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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : We now come to amendment No. 10, with which it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 11, in page 1, line 16, leave out 4' and insert 1'.
Amendment proposed : No. 10, in page 1, line 16, leave out 4' and insert 2'.-- [Mr. Livingstone.]
Question put, That the amendment be made :--
The House divided : Ayes nil, Noes 40.
Division No. 204] [1.16 pm
Nil Tellers for the Ayes
AYES
Nil Tellers for the Ayes :
Mr. Ken Livingstone and
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett.
NOES
Banks, Tony (Newham NW)
Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)
Bermingham, Gerald
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Bowis, John
Carrington, Matthew
Corbyn, Jeremy
Cox, Tom
Dorrell, Stephen
Durant, Tony
Fallon, Michael
Foster, Derek
Fraser, John
Golding, Mrs Llin
Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)
Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney
Heffer, Eric S.
Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)
Janman, Tim
Lawrence, Ivan
Lightbown, David
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Marshall, John (Hendon S)
Mellor, David
Montgomery, Sir Fergus
Newton, Rt Hon Tony
Patnick, Irvine
Pendry, Tom
Randall, Stuart
Ruddock, Joan
Shelton, Sir William
Skinner, Dennis
Stanbrook, Ivor
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John
Summerson, Hugo
Thorne, Neil
Vaughan, Sir Gerard
Viggers, Peter
Wise, Mrs Audrey
Wood, Timothy
Tellers for the Noes :
Mr. Graham Bright and
Mr. James Arbuthnot.
Question accordingly negatived.
Order for Third Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Third time.
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1.27 pmMr. Livingstone : Having heard the passions expressed in the debate, no one can doubt that people feel deeply on this issue. Sadly, hon. Members do not feel deeply enough for more than 45 of them to be taking part in the debate. I imagine that there will be much public speculation about which way the 610 Members who did not turn up would have voted.
It has been demonstrated that there are grave reservations about the Bill. I spoke earlier at some length about several issues which I could not develop fully because we were dealing with a series of rather restrictive amendments. We must now consider the Bill as a whole and see whether the assurances from the Minister--who is a man of integrity, although I do not agree with him--which have persuaded some of my colleagues with some reluctance that the Bill should go to the other place, are sufficient for us to give the Bill a Third Reading.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : I did not hear the Minister's assurances. Will my hon. Friend let me know what they are so that I can make a decision on the Third Reading? Has the Minister made concessions which would go a long way towards satisfying the National Council for Civil Liberties? If so, I may decide to vote. Did the Minister say that he would make some real changes in the other place?
Mr. Livingstone : I should be happy to give way to the Minister if he would like to repeat those assurances in his own words. They were honest proposals, which basically hinged on instructions to the police and the Crown prosecution service about the way that the legislation should be handled. He gave a commitment to monitor its effects once it is in place. In reality, although I have the greatest respect for the Minister's integrity and intentions, I do not believe that it is possible, simply through a lofty declaration in this House, to guarantee that his assurances will be carried out at the lowest levels of the judiciary and the police force.
For five years I was the leader of the Greater London council. I had many lofty aspirations about what the council should or should not do. However, some months, or even years, later, I discovered, to my sadness, that my lofty aspirations had not percolated down to the lower levels of the bureaucracy. Some people may say that what happens in local government is not the same as what happens in Parliament. However, former legislation shows that the original intentions have not always been carried out.
It may not be the police officer who gets it wrong ; it could be the highest legal officers in the land. A classic case was the 1969 legislation relating to London Transport. It gave the GLC the power to subsidise fares for whatever purpose. Yet the Court of Appeal and the judicial bench of the House of Lords--which know more about the law than anyone else--put a different interpretation on the legislation from that intended by the then Transport Minister, Barbara Castle and her opposite number, the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), now the Prime Minister.
If legislation can be so misinterpreted by the highest and mightiest in the land that the will of Parliament is overturned, how can we be confident that the Minister's assurances will be translated into reality, right down to the lowest levels of police and judicial bureaucracy?
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For five years I was the GLC representative for Paddington. I earlier cited the case of a mother who came to me because her son was being stopped once or twice a day, day after day, as he drove his car around the area. He was challenged, searched and asked to produce his licence. That continued for weeks. Eventually he lost his temper, took a swing at the police officer and ended up in prison. Parliament never intended that the various traffic regulations and laws should be used in that way by individual police officers. I am sure that such an officer in no way represents the average police officer in the Metropolitan police. He wanted to provoke that man so that he could be arrested. Of course, I do not know the events that had led to that.I accept the Minister's honour and his good intentions, and I have no doubt that the legislation will be monitored. However, is it not weak that a Minister should have to stand at the Dispatch Box and say that the legislation will be monitored because he is not certain how it will be implemented? No hon. Member can stand up and say, with his hand on his heart, that if the legislation becomes law we can be sure that innocent people will not be entrapped.
Like the hon. Member for Streatham (Sir W. Shelton), I began with the idea that we could do something to help alleviate the problem, even if we could not solve it. When I was the GLC member for Stoke Newington, I introduced a traffic management scheme. I was an opposition member, but I worked in collaboration with the Tory administration under Sir Horace Cutler. I wanted to end the horror of kerb crawling in the Finsbury park area. Residents loved me for it. It was the most popular thing that I did for the people of Finsbury park. However, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), the problem simply moved over the border into his constituency. That is the flaw in the Bill. it seeks to deal with the problem by moving it on or arresting a few more people. Does anyone honestly believe that if the number of people arrested for kerb crawling increases by 100 per cent., 200 per cent. or 300 per cent. the problem of prostitution will be eradicated in our cities?
The core of the argument is that we should examine and tackle the social causes of prostitution. No amount of repression will stop it. In more extreme societies than ours, people can have a hand cut off for theft--yet theft continues in those countries. The only way to stop theft is to create sufficient fairness in society so that everyone has adequate wealth and does not need to steal. In some societies, adultery is punishable by death. People are stoned to death, but even that severe punishment does not stop adultery. I am sure that the people of Bedford hill support the Bill, but even if the Bill became law in the form in which the hon. Member for Streatham has presented it, it will not stop the problems of prostitution and kerb crawling around Bedford hill, Argyle square King's Cross or Finsbury park. In Finsbury Park, kerb crawlers have learned the mechanics and devious ways of the traffic management scheme that I helped to introduce and found their way around them. If the House wants to stop the problem of prostitution, I beg it to consider the causes. I consider prostitution a problem. I should like to live in a world with no prostitution, where people have loving and fulfilling relationships and that is the whole basis of sexuality in society.
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To do away with the need for prostitution, other things have to be done. During one of the Divisions I had a pleasant conversation with the hon. Member for Streatham. He took up my point about my visit to Cuba and my analysis of prostitution and kerb crawling there. He told me that he had visited Cuba three times--twice before and once after the revolution. He was amazed that what I said was true. Havana was an American brothel until the revolution. Americans descended on it and bought the women, boys and girls. It was a den of vice run by the mafia.Sir William Shelton : The hon. Gentleman will recall that I also suggested that the Cuban solution--a Communist dictatorship--would not be acceptable to my constituents and probably not to his constituents either?
Mr. Livingstone : I was not advocating the adoption of Communism to solve the problem of prostitution. I have also been to Moscow, where prostitution is rife and large numbers of prostitutes mingle with the tourists in Red square. There is no equation between Communism and the eradication of prostitution. Other aspects of Cuban society, not necessarily related to Communism, have led to a dramatic reduction in fear among women. When I arrived in Cuba, I was told that no woman in Cuba was afraid to walk the streets at night.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. I realise that the hon. Gentleman was tempted by that intervention but I am sure that he will now return to the Bill.
Mr. Livingstone : My point is that if the Bill is to tackle the problem it should contain other clauses. It should include a clause which would translate the position in Cuba to our streets by stopping the use of women's bodies to advertise merchandise. One can drive around Cuba without seeing women's naked bodies draped over cars or used to sell merchandise. If we want to tackle the problem, the Bill should include a measure to tackle the issues which create the climate in mens' minds that lead them to kerb crawl and to seek prostitutes.
The House is in agreement on one issue and it is a tragedy that it is not included in the Bill. If it were, I would have voted for the Bill. In that case, on balance, the benefits in the Bill would have been greater than the detrimental effects on civil liberties. If the Bill included another clause to give expression to the overwhelming opinion of the House--
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that Third Reading debates are restricted to what the Bill contains. Hon. Members had an opportunity earlier to say that other measures should be included in the Bill. Third Reading is a comparatively restricted debate on what is actually in the Bill now.
Mr. Livingstone : In that case, I will end my flights of fantasy about what I would like to see in a perfect world.
The Bill has not been amended. It is exactly as it was when first presented. Because of that, it will have considerable authority when it reaches the House of Lords.
When their Lordships considerd the Bill which became the Sexual Offences Act 1985 they added the word "persistent". That amendment is the core of this Bill in that
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it seeks to remove that word. As this Bill has not been amended, their Lordships may feel that their commitment to civil liberties which led them to introduce the word "persistent" in the first place is sufficiently strong that they should override the views and wishes of this House. Therefore, they might be prepared to endorse the Bill. That would be worrying.At the end of the day, this Bill strengthens the repressive arm of the state. It gives further powers to the forces of law and order and I believe that it will shift the balance against an individual's right to travel freely on the streets.
My hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) entertained us in Committee by giving an extreme example of what might happen. He said that there might be a by-election in Streatham. The local Conservative association might invite many leading Conservative Members of Parliament to canvass in the area and one of them might drive into the constituency. Not knowing the area very well, he might be in the vicinity of Bedford hill and have to stop, get out and ask someone the way. If that person was a prostitute, she might not know the area very well and she might not be able to assist the Conservative Member, who would then wander off and stop the next woman on the street. By that stage, the police would have all the evidence that they need under this Bill to arrest, convict and ruin the career of that hon. Member. That is the nub of it. Our debates have been about that basic position.
What is the balance between the liberties of an innocent individual who might be caught and the obvious appalling circumstances facing people who are plagued by kerb crawling? That is not a new problem and I am afraid that the Bill will not solve it. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood, I grew up in Lambeth and I remember prostitutes being on the streets when I was 14 or 15 years old. As my friends and I wandered around the streets on our bikes we would occasionally stop and chat with the prostitutes. Even then, the police would turn up and arrest some of them and take them away. Thirty years on, the problem remains. Over that period, a whole range of new police powers have been introduced and there has been a massive extension in police numbers, but it has failed to tackle the problem.
I do not doubt the sincerity of the commitments given by the Minister of State. Nor do I have any doubt about the integrity of the hon. Member for Streatham, but I believe that his constituents will be sorely disappointed and possibly embittered if the Bill is passed and there is no real improvement. Although I am sure that a few more kerb crawlers will be arrested, the problem will still be there. There is nothing in the legislation guaranteed to solve it. In this country--and across the world-- legislators have tried for thousands of years to stop the problem of prostitution, although now it is called kerb crawling. I am sure that there was a similar problem in ancient Greece and Rome.
Some people have suggested that we should legalise brothels, but the thought of Brent council running a brothel service does not fill me with confidence, and I am glad that the hon. Member for Norwood did not include that in his Bill. The solution is not yet more repressive police powers and a further erosion of individual rights. However, the Bill is in line with the tradition of the past decade : its underlying ideology, like virtually all the law and order legislation passed by this Government, will result in an extension of police and state powers and an
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erosion of the powers of the individual. We have seen that in legislation affecting other issues such as the right of Irish people to move freely, and the right to silence is now under threat. I support a different tradition of British justice--the basic presumption that the individual has rights. Conservative Members seemed surprised when I said that I was basically opposed to the state, which I consider a necessary evil : like Calvin Coolidge, I believe that the least government is the best government, and that we should do the minimum and have the minimum of regulations to ensure the smooth running of society. The Bill would extend the state and regulation, and result in a reduction in the traditional liberal values that one would expect a party committed to free enterprise to apply. A party that is broadly committed to free enterprise, however, has produced an increasing number of people in favour of quite rigid social regulation.The Bill will lead to a further erosion of the use of forensic evidence to secure convictions. That is not new, and I do not blame the hon. Member for Streatham for it. During the past few years Bill after Bill has resulted in changing police practices, and it is now increasingly unusual for a conviction to be obtained on the basis of forensic evidence--
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot talk about Bill after Bill ; he must restrict his remarks to this Bill.
Mr. Livingstone : I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for bringing me to order.
The Bill does precisely that. It relies not on forensic evidence but on police statements, often uncorroborated. I have no doubt that 99 per cent. of our police are honest, decent citizens who do their best, often in impossible circumstances--like most hon. Members whatever their disagreements. The Bill, however, provides no safeguard agains the odd rotten apple in the barrel. What happens if something goes wrong and an innocent passer-by who stops to ask the way is arrested and convicted in some low-level court on the word of a police officer? Such people's lives could be destroyed by the ensuing press reports, which might result in the end of a marriage, the loss of a job and humiliation in the community. Those are terrible powers.
There have been many instances of the miscarriage of justice, although one of the good features of the past few years has been the increasing commitment to expose such miscarriges. The Bill increases the chance of such a miscarriage of justice. I would give anything for the Bill to give some commitment to provide proper
counterbalance.
The Minister struggled to give the commitments to satisfy us. He managed to satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), but he has not satisfied me. Words spoken in this House have no force in a court of law. Ministers come and go and a commitment given by a Minister carries little weight if his successor disagrees with it. That is extremely disturbing.
If the Minister had moved amendments to give force to the commitments that he sought to give, I would have voted for them. I regret I cannot vote for the Third Reading of the Bill.
Sir William Shelton : We have heard many vague ideals and aspirations from the hon. Gentleman, some of which I support. He said that my constituents will be embittered
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and disappointed if the Bill goes through and does not achieve the desired result. If the Bill does not go through, not only my constituents but many other people will be embittered and disappointed because protection will not be given, not only to women who are molested on the street but to those who are prisoners in their houses because of kerb crawlers. Does the hon. Gentleman intend to talk the Bill out?Mr. Livingstone : Yes, because I do not believe that it will provide protection for women who are prisoners in their homes because of the crime level.
Sir William Shelton : In that case, can the hon. Gentleman tell us specifically what will provide that protection other than some magic formula that he has found in Cuba and the banning of page 3 photos? Tonight people will be molested on the streets--it happened yesterday and it will happen again tomorrow. Youngsters are going home carrying empty hypodermics and girls of 15 are solicited by kerb crawlers. That is all going on right now, but all the hon. Gentleman does is talk about Cuba and banning the page 3 girls. They are airy-fairy aspirations. If the hon. Gentleman intends to talk the Bill out in the remaining minutes, can he at least suggest what he would like to see done?
Mr. Livingstone : I have already said that I believe that there should be a massive shift of police resources on to the streets. When I was leader of the GLC I argued for community policing. I examined the figures and found that we have 25,000 police in London. Given that 25 per cent. of them are needed to administer the bureaucratic machinery, even working three shifts, that still means that at any one time one could have five police officers walking the streets in every ward of London. Their presence would act as a deterrent. If we have police officers walking around Bedford hill every day it would help to solve the problem. I am not suggesting that those police officers should be stationed in Bedford hill alone, as that would move the problem elsewhere, but there should be a massive shift in police resources. Such a shift would not require legislation. The hon. Member for Streatham is a member of the party which governs Britain and which, through the Home Secretary, has direct and immediate day to day responsibility for the Metropolitan police.
Sir William Shelton : The hon. Gentleman must be aware that the amendments that he supported would have resulted in a kerb crawlers' charter. Even if there were 100 police on every street corner they would have been powerless to arrest a girl if the area was not designated. The hon. Gentleman should pull himself together, look into his mind, and decide exactly what should be done other than what we are suggesting. If the Bill is talked out, I shall do my best to ensure that those interested in this matter are aware of what he has done.
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