House of Commons Hansard Debates for 10 Jul 1990

Mr. Wardell : In the three minutes that I have left to me, I must say that I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to congratulate the Minister on his birthday today. We meet for the second time today, as earlier we were both in Committee on the Caldey Island Bill. The Minister's assurances that there would be no retrospective payment of community charge for the good people of Caldey was equalled by the comments that he just made and by his optimistic tone when he described what we expect the Government to do in response to the report.

I do not mind too much if the Government spend a little time responding to our report, provided that they implement most of our recommendations in that period so that they will be able to say in their report that they have already accomplished our recommendations.

I do not mind if the Government claim the credit. The important thing is that the many lessons of the experience be learned. I shall not list the lessons now, but, as the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) said, the way forward is to ensure that legislation is introduced to tidy up existing laws, to give the NRA a leading role in promoting coastal protection schemes and to make financing simpler. I am sure that the hon. Member for St. Ives sums up our concerns, and I hope that the Government will consider them. It being three hours after the commencement of the proceedings, the debate was concluded, and the Questions necessary to dispose of the proceedings were deferred pursuant to paragraph (4) of Standing Order No. 52 (Consideration of estimates).

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CLASS VIII, VOTE 4

[Relevant document : Third Report from the Environment Committee of Session 1989-90 on the Department of the Environment's Main Estimates 1990- 91 (House of Commons Paper No. 373).]

Gipsy Sites

Motion made, and Question proposed.

That a further sum, not exceeding £30,785,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in the course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1991 for expenditure by the Department of the Environment on road infrastructure required for the development of new towns, gypsy sites, smoke control, planning redevelopment and other environmental services, on other water supply, conservation and sewerage services, and on town and country planning (including compensation).-- [Mr. Chope.]

7.6 pm

Mr. Robert B. Jones (Hertfordshire, West) : I have the honour to present the third report of the Select Committee on the Environment on the Department of the Environment's main estimates for 1990-1991, with special reference to vote 4, B1. It would be appropriate to record our thanks to Mr. Richard Dudding and Mr. John Adams at the Department of the Environment for their helpful co-operation, enabling the Committee to reach the conclusions of its report, and for their full anwers to the sometimes forceful questions that were put to them during our deliberations. I should also like to record my appreciation of the leadership of our Select Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), who brings us great experience and considerable enthusiasm and who helps us do an important job.

I am a great believer in the work that Select Committees do and in bringing their reports to the House. We appreciate the opportunity to debate a report hot off the press.

Select Committee do an enormous variety of work and cover detailed as well as broad subjects. I cannot help contrasting our previous debate with this one. A few moments ago we were debating the consequences of what my insurance people would call an act of God earlier this year. Now we are considering the consequences of an Act of Parliament passed more than 20 years ago. The consequences are still with us : that is the nub of the Select Committee's report and recommendations.

We recognise the difficult problems posed by itinerants. There are different points of view. I am sure that the viewpoint of Lord Avebury, who, as Eric Lubbock, steered the legislation through Parliament, would be different from my own. As a constituency Member of Parliament who, in common with some of my hon. Friends, has had problems with itinerants, I have received many representations from constituents about a variety of related issues.

Above all there is the problem of visual pollution. To some people gipsies may be historic Romany folk with brightly painted caravans towed by horses but those of us who have experienced the problem in recent years know that it has more to do with tumbledown caravans and beaten-up vehicles and piles of scrap and rubbish, and that those people often occupy inappropriate sites that are extremely visible to the general public.

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There is also a problem associated with the vandalism of large areas of woodland to provide fuel for fires. Theft often occurs as well. A farmer in my constituency found after gipsies had camped on land adjacent to his farm that the water supply for his cattle was regularly used by the itinerants. He had to pay a huge bill and he could not reclaim the money from anyone.

My personal interest in the matter goes back a long way. I served on Chiltern district council in Buckinghamshire until I became a Member of the House. We spent long hours debating the location of official sites before we received designations. The galling aspect was that no sooner had the official sites been built and opened than they were vandalised by the very people who were supposed to benefit from them. At that time a pitch cost about £10,000 ; no doubt my hon. Friend the Minister will bring us up to date on how much one would cost now.

The Select Committee has considered the matter on several occasions. The first time I remember it doing so was in 1984-85, soon after I joined the Committee, and the problem has recurred almost every year since then. This time we have come up with some specific recommendations, which I shall attempt to summarise.

It is time 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. Foremost among the reasons for his recommendation was the slow provision of official pitches. Hon. Members may be interested to hear some statistics. There were 211 more caravans on authorised sites in July 1989 than in July 1988, and 171 new pitches became available on local authority sites during the financial year 1989-90. That represents a decline from the 250 new pitches in the calendar year 1987 and no improvement on the 200 to 300 annual increases reported by the Department of the Environment for 1982 to 1987. The Committee estimates that, at the present rate of new provision, it would take 25 years to solve the problem.

The Secretary of State has only twice used his powers of direction under section 9 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. In November 1988 he directed Hertfordshire county council to make provision for sites for 110 caravans. It is no coincidence that I am the Member for Hertfordshire, West, because I had to bully successive Ministers at the Department over that matter before any action was forthcoming. In June 1989, Surrey county council was directed to provide for 180 caravans. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Committee recommended much more vigorous use of that power. The numbers involved are immense and there seems to be little progress. The number of caravans on unauthorised sites continues to grow. Figures supplied by the Department in 1985 showed a decline in numbers from 4,245 in January 1980 to an estimated 3,472 in January 1985. In answer to a parliamentary question on 6 February 1987--at column 856 in Hansard --my right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) identified about 3,000 ; but last year the DOE reported the proportion of caravans on unauthorised sites as virtually unchanged at about 34 per cent., despite the creation of about 250 new pitches, as more gipsies than usual were being recorded. Most worrying of all, this year's public expenditure White Paper reports the proportion on unauthorised sites at 35 per cent., which is an increase. That makes a total of 4,500 caravans, so the solution to the problem seems to be receding.

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The Committee first expressed its worry about the legislation in its report of the 1984-85 Session, when we recommended that the Department should conduct a review of policy on gipsy sites. It was carried out by Professor Wibberley, professor of countryside planning in the university of London. He made several recommendations, the first of which a more specific definition of gipsies for the purpose of the Caravan Sites Act 1968, based on employment and life style, with the intention of excluding social drop-outs.

In response, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury said that he defined gipsies in terms of a nomadic habit of life--which seems a rather circular argument. In recent years not just itinerants, as they were called in the past, but many of what my constituents call diddikois seem to have joined this group ; they are people from all sorts of background. There has certainly been an influx of peace people from various camps around the country. That is why the problem is growing.

The difficulty is not confined to unauthorised sites on land. As a member of the Inland Waterways Amenity Advisory Council, I am conscious of the fact that exactly the same phenomenon is occurring on the water, in the shape of illegal moorings. The problem has more to do with the break-up of some parts of society and with general problems of homelessness than with genuine Romany folk. Professor Wibberley's recommendation is still relevant and I hope that the Department will again consider tightening the legislation's definition.

The professor also recommended a review of designated areas to ensure that the designation procedure works more fairly and efficiently. He recommended better and more frequent counts of gipsy families and measures to reduce resident hostility towards gipsies' sites, including speeding up planning decisions and facilitating discussions between gipsies and residents. Finally, he recommended encouraging gipsy groups to act as site operators, and quicker and more generous provision of capital grants for sites. Incidentally, I must commend the Department's improvement of the grant regime. I hope that that will encourage more local authorities to provide sites. As Mr. Dudding explained when giving evidence :

"there are other authorities which would even if they had the £5 notes put in front of their eyes, be reluctant".

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green will touch on that aspect if he catches the Chair's eye--it is a problem that has been especially apparent in Haringey.

The real difficulty is that the goalposts are continually moving. Even local authorities that are motivated to try to achieve designation find that they run into increasing difficulties of litigation. As soon as a local authority applies for designation on the basis of the number of itinerants who are, in the terms of the Act, resorting to the area, there is another influx of people. That means that the designation order falls because there is no relation between the number of official pitches and the number of the gipsies in the area.

It is little wonder that some local authorities, faced with all the political problems of trying to set up sites against the will of local residents, give up, especially when confronted by vociferous gipsy support groups with access to legal assistance.

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How does one define who resorts to an area? Is it someone who has come to an area for many years, or is it someone who has come to the area only recently? There seems to be no way to define it. I have always taken the view that we do not need more direction from the Department of the Environment, or a different grant regime. We need a reframing of the legislation so that, with fairer definitions, local authorities can get on with the job of providing sites for the genuine traveller and ensuring that the police move on those who are not genuine travellers.

I am encouraged by the Department's response to a question that I put to it. Mr. Dudding said :

"I think the Secretary of State's words in reply to the Committee last year were open to change ; they were not ruling them out. And I think that is somehting that we shall continue to think about and I am sure that Ministers will be interested to read the views of the Committee in their Report because that is a source of advice to them by which, as you know, they have been influenced in the past." There is plenty of material for reconsideration.

I hope that the Minister will be able to provide more up-to-date information. The Department has commissioned a study to identify good practice among local authorities in achieving site provision. It has also commissioned another study to establish the accuracy of the half-yearly counts of gipsies. I understand that the results would be made available in June 1990. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister has them with him and that he will be able to enlighten the House. It has taken virtually the whole time that I have been a Member of Parliament for my local authority to be granted designation after its initial application. During that period, local residents, particularly in the parishes of Wigginton and Tring Rural, but also in Tring, became increasingly frustrated by what they believed to be the Department of the Environment's inability to act in such a way as to protect them from all the environmental problems that I described earlier. I had to explain to them many times that I believed that the cause of the problem was the imprecise nature of the legislation that had been piloted through the House. That is not surprising, since it was a Liberal measure. Nevertheless, a Conservative Government ought to do something about it.

I hope that the Minister will respond sympathetically to the pressing needs of communities throughout the country who wish to be rid of those problems. Genuine travellers ought to be provided with a decent life style and somewhere to live so that education can be provided for their children, but the law needs to be reformed to deal with the remainder.

7.22 pm

Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West) : I thank the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones) for introducing the debate. I also thank the Select Committee on the Environment for its third report. I intend to confine my remarks to that part of the report which deals with gipsy sites and travellers. As the area represented by the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, West has been designated, I was interested in what he had to say about the problem. He drew attention to the many difficulties that flow from designation. Bradford was designated by the Minister earlier this year.

Many of those who support designation give the public the impression that it is a magic wand solution to all the difficulties caused by travellers. There is therefore

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considerable public resentment and cynicism when the problems continue after designation. The Government will continue to face difficulties if they grant designation, but the problems remain unsolved.

The report states that 112 authorities have been designated under section 12 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. They include Doncaster and Bradford. Another 11 applications for designation are being considered by the Department. Bradford continues to face problems. Designation was granted by the Minister days before the local elections, but I should be the last to suggest any connection between his decision and the elections looming on 3 May. His letter provided background information to the granting of designation, stating that the grounds for designation were that it would not be expedient for the then Conservative-controlled Bradford council to make additional permanent provision in Bradford.

Like many other people in Bradford, I thought that that was an extraordinary decision. We have tussled with this problem for many years. We met a Minister from the Department of the Environment two or three years ago, when it was made clear to us that, unless Bradford provided a third permanent site for travellers, designation would not be granted. A third permanent site has not been provided and the two permanent sites in Bradford have not been improved. Nevertheless, the Minister granted designation.

The new Labour administration in Bradford has stated that it will not instruct its officers to implement designation. The new administration wants to monitor the position before taking action. It is anxious to find out whether neighbouring authorities, including Calderdale, Kirklees and Craven, have provided any permanent sites before it decides to implement the designation orders.

The traveller merry-go-round that we have witnessed in Bradford for many years continues. Travellers have resorted--to use the official jargon of the Act--to Bradford for well over a century. Environment Ministers have accepted for many years that two permanent sites offer totally insufficient permanent provision for the caravans of travellers who come regularly to Bradford. They accept that a third site is needed, but it has not been provided. My local newspaper, The Telegraph and Argus, reported recently on the eviction of travellers from unofficial sites and on their moving to other unofficial sites. Council officers are considering applying for yet more eviction orders. A council official is quoted as saying that "it was a problem finding sites that met the needs of the travellers. Shortage of sites for gipsies was a problem because the inner city Mary street site was full."

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) is in the Chamber. He and I visited the Mary street site last summer. At the same time we visited the official site at Esholt. I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees with me that we were very dissatisfied with the standard of the facilities that are provided there. The Esholt street site is adjacent to a rifle range. We were shown bullet cartridges that had ricocheted over an earth embankment behind the rifle range. The drainage and the washing facilities at the site are totally unsatisfactory. It is no wonder that the travellers are extremely reluctant to use that remote site, which is well away from the shops and schools. The Mary street site was also in a shocking condition. The showers and washing facilities had been vandalised and many of the travellers we met complained about the standard of facilities there.

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Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : Does my hon. Friend agree that the vandalism that he mentioned had not been carried out by the travellers and that one of the difficulties was that on occasions there was a degree of hostility and youths would stone the caravans and vandalise the toilet blocks at the site? The toilet blocks had been in need of repairs for many months and the travellers were making the best of what was patently a bad job.

Mr. Madden : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When the Minister granted designation, he said in his background note that Bradford council was to spend money on improving the Mary street and Esholt street sites. I have made inquiries but I cannot ascertain whether there have been any improvements at those sites. I was amazed that the Minister stated in his note and in correspondence with me that his officials had found the facilities and the general conditions at both sites reasonable. He and his officials seem alone in that view. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South and others who are interested and concerned are extremely disassatisfied with the standard of the facilities at both sites. We also remain firmly of the view that a third permanent site must be provided in Bradford. The views of the gipsy spokesperson, Ann Purcell, were reported in the Telegraph and Argus :

"she expected her family would be moved on again from New Lane by the council. But she believed it would be cheaper for the council to provide them with a proper site instead of chasing them around the city. Council officials offered the family space at official site at Esholt but Mrs. Purcell said : It's miles away from anywhere, especially the school and there are no shops within walking distance.' She said there is not enough room to accommodate travellers at two official sites in the Bradford district and condemned the scrapping of a plan three years ago to turn some derelict land at Listerhills into another gipsy site.".

The Minister should know that the previous Conservative administration came to power partly due to the hysteria that had been whipped up deliberately by the Conservative party in Bradford over travellers and gipsies. During that campaign, leading Conservatives sought to gain cheap party political support on the back of a promise that designation would resolve all the problems and that the traveller problem could be wholly removed only if designation were granted. Designation has been granted and the problems continue. I hope that the Minister will say how much money that previous Tory administration told him it had committed to spending on improving the Esholt street and Mary street sites. When he granted designation, his background note suggested that the Conservative administration in Bradford was also committed to providing further private sites in Bradford. I have been unable to get any information about the location of those private sites. As the Minister must have been given some information by the previous Conservative administration in Bradford about where those private sites were likely to be situated, I should like to know where they are and what progress is being made.

Mr. Cryer : I should be interested to know what encouragement the Minister is giving neighbouring authorities to provide sites. I understand that Craven, Kirklees and Calderdale local authorities do not provide one alternative site. No doubt the Government are

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anxiously providing all possible assistance in the way of advice and grant aid to encourage those authorities to play their part.

Mr. Madden : I totally agree with my hon. Friend. What information has the Minister received from Calderdale, Kirklees and Craven about their current efforts to identify suitable permanent sites? It would be idle and politically dishonest for the Minister to pretend that designation without neighbouring authorities offering permanent sites, improvements to the existing two sites, the provision of a third permanent site, more private sites, and a general overall improvement in Bradford, would provide any long-term satisfactory solution to the difficulties which have arisen for many years and which will continue unless the Government take decisive action.

The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, West made the case for my last point. The parent legislation is more than 20 years old and needs to be reformed to meet current circumstances and the difficulties that the hon. Gentleman highlighted. The Committee says that, at the current rate of progress, it will take 25 years to accommodate those known travellers who desire proper permanent sites with proper facilities. I hope that the Minister will not be satisfied with that rate of progress.

The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, West made the case for regional planning. It is quite wrong to leave individual district authorities to reach piecemeal solutions on the back of a variety of local circumstances. Surely the only way in which we can make progress and meet the demands of travellers and the requirements of settled residents is through a national gipsy traveller programme and regional programmes to ensure that in West Yorkshire, for example, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Wakefield and other authorities make planned and systematic provision to alleviate the problems caused to travellers and local residents.

If the Minister rejects that suggestion, in Bradford and other places, either the merry-go-round will continue and designation will prove wholly unsuitable to deal with the problems, or police and council officials will become involved in potentially dangerous confrontations between travellers and groups of local residents, with caravans being towed to the borders of authority districts and travellers seeking unofficial sites in places such as Calderdale and Kirklees where there is no official provision or returning to Bradford to occupy unofficial and illegal sites.

The Minister can easily achieve a recipe for anarchy and dangerous community unrest and conflict by presiding over the shambolic mess that this policy has caused, but I hope that he will be able to announce to the House--I sense that there is concern among hon. Members on both sides because this is not a party-political issue but one of good local government and community relations--new policy initiatives to satisfy our constituents and travellers about the future.

It is interesting to note the views of traveller children. A report in the Telegraph and Argus, headlined

"We want to learn, plead the gipsy children",

states :

"The youngsters say that they want to be taught and are fed up of being moved off one site after another. We were born in Bradford and we want to have an education here,' said 12-year-old Mary Doran. It's not fair that we have to

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keep on moving. We would like a permanent site so we can stay in one place and go to school. The way we are going we won't even get half an education.' Margaret Purcell, 12, said We want to be taught but we don't even know if we'll be in school on Monday.' Mary and Margaret and their sisters, 11-year-olds Eilleen and Kathleen, have been going to St. William's Roman Catholic First School, in Young Street, Bradford, for the past five months. We really enjoy it there, but some days we have to miss school because of all this moving,' said Mary. Before that, the children went to St. Patrick's RC First School in Wood Street, Manningham. The gipsies were served with an eviction order by Bradford Council to leave the land at Lower Rushton Road, in Thornbury. About eight caravans are now parked on an area of grassland between blocks of council flats on New Lane. Residents have complained to the council about the noise of the generators being used by the gipsy families. Richard Hoyle, 24 of Oban House said : My wife's complained to the council to get the generators turned down. We've got two young children and the noise at 4 am doesn't help.' Bradford Council has said shortage of sites for gipsies was a problem because the inner city Mary Street site was full. A spokesman said the council would be seeking another court order to move the gipsies on again."

So the merry-go-round goes on. The Minister told me and the people of Bradford in April when he granted designation that these problems would be resolved. They are not resolved and are unlikely to be, but I hope very much that when he replies to the debate he will be able to announce new policy initiatives that will give some hope to my constituents and to travellers that the merry-go-round in Bradford will end, that there will be a third permanent site, that improvements will be made to the Mary street and Esholt street sites, that there will be further private sites and that he will issue directions to Kirklees, Calderdale and Craven about making satisfactory progress towards permanent site provision in their local authority areas.

I hope that the Minister will begin to recognise that a national policy is necessary and a regional strategy vital if we are to reduce the problems that I am sure other hon. Members will rehearse today. 7.43 pm

Sir Hugh Rossi (Hornsey and Wood Green) : I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones) on the way in which he introduced the Environment Select Committee's report. The moderate and balanced way in which he did so was in the best of the traditions of the Committee. I am afraid that I cannot be as moderate or follow the traditions of my Committee. My constituency has been subject to a plague of gipsies for about seven years. I call them gipsies, but they are not true Romanies. Possibly some of them are tinkers. They may be itinerant scrap metal merchants, but mostly they seem to be motorised squatters. That is probably the best term that I can use.

When officials of the Department of the Environment were giving evidence to my Committee, we asked them to give the definition of a gipsy under the terms of the legislation. Some years ago, in his report, Professor Wibberley criticised the fact that there was no hard and fast definition by which gipsies and people who were subject to the legislation could be readily identified. The officials' reply was, "People who live a nomadic way of life." I asked, "Does a nomadic way of life involve moving from one illegal site within the London borough of Haringey to another?" There was a shrug of the shoulders

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and the answer, "Perhaps that is nomadic." That is not an adequate answer and is not a proper way for a Department to address its mind to a very serious social problem.

The hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) mentioned the tensions when ordinary residents are faced with such a sudden visitation. In conscience, we cannot allow that to continue, for the sake of either the families who willingly accept or are forced into that way of life or the local communities who suddenly find them in their midst.

I have experienced the problem for several years. I have brought with me several files on the problems that I have had since the most recent general election. Since 1987, I have had within my constituency illegal squatting and trespassing by so-called gipsies at Alexandra palace, Wood Green common, Carlton lodge in Hornsey, Durnsford road lido, King's road car park in Wood Green, Pelham road in Wood Green, Lymington avenue in Wood Green, Russell avenue in Wood Green and Middle lane and Lightfoot road, Hornsey.

They may be the same gipsies who move from site to site or others who come and go. Nobody has been able to identify them except perhaps the travellers liaison officer, appointed by the London borough of Haringey, who directs them from site to site when the heat gets too hot on a site. It is of some interest that the council, which is reluctant to use its powers to remove trespassers from its property, seems to anticipate travellers moving from one site to another, because overnight a water stand pipe and portaloos suddenly appear, and lo and behold they remain there for several months.

As time is short, I do not want to go through the files for each site to show the problems that these visitations create. There is a pattern of filth, of danger to public health and hygiene, of rubble, of litter, of disorder, of children running wild, of a spate of housebreaking and of excrement where one would not expect to find it. One cannot wonder that, as a consequence, the local residents, who are ordinary, decent people, despair because nobody seems to be ready to help them to deal with the problem.

When these people first appear on a site, reference is made to the local police, who are asked whether they will exercise their powers under section 39 of the Public Order Act 1986. The police will not do so and they say that the Act is irrelevant to the problem. They say in their defence, "The Act gives us power of arrest where there is a trespass and those convicted are dealt with by the magistrates, but we have no power under the Act to remove the caravans. If we arrest somebody, we leave behind his wife and children, and who looks after them? When the man in released by the magistrates and returns to the site, what do we do? Do we arrest him for a continuing offence if he refuses to go?" The only answer to that problem must be for the police to have the power--and the willingness to use that power--to remove caravans when they are trespassing on other people's or public property, although that may seem somewhat draconian.

I said that I would not read through all my files and that I would merely give the House an idea of the problems. However, I want to read one letter to the House, which was written to me in March last year. The letter says :

"My mother and father are both retired. They live in a very pleasant council flat in Carlton Lodge, Lancaster Road, N4. They have been honest, hardworking people all their lives. Now, at a time when they should be enjoying themselves, their lives are being made miserable.

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My father suffers from a bad heart and severe arthritis and his health is getting worse. The reason for this is outside his window. There are ten to twelve gipsy caravans and a number of trucks that have been picking up builders' rubbish and dumping it in the street. The gipsies have been living there for over three months now. The local milkman has stopped delivering milk and supplies to the residents in the flats as goods were being stolen from his van. I went to visit my parents today because it was my mother's birthday and I just could not believe my eyes. The situation has become a lot worse since the last time I was there. It's obviously making life totally unpleasant for my parents and their neighbours. Apart from the obvious health hazard there must also be a potential fire hazard to the area. I believe that certain steps are being taken to remove the gipsies but if you could speed up the process I am sure it would benefit my father's health."

That seemed to be the end of the letter, but when I turned the page, I found something else written. This is what got me. The letter continued :

"The enclosed letter was drafted on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning my father had a stroke, followed by a heart attack. He died the following Sunday, Easter Day, at 3.10 am. My mother does not want the funeral procession to start from her own home as she is so ashamed of the state of the place and worried about what might happen to her relatives' cars while they are parked outside."

I cannot say that that letter is typical. Happily, not every constituent has suffered a bereavement as a result of gipsies. However, I have heard of cases of housebreaking and of pensioners who have suddenly found their front doors broken down and youngsters rampaging through the house. The police can do nothing because the old people cannot identify the particular individual, but the community knows where those people have come from even if there is not enough evidence to point the finger at any individual. The neighbours get to know such incidents as the bereavement and when old-age pensioners have had their front doors battered in or others have had their windows broken by half bricks. Some have had excrement deposited in their back garden and others live next door to an empty house that has become a general urinal and toilet for the encampment.

What effect does my hon. Friend the Minister think that all that must have on local residents? Is that a socially desirable situation? Does he think that people will sit down under this year in year out without, at some time or other, a fuse blowing? We shall then have a far more serious problem on our hands. The police say that they cannot act because the Public Order Act is not strong enough. The local authority refuses to act and seems to be encouraging the problem.

I have asked my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to take further powers to do something either when the local authority does not apply for designation--which would give it immediate powers to act--or so that a local authority can be taken to court if it does not exercise those powers once it has obtained designated status. That might answer the problems raised by the hon. Member for Bradford, West. The local authority may be failing in its legal duty to its residents if it does not exercise the power, which designated status has given it, to have caravans removed.

I know from conversations with my hon. Friend the Minister that if Haringey were to apply tomorrow for designated status, it would find that it fulfilled all the criteria and that it would be granted such status. However, time after time, the borough refuses to apply for

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designated status, so it does not have the powers to take action. It then shuffles off the responsibility to the local police.

Mr. Madden : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Hugh Rossi : I shall not give way as we want to end this debate fairly quickly.

Yesterday, I received a telephone call from a constituent who said that, at 6 pm the day before, gipsies had settled

"on the field behind Tetherdown Primary School in Woodside Avenue. The field is used by the children from the school but is owned by a charity called The Central Foundation."

That night, two caravans appeared, after the padlock had been cut. The police asked the people to leave, but they refused to do so. By the morning, there were 20 caravans and by the evening, there were 30. I have ascertained that that remains the position. A house nearby had been broken into so that water could be obtained. Children from the site are breaking into the school. The children in the primary school are terrified. Several large dogs are roaming in the field where the gipsies are now encamped. What will my hon. Friend do about that, and what advice does he ask me to give my constituents who face that problem?

7.59 pm

Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : This is an important debate because it is no good shying away from the fact that there is a real problem. The guitar-strumming romany of popular myth and romantic illustration does not often appear in our towns and cities--instead, problems of sanitation and noise arise. Generators are sometimes used late at night when neighbouring lorry drivers or early-morning shift workers have to get up early. Children have to go to school after being disturbed at night. Those are the problems that arise when gipsies or travellers-- however one describes them, they are people--camp close to houses. Many of them make their living from scrapping metal. Some burn the covering of copper wires to extract the copper, which produces stench and smoke, and there are other intrusions.

We must face the fact that this is a difficult problem and a real source of complaint for many people. However, it is not possible to solve that problem simply by moving groups of people in their caravans from one illegal site to another, like a continuing yo-yo around an area.

Another permanent site is needed in Bradford although several smaller sites, dispersed throughout the whole of the Bradford metropolitan district would be preferable. I see no reason why areas such as Ilkley, Bingley rural district or Rombalds ward, which have large open areas, could not be used. Some of the houses in Ilkley are out of sight of the road because the drive to the front door is so long. I am sure that the people in those areas would be anxious to play their part in a community contribution to solving the problem. People in Bradford would feel that there was fairness if the problem were dispersed throughout the whole of the Bradford metropolitan district, and not simply concentrated on two or three wards in the centre of the city.

I became involved in this matter when, about four years ago, the Labour- controlled Bradford council had a perfectly proper policy which, unfortunately, was not

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implemented. Bradford's policy on travellers involved entering into consultation with and gaining the consent of people living in the vicinity of the land to be allocated for a site. About 30 families were virtually tipped on to a site called Staithgate lane at Low Moor in my constituency. I believe that that was a deliberate manoeuvre by council officials--perhaps one or two councillors were involved, but that is not absolutely clear--to try to secure that land for industrial development instead of for the transport museum for which it had been allocated. I suspect that it was planned to produce in the residents the response, "Get rid of the gipsies. We don't mind what the land is used for, as long as the gipsies are not on the site."

However, that did not work. The local people held a number of angry meetings and impressed upon the local authority the fact that it was unfair that that land should be used for a gipsy site when it was designated for a transport museum. As the area already contained two potentially high-risk chemical works, the people felt that they had burdens enough. However, to demonstrate their support for the use of the land for the purpose for which it was originally designated, the local people have held three successful annual transport galas to show that they have a community spirit, that they are not prepared to wash their hands of the whole affair, and that they want the land to be used for a commercial transport museum. I should declare an interest because I am the part-owner of a Bristol Lowdekka double-deck bus which I hope at some stage will be exhibited on that site when it is a museum.

Therefore, something positive emerged from the uproar. None the less, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) has pointed out, the two sites in Bradford are not in good condition. Some modernisation was started on the Mary street site, but that was halted. Virtual cliff edges were left where excavators had been used and where rubble had been piled 2 or 3 ft high. It would be very easy for children running around to break an arm or a leg or seriously injure themselves. Where it was possible--it is not easily possible in the middle of a pile of rubble--the travellers were houseproud and tidy and clearly took care of the site. There were some difficulties, which a small amount of money spent by the local authority could and should have eradicated, but that work was never done.

I hope that the Government will state that they are prepared to give additional grant aid for such work and that they will not leave it to hard- pressed local authorities such as Bradford, which have many competing priorities, to provide that money. As I have said, Bradford needs an additional site or preferably several small sites spread throughout the district. However, it should be noted that if Bradford is a designated area and the travellers cannot move on, they cannot go to Calderdale, Kirklees or Craven to find a site because there is none. During the last general election, the Conservative candidate was a Calderdale Conservative councillor. When taxed with this problem at a meeting, he said, "There is insufficient land--there is no flat land anywhere in Calderdale that is suitable for a gipsy site." That was not believed and it is not true.

Perhaps the Minister will explain today how he intends to encourage local authorities to take responsibility. Under the existing legislation, he has powers to issue a direction. I do not ask him to do so because I do not see why the bureaucratic powers of central Government should be imposed on local authorities, but my guess is

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that, if central Government gave additional grant aid, over and above the grant aid to the actual sites, and held consultation meetings and gave financial encouragement, they would find more zeal forthcoming than has hitherto been shown by some local authorities, some of which are Labour-controlled and some Conservative. Because of all the problems and strains, and because people do not want the travellers next to them--they do not mind where they go so long as it is somewhere else--it is easy to forget that these problems can be eradicated, as has happened in Leeds, which, after a great argument, now has a limited number of pitches. All local authorities need to play their part. I see no reason why the city of Bradford, virtually alone in our part of West Yorkshire, should carry the burden of providing sites for travellers.

It is easy to criticise the travellers, and people produce various reasons for doing so. People say that they have worked hard to buy their house-- encouraged by the Government--that they have decorated and painted it, but they suddenly find a pile of rubble outside, noisy children running around and a great deal of confusion, dirt and doubt. Obviously, they feel concerned and, in many cases, very angry. That is why we need a number of permanent sites.

Permanent sites would also address the argument that travellers are not making any contribution to the community because they have illegal sites and do not pay any poll tax. The poll tax burden is falling heavily on people and makes them feel that disparity even more keenly. As travellers who use local authority sites have to pay rent, they contribute in that way to the community, and people feel that things are fairer, which in turn makes for better community relations.

There is a problem with their children. We must provide means for educating the children, and if they are moving about, great difficulties are bound to arise. In Sheffield, for example, there is a gipsy children's bus and a team of people going round providing education, but that represents only an attempt to solve the problem. I understand that Sheffield has about the same number, perhaps fewer, permanent caravan sites than Bradford. In other words, although that area is doing well in respect of education, in terms of sites it is making only average provision.

The children have a right to education. The fact that they are born into a nomadic way of life, however much one might criticise that, should not prevent them from being educated. They exist, and wishing the problem away will not solve it. Nor will it provide education for those youngsters. We must encourage the establishment of permanent sites so that links can be established between the schools and the children, so that the children can feel part of society rather than feeling, as many of them do--and as many of the general public feel--part of a continuing battle. If that is the attitude of the children, it will be their attitude as teenagers and will continue into adult life, which will mean more running battles between residents and travellers, the police and travellers, and local authorities and travellers, with scarcely a sympathetic spark anywhere to be seen.

In encouraging the children, we must provide nursery education and first, middle and senior schools so that such talent and ability as exists among the families may be garnered and used for the benefit of the community as a whole. As other hon. Members have said, that cannot be

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achieved if there is a continuing shift from one school to another, so that teachers never build up a relationship with the children. A teacher recently said to me, referring to travellers' children and the children of families in difficulties, "You can see them coming down the drive, you can help them, but you know that within a day or two they will be off and you are unlikely ever to see them again." As a result, alienation and separation from society is established. We must do something about that.

Although there is antagonism between travellers and the community at large, for the reasons that I have outlined, I believe that people generally have a measure of compassion and recognise that we must provide for the education of the children as part of our general responsibilities. Another permanent site is needed in Bradford, as well as sites in the surrounding local authorities that I have mentioned.

I wrote to a neighbouring local authority urging its leader to investigate, and start work on, the provision of a site, and I released the letter to the press. The local evening newspaper used the headline, "MP urges gipsy site." The hon. Member who represents the area, whom I had not been able to contact with the good news that I was urging the local authority to provide a gipsy site, was inundated with calls asking, "Why are you claiming that additional gipsy sites must be provided?" The hon. Member was able to point out that it was not that hon. Member who had made the comment. Even so, the hon. Member agreed with me that the local authority should be making provision for gipsies, for the reasons that I have given. There is a genuine altruism in all of this. We do not get many votes from gipsies, because they are unlikely to be on electoral registers, although some of them are, and we are criticised if we do not take action on behalf of permanent residents confronted with illegal gipsy sites. The fact that Parliament is discussing this issue is creditable, however, because in talking about it we are bringing pressure to bear on the Government to provide more assistance so that local authorities can tackle the problem. Let us face the fact that the problem will not go away. Let us also have a mutual respect for differing ways of life as between the permanent population, who want to live in houses, who like their cities and areas and who do not wish to move, and the tiny fraction of the population who live a nomadic life. Somehow, somewhere, we must find accommodation for all concerned, for the sake of everybody. 8.14 pm

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