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Lords amendment No. 41 seems to constitute an attempt by the Government to define a suitable alternative site, although it does not say as much. It states that a police officer
My constituency shares its boundary with two other counties, as well as the rest of Cambridgeshire. We have serious problems with unauthorised encampments, often within a mile or two of the Essex and Suffolk borders. There may be very convenient alternative sites in those counties, but if I understand the Bill correctly, the authority that must be consulted is the one whose area contains the illegal encampment. I am being parochial here, but I would hope that we all know our constituencies better than anywhere else.
The Minister will confirm whether "local authority" means a county or a district authority
Mr. Paice: In any event, because South Cambridgeshire borders many miles of the Essex boundary, if there is no alternative site in the rest of Cambridgeshirewhich there may well not be, because of the large number of travellersbut there is one just over the border in Essex, that cannot be taken into consideration.
I do not pretend that I have necessarily got the drafting right in my amendment, but it is too late to change it now. Let me again use the example of South Cambridgeshire. You will know the adjoining district of Uttlesford, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because it is in your constituency. I suggest that if it contained an alternative site, its authority should be consulted.
Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point, which I fear we will not able to resolve at this late stage. Will he also consider county authorities which, under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, made provision for transit sites covering all district council areas within their boundaries? Those sites will be discounted for the Bill's purposes unless they happen to be in the same district council area as an illegal encampment.
Mr. Paice: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's support. The Minister said a moment ago that the county area would be covered, but what worries me is the possibility of a site's being just outside the county area. I could have framed my amendment to include all adjoining countiesindeed, I suspect that many of my constituents would have preferred "adjoining countries"but I am trying to be reasonable, and to propose an amendment that the Government might consider acceptable.
Mr. Martlew : In my county of Cumbria, there is a transit site very near my constituency. From the south of the county, it is 90 miles away. I suspect that it would not be suitable to ask travellers to go 90 miles.
Mr. Paice: The hon. Gentleman makes the point that I made earlier about the use of the term "suitable". What is suitable? How far is suitable? Is 90 miles suitable? I do not know. It will require a court eventually to decide. As the hon. Gentleman knows, travellers are fully aware of every aspect of legislation affecting them and they will test it.
I come back to the issue of alternative sites and what may be a suitable distance. It would be easy to suggest that a suitable alternative site should be one within five, 10, 15 or even 90 miles, whatever distance one chose. Rather than have a debate about how far is suitable for an alternative site, I suggest merely that we should ensure that all adjoining districts to the district in which the unauthorised encampment is located should be taken into account. Please do not think from my earlier comments, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I am entirely desirous of deporting all the unauthorised encampments in my constituency to yours. I simply use it as an example of what I am trying to get across with the amendment.
I fear that what has happened is that the Home Secretary and indeed the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth), the previous Minister who dealt with the Bill in Committee, were determined to be tough but that, since the Government tabled their amendments, there have been voices urging that they be weakened. I fear that amendments Nos. 40 and 41 do weaken the original proposals, even though, as I said earlier and as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said, this is the first time that we have debated them; we did not have a chance to debate them in earlier proceedings. The purpose of my amendment on travellers is simply to ensure that, where we are searching for what may be a suitable alternative site, not just that district or the county but all adjoining districts are consulted, so that, if the unauthorised encampment is close to a county boundary, we ensure that the other districts surrounding it are also consulted under new subsection (3B) in amendment No. 41.
This is in many ways the most important group of amendments that we shall discuss this evening. I hope that I have managed to explain to the Minister the import that I attach to them and the reasons why I tabled them. I look forward to her response.
Mr. John Denham (Southampton, Itchen): I will be brief and make a few remarks on the amendments to clause 61. I listened with interest to what the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) said. I personally am pleased to see these clauses in the Bill because they enact a strategy that was announced during my time as a Home Office Minister. If time were not pressing, I might discuss why they did not get into the Bill at an earlier stage, but I will leave that for another occasion. However, I am pleased that that approach is being taken.
I can see both sides of the argument. The difficulty is that far too few local authorities, including district councils, have made provision for the type of temporary move-on site that I take to be meant by "suitable". I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure the House that we are talking not about an all-singing, all-dancing long-term residential camp site but about a suitable site to which someone can be directed, with the basic facilities that are necessary. Without an incentive for local authorities to make that provision, it is unlikely that they will do so. The police will be hampered in the use of the power by the lack of any facilities in the surrounding area.
I agree that in an entirely sensible and utterly co-operative world the position taken by the hon. Gentlemanthat all provision should be taken into account would make sense, but we are at a period when district councils must be focused on making that provision. It is an argument that needs to be advanced. In my local authority area, the cost of clearing up just two encampments in the past year has been £50,000 and we are not yet at the end of the financial year. We need to get local authoritiesthe incentive is in the Billto invest that money in the sort of move-on facilities that can cut the costs that they are incurring on clearing up waste. I think that what the Government are doing will provide the incentive for local authorities to act and not
just to say, "We assume that someone else will deal with the problem and the police can direct people in that direction."The issue may need to be revisited when there is an adequate pattern of provision in every area, and it is logical to look at everything that is available in the whole of Hampshire, in my case, but we are not in that situation at the moment. Therefore, provided that the term "suitable"I trust that there will be Government guidanceclearly means basic, hard-standing chemical soak-away facilities, a standpipe or whatever, and not the all-singing, all-dancing residential complexes, for which it has been difficult to get planning permission, the Bill will take us a significant way forward.
Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath): As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I raised Committee concerns I had in respect of my constituency, which abuts Hampshire. Does he recognise that there are considerable difficulties even in areas where there is substantial local authority provision? Chobham in my constituency, a small village, was hugely over-run by a massive new site being created in breach of all the planning rules, even though there was already an existing proper site provided by the local authority, so a local authority-provided site does not necessarily solve the problems.
Mr. Denham: Of course, there are problems. The difficulty ever since the original Act has been that local authorities have been reluctant to provide the transit move-on sites that are necessary. The Bill and the logic of the approach says, "Here is a power that is available to the police but only if the local authority in that area acts to make suitable provision." Without that early incentive, we will not see an expansion in the type of facilities that need to be available, and then in practice the much faster move-on powers will not be available to the police.
As we all know, it can take weeks to move on an unauthorised encampment. In one case in Southampton recently, there was a dispute as to whether the landowner or leaseholder should take action. Things dragged on even longer, so I welcome the moves that are being taken, even though I suspect that, if we are successful at providing more temporary camp sites, there may be a case in years to come to revisit the debate that the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire has started.
While I am on my feet, may I say to the Minister in supporting the overall approach that is being taken that I was a little disconcerted to find last week that the guidance coming from the Home Office on the use of antisocial behaviour orders and the new powers to deal with travellers is not exactly extensive? If we wish to see the police use the new ASBO power against travellers, some extended guidance from the Home Office on how to do it, how to collect evidence and how to get the ASBO to court would be enormously useful. I am convinced that that complements the measures in the Bill well but we need to ensure that it can be used at local level.
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