‘You are right to highlight the importance of safe, decent accommodation’ – Kemi Badenoch replies to Romany campaigner
Kemi Badenoch, Leader of the Conservative Party, has replied to a letter from a Romany campaigner who wanted to highlight the plight of residents living on council-run Traveller sites in Essex and across the country.
Claire Rice, a Romany campaigner who lives in Essex wrote to Kemi, her local MP, after becoming concerned about the lack of legal protections that Traveller site residents have, and the effects on them of the looming re-organisation of big local councils like Essex.
“I am asking you to raise an urgent matter in Parliament regarding the continued exclusion of Local Authority Gypsy and Traveller site residents from the legal definition of social housing, and the acute risks this poses during the current local government reorganisation,” wrote Claire Rice – who works for the Gypsy/Traveller organisation GaTEssex.
Kemi Badenoch replied within days and, thanking Claire Rice, said that she was right “to highlight the importance of safe, decent accommodation and effective oversight for all residents, and I understand why questions around accountability, standards and redress are of particular concern during a period of local government reorganisation.”
“Housing standards, regulation and the treatment of different tenures are complex areas of policy, involving both primary legislation and the interaction between local authorities, regulators and ombudsman services,” continued Kemi Badenoch in her reply, adding that she would also raise the issues that Claire raised with her housing team.
Claire Rice, who is educated to postgraduate level and has a Masters Degree in Criminology, is now booked in to meet Kemi Badenoch at one of her local MP surgeries and hopes to continue the conversation further.
Claire Rice also wrote to a government minister for housing to raise the same issues that she raised with Kemi Badenoch, but Baroness Sharon Jane Taylor, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing and Local Government, has so far failed to reply.
TT News
(Lead composite image: Portrait of Kemi Badenoch by Roger Harris - https://members.parliament.uk/member/4597/portrait, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150972962/Traveller site post box still by Percy Dean from Turning Point video)
FURTHER READING BY CLAIRE RICE:
Opinion: Why Local Authority Gypsy and Traveller Sites Must Be Protected Now | Travellers Times
The Local Government Shake Up: What Gypsies and Travellers Need to Know | Travellers Times