My Lords, I begin by explaining that I will not be pressing my amendment to a Division. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for prompting me—although she may not have realised this at the time—during the course of Committee, when we were debating other amendments in Part 4 dealing with unauthorised encampments. On that occasion, I explained that I thought there was an unfairness in the Bill in relation to the victims or respondents to criminal trespass—the tenant or landowning victims of trespass on the land; I know there are plenty of arguments about whether there should or should not be criminal trespass. I mentioned a particular example when I was a Member of Parliament some 25 years ago, in 1996 or 1997, when not only did a large group of travellers trespass on a constituent farmer’s land, but their dogs were troubling this farmer’s sheep. Some of them were killed by the dogs in question.
The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker—perfectly fairly, I think—made the point in that debate, in which I was seeking to place the burden of proof that an activity on a landowner’s or tenant’s land was being conducted unlawfully, on the trespasser who wished to assert that the occupier of the land was conducting an unlawful activity, which could have been any sort of activity. Essentially, I was seeking to persuade noble Lords that
it was far more just for the invader of the land to demonstrate that what they were seeking to stop—for example, the growing of genetically modified crops—was unlawful, and that it should not be for the owner or occupier of the land who was carrying out a lawful farming activity to show that he was not conducting an unlawful activity.
That aspect of the debate in Committee is not particularly relevant to what we are doing now, save that it prompted the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, to draw my attention to her argument that, because local authorities have historically failed to provide any, or any adequate, official sites for travellers to park their vehicles and reside on, this problem of invading other people’s land will continue.
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I hope I am not breaching a confidence by saying that the noble Baroness and I had a conversation after that debate. I was much informed by what she told me and it to some extent informs the drafting of my amendment. I hasten to add that it is my amendment, not hers; she has a number of others in this group and will no doubt speak to those in a moment.
I differ from the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, in that her amendments and others in this group are, entirely properly but none the less regrettably, one-sided. They look after the interests of the Travelling community but fail to understand the problems caused to a farmer, landowner or tenant on whose land Travellers may wish to go. It may well be that the Travelling community has plenty of good reasons for occupying others’ land because, as perhaps the noble Baroness will say, local authorities have failed to provide adequate official sites. In my amendment, I seek to take account of the failure of local authorities to provide adequate sites for Travellers to reside on temporarily.
If local authorities fail or refuse to make adequate provision, it should not be a cost-free exercise for them, nor should it lead to a state of affairs in which the innocent farmer, landowner or other lawful occupier of an area of land is left uncompensated for the damage that may be caused as a result of unlawful occupation or trespass upon it. That is why I have drafted my amendment in the way I have. I hope that, by urging the Government to at least grapple with the idea, this amendment, if it became part of the Bill, would incentivise local authorities to provide the official sites that the noble Baroness vehemently wishes to see.
If local authorities are faced with the possibility that they may have to pay compensation after 48 hours of occupation because they have failed to provide official sites or negotiated stopping sites, as they are called, they may start to do rather better in that area. They may provide sites or share sites with other local authorities where Travellers can park their vehicles and live, either temporarily or for a longer period.
Amendment 55ZA relates to Clause 63. As I said at Second Reading, the Bill is far too long and covers far too many subjects, but since this Clause is there, it provides me with an opportunity to make the Bill yet longer; I rapidly took up that opportunity in Committee and also do so now.
There is a compromise to be made between the wishes of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and those who support her, who want to see more official sites, and people who agree with me that, if there are not going to be more official sites, there will be further trespass on people’s land and people whose land is occupied by trespassers should not be disadvantaged. I am looking for a pragmatic solution which enables both the Travelling community and the farmer or landowner to be satisfied, or at least less unsatisfied by the inadequate conduct of local authorities, which ought to be providing Travellers with sites.
That is why my proposed subsection (1B) says that, if there are no relevant caravan sites or if, within 48 hours of the complainant receiving notice of the trespasser’s presence on the land, a pitch on a negotiated stopping site within the local authority area is not offered, and if the trespasser then remains on the land in question for more than 48 hours, the local authority must compensate the owner or occupier of the land for all loss and damage suffered as a consequence of the trespasser entering and remaining on it. My amendment is not anti but pro-Traveller, because it encourages the local authority to make sure that either there are official sites or that, within a 48-hour period of notice having been given of the arrival of the trespasser on a particular piece of land, a temporary arrangement is arrived at. If this requires the trespassers to remain on that land for more than the 48-hour period, the landowner or lawful occupier of the land is compensated.
Negotiated stopping sites are not a new idea. A number of local authorities in England and also, I think, in Scotland have, to the advantage of the local authority and Travellers, entered into discrete local agreements in relation to particular Travellers on particular areas of land so that they can be accommodated with the consent of the local authority and the owner of the land and to the satisfaction of the Traveller community. That prevents dissension and intra-community arguments between local residents and the Travelling community.
So long as the negotiated stopping site comes with an agreement that there will be refuse collection, that a charge can be made and received for water supply so that those living on the site can wash and look after themselves and that all the usual things that one would expect on an official site are provided, and so long as the negotiated stopping site does not turn into a permanent site if that is not what the local authority requires, it seems we are producing something that is of benefit to all sides.
It is clear from the debate we had in Committee that there is a huge amount of misinformed but none the less quite vehement objection to the conduct of Travellers. I rather got the impression from listening to the debate that they were being tarred with any number of brushes. It seems to me that all that would go away if local authorities got on and provided proper sites, or if they were sufficiently quick on their feet to negotiate individual stopping sites and if the people disadvantaged by unlawful occupation were properly compensated for the damage caused to them and their farming or other businesses.
That is the simple point of this amendment, and I have taken far too long to explain it.