§ Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston)Every year, with the onset of spring and summer—although this year the onset of summer has been some time coming—all elected representatives begin to fear one particular telephone call. It usually comes on a Saturday evening, and it is that some 30 caravans have descended on one of the public spaces in our constituency. We are asked, "What are you going to do about it?"
The problem arises every year and we try to deal with it. Once summer has passed and the pressure eases off, the determination to work out a defined plan goes with it. Therefore, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the matter today, more in anticipation of difficulties in Birmingham—which we have experienced from year to year—rather than because there is an acute problem.
I chose "Illegal Encampments" as the title of the debate quite deliberately. I am not referring to Romanies and other people with an alternative life style, who have the right to be protected. They have the right to expect us to treat them as seriously as we treat our constituents. I am talking about cowboy builders and traders who use mobile phones to do business from public sites. They cause havoc for neighbouring communities. They cannot be traced when anything goes wrong—they move on and leave devastation behind.
I shall never forget the Ley Hill estate last summer, when some 30 caravans and their owners occupied one of the parks. The devastation they caused was more like an invasion of the original tribe of the Vandals than the pursuit of an alternative life style. The village hall's windows were smashed and wooden fences were ripped apart. Several cars were dismantled and torched; one caravan was gutted and dismantled. They even left bits of kitchen units behind. I had some difficulty explaining how they came to be there. They also left behind soiled clothes and general household rubbish. There was fly tipping. My powers of description are inadequate, but I know that hon. Members will be familiar with the scene that I am trying to describe.
I am talking about cowboy builders and tradesmen, unsafe working practices, stray dogs, noise nuisance from generators and fly tipping of commercial as well as domestic waste. Local residents feel threatened, intimidated and helpless. They turn to us and say, "What are you going to do about it?" If a local authority serves notice, the whole process of eviction can take up to 10 days. That may not seem a long time, but try living next to one of these sites and 10 days is a very long time.
The problem appears to be seasonal; during the summer, tarmacing and double glazing businesses are pursued from public spaces. During the winter months, the traders move to more permanent and, I assume, more comfortable surroundings.
I know that some of my hon. Friends feel that it is not especially useful to try to draw a distinction between real travellers and cowboy business men with their anti-social behaviour. I understand that it may be difficult to define that distinction in legislation, but I can assure the House that our constituents do not care a great deal about the finer legalistic difficulties; they are exposed to nuisance and they want us to deal with it.
§ Mr. Brian White (Milton Keynes, North-East)Does my hon. Friend accept that part of the problem is that the 1031 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 means that local authorities have to deal with the problem on an individual basis? Could not part of the solution be a return to a designated area, which might solve some of the problems she has described?
§ Ms StuartI accept my hon. Friend's point and I am grateful to him for raising it.
How much of a problem are illegal encampments? Birmingham city council suggests that the number of encampments is not rising, but the number of complaints is. There is a little sophistry here—if the number of complaints is rising it is because people are getting very tired of the absence of any co-ordinated action. The council also made the point, which I accept, that, as the city has changed and there are now fewer derelict factory sites—which the travellers used to use—travellers have moved to more publicly visible spaces, which has provoked a more open public response.
The council also suggested that, because of public hostility, travellers feel the need to travel in larger groups for security. I accept that, but the travellers are not an homogenous group. People who want to pursue an alternative life style, such as gipsies, may want to travel in larger groups, but cowboy business men do not need to do that.
No evidence from national figures is available. When I raised the issue with the council, it said that when travellers are moved on they simply go to another area and cause the same problems there, which does not resolve the underlying problem. I am reluctant to accept that. We have no national figures that show the true extent of displacement, but I am convinced that a significant section of the transient business community could be discouraged from continuing with the practice.
When travellers descend on public spaces, where do we ask them to go? Birmingham has two properly supervised sites—one run by the local authority, the other private. One is in Castle Vale, the other in Aston. They can accommodate some 20 vans. However, I am far from convinced that the sites are properly managed. At one, internecine disputes between groups of travellers means that the minute one group moves on, warfare breaks out. I understand that the National Gypsy Council tried to intervene. One of my colleagues has told me that some of the travellers are on the electoral register, with the caravan site as their address. That gives a degree of permanency to the sites, which is not what was intended. The sites in Birmingham are not properly used.
When there is an invasion of a public space and the travellers move on after 10 days, at the most, we are left with the bill for clearing up. Birmingham city council has spent £300,000 over the past two years on clearing up such public spaces. That is unacceptable.
I understand that, in the last week of June, 20 caravans were illegally parked—compared with 70 last year. I have some doubts about the comprehensiveness of the figures. Perhaps one reason for this year's figure being slightly lower is the particularly successful police operation at Woodgate Valley country park a few weeks ago. Some 30 caravans were on the move and local residents tipped off the police. When the travellers reached the park, they began to dismantle a wooden fence. The police arrived 1032 and Inspector Pepper told them that they could either face charges of criminal damage—they had been caught red handed—or they might like to move on. They decided that, on balance, they would like to move on.
What would happen if the police brought criminal damage charges against 30 caravan owners? They have the power to impound some of the vehicles, but if the owners are charged and taken to the police station, the administration is time consuming and bureaucratic and probably will not help in the long run.
§ Miss Melanie Johnson (Welwyn Hatfield)I fully support my hon. Friend's argument and should like to add a further point to the one she has been making. In Hertfordshire, we have similar problems with encampments, which impose substantial costs not only on the police and local councils, but on private individuals. A number of private individuals in my constituency have incurred considerable expense either making security arrangements to stop people encamping on their land or remedying the effects of such encampments. Harassment of many members of the local population when dealing with travellers is another problem. Does my hon. Friend think that that is also a problem in her area?
§ Ms StuartYes, I can confirm that it is a problem in my area. Some of the remedies that I should like the Minister to consider would address the problems of both private individuals and local authorities. My hon. Friend's intervention was therefore very timely.
Speed—being on the spot almost immediately—is the essence of resolving the problem, as it is almost too late once an encampment has been established. We have to have good co-ordinated action involving a variety of agencies, which must act simultaneously and with one purpose. We also require good local intelligence—perhaps almost as an extension of neighbourhood watch schemes.
We must also not overlook the availability of properly supervised traveller sites. Such provision is essential. It is perhaps a pity that local authorities are no longer under a statutory duty to provide sites. Nevertheless, as I said, I do not accept that lack of sites in Birmingham can be used to justify lack of action. The problem is one of supervision.
Birmingham city council has not entirely ignored the problem, and I give it credit for the advances that it has made. The council has committed £108,000 to secure—as my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson) described—five public open spaces that have frequently been used by travellers. Although, unfortunately, all five sites are outside my constituency, I shall certainly continue to press for securing the more vulnerable ones.
§ Mr. Robin Corbett (Birmingham, Erdington)Two of those sites are among about five in my constituency that are regularly abused by itinerants. I hope that the Government's Crime and Disorder Bill—which puts responsibility on councils, in partnership with police and local organisations—will show that partnerships are one way of preventing such illegal trespassing, which is what it is, and finding swifter means, by building local crime action plans, to combat trespassing when it happens.
§ Ms StuartI am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention. I very much support his comments.
1033 Although securing sites by installing concrete bollards, for example, is useful, it is only a delaying tactic.
§ Mr. Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield)Although I am aware that my hon. Friend has to finish her speech, I should like to say that one of the sites—Barnes hill—is in my constituency. She will be aware that it is a great tribute to the area's residents that security measures are now being installed there. They co-operated with the local council and me to ensure that scenes of devastation such as she saw in Ley Hill could not happen there. Does she agree that our hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) is right: we need better co-ordination, which must operate both inside and outside working hours? All too often, the system seems to grind to a halt once 5 o'clock comes along.
§ Ms StuartI thank my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right.
Do we—as we are constantly told—require new legislation? Birmingham city council's environmental services committee presented proposals to Birmingham Members and asked us to push for new powers allowing local authorities, once they had made proper provision for alternative sites, to ask police to require travellers to move on to those sites within 48 hours. Although that is a very tempting solution—which should perhaps be pursued with another Minister—I have a difficulty with the proposals because they define a gipsy as a person of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin, but do not include members of an organised group, travelling showmen or persons engaged in travelling circuses who are travelling together as such.
I am worried that such definitions get away from the real problem—anti-social behaviour. We object to such behaviour—by whomever and in pursuit of whatever life style. We have to deal with it.
What can be done? It is a difficult problem and there is no easy solution. Travellers form an extremely diverse community. Very often, that diversity of backgrounds and purposes is used as an excuse for doing nothing. I am no longer prepared to accept that excuse. We have reached a stage at which we often mistake activity for achievement—thinking that we are achieving something by holding yet another meeting to discuss a difficult problem. The time has come to deal with the problem.
§ Dr. Tony Wright (Cannock Chase)The problem that my hon. Friend is describing exists in the outer conurbation—it certainly exists in south Staffordshire and Cannock Chase. The issue has previously been discussed as it applies to the shires, but the urban aspect of the issue is the pressing one. Although my hon. Friend has discussed some solutions, my meetings with police suggest that only two things are required: moving-on power, to which I should add power to impound vehicles, and the provision of sites. I speak as someone who was stoned by some of the people she has described when trying to make those points to them.
§ Ms StuartI thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and am delighted that—by the looks of it—they missed.
I stress that I take traveller welfare issues extremely seriously. I am not dealing with those issues more explicitly in this debate because of time limitations and the fact that I want to deal with co-ordinated action.
1034 The Crime and Disorder Bill provides us with a unique opportunity—it imposes a duty on local authorities—with police, to make provision for safe communities. I should like the plans to include specific proposals to deal with illegal encampments and to state who will be responsible. Who does one telephone on a Saturday afternoon? Who will man the telephone lines? As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) said, it is entirely unacceptable that—as happened last year—a city council does not start until the Tuesday morning following a bank holiday to deal with an encampment that started the previous Friday. The Crime and Disorder Bill's safer community strategy will provide us with power to take immediate action.
We should establish a communication system so that people know there is a hotline and who to telephone if they see encampments on the move. They should be clear about whether police or the local authority are responsible for reacting to reports. We need fast and reliable information.
The public have a role to play not only in providing information but in taking some responsibility for the problem. It is no good complaining one week about cowboy traders but using those traders the next week to fix the driveway. There is some inconsistency in behaviour which will have to be resolved. We will have to make it clear to people that a natural consequence of using cowboy traders is that those traders will be attracted to an area.
I should like other agencies to be involved in the matter much more swiftly and with much greater co-ordination. I expect those who do business from open sites to pay tax. I therefore expect the Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise and the Benefits Agency to take some interest in such trading. The action should be co-ordinated—even at the risk of stoning—and possibly include police.
Illegal encampments are a local problem with national implications. I urge the Minister to assess the various local strategies to develop a national strategy. We need agreed and enforceable protocols. We cannot continue with the current arrangements whereby responsibility is shifted from one agency to another. At the end of the day our residents suffer and, to add insult to injury, they are also left to pick up the bill.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) on securing a debate on a subject that I know is of very great concern to her, to many of my hon. Friends who are here today and to residents and businesses in her constituency. I fully take on board the concerns that have been voiced about the particular problems experienced in the west midlands.
We do not underestimate what an appalling nuisance unauthorised encampments can be. I and my ministerial colleagues have met a number of local authorities and hon. Members to discuss the issue, and it is not surprising that correspondence about it continues to feature heavily in my postbag. We liaise regularly with our colleagues in the Home Office, who have responsibility for police powers to deal with trespass on land and with criminal activity, whether by gipsies or by anyone else.
§ Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold)On that very point, perhaps the Minister or his colleagues in the Home 1035 Office will be able clarify a matter that I am raising on behalf of the Country Landowners Association, of which I am a member. Can the Minister confirm that the Wealden case did not apply to section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, but only to section 77, which applies to local authorities, and that therefore the police can take action even though the landowner concerned may not have taken civil action first? I appreciate that it is a highly technical point and I should be grateful if the Minister would respond by correspondence in due course.
§ Mr. RaynsfordAs the hon. Gentleman recognises, he has raised a highly complex issue and, rather than give a brief response on a matter of which I have had no prior notice, I would prefer to write to him and I undertake to do so.
On a more positive note, however, our latest biannual count of gipsy caravans shows the lowest number ever on unauthorised sites. For the first time the figure has fallen to below 20 per cent. of the recorded number of caravans, compared with 50 per cent. when the counts began almost 20 years ago. Some of those vans will be on sites that are tolerated, even without planning permission. The remaining 80 per cent. of caravans are on local authority or authorised private sites.
Before moving on to talk about what the Government are doing to tackle the problem of unauthorised camping, let me make it clear that we recognise that not all gipsies and travellers cause problems. The Government have no quarrel with those who pursue a nomadic way of life. Many gipsies are keen to follow their travelling way of life in peace and are keen to provide sites for themselves or to secure places on authorised sites. In addition to meeting those concerned about unauthorised camping, I have met several groups representing gipsy and traveller interests to gain their perspective on a travelling way of life.
As I have said, it is clear from our biannual count of gipsy caravans that there is a persistent problem with unauthorised camping in the Birmingham area, and I understand the wishes of my hon. Friend's constituents to have something done about it. I understand that she has put forward proposals to the Minister of State, Home Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) for changes to the law that her local authority considers would enable it and the police to deal more effectively with unauthorised camping.
Of course, it is for my hon. Friend the Minister of State the Member for to respond in detail to those proposals. I understand that he is to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston to discuss the matter further. He has certainly made it clear that he will do so.
In the meantime, I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Home Department is deeply concerned about the disruption and misery that can be caused by unauthorised encampments. The police have a wide discretion under sections 61 and 62 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to remove people who trespass with a view to taking up residence. Enforcement of the law is the responsibility of chief police officers. The Government urge them to use their powers in relation to trespass whenever appropriate. The law makes no 1036 distinction between travellers and anyone else, and applies to anyone who acts in a way which society finds unacceptable.
§ Mr. WhiteDoes my hon. Friend accept that it is often easier for police and local authorities to negotiate travellers to move on than it is to use the powers that are available to them, and that that is part of the problem?
§ Mr. RaynsfordI shall come to the specific procedures in a moment, but I wanted to make it absolutely clear that the police have powers to remove people. There is no question about that.
The Government are under no illusion about the nuisance associated with many unauthorised encampments. If there is evidence of criminal activity on an unauthorised site, of course it is right that the police should deal with that as they see fit, just as they would with members of the settled community.
I have seen the proposals for changes in the law to which my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston has referred, and I have given some thought to the policy issues relevant to my Department, in particular the proposals that affect local authorities. The proposals appear to envisage a return to the position in part II of the Caravan Sites Act 1968, which is now repealed, which placed a legal duty on local authorities to provide sites for gipsies, as then defined. Once a local authority had provided adequate sites, or the Secretary of State had deemed it not necessary or expedient for them do so, the authority's area could be designated by the Secretary of State as an area where gipsies camping on certain categories of land were committing an offence.
The provisions in the 1968 Act resulted in a good number of sites being provided by local authorities, and there is a network of well over 300 sites providing some 5,200 pitches for gipsy families. We want those sites to remain open and available for gipsies to use if they wish. They should also be properly managed. My hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston referred to that important issue. I understand that one site in Birmingham can accommodate up to 15 caravans and that the last five biannual counts indicate that there may be vacancies on it. That may be associated with the management difficulties to which my hon. Friend referred.
However, the overriding demand from gipsies is for sites owned and managed by gipsies themselves. That came across very strongly in the meetings I had with gipsy representatives. The proportion of vans on privately owned sites has more than doubled in the past 20 years, but, in the same time, the number of vans on local authority sites has increased by only a third. The January 1998 count revealed that a new privately owned site, with planning permission, has emerged in the Birmingham area, which in January was accommodating five caravans.
§ Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak)The council has identified that providing for all the unauthorised campers would require an additional 70 places. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) referred to the seasonality of the problem. Surely we need to establish the origin of some of the travellers. Rather than being taken to local sites, they should be sent packing back to where they came from or where they stay in the winter.
§ Mr. RaynsfordI should make two points to my hon. Friend. First, the provision of local authority sites in 1037 Birmingham reflects the level envisaged as appropriate for Birmingham to meet its responsibilities under the 1968 Act. I am not sure whether further extensive provision to meet the needs of a substantial number of additional people who may well be transients is necessarily appropriate, given the seasonal factors to which she referred. Secondly, it is extremely difficult to anticipate whether and when people of a genuinely nomadic life will arrive in a particular place; therefore, there have to be proper arrangements in place to cope with the particular problems generated by unlawful camping, which is often the consequence.
The provision of sites for gipsies under the 1968 Act required a tremendous level of local political will to identify and produce sites that were acceptable both to gipsies and to the local community. I can see no reason why local authorities today would find it any easier to secure such sites. It involves difficult decisions, often against considerable local opposition, so I am somewhat sceptical about the proposed changes in the law back to the 1968 model.
It is clear that the authors of the proposals my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston described recognise that there will be a need for further sites to ensure that gipsies will have somewhere lawful to camp. Local authorities already have discretionary powers to provide further permanent sites if they consider it necessary. Alternatively, if the gipsies concerned are visiting the area for short periods, they can consider the provision of temporary, tolerated sites on council owned land. Circular advice to local authorities from my Department already advocates the provision of such sites in local authority areas to cater for the needs of those visiting the area for short periods.
The provision of short-stay sites with sanitary and refuse collection facilities can do much to ameliorate nuisance and should deter some gipsies from camping on more unsuitable public or private land. My hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston rightly drew a distinction between genuine gipsies and people whom she described—probably rightly—as cowboy builders. It is important to recognise that the Government are determined to ensure that effective action is taken against people who camp unlawfully and cause immense nuisance and trouble to others. In consultation with the university of Birmingham, we have therefore been developing good practice on the handling of unauthorised camping. Work on that is proceeding apace; there will be an announcement in the autumn. Obviously, we are also working with the Home Office and other Departments.
In the meantime, I am sure that Birmingham city council appreciates the importance of working closely with the police in dealing with this issue. Inter-agency agreements—