 House of Commons |
Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Criminal Justice and Immigration |
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan
Sandall, Committee Clerk
†
attended the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 27 November 2007(Morning)[Sir Nicholas Winterton in the Chair]Criminal Justice and Immigration BillFurther Written Evidence to be reported to the HouseCJ&I
401 Northern Ireland Human Rights
Commission
CJ&I 403
Department for Christian Responsibility and Citizenship, Catholic
Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, and the Mission &
Public Affairs Council of the Church of
England
CJ&I 404 Peter
Barker
10.30
am
The
Chairman:
I welcome hon. Members to the 13th sitting of
the Committee. It is a miserable, damp and depressing day outside, but
I trust that it will be more interesting and exciting here. We have a
clean start this morning. I have selected amendment No. 351 to
clause 71 and therefore call the hon. Member for Somerset
and
Frome.
Clause 71Amendment
to offence of loitering etc. for purposes of
prostitution
Mr.
Heath:
I beg to move amendment No. 351, in
clause 71, page 49, line 21, after
‘person’, insert ‘aged 18 or
over’.
Thank
you, Sir Nicholas. I welcome you to the Committee this morning. The
name of my constituency seems to defeat even the most erudite Members
of the House. Despite the overcast conditions outside, I am sure that
your chairmanship will brighten our
proceedings.
In
an attempt to enliven our discussions, we now move on to the subject of
prostitution. The amendment, which is in my name and that of my hon.
Friend the Member for Cambridge, deals with people under the age 18 who
are working as prostitutes. I hope that a lot of our debate on this
aspect of the Bill will be about prostitutes as not so much offenders,
but people who are exploited and the victims of others. I also hope
that we shall explore people trafficking, a subject in which the
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department is very much engaged,
as am I and others. We shall want to see how to mitigate the awful
consequences of
trafficking.
In
the case of under-18s, we are dealing not only with people who might be
from other countries and fall into the category of trafficked people,
but those who are indigenous to this country and vulnerable to
exploitation, whether or not they know that they are being exploited.
The amendment would decriminalise the offence of
loitering or soliciting for persons aged 17 and under. There is
consistency between my proposal and what happens in practice. There are
many fewer prosecutions of young people for prostitution offences than
there were previously, and part of that is due to a change of attitude
on the part of the authorities that seek to understand the behaviour of
young people and to attack the reasons for their offending
behaviour.
We
are all conscious of the fact that many young people who find
themselves in the world of prostitution do so because they come from a
significantly difficult social background. A lot of them come from
children’s homes. Unfortunately, it is a huge indictment of our
system that so many young people from children’s homes are
engaged in prostitution. Many others come from chaotic or disorderly
home backgrounds and regard it as an
escape.
Let
me refer to the numbers of young people involved in loitering for
prostitution purposes. In 2005-06, Barnardo’s worked with 2,148
young people between the ages of 18 and 24. Research that it undertook
in 2005 showed that as many as 1,000 young children in London alone
were at risk of, or involved in, exploitation. That can take many
forms, but it often includes prostitution.
The question
for the Committee is whether prosecuting a young person for this
offence is the right way of dealing with them in the first instance,
rather than using the other possible disposals available, and whether
that is likely to have the right consequence of deterring reoffending.
All the evidence shows that it is not. There is also a question about
whether young people will recognise that the authorities are trying to
assist them if the threat of prosecution is hanging over them, or
whether they will be alienated further from those who can provide
genuine assistance and remove them from the exploitative situation in
which they find themselves. We must also recognise the vulnerability of
young people in this context and that to call them offenders and bring
them before a court is probably not the best outcome, either for the
child or for the system that is being used. Rather, more caring and
long-term support is needed.
If we do not
remove the possibility of prosecution for young people, they will be
persistent offenders. However the crime is defined, all the evidence
indicates that they will not be single-time offenders, but will appear
before the courts time and time again. They will eventually find
themselves in more and more serious difficulties as a result. Removing
that possibility is the principal objective of the amendment. The
amendment is supported by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice and,
particularly, by Barnardo’s, which often works with such young
people, as well as the Children’s Society, and I commend it to
the
Committee.
Mr.
David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): Welcome back,
Sir Nicholas. I look forward to the proceedings of the Committee and
our deliberations. The issue of street offences is no doubt serious and
important. It is right to focus by way of the amendment on concerns
about under-18s. Those concerns will be reflected during our debate on
a number of amendments and clauses. There is focus on dealing with
those who are vulnerable and exploited, and I particularly welcome the
intentions behind the amendment.
I invite the
Minister to respond to a concern that we all share about dealing with
what is out there and happening in practice. It is accepted that clause
71 seeks
to address the practice of persistent prostitution and to focus the
criminality on persistence. I understand that current practice is that
after the police have issued two cautions to those involved in
prostitution, they would seek to prosecute. The concern to divert
prostitutes away from their practice and trade is reflected in the
other clauses that we will deal with when we examine
the issue of rehabilitation. The issue raised by the
amendment is whether clause 71, as it stands, will deal with the most
vulnerable and most exploited. The amendment goes to the heart of that
issue. There are reports that 85 per cent. of street-based prostitutes
report physical abuse in the family and that 45 per cent. report
familial sexual abuse. Those reported statistics are no doubt
aggravated by age. Those who are under 18, by the nature of their age,
are prone to exploitation and abuse. While we are all concerned to
focus on how we can reduce trafficking into prostitution, plainly that
issue is all the more important when dealing with those who are under
18. I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister justify clause 71
in relation to an over-18
threshold.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home
Department (Mr. Vernon Coaker):
Sir
Nicholas, it is a delight to be on my feet for the first time after
sitting through some very interesting discussions and debates. I also
welcome you and your co-Chairman, Mr. O’Hara, to the
Chair, and welcome all hon. Members to the Committee. I shall endeavour
to answer questions to the best of my ability, and I apologise in
advance if people feel that I do not do that.
This is a
very important aspect of the Bill, and I take very much to heart the
call made by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome that I consider the
matter carefully. We are trying to set out a way of dealing with this
issue that is sensitive to the needs of street workers as well as to
the need to maintain a sense of law and order in some parts of our
community. It is that balance that we seek to strike.
I will deal
with some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Enfield,
Southgate during the clause stand part debate. Again, he made a very
important point about the need for us to consider carefully how we
protect young people in respect of this measure.
The hon.
Member for Somerton and Frome is right to point out the huge and
welcome decrease in official cautions and prosecutions against
under-18s in this area. It reflects a change in our view about how we
deal with this particular issue and highlights the need for
rehabilitation rather than
prosecution.
The
amendment would amend the offence of loitering or soliciting for the
purposes of prostitution to exclude those under the age of 18. I have
to say that I have some sympathy with that proposal. We certainly do
not want children and young people to be unnecessarily criminalised. I
am reassured—and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be as
well—that since the publication in 2000 of the guidance
“Safeguarding Children Involved in Prostitution”, the
numbers arrested and prosecuted are extremely low. In 2005, there were
two cautions and one prosecution. Our guidance makes it clear that the
criminal law should be used only when, following inter-agency
discussions, it is considered that a young person has persistently
and
voluntarily continued to loiter or solicit in a public place for the
purposes of prostitution. Therefore, in practice, the offence is rarely
used with regard to under-18s.
I recognise
that criminal sanctions, even as a last resort, do not rest comfortably
with the concept that children involved in prostitution are always the
victims of abuse. Nevertheless, I have some concerns about the
potential impact of removing under-18s from the scope of the offence.
There is a risk that such a move could be misrepresented or
misinterpreted as the Government condoning the involvement of under-18s
in such activity. In turn, that could result in an increase in the
numbers of children and young people groomed for that kind of
exploitation. No one would wish to see that. Any move in that direction
would need to be balanced with the message that child sexual
exploitation—the majority of which takes place
off-street—is still a serious crime, but that the criminal law
focuses on those perpetrating that crime, either by paying for
the sexual services of a child, or by controlling, facilitating or
inciting child prostitution.
We already
have the legislative tools to deal with those who sexually exploit
children and we must continue to ensure that they are being used to the
full effect. Therefore, before we change the legal position, I want to
be confident that we can match that with a clear message that child
sexual exploitation is a grave crime that will not be tolerated, and
that the child is always a
victim.
10.45
am
I
assure the hon. Gentleman that I am happy to reflect on the matter
further in the light of the comments that have been made this morning.
However, I cannot offer any commitment. We have to balance the message
and the need to protect children, although I understand his point. I
will consider whether, later in the Bill’s passage through this
place and perhaps another place, there is a need to change the law. In
the light of that, will the hon. Gentleman consider withdrawing his
amendment?
Mr.
Heath:
I thank the Minister, and welcome him to a speaking
part in our proceedings. He and I have had a few sedentary
conversations during the course of the proceedings, but this is the
first time that he has had the opportunity to strut his
stuff.
I welcome the
sensible way in which the hon. Gentleman has approached this issue, as
is normally the case. However, I simply do not buy the constant refrain
that, somehow, changes in the criminal law and in our statute are made
for the purpose of sending messages. We do not send messages by having
laws or making changes in laws that are inappropriate. The focus of our
concern, quite properly, is the exploitation of young people. We have
rightly created offences in that respect, and we want them to be used
to the greatest possible extent to reduce this type of offending. We
want our investigative and prosecuting authorities to do everything
within their power to ensure that people who exploit children for
sexual purposes are arrested, prosecuted, and given get the appropriate
punishment.
That goes
without saying, so what we are talking about is whether the provision
for the criminalisation of young people in this respect is a vestigial
provision. I
think that the Minister has answered that question by giving the numbers
involved: two cautions and one prosecution, I think he said. In the
context of the modern approach to these matters, the offence is no
longer necessary or useful—that is shown by the figures. Having
recognised that fact, we as legislators should remove from the statute
book a measure that is no longer sensible or useful. The message, if
one was being sent, was being sent before that, precisely as he said,
in the treatment of young people for sexual offences, and the guidance
that has been given. That is the message: it is guidance that gives the
message, and law that states the offence. In my view, there is not an
offence in this instance: that is shown by the figures and by the
principles that the Minister has
outlined.
The
Minister says that he will consider my proposal, and I really do hope
that he does, because it would be a small but significant step forward
in the law. I hope that he will put aside the consideration that he
might be accused of somehow being soft on child sexual exploitation or
something like that. In the context of the Bill, it would be absurd to
keep a law in place simply because somebody might misconstrue its
removal. I think that that was the only real argument that he used to
suggest that the measure should be retained. In the light of what he
said, I am very happy for him to consider the matter further, and I
hope that we will come back to the subject on Report in this House. If
we do not, I suspect that the job will be done in another place,
whether he likes it or not. Such is the way of these things, but I
think that it would be better if the House of Commons dealt with it and
determined that this offence no longer has its place on our statute
book. On the basis that I reserve the right to bring it back at a later
stage if we are not satisfied that the matter has been properly dealt
with, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
71 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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