Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities have been ‘comprehensively failed’, say MPs

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people in the UK have been “comprehensively failed”, according to a group of cross-party MPs.

The Women and Equalities Committee, chaired by Conservative MP Maria Miller, found that government and local authority focus has been too skewed towards accommodation issues, and that too little has been done to address problems of discrimination, restricted access to healthcare and poor educational outcomes.

“All too often when Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups are in the news it is for illegal encampments or problems of that sort,” Ms Miller told Sky News.

“But our report has identified there are really significant problems faced by that community over issues such as education and health. And although 90% of these communities live in houses, they still face issues of acute discrimination.”

There are an estimated 500,000 people within the UK’s Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community. One in four live in caravan-style accommodation.

Despite the majority living in a “settled” environment, the report found that people from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities died younger and that infant mortality rates were higher than the UK average.

Children had poorer education outcomes and were susceptible to bullying at school.

A staggering 98% of the community surveyed by the committee said they had been on the receiving end of discrimination, 81% of hate speech.

Terry Green, a Romany Gypsy living in an official campsite in East Sussex, told Sky News: “(People) say pikeys, scum bags, ‘Hitler didn’t do a good job’, things like that.

“It’s an everyday thing, we’re raced [sic] against from birth. From the day we’re born, we’re hated.”

Tensions do exist between in-transit Traveller communities, illegally encroaching on land, and the local community in place.

Local councils report having to spend thousands of pounds on eviction orders and then post-eviction clean-ups.

But Mr Green says an entire ethnicity shouldn’t be judged on the actions of a minority.

“I can understand the people that get upset about the rubbish, I get upset by that myself,” he said.

“But we’re not all like that, there is good and bad in every race of people.”

The MPs’ report contains a number of recommendations, but above all it exhorts government and local councils to see beyond issues of accommodation to make sure every element of society receives fair access to public services.

(c) Sky News 2019: Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities have been ‘comprehensively failed’, say MPs