My Lords, I move the amendment, which is in my name and that of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and my noble friend Lady Whitaker, and shall speak to Amendment 94, in the names of my noble friend Lady Whitaker and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell.
The amendments, which were discussed in Committee, are designed to make explicit reference to the housing and other needs of the Gypsy and Traveller communities. The Housing Act 2004 required housing authorities to assess the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers and allowed the Secretary of State to provide guidance on how this duty has to be carried out. That was effected in 2007.
The Bill dispenses with that requirement on what I can only regard as the specious grounds that it is unnecessary in the light of the fact that housing authorities are under a general duty to consider housing needs and that the Government are consulting on guidance to local authorities in relation to Gypsies and Travellers. As I pointed out in Committee, however, the 2004 Act provision was promoted because it was apparent that the requirement of the earlier Housing Act 1985 on councils to consider the housing needs in their district with respect to the provision of further housing accommodation was not being implemented for this exceptional community. In reality, in too many areas, no provision was being made at all, or some of it was patently inadequate. I cited at the time the views of the Planning Officers Society, which believes that the change will provide an excuse for reluctant authorities not to make provision.
Concerns were also expressed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsy, Travellers and Roma, the Catholic Association for Racial Justice, the chairman
of the GLA Housing Committee, and the eminent QC Mark Willers, and important observations were made by the EHRC. The latter observed that the rate of homelessness in the community was as much as 20% and that the provision in the Bill might well be in breach of Article 8 of the convention, Articles 4.2, 5 and 27 of the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It pointed out that the useless impact assessment in this Bill—the adjective is mine, not the commission’s—failed to deal with the equality impact, despite this actually being required by Section 149 of the Equality Act.
Deep concerns were expressed in Committee by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark and the noble Baronesses, Lady Whitaker and Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. The noble Lord, Lord Younger, who is to reply tonight, sought to allay these profound misgivings in Candide-like fashion, but it is impossible to conclude that the Government—if not the Minister personally, and I acquit the Minister personally—have not been motivated by the desire to mollify those who simply do not want provision to be made for this small and vulnerable community.
Replying to a letter from the Chair of the GLA Housing Committee protesting about the proposed change, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, stated that,
“the clause seeks to remove the perception that, because Gypsies and Travellers have specific mention in legislation, they somehow receive more favourable treatment”,
that the Government want councils to assess the needs of communities as a whole and that,
“Gypsies and Travellers are not separate members of our communities”.
With all due respect to the noble Baroness, who is happily not in her place at this moment, this is simply disingenuous. They are groups with special needs that have too often been ignored, hence the 2005 Act. The Bill’s provision is a sop to those who do not wish to recognise these special circumstances.
In Committee, I referred to an organisation called Planning Direct, which actually boasted of its success rate of 100% in preventing the development of Gypsy and Traveller sites for parish councils. It is that approach that the Bill will be interpreted as implicitly supporting, whatever emollient words Ministers might utter. How much better it would be if they endorsed the positive and, as it turns out, cost-effective policies of councils such as Leeds, which take their responsibilities under the 2005 Act seriously, to the benefit not only of the Gypsy and Traveller communities but of society as a whole.
It really is important that the Government acknowledge that it is necessary to cater for the needs of these communities. Simply assuming that they will be catered for by merging them into the general provisions of the Housing Act does not meet the circumstances of the case. Too often, there is hostility at local level to such provision, which has to be sensitively sited and developed—I quite understand that—but, frankly, what the Government are doing here is going to make it more difficult for the needs of this group to be met
and easier for people to object to it. It will provide cover for a rather unpleasant streak in our social and political life, and I hope the Government will think again.
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