhere else. It had the desired effect.

There is a fear that throughout the United Kingdom the same thing will happen again this summer. Action must be taken to ensure that it is not allowed to happen. My hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor) said that the problem does not involve just one Department—it involves the Home Office, the Department of Social Security and the Department of the Environment. Few things could be more distressing than seeing Department of Social Security officers chasing new age travellers to give them giros so that they could move on. We saw last year the giro circus that paraded itself around Britain. We must put a stop to that. The taxpayers of Britain have had enough of it. Action must be taken.

The intention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking in introducing his Bill is to ensure that gipsy sites can be provided privately. The state and local authorities have signally failed to provide them. I was a member of the West Glamorgan county council, which miserably failed to find sites for gipsies so that it could become a designated area. Part of the problem, as has been said time and again, is that councillors look at areas which are totally inappropriate for gipsies. They do not want to go to those sites. The last thing that county councillors wanted to do was to send gipsies to places where they might wish to settle.

We want gipsies to be encouraged to get together and look for their own sites and to seek planning permission. There could then be full consultation with the people who live in those areas. If they had objections, as happens with any planning permission application, their objections could, rightly, be heard. If that happened, gipsies would not be directed into areas, thus creating hostility. As the hon. Member for Bradford, South said, the burden ought to be spread so that we can reach a solution that is acceptable both to the people who live in the area and to the gipsies.

I pay tribute to Lancashire county council's education department. It is rare for me to do this, so I ought to do it now. Last summer I visited its education department to find out what it was doing about ensuring that the children of gipsy families are getting the education that the law dictates that they ought to have. I was impressed by the dedication of the staff and the provision of books. I was also impressed by the department's commitment to ensuring that the children of gipsy families have placements in local schools. That is absolutely right. Those children ought to be given exactly the same opportunity as every other child in this country to benefit from a full and proper education.

We want equality under the law for gipsies and their children, but that means that they must keep within the law and make sure that their vehicles are taxed and properly maintained. It also means that they must pay their council tax or their poll tax, as well as income tax. If the Government were to take action, the animosity and prejudice that some people feel towards gipsies would soon evaporate. The Bill is definitely a step in the right direction.

1.58 pm

Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South)

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) on introducing his Bill. Members from places as far apart as Scarborough, Somerset, Surrey and Essex have demonstrated the widespread public concern about the present state of the law. I listened, too, with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer). I must congratulate him on part of it, if that is not the kiss of death for him. I thought that his comments about illegal encampments were remarkably level-headed. He then spoilt the effect by praising local authority provision.

If we look at what has happened over the past 25 years, we see that two local authorities out of three have not done a thing. If we were to leave it to local authorities to solve the problem, it might be solved in the year 2040, but I suspect that the problem will never be solved if we leave it to local authorities.

The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) made an interesting speech and complained that Conservatives are whipping up prejudices against certain people. I shall remember his words when he next speaks about Americans, about our fellow members of the European Community, or about people from the City. He attacked the City, but forgot to say that it makes a major contribution to the balance of payments and employs many hundreds of thousands of people.

I support the Bill because the London borough of Barnet has searched for a site for years and has not been able to find one. Earlier in the Session—last summer—I and my hon. Friends the Members for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst), for Finchley (Mr. Booth) and for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) went with a deputation to the Minister to discuss that pressing issue. We believe that there is no suitable site in Barnet. I am glad to say that the Minister listened to what we said and we may have influenced the thoughts in the consultative document published shortly afterwards.

A built-up borough such as Barnet does not have a suitable site and I am therefore not surprised that the authority has been unable to find one. The Caravan Sites Act 1968 suffers because local authorities are told to find the site and to judge the planning application for it. People say that if private enterprise take over, there will be problems with obtaining planning permission, but the private applicant can appeal against any refusal of planning permission. When a local authority department applies to the self-same authority—perhaps as a sham or a charade—and its planning application is turned down, it does not appeal against the refusal because it is also the refuser. Recalcitrant local authorities will never give themselves planning permission and will never appeal against refusals. So long as one allows sites to be provided mainly by local authorities, one will always have that problem, as is demonstrated by the fact that many authorities have failed to provide sites. I warn the inspectors who will hear future planning appeals that it is unwise to impose sites against the wishes of local residents, because the ill will generated can last for many years.

Hendon, South has many main roads, such as the north circular and the M1 nearby, which creates wonderful opportunities for illegal campers to come to the constituency and cause a great deal of mayhem. My constituents have often been appalled to hear the inhabitants of such illegal sites described as gipsies—they are no more gipsies than anything else; they are people who have sought a particular way of life and in many ways have tried to opt out of society. They make a limited contribution. One of the great tragedies is that frequently their children are not encouraged to go to school, so they play all day and miss out on that great escalator of opportunity—state education. If they miss out on that, the next generation are condemned to a similar way of life. That is one cause of great offence to my constituents, who are also offended by the suspicion that the people living in illegal encampments pay no taxes but claim social security benefits.

The encampments arouse fear among law-abiding citizens—fear about what the people on them will do—and that is the real problem. I spoke to some local residents the first time there was an illegal encampent after the 1987 election. I was shown into one house where a man told me, "I'm afraid I'm parking my motorbike in the front hall in case it gets stolen." I did not like to tell him that there was a risk that other things might happen, too. That seemed to be a sign of how the law-abiding members of the community regarded such encampments. Many things happen on those encampments; there are always consequent health risks, and sometimes they are not cleared up with the enthusiasm that should be shown. There was one such site in my constituency on land owned by the London borough of Camden but situated in the London borough of Barnet. It was only after Barnet threatened to take Camden to court under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 that the site was cleared up. The encampments are always messy, and always cause health problems and difficulties with neighbours.

I plead with my hon. Friend the Minister to urge the police to make greater use of their powers. They should not plead lack of manpower when police resources are greater than they have ever been. The illegal encampments are a major social problem with which I expect the Government to deal swiftly.

2.6 pm

Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley)

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Woking (Sir C. Onslow) on his fortune in being successful in the ballot for private Members Bills. When I saw the subject that he had chosen I did not intend to congratulate him on his Bill, which I shall not support. However, we have had an extremely good debate on a number of issues. Anyone analysing the Official Report of today's proceedings will find a number of issues on which there has been clear agreement across the Floor of the House. That does not mean that we have agreed on the solution to the problem or that the Bill is the right way forward and should make progress.

Unusually, I heard the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) say nice words about Lancashire county council. If he were to study more of the actions of that council he would find more to praise it for and would criticise it less than he usually does.

The hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) referred to planning, as did the right hon. Member for Woking. I accept that there are problems with planning, but they are different, depending on whether they relate to private sites or public sites developed under the 1968 Act. We need to tackle those problems in the longer term.

I served for a long time on a local authority—and was leader of a local authority—and I have always held the view that, when dealing with planning applications, the local authority should have no more advantage when making an application of its own than anyone else. The test should be whether the local authority development application would fail if it were a private sector development. If so, the local authority application should be rejected on the same ground.

Only one speech has been made where I could not agree with the main argument. The hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes) made the sort of speech that I feared would be the general theme developed by Conservative Members. While I disagreed with many other parts of Conservative Members' speeches, they all contained some aspects with which I did not totally disagree, but I could not accept the main thrust of the hon. Gentleman's speech.

In the early part of his speech, the right hon. Member for Woking said that local authorities often tried to develop a site that was totally unsuitable, such as a former tip. I share his views on that issue, and believe that they were expressed in many of today's speeches. To pick a site because it happens to be an unused piece of land, without regard for its suitability, is nonsense and is, of course, a flaw in the existing legislation. So far, we are agreed.

The Opposition do not oppose the idea of developing private sites, but that does not mean that we think that the 1968 Act should be repealed. We have always believed that the right to develop such sites existed anyway. It should remain.

Several hon. Members have suggested that there is a case for developing smaller sites, which might avoid some of the problems created by larger ones. We support that view. We also support the view that besides public consultation in areas where a site might be created, there should also be consultation with the people expected to go and live on the site subsequently. It is ridiculous to develop a site in an area that is not acceptable to those who will be expected to use it.

The Labour party opposes the Bill because we do not believe that it will solve the problems. On the contrary, it will create difficulties—increasingly so as sites are sold off. We are also concerned about the problems of unofficial sites—in Surrey, the county of the right hon. Member for Woking, where I went to school, or Hertfordshire, the county of the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells), in which 1 was born, or the county in which I live, Lancashire. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) explained his view of the problem of unofficial sites and the associated nuisance—the burning of rubbish and the lack of sanitation. The Labour party shares his concern and believes that the public should not have to suffer from these problems. We are not divided on these matters, either.

The division between the Opposition and the Government sterns from the fact that we do not believe that the Bill does anything to tackle the problem or solve the difficulties. We all agree that it does not deal with new age travellers. I do not want to get involved in arguments about them. We all know about the difficulties, but both the Minister and the right hon. Member for Woking recognised that the Bill does not cover them. The subject needs dealing with, however, even though it is not relevant today.

Mr. Wells

The hon. Gentleman says that the Bill is not an answer to the problem. Would he care to outline what he thinks the answer is?

Mr. Pike

I shall say that if the 1968 Act is enforced and local authorities are given the powers to enforce it, we believe that it will offer a better solution—

Mr. Wells

It will not.

Mr. Pike

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make my speech I shall be able to explain. I am not alone in thinking that the 1968 Act can work. The Select Committee on the Environment, which studied the issue at great length while I served on it, decided that, if used properly, the 1968 Act could tackle the problem.

The Bill had its First Reading on 10 June last, but was not printed until recently. It clearly follows on from the principles established in the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford, covering the privatisation of gipsy sites—a Bill dealt with under the ten-minute Bill procedure. The Bill only partly deals with the issues covered by the Department of the Environment's consultation document entitled, "Gypsy sites policies and illegal camping: Exchequer grant to local authorities for gypsy sites" which was published on 18 August. The Department sent hon. Members a copy of that document, and it was accompanied by a press notice and a covering letter from the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), setting out the procedures for the consultation.

We felt that to some extent that exercise was completed in haste and was not well thought out. We thought that it was a response to the problem of new age travellers, which the Bill does not address. Paragraph 24 of the consultation document states: The Government expects existing caravan sites to continue in being not least because, where grant has been paid towards the capital costs of a site, local authorities would have both to repay grant if the site closes and to provide alternative accommodation for any people from the site whom they accept as statutorily homeless. Following the publication of that document, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gunnell) asked about cost and was told that £56.2 million had been spent to date on site development. The Minister repeated that figure in the debate. The maximum discount available is 76 per cent. However, one would expect an upward valuation, which means that a substantial amount would be wiped off the current value of sites. The Bill contains no guarantee of what sites would be used for. In theory, it would allow bodies representing gipsies to buy them and, in the short term, such sites could continue to be used as sites. However, the Bill does not protect such usage. That means that the asset could be misused in a short time. Clause 7 provides that if sites are not disposed of within 12 months they should be sold at public auction without reserve and with no qualification on the disposal. Land sold in that way would be lost as a private sector or public sector site.

In a letter to hon. Members this week, the Save the Children Fund rightly says that there were more than 1,200 responses to the consultation document. On 9 December in reply to the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) the Minister said: We are considering the responses carefully, and will make an announcement in due course about implementing the reforms. I asked the Minister to give an assurance that his Department was not working to a rigid timetable and would consider responses and complexities of the issues before taking action. The Minister replied: We will consider all the responses very carefully,"—[Official Report, 9 December 1992; Vol. 215, c. 834,] In an intervention the Minister said today that the Government intend to introduce legislation "when time permits." What does that mean? A couple of weeks ago we debated Sunday trading and hon. Members thought that the Government would introduce a Bill this year. However, they suddenly found out that that was unlikely. In its letter the Save the Children Fund also said that the issues involved in the reform of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 were complex and required careful consideration and balance. We share that view. I have grave doubts whether the Government's consultation document proposals will solve the problems, and I fear that they will create more. In going further and making the sale of sites compulsory, the Bill will make the problems worse still.

Clause 7 causes great concern. Although it may be the intention of gipsies occupying a site or of residents to acquire it, there may be many possibly technical reasons why they cannot not do so and will suddenly find that it is being disposed of compulsorily. Disposal and privatisation of sites will lead to a worse situation than exists today.

Mr. Cryer

Would not a more sensible solution than the compulsory, mass sale of local authority sites be to encourage private sites? In that way, at some stage in the future—if all the problems, and the difficulties confronting gipsies in purchasing sites, were overcome—we would see the phasing out of local authority sites. It is extremely unlikely that selling local authority sites would have the effect of destroying them.

Mr. Pike

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. If the Bill positively encouraged the development of private sites to deal with existing problems and prevent future difficulties, we could support it—but that is not the proposal before us.

Last July, the right hon. Member for Woking asked the Secretary of State to suspend further approval of local authority applications for the funding of pitches and the Minister who is replying to today's debate replied:

I do not think that it would be appropriate to do so."—[Official Report, 13 July 1992; Vol. 211, c. 399.]

A number of points raised by the Environment Select Committee, on which I served for a number of years, are relevant to the Bill and indicate that the members of that Committee, as well as two former Secretaries of State for the Environment, unanimously took a different view from that reflected in the Bill.

A former Chairman of that Committee, Sir Hugh Rossi, vigorously pursued that issue—and departmental estimates—on four or five occasions. As a former Conservative Minister, Sir Hugh was well regarded on both sides of the House.

The question was asked today: what is a gipsy? Leaving aside new age travellers, the question is one which the Select Committee raised on several occasions. The Department considered it and Professor Wibberley, who studied that and other aspects, tried to redefine the 1968 interpretation. The new definition was: A nomadic family who, by reason of their lifestyle, habitually travel to pick up casual and seasonal work or to sell the products of their self-employment and whose only or main residence is a caravan or tent for which they have no authorised site. There are many even wider definitions.

We know that many of the problems that confront local authorities are caused not by traditional gipsy families of the kind to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South referred, but by those who travel around, occupy unofficial sites, and are moved on from one place to another.

The Select Committee's third report of 1989–90 records that the then director of finance at the Department of the Environment, Mr. Fletcher, was asked a question about designation. He said that

to offer advice on how political will will be generated was not for a civil servant. In saying this he put his finger on the nub of the matter. If some local authorities given a regime of 100 per cent. grant do not have the political will to carry out their duties under the Act, then the time may have come to supersede their discretion in the matter. We would recommend that the Department monitor the situation with a view to seeking default powers to enforce designation should this prove necessary.

I mention that, because of the Minister's reference to the carrot and the stick. I pay tribute to the work done by Norman Dodds in fighting the gipsies' case for many years before the introduction of Lord Avebury's Bill, but we have heard that the Department has used the stick only three times since it was enacted in 1968. Perhaps it should have done so more often.

According to the Select Committee's fourth special report, on 21 July 1989 Nicholas Ridley said: I note the Committee's reports, and my Department should monitor the progress in the provision of sites … At this stage I am not persuaded of the need for change in the legislation such as the Committee suggests, but I regard speedy progress in site provision as important, and I can assure the Committee that we will continue to keep a close eye on developments. I do not often quote the words of that particular Secretary of State—as he then was—but on that occasion Nicholas Ridley expressed a view which I share.

The following year, the Select Committee again spent considerable time on the issue. It concluded: There are three major deficiencies in the way the Act has worked. The first is the growth of unauthorised pitches"— a problem which has been identified again today.

The second is the reluctance of some local authorities to seek designation as having made adequate provision under the Act.

Clearly, no party politics are involved: some Labour authorities have been just as slow in providing sites as Conservative authorities.

The third deficiency", said the Committee,

is the slowness of provision of authorised sites as a result of inaction by local authorities in fulfilling their obligations under the Act … progress towards adequate provision is still painfully slow. Our own conclusions lead us to the view that new provision would take 25 years to solve the problem. The Department did not demur from our estimate. At that stage, the Secretary of State had only just used his power for the second time in issuing the order to Surrey to which the right hon. Member for Woking referred. The Select Committee said: We are heartened to see the Department taking a more robust line with defaulting local authorities and a new system of capital grant may have the desired effect. Nevertheless, we feel the time has come to set a realistic timetable for site provision with the threat of much more vigorous use of the Secretary of State's powers of direction against laggard authorities. We want Government action to ensure that the 1968 Act is enforced, but we do not want the privatisation proposed in the Bill.

On 26 July 1990, in the Committee's second special report, the former Secretary of State—Chris Patten, now Governor of Hong Kong—said: I welcome the Committee's support for the more vigorous policy we are pursuing towards those local authorities that are failing to provide an adequate number of gipsy sites. The Government is considering the options available. He went on to quote what Christopher Chope had said on 10 July—that the Government were considering a further incentive to local authorities and the possibility of time limits.

Mr. Heald

The hon. Gentleman argues for the continuation of the provisions of the 1968 Act, but a county such as Hertfordshire, which has had an order placed on it, finds it extremely difficult to provide sites. We have been searching for sites in the North Hertfordshire district council area, but none of those that we have found has been satisfactory. How would the hon. Gentleman solve that difficult problem?

Mr. Pike

The issue must be considered in each local area. I accept that the problems may vary from area to area. I agree with the right hon. Member for Woking, who said that at times there was a lack of political will or that it was for political reasons that decisions were not made. I do not know whether that is the case in Hertfordshire, but we believe that if a local authority adopts a positive attitude the solution could perhaps be cheap. That is because we believe in the principle of local government—

It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Debate to be resumed what day? No day named.