My Lords, I was waiting to hear this amendment being moved, which is why I have waited to make my contribution. If you had asked the community where I live—it is not a rural community, although we have a village green—what they thought of Travellers roughly five years ago, there would have been a fairly non-committal response. However, after an incident in which a significant number of vans were parked on the green, and large amounts of rubbish were collected and deposited on it, the attitude changed significantly. As a result of that, we had to build bunds or mounds to stop them coming on the village green. It did change people’s attitudes.
Let me make clear where I come from on this issue. I used to be a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gypsies, Travellers and Roma. I no longer am, because my point of policy difference with it was that, when illegal acts are committed by Travellers, they are not prepared to condemn them and say “Not in our name”, which to me was an important aspect. Of course, I am against discrimination towards Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. It is a small minority who commit significant offences; let me make that clear. With all due respect to the noble Earl, he was too sweeping in some of his statements; I do not associate myself with that. However, to pretend that there are not problems, even on official sites, is to deny serious reported incidents, including things such as modern slavery. Serious activities take place and we cannot just turn a blind eye to them.
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I do not believe the Government’s proposed amendments are right or even necessary. I have found in Ealing that we have been able to remove Travellers from places such as Ealing Common, where they have created similar problems with rubbish, so we seem to have the powers to do that anyway. I looked at the amendments from, to take an example, my noble friend Lord Rosser, and I do not believe—I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, was right—they are the solution to the problem either. It would be useful if the Minister convened a meeting before Report where we could have a more balanced discussion about the problem.
When I addressed a meeting of Gypsy, Roma and Travellers, I said to them, “I believe in the two R formula”. Of course, they did not know what that was. I said, “It is rights and responsibilities; you have rights, and I will defend your rights not to be discriminated against unreasonably or unfairly, but you also have responsibilities to behave in a reasonable way in society. It does not mean you have the freedom to go around and collect
rubbish and dump it, or to allow activities which cannot be tolerated.” They rightly said that they were not the only people who dump rubbish; I said, “Of course you’re not. I condemn them as well.” It would be totally wrong to create the impression that all these crimes are committed by Travellers.
It is also wrong to assume that no criminal activities take place on official sites as well—