On 13th December 2021, during a debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Bishop of Manchester spoke in support of amendments that would provide protection from eviction and homelessness for those from Gyspy, Roma, and Traveller communities:
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, I declare my interests, first in my work with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which has already been referred to today, secondly as chair of the Wythenshawe Community Housing Group, and lastly as deputy chair of the Church Commissioners for England, one of the largest owners of farmland in the country. I think I have almost as wide a range of interests as has this extraordinarily diverse and far-reaching Bill.
I am grateful to those noble Lords from across the House who have proposed and supported the amendments in this group and spoken to them so powerfully in this debate. Like others, I am also grateful to the Minister for generously taking time to engage with us last week.
In my short time so far as a Member of your Lordships’ House, I have become accustomed to Ministers telling us that they have sympathy for our position but that the present Bill is not the way to address the matters that concern us—for example, when we tried to look at safety in high buildings on the then Fire Safety Bill. I do not see why we cannot play the same card. We need a separate Bill, one that deals comprehensively with the needs as well as the obligations of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people—not simply legislation that offers fresh and very serious penalties for what may be rather minor infractions. The matters addressed in these clauses would surely be better dealt with in that more balanced context. That would allow Her Majesty’s Government to deliver on their manifesto commitment.
If that is asking too much, the penalties exacted for matters treated in this part of the Bill should at least be proportionate to the offences committed and not excessive. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the principle of lex talionis, set out in the Hebrew scriptures and most commonly referred to as “an eye for an eye”. This was intended never as an endorsement of physical mutilation but as a limit to how severe a sanction should be. It sets a maximum, not a minimum. Put bluntly, no penalty should exceed the seriousness of the offence.
I know from my housing association experience that there are many cases in which someone may inhabit their dwelling in ways that cause nuisance to their neighbours —the way they dispose or do not dispose of rubbish; playing loud music late at night; abusive language; sometimes even damage to neighbours’ properties—but I also know that there are many checks and balances before anyone can be removed from their home. Yet these clauses could allow for confiscation of somebody’s primary or only dwelling on the basis of a very low level of nuisance caused. Unless Amendment 55ZB in my name and those of other noble Lords is accepted, there will be no need to ensure that any alternative accommodation or site is, or rapidly can be made, available. There is some irony that we are debating powers to render families with no place to lay their heads, not even a stable, this close to Christmas. Surely we need to balance these provisions by a limitation on using them in such circumstances.
I know it is not the Minister’s intention to enact disproportionate penalties for minor infringements, so finally I ask her, as well as accepting our Amendment 57, to put on record in this debate that, before the Bill becomes law, suitable statutory guidance will be published to limit the exercise of these powers to that small minority of cases in which a very high threshold of wrongful behaviour has been reached; and, further, that reports on the exercise of these powers will be compiled and made available to your Lordships’ House at least annually, so that we can detect any tendency to abuse the powers that the Bill would enact.
Extracts from the speeches that followed:
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB): My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and to support the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Whitaker, on Amendments 57 and 55ZB, to which I am happy to be a signatory along with noble Lords drawn from right across the House.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, set out the arguments for Amendment 57 with her usual clarity. At the heart of her remarks is the compelling case for social justice and the upholding of human rights. Suffice it to say that when it comes to inequalities, this group of people—Gypsies, Roma and Travellers—are in a league of their own. That was the conclusion of the March 2019 report of the Women and Equalities Select Committee. I know the Minister has given a great deal of personal attention to this issue; like others, I put on record my gratitude to her. When she comes to reply, I wonder whether she can tell us what account was taken of that report in framing this legislation and what action was taken to develop the cross-departmental strategy it called for.
(…)
Before Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, along with myself, published an article in the House magazine pointing out that the way of life lived by the Roma, the Gypsies and the Travellers stretches back half a millennium, long before the enactment of the Enclosure Acts and the agricultural revolution. In this Bill, we intend to overturn the practice of centuries and criminalise trespass and enable the police to seize vehicles, as we have heard, and homes. Imagine the impact on the children of these families as they watch their parents’ possessions sequestrated and their families evicted—and this could be in the very depths of winter.
These amendments point to rank discrimination and are an attack on a way of life. Adequate accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers is a better, more civilised and more humane way to proceed, rather than locking people into endless cycles of criminalisation and evictions. If this amendment is taken to a vote by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, I for one will certainly go into the Division Lobby to support her.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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