News & Press
Julie Morgan MP quizzes government on Gypsy and Traveller policy
10 March 2010
MPs quizzed ministers of communities and local government in its departmental oral questions in the House of Commons yesterday. Of interest, Julie Morgan MP (Labour), who is chair of the Gypsy and Traveller Law Reform All Party Parliamentary Group asked what progress has been made in providing security of tenure for Gypsies and Travellers on local authority sites, to which the government stated that legislation on the issue will not be passed before the election. Read the full blog post for more details. In addition, a number of written questions were answered yesterday on asylum and immigration.
Responding to Morgan’s question, Shahid Malik MP (community cohesion minister) said that statutory instruments relating to the issue will be laid “as soon as parliamentary time is available” but acknowledged that this is unlikely to happen before the election. Morgan stated in response that she is “dismayed that Gypsies and Travellers as yet have no security of tenure”, adding that “what hope can the government give Gypsies and Travellers who are living in uncertain situations and who had great hopes of this government?”. Regular readers of this blog will notice that the Gypsy and Traveller communities have been mentioned frequently in parliament over the past few weeks – it may be worth considering whether this topic will become a prominent issue in the election.
