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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I am glad to support the noble Baroness in her amendment. I also declare an interest as a member of the All-Party Group on Gypsies and Travellers. It is curious that we have had this provision in the law regarding mobile homes that come under the 1983 Act for all this time, in spite of the many legal objections to it—not least that of the legal encyclopaedia, Sweet and Maxwell, which says that it is hard to see the purpose of such a comprehensive ouster. As the noble Baroness has explained, that applies not only to the Gypsies and Travellers, who come under these provisions for the first time—and I welcome that as a member of the all-party group—but to all residents of mobile homes. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Graham, who has always been such a doughty combater for the rights of people who live in mobile homes—quite rightly, because they have been subject to this clause ever since the 1983 Act. I sincerely hope that the Government will listen carefully to what the noble Baroness has said and come up with either a solution that meets this particular need or something that restores the jurisdiction of the court over all these cases. I take this opportunity to refer to the situation in Hackney, where, as the Minister may know, Gypsies and Travellers have had some problems because they were displaced from the site they occupied for the needs of the Olympic Games. For a long time there was no proper solution to the question of where they should go. Now there are alternative sites, but another problem has arisen: the people have moved on to sites that are governed under different provisions. Some of them are in bungalows that in Ireland are called ““group housing””, where they have facilities for caravans next to the buildings and are no different from anyone else who wants to live in a house or bungalow. I invite the noble Lord to consider whether, even within one borough, it is a satisfactory outcome of the move of the Gypsies and Travellers from the sites they formerly occupied that they will come under different regimes according to the type of dwelling where they live. That may be a subject that we should come back to on another occasion rather than under the clause, but as the issue has been raised with me by the organisation representing Gypsies and Travellers in Hackney, I thought I would take the opportunity of mentioning it. However, I warmly support the noble Baroness in her amendment.