Victoria Atkins
MP for Louth and Horncastle · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Oh dear. This may be the last time the Secretary of State gets to give such an inadequate answer to what is a reasonable question about her grip on her Department. But let us look at Labour’s wider chaos.”
“In recent weeks, DEFRA’s quangos have made headlines: the Environment Agency is failing to prosecute waste criminals, instead going after virtuous volunteers who are cleaning up the rivers for it; Natural England is demanding more madcap fish schemes at Hinkley Point C, on top of its recommended £700 million fish disco policy, all of whic…”
“There are many questions still left unanswered in this report, and I hope that the Secretary of State will try to answer them rather than deflect, because that has been noticed. The plan looks to double the funding for Environment Agency inspections. Why are this Government focusing on bureaucracy rather than helping farmers survive?”
“In another leap from reality, the Government’s negotiations with the EU get barely a mention in this document, despite the enormous consequences they will have for farming businesses. CropLife UK has estimated that this EU reset could drain £810 million from UK farms and sacrifice almost 9,000 jobs from our rural constituencies.”
“We Conservatives view DEFRA as a vital economic Department, so we agree with its efforts to recalculate farming and food producers’ contributions to the economy. By the way, I note that Reform calls itself the farmer’s friend, yet there is not a single Reform MP in the Chamber.”
“As Labour MPs and Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs voted repeatedly for the family farm and family business taxes, DEFRA Ministers shut down farming payments without notice, including the SFI. Sadly, the record of this Government is rising food prices and a record number of farms closing.”
The complete record
Every one of 6,012 lines we hold for Victoria Atkins, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 49 of 121.
“Q Mr Feeley-Sprague, you said in your evidence that the Bill criminalises an entire way of life in relation to unauthorised encampments. Under clause 61, which we are focusing on, an offence is committed only if one or more of the conditions mentioned in subsection (4), which include significant damage, significant disruption and significant distress to the owner and others, is satisfied. Why are those behaviours a way of life that needs to be protected? Oliver Feeley-Sprague: I think in my answer, I said—if I didn’t, I should have—that it has the potential to criminalise a way of life. Some of the powers around returning to a site and seizing vehicles, when those vehicles might be your home, clearly do raise that prospect.”
“Q Mr Feeley-Sprague, forgive me, but we are dealing only with England and Wales in this context. I just want to press you on that point: do you believe that significant disruption, significant damage or significant distress are behaviours that should be protected? Oliver Feeley-Sprague: It depends on how you are defining that threshold of “serious”. I have seen little in the Bill that gives any indication of what threshold you are using to reach those determinations. It is true, as far as I am aware, that the Gypsy and Traveller community is one of the most persecuted groups in the UK, and they are persecuted across Europe.”
“I would also add that the way the clause is drafted, it is not simply where significant disruption, damage or distress is caused; it is where there is a likelihood or a perception that it is likely to be caused. The offence can be committed by someone who is said to be likely to cause damage or distress. This is highly subjective, and may invite stereotypes and profiling based on the mere existence of an unauthorised encampment. Again, the issue is really about the breadth of the drafting, the lack of definition, and the fact that the mere threshold of likelihood may invite judgments that are based on stereotyping and profiling. That is what is really concerning about this clause.”
“Q But this is not dealing with the whole of the Traveller community. As your colleague Professor Clark made clear, 70% to 80% of the Traveller community live in bricks and mortar, and therefore will not fall under this criterion of unauthorised encampments where significant damage, distress and disruption are caused. Can I ask the panel, then, what in their view is an acceptable level of distress for local residents to live under? Gracie Bradley: I just want to echo what Olly said in respect of the fact that the threshold is not clearly defined. These definitions are vague, and they could potentially include a very wide range of issues.”
“Q Sorry, but you have not answered my question. What level of distress do you deem to be acceptable for local residents? Gracie Bradley: That is a difficult question to answer. I do not have a firm answer to that, but I think that if you are taking into account the distress of local residents, you also have to take into account the fundamental right of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people to live a nomadic way of life. It is not an absolute in either direction, and when we are talking about a community that, as Olly has said, is one of the most persecuted in the country, we have to be really careful about introducing these really broad and vaguely defined measures that are likely to invite them to be stereotyped and discriminated against further.”
“I will just remind the Minister about the lack of movement on a national site strategy, around both permanent and transit sites and around the right number of pitches on those sites. A lot of these issues would go away and it would be far less expensive than a constant cycle of evictions. The economics of this, as well as the human rights aspects, are quite important.”
“That is one of the changes between, for example, the regulations in the law as contained in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and the current Bill—this is where there is a significant change. In the 1994 Act, it was the police who had that decision to make about when the action should be forthcoming. In this Bill, that right is given over to the landowner or the licensee, and in a sense it is up to the people who—to answer your question, Minister—own the land on which the Travellers are camped. The landowner would make a decision: “I now feel that this is disruptive, damaging and distressing, so therefore I will call the police and then issue the actions.” That is the issue at stake here.”
“Q What level of damage would you be happy for local residents to live with? Gracie Bradley: As I have already said, the issue is that we are talking about “likely to cause damage”. That is subjectively determined. There are some people who will be perceived as likely to cause damage; there are some people who, in another person’s mind, will not be. This is very subjective, and I do not think we can abstract it from the history of how people have been treated. I think Colin wants to come in. Professor Clark: Yes, I can say something about this. In a sense, it is not even local residents; it is actually in the hands of the landowner or the licensee.”
“Q Professor Clark, I am sorry but that is an offence, so it will be for a court to decide, and of course for the police and the CPS to make decisions to investigate and charge. Is £50,000-worth of damage to a piece of land acceptable, in the panel’s view? Is that a cost a landowner should bear? That is a historical constituency case that I had. Professor Clark: What is the context? Without context that is an impossible question to answer.”
“Again, this is where we need to be careful about the way in which we use language and how this Bill goes forward.”
“Fly-tipping. A field was taken over by an unauthorised encampment and it cost £50,000 to clear it. Is that acceptable? Professor Clark: There is legislation in place already to deal with fly-tipping, I believe. I do not think that there needs to be an enhancement of that legislation to the current law as it stands. There is legislation to deal with fly-tipping, whoever may cause it. When sites come into being in local areas, it is not uncommon for other people to notice that it is Travellers coming in and use that as an excuse to fly-tip their own business-related waste, and then blame it on the Travellers. That comes back to the points that my two colleagues made about the dangers of invoking racialised stereotypes here and apportioning blame, when it is not those individuals who are to blame.”
“Q All right. Mr Feeley-Sprague, do you want to add to that before I move on to public protest? Oliver Feeley-Sprague: Anybody responsible for causing £50,000-worth of damage to somebody’s property is committing a crime and, absolutely, people should be protected from that. To echo what the other panellists have said, I think you need to be very careful about further minoritising the Gypsy and Traveller communities. To answer your question bluntly, any form of significant damage of that nature is a crime, whoever does it.”
“Q Of course. On the public order provisions, does the Law Commission have a reputation for either not understanding human rights law or in some way working against the human rights law, of which we are very proud in this country? Gracie Bradley: I am not sure that I understand what the question is getting at.”
“The Law Commission absolutely did not propose a maximum custodial sentence of a decade.”
“Does the Law Commission have a reputation for not understanding human rights law, or for somehow wanting to diminish people’s human rights? Gracie Bradley: Not that I am aware of. I suppose what you are getting at is that codifying public nuisance in statute was a recommendation of the Law Commission, which is correct. In 2015, it did recommend that codifying public nuisance should be done, but it did not consider the application of public nuisance to protest. The Law Commission noted that its proposed defence of reasonableness would increase cases where a person was exercising their right under article 10 or article 11 of the convention, but they also noted that it is somewhat difficult to imagine examples in which this point arises in connection with public nuisance.”
“Q Good. I think that one witness this afternoon has mentioned the wording “serious annoyance”. Presumably you all accept that, in the context of public nuisance, that is a well-founded legal phrasing, which does not have the connotations that it may have in language outside of court; it has a very understood and settled meaning within legal definitions.”
“Given the overall nature of the Bill and what I said earlier about the impreciseness of the language and terminology, certainly in the case of part 4 with regard to unauthorised encampments, I think that is why a lot of outside bodies and organisations and non-governmental organisations have question marks. However, I will hand over to Gracie, who might be better informed than I am on this. Gracie Bradley: I am happy to pick this up. We know the legal genesis of that definition of “serious annoyance”, but of course the provisions in the Bill do not confine themselves to “annoyance”. If we look at clause 54, we see that conditions may be imposed that appear “necessary to prevent the disorder, damage, disruption, impact or intimidation”—”
““Serious annoyance” is a phrase that has caught attention. In the context of public nuisance, that is a phrase that has arisen over centuries—I think I am right in saying that—of legal development and does not necessarily have quite the flippant meaning that it may have in day-to-day life outside of a court of law. Professor Clark: Okay. I understand now—sorry. I think this comes back to the point that all three of us have made on the issues around terminology and definitions, and the use of them, and the ability to exercise discretion. You would like to hope, and expect, that moving forwards such expressions would take on their proper meanings in a legal context, but applied fairly and applied justly.”
“Q Forgive me—sorry. It is specifically in clause 59; that is the public nuisance clause, as recommended by the Law Commission. That is why I used that wording. It is in clause 59, not clause 54. Gracie Bradley: I was not saying that it was in clause 59; I was picking up on another clause in the Bill, which contains language that is vague and concerning. But I can leave it there, if you want to stick with clause 59; I do not have anything to add on that.”
“The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), and I are both delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I welcome to the Committee my hon. Friends, on the Government Benches, and hon. Members across the room. I am sure that we can expect some lively debates in the days and weeks of scrutiny ahead. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.— (Victoria Atkins.)”
“I beg to move, That— (1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 18 May) meet— (a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 18 May; (b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 20 May; (c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 25 May; (d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 27 May; (e) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 8 June; (f) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 10 June; (g) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 15 June; (h) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 17 June; (i) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 22 June; (j) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 24 June; (2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table: Date Time Witness Tuesday 18 May Until no later than 10.30 am The National Police Chiefs’ Council Tuesday 18 May Until no later than 11.25 am The Police Superintendents’ Association; The Police Federation of England and Wales Tuesday 18 May Until no later than 2.45 pm The Centre for Justice Innovation; The Centre for Social Justice Tuesday 18 May Until no later than 3.30 pm Jonathan Hall QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation; HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services Tuesday 18 May Until no later than 4.15 pm Local Government Association; The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners Tuesday 18 May Until no later than 4.45 pm Doughty Street Chambers; Garden Court Chambers Tuesday 18 May Until no later than 5.15 pm Youth Justice Board Tuesday 18 May Until no later than 5.45 pm The Bar Council Thursday 20 May Until no later than 12.15 pm National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders; Unlock Thursday 20 May Until no later than 1 pm The Victims’ Commissioner Thursday 20 May Until no later than 2.45 pm The Children’s Society; Community Justice Scotland Thursday 20 May Until no later than 3.30 pm The Association of Youth Offending Team Managers Thursday 20 May Until no later than 4.15 pm The Law Society Thursday 20 May Until no later than 5 pm Howard League for Penal Reform; Criminal Justice Alliance; Women in Prison; Sentencing Academy Thursday 20 May Until no later than 5.45 pm Professor Colin Clark, University of the West of Scotland; Amnesty International UK; Liberty (3) proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 10, Schedule 1, Clause 11, Schedule 2, Clauses 12 to 42, Schedule 3, Clause 43, Schedule 4, Clauses 44 to 47, Schedule 5, Clauses 48 to 51, Schedule 6, Clauses 52 to 66, Schedule 7, Clauses 67 to 73, Schedule 8, Clause 74, Schedule 9, Clauses 75 to 97, Schedule 10, Clauses 98 to 100, Schedule 11, Clauses 101 to 127, Schedule 12, Clause 128, Schedule 13, Clause 129, Schedule 14, Clauses 130 to 134, Schedule 15, Clause 135, Schedule 16, Clauses 136 to 156, Schedule 17, Clauses 157 to 161, Schedule 18, Clauses 162 to 168, Schedule 19, Clauses 169 to 171, Schedule 20, Clauses 172 to 176, new Clauses, new Schedules, remaining proceedings on the Bill; (4) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Thursday 24 June.”
“Q Thank you. Like Sarah, I will try to ask quick questions and I would welcome quick answers. First, on the police covenant, I would like to clarify that the covenant applies to officers, staff and volunteers in the police service, and to those who have left as well as those currently serving. Is that correct? Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: That is right.”
“We can never do that purely by enforcement. This is a really important opportunity to bring all those groups together and focus on violence in their local area.”
“Q In relation to the serious violence duty, we all acknowledge that we cannot arrest our way out of the problem, particularly with the emergence of county lines. Do you welcome the efforts under the duty to get all the relevant local agencies, including local councils, health services and educational services, to work together to draw up a plan to prevent serious violence in their local areas? Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: Yes, I welcome that very much. In some senses, that was previously there. When you look, in particular, at the work that has been done by violence reduction units in the past year to 18 months—a couple of years, in fact—getting all the relevant agencies in the local area to focus on and prioritise reducing violence, and play their part, is the way to reduce levels successfully.”
“Q Importantly, that also brings transparency to collective efforts to tackle serious violence, because the plans and processes will be transparent, and the public will be aware of what is happening locally. Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: The fact that it is a partnership is really important as well.”
“From a policing perspective, where we have intelligence or information, it allows us to act in advance to prevent some of those issues, where proportionate and necessary. That is the difference that it makes. We are working from the Law Commission report in 2015, which states a number of benefits. We see those as very important for those reasons.”
“The report refers to: “serious distress, annoyance, inconvenience or loss of amenity; or is put at risk of suffering any of these things”. The measure would be for more unusual kinds of protest activity that are not a march. Historically, people have hung off gantries of cranes, where there is serious inconvenience and loss of amenity. Importantly, making it statutory establishes two things. First, the rules are very clear to those who have to use and understand the legislation. The common law is good, but it is steeped in decided cases and judgments that are often difficult to extract for non-lawyers. It allows Parliament to be clear about what the phrases mean, and to give guidance to policing and the public on what is intended.”
“Q On public order, we heard mention earlier of the phrase “serious annoyance” in clause 59. That brings the common law offence of public nuisance on to the statute book. Chief Constable, could you help us understand why the police want us to put that common law offence on to the statute book? Could you also explain the derivation of the wording, particularly that phrase “serious annoyance”? In other words, the history of the common law offence of public nuisance over many centuries has included that phrase. It may not mean the same in legal terms as it does in common parlance. Chief Constable Harrington: We did ask for public nuisance to be made statutory. A Law Commission report from 2015 clearly set out more broadly some of the benefits of doing that.”
“Q To clarify, that phrasing has derived not from Home Office officials or Ministers dreaming it up on the back of an envelope; it follows many centuries of legal development, culminating in the 2015 report by the Law Commission. Chief Constable Harrington: Yes, that is the Law Commission’s summary of what that should be. That is where that phrase appears. We welcome the clarity; making it part of statute allows for phrases such as that and others to be clearly defined for us and for the public.”
“Assistant Commissioner Hewitt : As I alluded to, it is critical to have a clear code of practice and framework to ensure the extraction to be proportionate and necessary for that investigation, and to be very clear about timelines, how that will be done and how the victim—or the complainant—will be treated throughout. This has been a very challenging area for us. Having that certainty and clarity of the guidelines will help to ensure that everybody understands the process. As I said, the ability for us to do that as quickly as we can, to deliver the evidence we need, is really important to maintain confidence, as you say, for people to come forward, and to maintain those complainants throughout the process, to reduce the attrition levels.”
“Q My final question is on the extraction of information from digital devices. Particularly in the context of sexual offences, we have an understanding of the impact that searching and seizing digital devices, sometimes for very long periods of time, can have on complainants and their willingness to start and support the police in an investigation and on the attrition rate, where complainants withdraw from cases as they progress. What is your understanding of the framework and code of practice set out in the Bill? What will that do to help complainants in future, particularly in relation to sexual offences, although it will apply across the board?”
“Chief constables know me very well, and I, on behalf of the organisation, will be holding them to account, but I genuinely think that it will be a partnership. Perhaps that is naive, but if, as expected, the legislation allows the covenant to be enshrined in law, I will be saying to chief constables very clearly, “This is not something you can cherry-pick. This is in legislation. This is to benefit our colleagues, staff, volunteers and so on. It is not a nice-to-have; it is an essential.” So they will be held to account, but in fairness I think it will be a productive partnership.”
“Q Thank you to you both for all the work that your organisations have done in the past 12 months and, in particular, in relation to the police covenant in the Bill, which I think is welcomed by everybody. Mr Apter, how do you propose to support chief constables to ensure that the outcomes of the covenant are felt by all officers, former officers and staff, and their families? John Apter: I think we are pushing on an open door. Policing has changed significantly over the past decade or so, and it is the same with chief constables, who may previously have been reluctant to get certain wellbeing initiatives into place. There is wholesale agreement that the covenant will be a positive thing for policing. The issue we have at the moment is that although we know the principles of the covenant, we do not really know what exactly will be in it.”
“We have to understand that they are called to make really difficult judgment calls, balancing human rights of individuals and the recognition of their own staff and the public. They make difficult decisions in a short space of time. It is a credit to them as individuals and to the training processes that allow them to do that.”
“There is a detailed training command course for public order leads, which embodies everything that you would expect: to understand the tactics necessary when utilising public order, seeking the appropriate advice and guidance, understanding the law and the community, and all the different aspects of decision making that are so important to understand how best to corral a crowd or deal with a peaceful protest. They will learn how to deal with everything from small, minor protests with just some shouting, to some of the challenges that, sadly, we have seen in the past 12 months, where they have faced attacks by missiles, etc. The training is detailed. I have absolute confidence in some of the public order commanders.”
“Q Thank you. Let me move on to protests, because Parliament is particularly interested in scrutinising those measures. Mr Griffiths, you mentioned gold and silver commanders, who are in charge of the police reaction to some protests. Could you give us a little more understanding of what those roles mean, the responsibilities they have, and the training and experience that those officers will have had before they are able to become gold and silver commanders? Chief Superintendent Griffiths: Most of them have probably worked their way through the hierarchy of public order command systems, from right at the frontline, following through to supervisory and management roles, but not necessarily in all cases.”
“I should say that currently, as it is being piloted, it is only for adults. Our view is that knife possession is pervasive across a number of age groups: it is particularly concerning when young people are carrying knives. We would like to see this scheme really being rolled out, so that we can intervene early when people are younger, to see that we do everything we can to take knives off the street and keep people safer.”
“What is clear to us is that we need to do something about that which is robust enough to challenge the mindset of someone leaving their home with a weapon. We draw from the group violence intervention models piloted in Boston in the US under Operation Ceasefire, which create a sort of pull-push effect. We really want to deter people from being able to leave the home feeling that they are safe walking around with a weapon. They should know that they are much more likely to attract police attention if they are on these orders. At the same time, in the sentencing court, we would hope that the order would be able to include other, positive provisions—perhaps even a knife crime behaviour order. Real intervention, engaging young people and pulling them away from that sort of offending can also have a pull effect away from that kind of offence.”
“Q This is a quick question for Mr Crossley. The CSJ has obviously done a lot of work over the years on gang crime and on the many levers we can try to use to address it. What is the CSJ’s view of serious violence reduction orders, namely the piloting of stop-and-search orders for known—in other words, convicted—knife offenders aged over 18? Adrian Crossley : This policy actually has its origins in the CSJ. We are obviously very supportive of the serious violence reduction order. Just for clarity, and so I can answer that more fully, this is a post-conviction order. We regard it as being part of the wider system. We do not regard it as a stand-alone solution to knife crime in our country. We see a very significant increase, not just in possession of weapon offences, but of violent offences perpetrated with the use of a weapon.”
“That is a good thing, because the authorities found it quite hard to deal with that cohort of people. The other thing that clause 162 does is to make it very clear that people can provide information to MAPPA without having to do what they used to do when I carried out my review, which was to look for information gateways in, for example, the Children Act 1989 or the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, because they did not feel that there was a clear basis for them to share information with MAPPA. As you will understand, the key thing about managing terrorist risk is that all the right information should be receivable. Clause 162 cures that point as well.”
“Q Thank you. First, Mr Hall, I would like to understand how the measures relating to MAPPA in clause 162 will improve public protection and the management of terrorist offenders. Jonathan Hall QC: First of all, it means that anyone who is a risky offender—whatever they were put inside for, whether they were sentenced for a terrorist offence or were sentenced for a non-terrorist one but are in fact a risk—can be managed under MAPPA. The law as it stands states that someone must be a risk based on their offending. To take the example of a fraudster who went to prison and was then dangerously radicalised and became a terrorist risk, their risk would not in fact flow from their offending. Clause 162 cures that, so that anyone who is identified as a terrorist risk may be manged under MAPPA.”
“In other words, dealing with the reality presented by a very small number of the most dangerous offenders—dealing with that reality, rather than being constrained by the fact that they committed a fraud offence in the past, rather than a terrorist offence. Jonathan Hall QC: Exactly.”
“Q Thank you. May I clarify something, Mr Parr? Please forgive me if this was my mishearing or misunderstanding. You asked a series of questions in relation to the public order measures and at one point, I think, used “significant”, rather than “serious”. You said that HMIC had looked at the risk of serious disruption and so on. Is that correct? Did I understand you correctly? Matt Parr: There were four tests in the law as it stands, one of which is “serious disruption”. Clause 55, I think, changes that to “significant disruption”, among some others. It is a general lowering of the bar.”
“That was one of the five proposals that the Home Secretary asked us to comment on in particular. Our view was that we agreed with what the Law Commission recommended back in 2015, I think. We concluded, for much the same reasons as they did, that that was a sensible thing to do. In summary, we thought that protesters deserve to know where they stand, and that there was no harm in making the rules clearer than they are. It was supporting the Law Commission’s proposal.”
“Q I must confess that I cannot see that wording—perhaps we can take this up afterwards. Clause 55(6) talks about “serious disruption to the activities of an organisation”, or, “serious disruption to the life of the community.” That is the wording in clause 54 as well. As you will understand, clauses 54 and 55 are about ensuring consistency between moving protest and static protest. We heard from police witnesses this morning that one can flow into the other very easily, and back again. May I also ask about clause 59? That places the common law offence of public nuisance on the statute book. Does the inspectorate have any views on that, or has it made any recommendations on it previously? Matt Parr: Not previously, but we did in the report we put out in March.”
“Q On the subject of unauthorised encampments, can you give us any insight about the harms and costs caused by unauthorised encampments in your local areas? Alison Hernandez: I want to be really clear what we are all talking about. We are not talking about all Gypsies and Travellers.”
“All I would say is that in order for there to be a collaborative approach, alongside that there needs to be an approach that is about dialogue with communities, too. I do not think that contradicts anything that other panel members have said.”
“Councillor Caliskan: All I would add is that I recognise that there are strongly held views, and we have councils who articulate exactly what colleagues on this panel have spoken about. It can be a huge cost to a local authority. The best way to deal with these issues is through a collaborative approach, not just through agencies in a particular area, but also with the communities themselves who may be occupying the space. Something has got to give at some point, and an obvious solution is trying to identify space. Local authorities absolutely do not want to be encouraging criminality and disruption, not least because it costs a lot of money, but we could be going round and round in circles unless we find a long-term solution. I recognise that the Bill is an attempt to do that.”
“I have people calling me who really are frightened because they have had large numbers of people on their own land and they feel intimidated and personally threatened. We need to do something about it. Much of it is about sending a message. While I recognise that it is not helped, as I said earlier, by the fact that local authorities do not provide sufficient spots for Travellers to move on to—I recognise that is something we need to do—we also need to send a message that these people can be moved on if they are in an unauthorised place. We need to send that message out again, as Alison has said far more ably than me, so that the public recognise that we are on their side and we are on the side of the underdog.”
“The bailiffs were going to cost £50,000 a day, and they would still need police back-up in order to do it. The cost is absolutely huge. There is something about sending a message through this Bill which tells the public that we are on their side and that we do not support people who do not want to abide by the law. David Lloyd: I entirely agree with that. In Welwyn Garden City, we have a person who has almost been driven to the verge of bankruptcy because there was an unauthorised encampment which decided, at the same time, to take on industrial-level fly-tipping. It would cost about £150,000 to move those materials. That originally happened 18 months or two years ago. It is still there among all the woodland. These people are at the end of their tether. The cost is not just monetary.”