My Lords, it may well be that the Government are wise to compromise on this issue. There is a fair amount in Part 4 that has excited controversy in this House, in the other place and among the wider public. But I would not want it to be thought that, because Part 4 and the clauses that may be subjected to these amendments—which have been articulately and powerfully advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and those who have spoken after her—are rightly subject to trenchant criticism, for all the reasons that have been advanced so far, the solution that appears in the amendment paper is necessarily the right one. The proponents of the amendment may well be right, but the solution they put forward to deal with the legitimate problem they have identified may not be. Unquestionably, the number of Traveller sites provided by local authorities is woefully small and may well be one of the great reasons for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers trespassing.
I just want to gently put a slightly different line of thinking. Twenty-five years ago, as a Member of Parliament, I was rung by a very distressed farmer in my constituency, whose land was being trespassed on. I do not know if they were people who come within some statutory definition of Traveller, though they certainly were not Gypsies or Roma. They had a host of trucks, most of which were unlicensed. There must have been about 40 individuals—men, women and children—trespassing with these vehicles. They also had dogs, and these dogs were running wild and disturbing, damaging and, in a few cases, killing my constituent farmer’s sheep. I fully appreciate that requiring one of the conditions in this clause through the amendment to be triggered by the presence or the say-so of a police officer would provide greater certainty that something unlawful was happening. I say unlawful, because that covers the civil aspect of this as well.
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However, if in a rural constituency you cannot remove people from your farmland and they are causing damage to your livestock, you will be placed in quite a difficult position. Yes, of course you can go to the county court or some other court within our system and apply for an injunction, but if you are in the middle of rural England, you need to get organised, get there and make quite difficult arrangements. You need
to make the application for the injunction to remove these trespassers, but you also need to identify the trespassers. The ones that I saw on this particular occasion were not the least bit interested in telling me who they were.
I put forward a gentle plea. I accept all that the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baronesses, Lady Whitaker and Lady Brinton, said, and to some extent I accept what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said. However, when we are considering this difficult problem and how to solve it, we also need to think about the innocent farmer whose livelihood is put at risk by people who are not interested—albeit they may have housing, education and employment questions that need answering— in the farmer’s right to earn a living and to do so undisturbed.