Churches slam Tories over plans for travellers
-21/03/05
Churches have said the Conservatives are playing politics with people’s lives after the Tory leader unveiled plans to make trespass by travellers a criminal offence.
Michael Howard claimed human rights laws were making it easier for travellers to abuse planning rules.
A new Conservative advert states: “If you want to build a new home you have to get planning permission first.
“But if you are a traveller you can bend planning law – building where you like thanks to the Human Rights Act.”
They claim it is putting the interests of criminal “chancers” before hard-working members of the public.
However, the Churches’ Commission for Racial Justice (CCRJ) said it was “dismayed” by Michael Howard’s threat to repeal sections of the Human Rights Act so that Gypsies and Travellers are “unable to prevent evictions even when they have nowhere else to go.”
It called for politicians and the media to avoid demonising Gypsies and Travellers.
“As Churches we believe in the need for dialogue and mutual respect. We call for positive public education about Gypsy and Traveller life and culture, in which Gypsy and Traveller communities should also participate. This would do much to reduce needless hostility, and prevent parties playing politics with people’s lives,” said CCRJ secretary Revd Arlington Trotman
“Gypsies and Travellers need places to live just as much as settled people do – and they have just as much right to live a travelling life as others do to live a settled life. Ways need to be found to ensure that each way of life can be lived with minimal disturbance to the other,” he said.
“Electioneering is one thing, but the opposition parties and the Government must remember the basic human need for shelter, and the right of Gypsies and Travellers to live according to their own cultural traditions.”
CCRJ’s Moderator, Revd Myra Blyth, said: “In a number of communities the local church has played a major role in promoting dialogue and mediation in conflicts between housed people and people living in caravans. Where dialogue occurs constructive ways can be found to ensure that Travelling People have places to live legally without causing disturbance to settled people.”
There is a huge shortfall (some five thousand) in the number of legal stopping places for Gypsies and Travellers with the result that many park illegally and face constant eviction.
“The Government and Local Authorities could solve the problem of need by providing adequate sites for these communities, which would prevent infringement of the rights of settled communities by Gypsies and Travellers stopping illegally,” said Mr Trotman.
Last December, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister issued a Draft Circular on Planning and Gypsy and Traveller Sites. In its response to this broadly welcome document, CCRJ calls for restoration of the duty of Local Authorities to provide sites or assist Gypsies and Travellers in constructing their own sites on their own land with planning permission.
“We believe that this is the only long-term solution to the acute need for sites,” concluded Mr Trotman.
On Sunday planning minister Keith Hill said the Tories were “tapping into the biggest vein of bigotry – prejudice against Gypsies and travellers”.
For the Lib Dems Ed Davey said: “Michael Howard bandwagon opportunism has led him into hypocrisy of new heights.
“As home secretary it was Michael Howard who did most to reduce the number of legal traveller sites.”
He added that Tory spokesman had been “welcoming new changes to planning laws” and the Conservative leader was either “misinformed or stoking fear and prejudice”.
Michael Howard said the issue had nothing to do with racism – it was about “standing up for the right values”.