Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Conservative): It is a pleasure, indeed, to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), who describes very succinctly a problem that many hon. Members present for the debate have experienced in our constituencies. It is particularly associated with bank holiday Mondays, lengthy legal disputes, and people who describe themselves as Travellers becoming, to all intents and purposes, members of the settled community.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) on securing this important debate. I think it is the third or fourth on this subject in which I have taken part in this Chamber. I hope that what the Minister will tell us, and what will happen in the next few months, will mean that we shall not have to have constant repeats of this debate here, because the Government will take urgent steps to put right what we have been discussing. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire for missing the early part of his remarks. I shall read them with care tomorrow in the Official Report.

It seems to me that we are seeking three or four things from the Government. First, when the original local authority Traveller legislation was passed-in 1966, if my memory serves me right-there were something of the order of 2,000 Gypsy caravans illegally parked in England, because there were no local authority sites. In 1997, at the time of the repeal, there were still 4,500 illegally parked Gypsy caravans in England, despite the fact that local authorities had in the meantime built 7,000 pitches. Today there are-I think, from memory-17,500 Gypsy caravans altogether around England. That is an exponential growth in so-called Gypsy caravans. It appears that no matter how many sites one provides for them, more Gypsy caravans appear to fill them. It is a sort of Parkinson's law. The more sites are built, the more Gypsy caravans there are.

The Government should start by defining precisely who the people in question are, and what duty society has to provide for them. My understanding is that under the law the words "Gypsy" and "Traveller" include everything, starting with bona fide Romanies, of whom we have many in Wiltshire, whom we welcome very much and who can be seen beside the road carving trinkets-good luck to them. They are great people, proper travellers, decent people-and law-abiding, by and large. The words in question also include the Irish. Some of the Irish travellers in my constituency are pretty rough, to say the least, although many are not. I take issue with the inclusion of travelling showmen. Travelling showmen are an entirely different group-mainly settled. They are mainly very decent people. There are some very nice ones in my constituency. They tend to be in a place for a very short time and then go back to their base, taking their show kit with them. Of course, hippies, junkies and all sorts of layabouts come into the category of Travellers and Gypsies, and they have the same rights, apparently, to set up their caravans in the middle of our countryside wherever they wish, under an antiquated law.

Secondly, we hope that the localism Bill, whose presentation in the House we all look forward to, will deal with local people. If someone comes into my constituency surgery saying that they come from Inverness and they want a council house, I will say to them, perfectly legitimately, "I'm extremely sorry; you must get back to Inverness. The people of Wiltshire have no responsibility to provide a council house for you. You must prove a local connection"; whereas, if a Gypsy comes to my constituency surgery and says, "I'm a Gypsy and I want to set my caravan down in your constituency", under the current Act and under planning circulars 01/06 and 04/07, I have some legal responsibility to allow that. That seems to me to be quite wrong.

Even worse is the situation of a lady who came to my constituency surgery and said, "I have a caravan in the middle of my organic farm; it's about 20 acres. The local authority has decided that the organic farm is no longer making money and therefore requires me to leave." Quite why the profitability of the organic farm and her ability to live in the caravan are linked, I do not know; but apparently they are. My constituent was thrown out of her caravan. It did not have to be moved. It was in the middle of nowhere. She was allowed to put chickens in the caravan, but she was not allowed to live there. I said to her, "What I think you should try is to get in touch with the local authority and say that you are extremely sorry, but you made a mistake, because you did not declare yourself to be a Romany Gypsy. If you declare yourself a Romany Gypsy, presumably planning circular 01/06 or 04/07 will apply to you. Take it to court. Try to work out whether you could be a Gypsy. I bet you anything that the courts will not be able to sort that one out for you."

We need localism. It is reasonable that the people of Wiltshire should welcome Wiltshire Gypsies and make proper provision for them. We should make sure that there are quite enough sites in Wiltshire. I think that there are; the county is very well provided with sites. However, what of Gypsies from elsewhere in England, or indeed elsewhere on the continent? As Romania becomes part of the European Union, we may well see more Roma Gypsies moving to this country, as happened in France. We must say to the Irish, "You must stay in Ireland." We must say to Gypsies and Travellers from across the continent, "Wherever you came from, stay there." We in Wiltshire-it will be the same for other hon. Members' areas-have a moral duty to make proper provision only for our local Gypsies, and not for anyone else.

The third thing that I hope the Government will attend to is the question of the regional spatial strategy. It was an absurd document. It included the carrying out, somehow or other-we do not know how it was done-of a ridiculous survey of the number of Gypsies and Travellers in England. They were divided up between the number of areas-eight or nine, I think, covering the whole of England-and the bizarre conclusion was reached that the south-west of England should have x thousand Gypsy sites. That was divided by the number of counties, to give x hundred for Wiltshire, and that was divided by the number of district councils. That came, in my case, to about 50 or 60 Gypsy sites needed in North Wiltshire. There is no logic in that at all, particularly given that the people in question are Travellers.

The RSS has gone, but it is not clear whether the courts will pay any attention to it. I know that there was recently a very awkward court case in which it was discovered that the abolition of the RSS did not have any effect on house building. We very much hope that the Minister will make it plain this morning that the abolition of the RSS and the Secretary of State's determination in relation to it are a material consideration in planning appeals about Gypsy sites. Alternatively, if that is not so, the Government should take urgent action to repeal the RSS, bring in the localism Bill, and repeal circulars 01/06 and 04/07. Without that, there will be, as some of my hon. Friends have said this morning, a mad rush of Gypsy encampments to get through the gap before this action is taken by the Government. Some urgent action is required by the Government; it is not just a question of being sympathetic. We need to hear from the Minister that the Government intend to take urgent action to stop what is, without question, a loophole in planning law, to require local authorities to make provision for their local Gypsies, but to allow local authorities and local people to say to Gypsies from elsewhere around England or Europe, "You may now return to wherever it was you came from."

Source: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm101207/halltext/101207h0001.htm#10120726000287