§ Mr. Greenwayasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will seek to give wider statutory powers to the police to enable them to require gipsies and other travellers to move on, without recourse to the courts, where they are trespassing.
§ Mr. MayhewIf the police were given powers to remove gipsies from private land without a court order the effect would be to undermine the Caravan Sites Act 1968, as amended. The link between removal and the provision of sufficient authorised sites would be broken, and the problem would simply be moved constantly from one area to another. Such a change would make the police responsible for determining civil disputes and so take them beyond what has hitherto been regarded as the limit of their proper duties.