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Localism Bill

My Lords, I would like to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, in what she said, and to point out that in the case of Gypsies and Travellers we have an additional difficulty in that the NPPF and the equivalent document on planning for Gypsy and Traveller sites are mutually incompatible. The Government say that these difficulties will be ironed out in a new version of the amalgamated documents which will be published at some time in the future. Meanwhile there is a policy vacuum which is being only partially filled by the Secretary of State’s dictum that all previous work on planning for Traveller sites has been torn up and local authorities are free to decide how many pitches for Gypsy and Traveller sites will be provided in their area, if any. The result of this new-found freedom, according to research by the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain, is that roughly 50 per cent of the needs which emerged from the regional spatial strategies, the Gypsy and Traveller accommodation needs assessments, the public inquiries following those GTANAs and the redistribution between local authorities in the region—to accommodate the fact that some councils had done nothing whatever to meet the needs—have not been met. Perhaps I may just interpolate an aside here. In the new process the local authorities will only have to consider their local needs and will not have to co-operate with neighbouring authorities; and if authorities have steadfastly avoided making provision for Gypsies and Travellers in the past they will be able to demonstrate zero need because there are no Gypsies and Travellers in their particular area. I see no way in which under the proposed system—and subject to what we do not know yet about the guidance that will be issued by the CLG—there will be any mechanism for adjusting that. I would like to know from my noble friend where we have got to in this process. Are we still in the position where every local authority will make up its mind irrespective of what any of the neighbours are doing? Will there be no contribution to the provision of sites for Gypsies and Travellers where a local authority can demonstrate that it has not had a need in the past because it has been successful in excluding Gypsies and Travellers from its area? We in the Liberal Democratic Party made a reservation to the abolition of regionalism in our manifesto. We said that the numbers emerging from the regional spatial strategies with regard to Gypsies and Travellers should be preserved and should be the basis on which planning for Gypsies and Travellers would be effected under the new system. If we had done that we would have avoided the process that is currently being undergone all over the country as local authorities start again from scratch to consider their local needs and come up with figures which, as I say, are only 50 per cent of what had been provided where the regional process had been completed, as for example in the east of England. This will result in a severe shortage of sites in the whole country and there will be a proliferation of unauthorised sites, which is the chief source of friction between Gypsies and Travellers and the settled population. I do not know whether that is intentional but it will be the result of following the Government’s present policies.