Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-12-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I first of all apologise that I was unable to be here for the Committee on this Bill because of the difficulties of the rail link from Salisbury, which Members will recall. I thank the Minister for making time available to discuss these amendments and this general area. I wish to speak specifically to Amendment 55ZB, which was so well proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who has done great work in this area, and Amendment 57, where, similarly, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, proposed it so effectively I oppose the provisions on the criminalisation of trespass and Part 4 in general. I do so for several very practical reasons, which I will deal with. First and foremost, it does not deal with the root of the problem: the massive undersupply of sites for Gypsy, Roma and Travellers. I recall this from when I was a Minister; one has only to see around the country the lack of supply of places to know that this is true. I anticipate that the Minister will probably say—because it will be in the brief—that there is a great supply of private places. That is true, but that is a bit like arguing that families on moderate income should be reassured by hotel places in London because there is always a suite available in the Ritz or the Savoy. It does not answer the basic point about the lack of local authority sites. Were they available, this problem would melt away like snow in springtime. That is my first basic point. I do not understand why an attempt has not been made first—before bringing this legislation forward—to deal with that planning aspect and bring legislation forward on that point, as other noble Lords have said. The second basic point I want to come to is whether this will make any difference. We have heard from many noble Lords that the police are against this provision—they know very well that it will make no difference. People—victims, I would say—will be moved from site A to site B, then from site B to site C and so on, all the way through to site Z and then back again. It is pointless; it is fruitless; it is costly; it is divisive; it is draconian. We should drop it. It does not help the situation, and it will lead to the police being put in a difficult position in relation to legislation that they do not want. I join other Members in saying that there are many local authorities from across the political spectrum that have come forward with proposals. We have heard about Leeds, but it is true also of Fenland, in Cambridgeshire, which has come up with imaginative proposals for dealing with the shortage of sites. Local authorities should be incentivised across the country to deal with this deep-seated problem My third reason for opposing this legislation is perhaps at the root of my real objection, and that is that there is something dreadfully un-British about this. It seems to home in on a community that is, in many ways, the lost minority and lost in plain sight. We have heard reference to the committee on equalities, which presented a report, and what it said was reinforced by the race disparity audit, which was a great initiative undertaken by Theresa May and which led to the talk of this strategy. Indeed, there were meetings: taking it forward for education was Nadhim Zahawi, as a junior Minister, and for health, Jackie Doyle-Price; there were representatives from the Home Office, such as, if I am not mistaken, the then Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, and representatives from justice, pensions and so on. All committees were represented in taking this strategy for legislation forward. I wonder what has happened to that.