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Sir Jim Spicer (Dorset, West) : Will the Minister give way ?
Mr. Wardle : As time for the debate is limited, perhaps my hon. Friend would allow me to make some more progress. I shall return to him.
Local authorities and landlords may be able to take action to prevent trespass on their land. For example, prior to the gathering on Castlemorton common, both Avon and Somerset and Gloucestershire constabularies were able to enforce injunctions to prevent travellers assembling on commons in their areas.
Sir Jim Spicer : I understand the constraints of time, but I am glad of the opportunity to make this one point. We are not just looking at landowners and farmers : we are looking also at our police forces, and they are not those directly involved in this incident. In all the counties
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represented by my hon. Friends who are here, hundreds of police are being diverted weekend after weekend by these miserable people, and this has to be stopped.Mr. Wardle : My hon. Friend is right, and that is why co-ordination between police forces to try to deal with these circumstances as they build up is important.
It is worth pointing out that, where necessary, chief constables can request mutual aid, as my hon. Friend knows, from neighbouring forces, and, where the scale grows, arrangements can quickly be put into place to supply the host area with additional manpower. If, for whatever reason, the police cannot prevent huge numbers from establishing themselves on a site, inevitably they will decide to adopt a policy of containment, as happened at Castlemorton. We must bear in mind that the police have a delicate balance to maintain between dealing with crime and provoking disorder. There is only so much that one can do once a crowd of 20,000 has assembled. It would have been of no benefit to local residents that May weekend if insensitive action had provoked a full-scale riot.
Besides containment, the police can be expected to provide protection to local residents, as they did at Castlemorton, and mount an operation to tackle the drugs problems. The House will be interested to know that there were 73 arrests at the Castlemorton incident and another 74 cautions, all connected with drugs.
Mr. Paul Marland (Gloucestershire, West) : The problem is not only the large gatherings--Castlemorton has highlighted the problems they cause- -but the small ones. The police can move in if there are 13 vehicles, but if there are 12 they cannot, although that is just as terrifying and alarming for the landowners and the people in the district. These people go to isolated areas where there are a few houses, often occupied by elderly people, as has happened in my constituency on May hill, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) will know. When they eventually go, the local community dig deep ditches and put huge piles of stone and large tree trunks across entrances so that nobody else can get in to enjoy these rural beauty spots, and the innocent picnickers or ramblers are denied access to the sites.
Mr. Wardle : I understand entirely what my hon. Friend has said : small-scale gatherings can be just as alarming as large-scale ones. I hope that the House will allow me to make progress by going through the powers that already exist and setting out Government actions. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has called for a full report from the chief constable of West Mercia on the policing of the events of Castlemorton common and on any lessons to be learned from it. My noble Friend the Minister of State is this week meeting chief constables to consider the powers available to the police service, the intelligence and liaison arrangements between forces, and their tactics for handling large gatherings. We shall consider what action may be necessary after consultation with those chief officers.
It is important to emphasise that the effect of successful police operations to prevent travellers gathering at particular locations is to split them up and move them on. The Government have looked hard at the issue of trespass on land, and there are no easy answers. Existing legislation provides a number of remedies for landowners to deal with
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trespass on land by those who intend to reside. The vast majority of cases of trespass are resolved, as they should be, either informally or through the civil courts.The Caravan Sites Act 1968, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South said that he was familiar, also has an important role to play. This Act places a duty on local authorities to provide adequate official sites for gipsies--this is the definition that my hon. Friend used --resorting to or residing in their area. For these purposes, gipsies are defined as
"persons of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin." The courts have given clear indications that, in this context "gipsy" has a broad definition.
Once a local authority has provided sufficient sites and thus become designated under the 1968 Act it has access, through the magistrates court, to move gipsies off any unauthorised site, whether owned privately or by the local authority, but despite the provision of 100 per cent. Exchequer grant for official sites, provision has not kept pace with the growth in the number of gipsy vehicles, as so defined, in England and Wales. Some 300 sites have been provided in all, including 10 in Hereford and Worcester.
Twenty-two years after the implementation of the 1968 Act, only 38 per cent. of district councils in England have been designated, and only one district council in Wales. So there are not enough sites provided by local authorities for the growing number of travellers--travellers within the broader definition. We are well aware of the difficulty that new age travellers do not always wish to occupy authorised sites but want instead to roam freely across the country where they please. We are also familiar with the argument that powers available to designated authorities under the 1968 Act are too cumbersome to deal quickly with the problem of persistent illegal camping. In addition, even where eviction powers may be used against those who are camped illegally, the effect may be to place them within the ranks of the statutorily homeless.
The Conservative party manifesto of this year recognised these problems, and the deficiencies in the legislative framework provided in the Caravan Sites Act 1968 for dealing with them. It undertook to tackle the problem by reviewing the 1968 Act, with the aim of reducing the nuisance of illegal encampments. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment--my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry)--is taking the lead in this review. The Government hope shortly to be able to issue a consultation paper with proposals for reform, and will no doubt take account of what my hon. Friend has said this evening.
However, the question about the way the law seeks to deal with large gatherings, as well as smaller ones, and associated problems, such disorder and noise, is likely to remain. The police have the power at common law to order a crowd to disperse if they apprehend that a breach of the peace is likely to take place. They may also take steps to limit or prevent the build-up of a crowd by turning back people or vehicles if they consider that a breach of the peace is imminent. If necessary, the police may arrest as a result of or in order to prevent a breach of the peace.
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Section 39 of the Public Order Act 1986, to which my hon. Friend referred, was conceived during the passage of the Public Order Bill in response to the mass invasions of land in around Stonehenge during the summer of 1986. Section 39 gives the police the discretionary power to direct trespassers to leave land where two or more trespassers have entered the land with the purpose of residing there, and the owner or occupier has asked them to leave ; and if any of the trespassers is threatening or abusive ; or if any of the trespassers causes damage ; or if the trespassers between them bring 12 or more vehicles onto the land. Section 39 is not a substitute for normal civil procedures, but it provides a limited criminal sanction to deal with aggravated trespass.Mr. Paul Tyler (Cornwall, North) : The Minister will be aware that, in Davidstow in north Cornwall, we had an invasion by very large numbers. Subsequently, the police, the landowners and the commoners felt that section 39 was not sufficient to deal with the problem. That was 12 months ago. I wonder whether the Home Office has taken account of that experience.
Mr. Wardle : It has. In fact, I am about to refer to a review of section 39.
In 1990, we undertook a thorough public evaluation of section 39 to assess how its relatively new powers were working. The review showed that, when used, the section provided a quick and effective remedy. On 22 May 1991, the then Home Secretary announced that no change to the law was required. The powers were there ; it was a question of how they were used.
Apart from trespass, problems can also arise over noise nuisance where parties are held on the land. Where the local authority has adopted such measures, entertainment licensing laws under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 apply inter alia to rave parties. Where there is an entertainment on private land, therefore, in order to be legal, it must be licensed--provided, of course, that the local authority has taken up the available powers. The police have no general power under entertainment licensing legislation to seize equipment used for parties, but their powers under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 allow them to seize material which might be needed for evidential purposes to prevent its being lost, stolen or destroyed. As to noise, I understand that the Environmental Protection Act 1990 provides for environmental health officers to confiscate audio equipment to secure compliance with a noise abatement notice.
The measures that I have listed constitute a considerable array of powers which are available to the police and local authorities. Additionally, of course, the civil and criminal law apply. I do not, therefore, wish to underestimate the difficulties of tackling the problem. Nevertheless, I can reassure my hon. Friend and the House we are examining whether and how the current position can be improved. The Government will do everything sensible that they can to remedy a difficult situation.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at fifteen minutes to Twelve o'clock.
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