News & Press
Airport body scanners, Travellers and home affairs inquiries
09 March 2010
In the past few days in parliament questions have been answered on the impact of airport body scanners on community cohesion and housing benefit for Travellers. Details of both are included below. In addition, the Home Affairs Select Committee has called follow up sessions on its inquiries into gurkhas and domestic violence, forced marriage and honour-based violence.
Lord Sheikh (Conservative) asked in a written question what steps the government is taking to ensure that the use of anti-terrorism security equipment does not have a negative impact on community cohesion. Responding for the Government, Lord McKenzie of Luton (Junior Minister for Communities and Local Government) mentioned that the Department for Transport has produced an interim code of practice on body scanners, and that a full consultation will be launched on this shortly.
As regular readers may remember, Stewart Jackson MP (Shadow Communities and Local Government Minister) has recently tabled a number of questions on the Traveller community. He received an answer to one of these today on whether “the absence of planning permission is taken into account when awarding housing benefit to those residing in dwellings on Traveller sites”. In response, Helen Goodman MP (Junior Work and Pensions Minister) said that "as long as the person has a properly enforceable liability to pay rent for their caravan or mobile home, a claim for benefit would be dealt with in the normal way".
