6. Statement by the Leader of the House: Enabling Gypsies, Roma and Travellers

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:49 pm on 26 June 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:49, 26 June 2018

Thank you very much for that. You're rightly highlighting some of the complexities of dealing with a range of people with different ways of life, different expectations and different outcomes that each particular community wants. I'll try and cover off some of those.

I should have said in response to Siân Gwenllian—Michelle Brown has just touched on it as well—that actually many of the communities want to develop their own sites, and so we've worked very hard with local authorities and planning departments to facilitate that, where at all possible. So, although there are local authority-provided sites, many members of the community want to develop their own sites, and we've worked very hard to ensure that.

You asked about some of the barriers, and I did mention the transit sites. There have been particular difficulties in developing transit sites because of local authority boundaries, which are particularly unhelpful in some areas. So, we're working very hard with a range of local authorities and, as Mark Isherwood pointed out, along a known cycle of transit to make sure that we can put that in place, but that has been slower than we would have liked. We're putting a renewed emphasis on some of that.

In terms of some of the other things, we're working very hard for inclusion and to develop different ways of working so that, if you have somebody with a travelling lifestyle, then you have to have flexible ways of ensuring that they stay connected. So, we're looking at all of the ways that we can do that, to ensure that we can accept swift enrolment in local schools, for example, or with GP practices, and we're working very hard on that.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I think it's extremely important as well, as Michelle Brown touched on it, just to say that we know that many Gypsy and Traveller people still experience a level of hate crime and other discrimination, which is completely unacceptable, and I just want to urge anyone affected by hate crime to report and seek support by contacting their local police on 101, or 999 if it's an emergency; and just to highlight that we fund Victim Support Cymru to provide emotional, practical and advocacy support for anyone affected by any one of those issues.

We also fund, as Michelle Brown asked, the Travelling Ahead project to provide support to Gypsy and Travellers under three separate themes, one of which is anti-discrimination. Travelling Ahead is the third-party reporting centre to support Gypsies and Travellers to build confidence to report crimes that they experience in this way. We also fund eight regional community cohesion co-ordinators across Wales, whose work plan includes consideration of Gypsy and Traveller communities, and they co-ordinate support for public understanding of issues around site development. They produce myth-busting materials and provide training to elected members in local authorities who are looking at plans to support Gypsy/Traveller communities.