New clause 5 - Removal of unauthorised encampments and waste
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
2:30 pm
Mrs Liz Blackman (Erewash, Labour)
I, too, can relate several awful incidents when groups of travellers have visited my constituency and left the sort of legacy of despoilment that other members of the Committee have described. Crime has increased and there have been acts of intimidation. Inevitably, the price of that conduct has been paid by the local authority and therefore by the local taxpayer.
The new clauses are born of the frustration felt by all Members of Parliament and our communities. We do not necessarily want more to be done; instead, we want what is being done to be done more quickly, efficiently and effectively. I share that frustration. Local authorities have been hamstrung to some degree by their duty under the welfare principle. However, on 15 January 2002 in a Westminster Hall debate, my
hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), then a Home Office Minister, stressed that travellers should—[Interruption.]