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Sandra Gidley: In some countries the age of consent is completely different, so should we not err on the side of caution and use 18 rather than 16 as a benchmark? Eighteen is the age of consent in some countries around the world, so would not greater consistency help to reinforce the message that something might be right in this country, but wrong in another? Is there not a danger of condoning it?
Paul Goggins: At one level the age of consent is an arbitrary figure. The hon. Lady is right to point out that it is different in different countries, but it is interesting that some people press me to use 18 as the age of consent in some respects, but in others they press me to make dispensation in certain circumstances for a lower age of consent. Having 16 as the age of consent in this country is well established, well understood and well supported by the people of this country, and it is important to stick to it and ensure that our laws reflect it.
To return to my speech, it will be difficult to ascertain, for the purposes of the foreign travel order, whether an offender intends to travel abroad to commit a sexual
offence or to engage in consensual sexual activity with a person over the age of consent. I agree that we need to tackle sex tourism where the victims are aged 16 or over and there is a great deal of practical work on which my colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development are giving a lead in this area, and we are reflecting on what else we can do in support. However, the foreign travel order has been crafted specifically to protect those under 16 and it simply will not work if we try to extend it to cover those aged under 18. Similar arguments apply to amendments Nos. 138 and 139.Amendment No. 141, also tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre, seeks to change the foreign travel notification requirements so that a registered sex offender would be required to notify the police of any intended period of foreign travel. The House will be aware that the foreign travel of registered sex offenders has attracted much debate during the passage of this Bill through Parliament. Indeed, as a result of considerable debate in the Lords and a consultation with interested parties, Lord Falconer announced the Government's intention to reduce from eight to three days the period for which a registered sex offender can travel abroad without notifying the police. We maintain that it is not necessary to reduce that period further.
We have consulted with key organisations on the issue of the foreign travel notification requirements, including the major charities working on the issue and the law enforcement agencies. The consultation looked at whether sex offenders should be required to notify all foreign travel, but it concluded that that would add little in terms of increased public protection from sex tourists. I should make it clear that the overriding purpose of notification requirements is to monitor the whereabouts of registered offenders, not to prevent travel abroad. The burden that such a requirement would place on offenders would be disproportionate to the minimal benefit that it would bring to public protection. Therefore, I believe that when the secondary legislation is made on this issue, we should set the period at three days.
I hope that what I have said in response to this group of amendments has gone some way to convince hon. Members that in these respects the Bill should remain as drafted.
Mr. Grieve: I listened with great interest to what the Minister had to say about new clause 2, and it certainly appears to be an improvement on the previous position, when the Government relied on clause 54. They have now responded to the representations of the police. However, without being unsympathetic to what the Minister is trying to achieve, I raised briefly in an intervention an issue that the House should consider.
Previously, under section 30 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, it was an offence to live off the earnings of a prostitute. The offence did not require any control to be exercised over the prostitution. The person concerned simply had to know that the person off whose earnings he was living was a prostitute and that he was benefiting
from prostitution. It therefore had the effect of catching people who might be far removed from the control of a brothel or individual prostitutes, but who knew what was going on and tolerated the situation to their advantage. I accept that the clause could potentially catch a prostitute's child who, for example, was receiving private education as a result of his mother's activities, but I suspect that such prosecutions rarely happened in reality.The Minister started by relying on clause 54, which requires the intentional control of a prostitute's activities for gain. Control clearly implies a close connection between the person concerned and the activities of the prostitute, and the clause is principally aimed at pimping. The Minister will know that the police raised anxieties about that because they felt that in many cases it might be desirable that a prosecution could be brought against someone who was not in control of prostitution but was nevertheless intimately involved in the exploitation of the woman—or, indeed, man—concerned and was living off the earnings. That was the reason for the Government's reliance on section 33 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 on managing or keeping a brothel, the penalty for which will be raised to a much more serious level.
I am certainly not going to stand in the way of what the Government are trying to do here. It goes some way towards meeting the concerns of the police, but it is worth noting that the Government have not gone as far as the police clearly would have wished. It will hereafter be impossible to prosecute somebody who may be living off the earnings of a prostitute—possibly, or even probably, someone well known to the police for using those earnings to engage in other criminal activities and who will now be beyond the reach of the law. I assume—this is the point on which I seek reassurance—that the Government have carefully considered that matter and are satisfied that they are willing to tolerate such a situation.
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Rather than repealing section 30 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, in view of what the police have said, the alternative approach would be to try to reform or to change it so as to enable it still to catch an adult knowingly living off the proceeds of prostitution but not, as the Minister desires, a child or other dependant. I do not agree with the Minister that there was no halfway house for Parliament if we wanted to respond to police concern. I should be grateful to hear whether he is satisfied—above all, whether the police have said they are satisfied—with what the Government propose. The Government's alternative is to rethink the repeal of section 30, considering whether some new offence could be brought in that would hit those who knowingly live off the earnings of a prostitute, an activity that the vast majority of people in this country consider improper.
Mrs. Brooke: I shall discuss amendment No. 186 and leave the others tabled by the Liberal Democrats to my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley). We tabled that amendment after much thought. In particular, we paid attention to the debate in
Committee, and I shall quote what the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration said, with which I totally agree:
- "We have consistently rejected the idea of a statutory reflection period for victims, partly because that would be inflexible and not necessarily based on the details of the case, which can vary."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 18 September 2003; c. 283.]
As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) said in Committee, it is crucial not to confuse the separate issues of trafficking and illegal immigration. It would be harsh if a set of people who are already badly treated were to have that treatment compounded by not being treated with enough sympathy. There is a great deal of evidence that a period for reflection of up to six months would encourage more witnesses to give evidence against exploiters. They are the people we want to punish—not the victims, but those who run the dreadful trade in exploitation of women.
I have some difficulty with the fact that the Government will not give a little more on that point, although I am pleased by some of what has been said and by the pilot project. Even so, it is only a pilot, and a lot more is needed. Many organisations will be disappointed by the Government's response today. For example, the international order of Soroptimists has placed a call for a period of reflection of up to six months at the top of the agenda for its conference in Ireland later this year. It is a major issue, and a lot of people feel some empathy on it. I call on the Government to share in that feeling: at the end of the day, we want to give something back to those women who have suffered so greatly by giving some assurance that if they want a period of reflection in safe accommodation, this country—a relatively affluent one—can provide it. After all, it is people in this country who provide the demand for the services of the women who have been so harshly traded. In spite of what the Minister has said, I hope that he will consider further the principles behind the amendment.
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