- Staff Notice
The government is to review the effectiveness of laws designed to tackle illegal encampments set up by travellers and Gypsies.
It will also look at whether planning legislation is properly enforced against unauthorised developments built by members of travelling communities.
In a Commons debate, some MPs said constituents believed there was one law for travellers and one for the rest of society.
I was watching the Commons debate yesterday evening and many of the complaints from MPs were coming from those nearby me in Essex.
Travellers seem to do what they want. Set up illegal encampments, build on them using permanent concrete foundations, steal from local communities etc But if we acted like this, we'd get arrested.
Some of the Labour MPs were accusing the Conservative ones of racism, but they didn't say anything racist, just stated the facts.
The response from the government was useless. They'll look at existing laws, to see if anything can be done was the reply from the minister.
Why isn't the law applied to travellers? If they steal something, they should be arrested and charged
As one MP put it, if they set up illegal encampment and go on a thieving spree, they can be identified from their vehicle registration numbers, yet oddly, the police never seem to be able to identify them? What the hell is going on?
(Please note: Following a court case, it is my understanding that using a certain word that begins with P to identify travellers is now considered racist and illegal. Therefore, use of the word is not permitted on this site. Thank you.)