Clause
72
Orders
to promote rehabilitation
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: New clause 8— Paying for sexual
service
s—
‘(1) A
person (A) commits an offence
if—
(a) he intentionally
obtains for himself the sexual services of another person (B),
and
(b) before obtaining those
services, he has made or promised payment for those services to B or a
third person, or knows that another person has made or promised such a
payment.
(2) In this section
“payment” means any financial advantage, including the
discharge of an obligation to pay or the provision of goods or services
(including sexual services) gratuitously or at a
discount.
(3) A person guilty
of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction, to
imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding
the statutory maximum or
both.’.
New clause
22—Orders to promote rehabilitation of persons paying for the
sexual services of a
prostitute
—
‘(1)
The Street Offences Act 1959 (c. 57) is amended as
follows.
(2) After section 1A
(inserted by section 72 of this Act)
insert—
“1B
Orders to promote rehabilitation of persons paying for the sexual
services of a prostitute who has been
trafficked
(1) This subsection
applies to any person who has paid for the sexual services of a
prostitute who has been
trafficked.
(2) The court may
make an order under this subsection requiring a person to whom
subsection (1) applies to attend three meetings with the person for the
time being specified in the order (“the supervisor”) or
with such other person as the supervisor may
direct.
(3) The purpose of any
order under subsection (2) is to promote the person’s
rehabilitation by assisting him, through attendance at those meetings,
to—
(a) address the
causes of his conduct, and
(b)
find ways to cease engaging in such conduct in the
future.
(4) Section 1A applies
where a court proposes to make an order under subsection (2) as if the
person subject to the order were the
offender.”’.
Mr.
Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): I shall speak to new
clause 8, which would make it an offence under criminal law for a
person intentionally to obtain for himself and pay
for the sexual services of another person. I tabled the amendment
because I have been impressed by the representations that I have
received from CARE—Christian Action Research and
Education —which is a well-established mainstream
Christian charity that provides resources and help with matters of
public policy and practical caring initiatives to those in need. In
particular, I am grateful to Daniel Boucher and Rachel Davies who have
researched the matter in great detail.
I should
declare my interest as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on
trafficking of women and children. CARE is a member of the Stop the
Traffik coalition, which works in conjunction with an organisation
called Chaste—Churches Alert to Sex Trafficking Across Europe.
Both CARE and I believe that prostitution must be severely reduced,
both because of the harm it does to men and women, and in order to
tackle the growing problem of illegal trafficking of women and children
into the UK. In his introductory comments to the last Government
consultation on prostitution policy in England and Wales, the then Home
Secretary
said:
“Prostitution
can have devastating consequences for the individuals involved and for
the wider community. It involves the abuse of children and the serious
exploitation of adults — many of whom are trafficked into and
around the UK for this purpose.”
The new
clause is designed to tackle the demand for prostitution. There is a
growing body of support across the country for such a measure. With
your permission, Sir Nicholas, I would like to quote in support of the
new clause several letters that I have received from leading
organisations in the field. Rosslyn Okumu, development manager for the
National Christian Alliance on Prostitution,
writes:
“I
am writing in my capacity as development manager for the National
Christian Alliance on Prostitution, which is a collaborative network of
over 45 projects nationwide who work with individuals involved in
prostitution to offer support and, where possible,
sustainable exit routes... Over the years, NCAP affiliated projects
have come into contact with literally thousands of women, men and some
children who are involved in/exploited by prostitution. The majority,
(more than 95 per cent.), do not wish to be working in prostitution.
Most have stories to tell of violence, coercion, drugs and
exploitation... With this in mind, our organisation highly
commends new clause
8.” Josephine Wakeling
writes from
Stratford:
“I
am involved with the National Christian Alliance on Prostitution, and
also with the Josephine Butler Society. I have been working on the
streets with women involved in prostitution for 12 years... It is
our Government’s duty to protect the vulnerable through law, and
that at all costs should ensure that those abusing vulnerability from a
place of power will be held to account. I would encourage any
legislation which criminalised the demand
side”
—as the new
clause would—
“as
it is the purchasers of commercial sex who remain hidden and fuel this
exploitation of
women.”
Dave
Bagley from Boltan Urban Outreach, writes to tell
me:
“During
the course of my job, I witness on an almost daily basis, the
devastation and abuse caused to sex workers by men who constantly
manipulate them in seeking to have their desires fulfilled. We
desperately need a justice system in Britain which recognises just how
little autonomy so many sex workers have. We need a Bill which
criminalises the actions of the perpetrators of this sexual abuse,
rather than the women who are caught in an endless cycle of poverty,
isolation and
despair.”
In his letter,
Bill Gallagher, the operations manager at Door of Hope,
states:
“We
are a Christian Charity who provide outreach and support services to
street sex workers. Thank you for proposing the new clause 8 (NC8)
which if your colleagues accept will afford significant protection to
the vulnerable and exploited women we work with. Thank you for your
work.”
Anne Dannerolle
from the Hull Lighthouse Project
writes:
“I
am a trustee and volunteer with the Hull Lighthouse Project and I have
been working on the streets with women in prostitution for 12 years. I
have been following the progress of the Criminal Justice and
Immigration Bill, and I would like to thank you for tabling New Clause
8... In 12 years, I have met nearly 400 women on the streets of
Hull, and in all that time not a single women has said to me that she
wants to be working in
prostitution.”
Mrs.
Valerie Gore of the Josephine Butler Society was kind enough to write
to me to say:
“we are
delighted that Parliament is at last discussing possibilities. Thank
you for tabling this amendment and taking this important
step.”
To
tackle the demand for prostitution, the House needs to take into
account some very impressive evidence from people who are working day
to day with sex workers. At present, prostitution itself is not illegal
in the United Kingdom. However, offering prostitution services on the
street, loitering or soliciting are illegal under the Street Offences
Act 1959, the Sexual Offences Act 1985 and the Sexual Offences Act
2003, as is seeking the services of someone involved in prostitution on
the street, known as kerb crawling, under the 1985 Act. Pimping and
brothel managing are also against the law under the Sexual Offences Act
1956. Therefore, supply of and demand for prostitution on the street is
illegal, but the demand for prostitution off-street is not illegal.
That is what my new clause would seek to
do.
A
staggering 80,000 individuals are involved in prostitution in the UK.
Some 70 per cent. started out as children or young teenagers. As many
as 95 per cent. of those involved in street-based prostitution are
believed
to use class A drugs. Not so long ago, we had the tragic case of five
prostitutes who were murdered in or around Ipswich, all of whom were
plying their trade because of their sad addiction to hard drugs. Some
85 per cent. report physical abuse in the family, as my hon. Friend the
Member for Enfield, Southgate has remarked, with 45 per cent. reporting
familial sexual abuse. A significant
number of people involved in prostitution in the UK have been
trafficked from other countries to meet growing UK demand. According to
some expert sources, most forms of prostitution can be thought of as
amounting to trafficking. The UN special rapporteur on trafficking in
persons, especially in women and children—that must be one of
the longest titles of any UN official—made the following
observation:
“For
the most part, prostitution as actually practiced in the world usually
does satisfy the elements of trafficking. It is rare that one finds a
case in which the path to prostitution and/or a person’s
experience with prostitution does not involve, at the very least, an
abuse of power and/or an abuse of vulnerability. Power and
vulnerability in this context must be understood to include disparities
based on gender, race, ethnicity and
poverty.”
Prostitution
is based on an imbalance of power between those who are bought and
those who buy. Buying can be done legally in this country. Given that
the vast majority of people in prostitution are women, this
commodification of women’s bodies serves to deepen gender
inequality in our society. The imbalance of power is also seen along
racial lines, as many individuals in prostitution are from ethnic or
disempowered minorities or, indeed, increasingly from other countries.
The Bill is surely a chance for the UK Government to continue to uphold
the principles of racial and gender equality as an essential component
of human
rights.
11
am
CARE
supports the Government’s welcome campaign, launched in May, to
tackle demand for street prostitution by taking tough action on kerb
crawling. I, too, commend Her Majesty’s Government for that.
However, the law needs to go further than the current offence of kerb
crawling, because that has not prevented a doubling in the number of
men who have reported purchasing sex in recent years. That is
specifically why the new clause, which calls for the demand side of
prostitution to be tackled more widely, is
needed.
Making
all purchases of prostitution services liable to prosecution would be
beneficial. It would provide a far more comprehensive basis on which to
engage with the demand for commercial sex, which drives the whole
industry. By so doing, it would make the law better able to engage with
the sad fact that the number of men purchasing sex in the UK has
doubled in the 10 years between 1990 and 2000—the latest figures
available to
me.
Reducing
the market for prostitution services overall should in turn reduce the
number of women—it is generally women—who are trafficked
into the UK for sex. Most trafficked women are set to work not
on-street, but offering off-street prostitution services—in
other words, in brothels—which are entirely beyond the reach of
current demand provisions. It is thought that as many as 81 per cent.
of women working in brothels in the UK come from overseas. London and
the UK are among the main drivers of the international trafficking
market. The new clause would send out a strong signal
from Her Majesty’s Government that it is not acceptable to
encourage the commodification of the human body and that buying sexual
services both degrades and exploits. It would help to build a more
humane society by challenging a foundation of the distortion of the way
in which men view women and vice
versa. Much
attention has been given to the Swedish model of prostitution law.
Sweden introduced a law to penalise the purchasers of sex in 1999, and
Norway has recently decided to introduce a similar law. Evidence
suggests that street prostitution halved after the law was introduced.
It certainly makes Sweden far less attractive to pimps and brothel
owners and, as a result, has reduced the demand for trafficking. The
Swedish Government reported that Sweden now has far less trafficking
than neighbouring countries. A European Union study of countries
published in 2005 suggests that the number of trafficked people per
100,000 of the population was lower in Sweden than in any other country
covered by the study, apart from the Czech
Republic.
David
Howarth (Cambridge) (LD): I am not sure that those figures
on Sweden are universally accepted. Evidence from official sources in
Sweden shows that the amount of street solicitation in Sweden has not
declined at all and that internet advertising for sexual services has
increased.
Mr.
Hollobone:
I would welcome any evidence that the hon.
Gentleman can produce to that effect. The situation is unclear, but
powerful evidence on my side shows that the demand for prostitution has
been tackled by the change in the law in Sweden and, in particular,
that Sweden is now a far less attractive destination for
internationally trafficked women than more open countries, such as the
UK.
I
believe that, if new clause 8 were passed, it would put in place in
this country a rigorous legislative framework that would reduce the
levels of prostitution and thus trafficking. The opportunity to reform
prostitution law does not come along that often, and I suggest that
this is a very good opportunity to do
that.
I
shall try to anticipate and answer some of the criticisms of the new
clause. It may be said that it is a naïve clause, and that there
is no way that it will stop the world’s oldest profession.
However, I am not suggesting that implementing new clause 8 would shut
down demand for prostitution services; that would clearly be a
ridiculous claim. However, if new clause 8 were to become law, it would
make an important contribution to tackling demand; it would make life
far more difficult for pimps; and it would send out an important signal
that buying sex is not acceptable.
Another
criticism might be that, although some people are forced into
prostitution against their will, not all are—that some people
choose to be prostitutes, and that new clause 8 would make it harder
for clients to approach them. However, the evidence is that 95 per
cent. of street prostitutes are class A drug users who sell themselves
to feed their habit. We know that a significant and growing proportion
of prostitutes are also trafficked individuals. If Her Majesty’s
Government were to focus on those who are prostitutes because they
genuinely want to be, we would be talking about a small but sometimes
quite articulate minority of sex workers.
Another
criticism is that new clause 8 just targets men—what about
women? First, new clause 8 does not just target men; it targets the
source of demand, which, although usually male, is not always male.
Secondly, the clause does not repeal the current soliciting provisions
that make it illegal for women to solicit in the street. It does not
provide a pure Swedish approach, because in Sweden supply is
decriminalised and demand is criminalised. It is true that, in the
broader context of legislation, new clause 8 would mean that the law
would tackle demand both on-street and off-street, while tackling
supply only on-street, but I believe that this would be a sensible
place to start.
In the
bicentenary year of the abolition of slavery, our country has an
opportunity to tackle this most horrendous type of modern slavery.
William Wilberforce, in this House, set our country on a very proud and
distinguished course to tackle the slave trade. In 2007, Her
Majesty’s Government has a wonderful opportunity to build on
that work done in this place 200 years ago, and to set in place
appropriate legislation that would make it illegal for someone to
obtain sexual services and pay for them. I believe that that
would secure a dramatic reduction in prostitution and be extremely
helpful in reducing the growing problem of internationally trafficked
people.
Harry
Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab): I have sympathy with my
hon. Friend the Under-Secretary who has this matter in his brief,
because views on prostitution are starkly different, and actually
incompatible, so it is difficult to determine the best course of
action. He has to set aside the fact that he will not please everybody
in his approach. One of those points of view was put by the hon. Member
for Kettering, and he was right to call prostitution the oldest
profession. I want to say more about the Swedish model in my speech,
but the criminalisation of prostitution has a long history of failure.
It is persistent; it continues, and there is supply and demand. The law
has not been successful in the main about when it is right to prosecute
and when it is right to criminalise
it.
I
tabled new clause 22, which is a suggested way forward. I was trying to
apply a lighter touch and create a bit of parity, so that whatever
measures the Government have proposed in relation to women should apply
to men as well, and I know that that issue is a theme. Although it is a
light touch that men should also receive rehabilitation, that purpose
is owing when we are talking about trafficked women, as specified in
the amendment, so that the men have an education about trafficked women
and the surrounding issues. Trafficking is a new factor that should be
taken into account.
At an earlier
sitting the Minister said that he favoured the proposal that if a man
is with a trafficked woman, that should be regarded as rape and it
should be punished as rape. I think that that is excessive, and during
the course of my speech I will discuss some further points on that and
why it is not feasible. The issue of trafficked women is not that
clear. It is a stereotype that trafficked women are all forced and I
suspect that actually a minority of trafficked women are forced. That
is still bad and must be dealt with, but I suspect that a lot of
trafficked women are prepared to do it for economic
reasons.
Mr.
Coaker:
The point that I always make is that where
somebody has sex with a trafficked woman, knowing that they are
trafficked and that there is no consent, they should be charged with
rape.
Harry
Cohen:
I appreciate that and it is an important
distinction.
David
Howarth:
I would like to put it to the hon. Gentleman and
the Minister that there is a clear possibility of an offence being
committed under section 4 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which is
causing another person to take part in sexual activities. So even if it
is not rape, there is a crime on the books that might be adapted to
those
circumstances.
Harry
Cohen:
The issue of consent is important, and that was a
point well made.
Mr.
Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): I hear what the hon.
Gentleman is saying, although I do not like it. He said that it would
be a crime only if consent was not given. If a person does not have sex
with a gentleman, and because they do not have sex with that gentleman
their pimp is going to beat them, they might actually consent to sex,
so we have to be very
careful.
Harry
Cohen:
That is not consent, and I do not think that the
law would in any way recognise that as being a matter of consent. The
difficulty in this circumstance, for the men, is identifying who is
trafficked and who is not, and whether they have genuinely given their
consent. The amendment would put the onus upon the men in that
situation.
I hesitate to
say this—the phrase has been used by the Prime Minister in
another context—but one of the implications of the amendment
would be “British jobs for British workers”. It also has
the implication of raising the price, which would be a discouragement
to prostitution, if that is one of our aims. Those are some of the
aspects behind the amendment.
The
long-standing argument about prostitution is: criminalise or
liberalise? I do not believe that criminalisation works. Even if the
aim is to get at the men, it invariably ends up with the most
vulnerable women suffering the most, which does not work. I favour
liberalisation in that traditional
argument.
11.15
am
Mr.
Hollobone:
I am not sure that there is a straight choice.
In countries that have legalised prostitution, such as parts of
Australia, there has been a growth in the number of illegal brothels.
With prostitution, legal or illegal, there are many criminal gangs
involved in the trafficking of women. I am afraid that we are not faced
with the straight choice that the hon. Gentleman suggests we
have.
Harry
Cohen:
We certainly want to take out the criminal gangs
associated with prostitution. However, the whole history of
prohibition, especially during the early part of the last century when
it was to do with alcohol, was that criminal gangs grew exponentially
with illegality. We should learn that lesson. However,
the traditional argument is one thing, but the new element, which is
very relevant, is trafficking and that must be addressed. Those issues
are half addressed already through what is basically a tough
immigration policy, particularly with regard to the deportation of
women.
I want to
bring one issue to attention, and I hope that the Minister will be able
to answer me. Last Friday, the Deputy Leader of the Labour party spoke
on “The Daily Politics” programme. She was asked whether,
if trafficked women ask for help, they would be sent home, and whether
she could give an assurance that we will protect these women and keep
them here. The Deputy Leader asked “The women?”, to which
the answer was “Yes”, and she replied “Absolutely,
yes. Definitely”. However, I do not think that that is the Home
Office’s policy, and it is something that needs
clarification.
It is an important point,
because if we try to help trafficked women, encourage them to come
forward and report their situation, will they then be punished by being
deported? We must have clarification. I am not convinced that her
answer was correct.
The Deputy
Leader was also asked about how we treat trafficked women, and I would
like to draw the Committee’s attention to Amnesty
International’s recent press release “Sex Trafficking:
Better support needed for victims of sex trafficking in new
crackdown”. It
says:
“Amnesty
welcomes the Government's renewed commitment to clamp down on
trafficking as this sends a clear message that this vicious trade in
women will not be tolerated. However it has to ensure that the victims
who are discovered are given the appropriate care and support to help
them recover from their dreadful ordeal. Unfortunately the original
Operation Pentameter did not go far enough to achieve this. Amnesty
International is concerned that there remains a severe lack of funding
to provide adequate care for victims of trafficking. For example, there
are currently only 35 beds available for victims through the
government-funded London-based support and accommodation service, the
Poppy Project. Although an extra 10 outsourced spaces have been funded
during the course of Pentameter 2 this is
insufficient.”
It claims
that current capacity is,
“bulging at the seams and has only
got the capacity to take on eight more
women.”
It adds that the
Government have signed the Council of Europe convention on action
against trafficking in human beings, but they have yet to ratify the
treaty, and the appropriate measures for that are not in
place.
Mr.
Walker:
I shall try again. If someone is a victim of
trafficking, can they give legitimate consent for sex? If they are a
victim, it suggests that they have been brought here against their
will, they have been told that they must perform sex acts otherwise
they will not get their passports back and so forth. Can there ever be
consent in those circumstances?
Harry
Cohen:
If someone is a victim, no. But if someone is not a
victim, they can give consent, and they could still be trafficked. That
is where the definition of what trafficked means is far too broad at
the moment, and full of confusion, and there is a stereotype associated
with it. Some women will come for economic purposes and effectively do
give their consent. However, they could still fall under the broad
generic term of trafficking. That is why we need a more sophisticated
argument about what that is.
Very briefly,
my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who supports
the CARE proposals and the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for
Kettering, made a proposal when she was at the Home Office that two or
more women could practise and work from shared accommodation, which
would be safer for them. That proposal has been dropped by the
Government, and I do not know why. I do not think that it should have
been dropped. Again, will the Minister clarify the Government’s
position on
that?
The
Swedish model, which has been put before the Committee, has been
analysed by researcher Petra Ostergren. I will raise a couple of points
that she makes, mainly from the point of view of the sex workers
themselves. Hon. Members can take what she says or leave it. Of the sex
workers, who do not like the law, she states:
“They
feel discriminated against, endangered by the very laws that seek to
protect them, and they feel under severe emotional stress as a result
of the laws.”
She then
states:
“Most
of the women I have spoken to wish to be able to work together with
others. This is to ensure safety and to support each
other.”
She says that at
some point even if a few men get fined,
“the majority will
continue buying sexual services as
usual.”
She states that
it will be harder for the sex workers to assess the
clients.
“The
clients are more stressed and scared and negotiation outdoors must be
done in a more rapid manner. The likelihood of ending up with a
dangerous client is thereby greater...Sexworkers are now more
apprehensive about seeking help from the police when they have had
problems with an abusive
customer.”
She states
that
“previous informal
networks amongst the sexworkers have weakened. The result is that they
are no longer able to warn each other about dangerous clients or give
each other the same
support.”
She goes on to
state:
“Sexworkers
say that contrary to the official belief, they are not the victims of
their customers, but victims of the state...They also strongly
discourage other countries from adopting similar
legislation...They wish that prostitution in Sweden would be
legalized (or at least decriminalized), that there would be unions and
organizations for sexworkers, that the stigma around them would be
lifted.”
A
working group on the purchase of sexual services makes the point in a
report that prostitutes’ reliance on pimps has increased as a
result of prostitution being driven underground by that law. It
states:
“Dependence
on pimps has increased because someone is needed in the background to
arrange transport and new flats so that the women’s activity is
more difficult to discover and so that it will not attract the
attention of the
police.”
A
final point on the Swedish model comes from Don Kulick, the professor
of anthropology at New York university and Stockholm. He
states:
“The
impact of the law on sex workers has been of secondary concern to
promoters of the new policy, dogma and international reputation being
more important...Foreign sex workers were immediately deported and
therefore would not report
violence”.
That,
therefore, is the critique of the Swedish model. There are other recent
approaches that the Government could have taken into account. For
example, the symposium on women, human rights and prostitution produced
a report “From Morality to Rights: Debating Sex Work and Sexual
Exploitation”. That was organised by the Hallam Centre for
Community Justice at Sheffield Hallam university, and on the Bill it
said: “These
clauses attempt to offer help and support to women within a criminal
justice framework, and the Symposium would question whether this is the
most appropriate means of offering such help and whether a more robust
system of public health provision, accessed flexibly but voluntarily,
might not be a more appropriate way forward. This could avoid the
stigmatisation and criminalisation involved in court processes and open
the way to providing a more balanced social
response.”
Ms
Sally Keeble (Northampton, North) (Lab): May I draw my
hon. Friend’s attention to the multi-agency approach taken by
the police in Northamptonshire with their Swan project. The police work
closely with sex workers to protect their safety. They provide them
with health care; they help with family issues and also to find
alternative means of livelihood, which is the best way in which to get
them out of prostitution.
Harry
Cohen:
I agree absolutely. That is where the emphasis of
the Government’s policy should lie, and I am grateful to my hon.
Friend for making the point. The symposium met as recently as July this
year. Lots of people with expertise attended it from all walks of life.
To underpin the debate, it advocated the following
principles:
“reducing the
use of criminal law against women selling sex, specifically
prostitution-related law...moving away from the concept of
prostitution as a nuisance activity and allowing space for other ways
of seeing prostitution....exploring the use of non-criminal law to
strengthen protection rights...adopting a rights based framework
as a means of promoting inclusion...recognising that women make
complex choices and that they weigh up the positives as well as the
negatives from being involved in prostitution and in movement across
national borders...accepting that the voices of diverse women in
prostitution should be integral in determining the way
forward...rejecting the concept of ‘child
prostitute’ and making an explicit acknowledgement that what
such terms refer to are children and young people being abused and
sexually exploited...taking a different approach to ‘at
risk’ young people that does not categorise them as either
innocent victims (‘deserving) or active delinquents
(‘undeserving’) and that is able to recognise their
coping strategies—of which prostitution may be one—but is
also clear that all children and young people exploited through
prostitution deserve care and protection...understanding that
purchasing sex is a more normalised activity than is generally
acknowledged and is not restricted to a deviant minority of
men.”
Mr.
Coaker:
I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend. He
has referred to the demand side, too, so while he is talking about
young people, it is important to say that, under the Sexual Offences
Act 2003, we criminalised or made it illegal to purchase sex for
under-18s. We went some way towards meeting his concerns. It is
important to put that point on the
record.
Harry
Cohen:
I strongly support that, but the issues raised at
the symposium are worth the Government picking up on and making part of
the Bill. If we are considering the Swedish model, we should analyse
the results of the New Zealand model, which has an element of
decriminalisation.
I come now to
a report from the Safety First coalition, whose members reviewed the
situation after the murders in Ipswich. They met people, and the
question “What can be done to protect the women?” was
high on the agenda. It said that there needed to be
a
“rapid response to
reports of rape and other
violence”
and
“resources
and services to help women, who want to leave
prostitution”,
but
that
“the criminalisation
of consenting sex”
just
pushed prostitution underground, making women vulnerable to attack. The
coalition comprised members of the Church, nurses, doctors, probation
officers, drug reformers, residents in red light areas, sex workers,
members of sex work projects and many
others.
11.30
am
Safety
First stressed that going underground increased the risk of violence to
the women involved. Yesterday, I met representatives from Women Against
Rape and the English Collective of Prostitutes and I shall put points
they made to the Committee. They were saying that the
Government’s approach seems to be that of increased
criminalisation. They talked about the sentence for brothel keeping,
which has gone up from six months to seven years. They referred to the
case of a female brothel keeper who went to pick up a woman from the
airport and who was charged under the trafficking offence; there was
apparently no need to prove force or coercion in that case and she was
sent to prison as a result. They also said that the number of women in
prison has doubled over the last decade and that charges around
prostitution are a factor in that. In addition, they pointed out that
the fines have rocketed—£500 for a first offence, then
£1000—and many of the poorest prostitutes simply cannot
pay that; they end up in a cycle and go to prison.
The
Government talk about rehabilitation—at the start of the debate,
the Minister talked about rehabilitation instead of prosecution, which
was interesting. That is the right approach, but the clause does not
offer a realistic programme of rehabilitation—of getting women
off drugs. By the way, I think that the idea that all the women are
druggies is a stereotype; many do not do drugs. Again, some of them are
involved in prostitution for economic reasons. There is a danger in
working from such stereotypes.
We should
also hear from the police about what they are doing in this area. At
one of our evidence-taking sessions, I asked the police representative
whether they could distinguish between trafficked and non-trafficked
women; the answer was no, they could not. I understand that the police
have put a lot of resources into the matter and they say that they have
found about 80 women who have been trafficked. Can we have some
analysis of what they found and what the implications are, before we
legislate? We should at least know something of what the police are
saying and discuss it.
I know that
the measure is attractive to some of my colleagues, particularly among
my female colleagues. They say that it is right to punish the men. As I
said, my new clause ought to introduce an element of parity, so I am
taking that point on board, but I wonder where we are going on this. My
mind went back to when I was a
councillor and the case of a fellow councillor, who was a smashing man.
His wife, whom he loved dearly, died and he was absolutely shattered
for quite a while. I recall him telling me that, in his loneliness, he
had visited a prostitute. I am certainly not judgmental and I wonder
why we are being judgmental if it is a normal arrangement like that.
Why should a man in that position be punished? In a way, I
can answer my own question, because the new element is trafficking,
coercion and such like. However, in the normal run of things, even if
the woman has come from abroad, if she is not coerced and engages in
prostitution for economic reasons with her own consent, I do not think
that it is right for us to shape law that punishes men in similar
circumstances to that man.
I have a
briefing from Rev. Andrew Dotchin, who is a founder member of the
Safety First coalition in Ipswich and who is critical of the
Government’s approach. He writes:
“The
strategy, far from providing a solution, is in fact sowing the seeds
for further abuse and even murder of women... Under the new
strategy if women continue to work on the streets they will eventually
become subject to the inappropriate use of ASBOs, and the consequence
of this will be the further criminalisation of women leading to their
imprisonment and in many cases the taking of their children into care.
Some of Ipswich’s young victims lost hope when their children
were taken into care... Compelling people to undergo
rehabilitation only serves to institutionalise those being
rehabilitated and has very little chance of providing the happy ending
towards which proponents of the strategy
aspire.”
He then argues
for,
“a consistent
approach built around the protection and welfare of the person leading
to their ultimate reintegration into
society.”
I
do not want to go on too long, this is my final point. Earlier in the
Committee we had representations from the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust about
bailiffs. It has obtained a legal opinion on the clause, and I would
like to read it to the
Committee:
“Taken
as a whole, the proposals in the clauses and the accompanying schedule
are incredibly vague given the serious nature of the problem,
complexity of the issues and major infringements of civil
liberties—effectively a person may be locked up for 72 hours or
longer on remand for failure to attend a meeting without a reasonable
excuse. The Bill does not even seek to create regulation-making powers.
Although the use of regulations to create criminal and quasi-criminal
sanctions is scarcely acceptable, such regulations at least might have
provided some crucial details as to how such a scheme would work, given
the civil aspects of the measures and skeleton nature of the
provisions. Breaching an order will not be a criminal offence in
itself, but a person may be subject to the same sanctions as would
apply to the crime itself and potentially treated more harshly. It must
be asked how the aims of rehabilitation are to be achieved by pushing a
person further in the criminal justice system.
It is
possible to foresee these provisions being a bureaucratic and
administrative nightmare occasioned by uncertainties over procedure and
differences in approach between
supervisors”.
Whether
those supervisors will be properly trained is questioned. The opinion
continues:
“As
noted above, there must be obvious concerns about the qualifications of
the supervisor and their ability to act in such a role as well as the
way in which the objectives of the Bill are to be achieved.
Disturbingly,
there is no express requirement or duty in the Bill on anyone
implementing the orders to take into consideration the impact on family
life and anyone who resides with the offender, for example the children
of the offender. As a result there may be implications under article 8
of the European convention on
human rights... As the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust has repeatedly stated,
a warrant system in the magistrates’ court can easily fail to
provide protection of vulnerable persons and their
dependents.” These are
difficult and complex issues. If we are going to make legislation that
will be on the statue book for some years and criminalise a number of
people, we must take all the issues into account. Perhaps it would have
been better to look at the law on prostitution as an individual
subject, even in an individual Bill, rather than as a few clauses in a
complex Bill. I fear that we might be making a mistake with the clauses
as drafted, which could have repercussions in the
future.
Mr.
Walker:
I am finding common cause with the sisterhood on
the Labour Benches to whom the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead
referred. Like them, I am concerned about human trafficking and
particularly the trafficking of women.
Undoubtedly,
some women in eastern Europe make a conscious decision to travel to the
UK to pursue a career in prostitution, but I imagine that many women
from poor backgrounds and with low educational attainment are rounded
up by ruthless businessmen who deal in human misery. They are told that
a better life is waiting for them in England, but they are not told
what price they will have to pay to pursue that better life when they
get to England. On arrival in this country, I understand that many of
them are taken to brothels, where their passports are removed and the
grim realities of their career choice are explained to them; the
consequences to them if they do not pursue that career are made
clear.
That
is why I am concerned about consent, which seems a low hurdle to jump.
As Ministers will be aware and as we are all aware, 94 per cent. of
women who take a rape allegation to court fail to secure a conviction.
Those 94 per cent. are told, “You weren’t raped, after
all. You have made a mistake.” I am sure that many of them are
told that they somehow consented to the sexual activity. I am sure that
a
few—
The
Chairman:
Order. May I suggest that the hon. Gentleman
direct his remarks to prostitution, not rape? The clause is not about
rape, it is specifically about
prostitution.
Mr.
Walker:
I shall be guided by you, Sir Nicholas. I am
trying to ascertain the details of consent. A woman who has been
trafficked into the UK may have her passport removed and be threatened
with terrible consequences unless she works hard and earns a certain
amount of money in a certain period to buy her passport back. She is a
prostitute, and a customer—a punter, as they are
called—comes and sees her and offers to buy sex from her. She
consents and says, “Yes, I will have sex with you.” That
gentleman has sex with her and believes that he has secured consent,
but in my mind that is not consent, because she knows full well what
will happen if she does not say yes. That is why we must be careful
about the word “consent.”
If that
brothel is raided by the police a few months later and the girls there
are found to be being prostituted and working under the most appalling
conditions, and a book of clients is discovered, will those clients be
subject to criminal prosecution? Will their argument
that the ladies consented be upheld in a court of law? They may have
felt that they got consent at the time, but it was actually only
perceived, not real,
consent.
David
Howarth:
I am not sure what is the answer to the question
whether the police will proceed, but it is clear to most lawyers that
the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises is covered by section 75(1) of
the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which established a presumption against
consent if the complainant was unlawfully detained at the time of the
act and the accused was not. The hon. Gentleman is making perfectly
good sense, but I am not entirely clear about what change he wishes to
bring
about.
Mr.
Walker:
The Under-Secretary of State for the Home
Department said that people would not be prosecuted for having sex with
a prostitute—a trafficked woman from overseas—if consent
was secured. However, what we regard as consent is questionable and may
not be all that it seems.
I hope that
when we prosecute men for visiting prostitutes who turn out to have
been trafficked, we do not allow them to hide behind ignorance by
saying that they thought they had received consent to a sexual act. In
the eyes of the law, ignorance is no defence. I would like to plant in
the brains of men who visit prostitutes that they had better be damned
sure that the woman whom they are visiting is a prostitute by absolute,
100 per cent. choice, because if that lady turns out to have been
trafficked and there under any form of duress, they will face not a
small fine but a significant term in prison. Ultimately, they may well
have committed
rape.
11.45
am
Mr.
Heath:
We have already had a long and complex debate in
which various points of view have been eloquently expressed. As the
hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead said, this is a complex issue and
there is no convenient black and white area, unless one takes a rather
simplistic and naive view. I do not accuse the hon. Member for
Kettering of that, because he defended himself against it from the
start. However, unless one takes the view that one can eradicate
prostitution from a society, something that has been attempted for
thousands of years without success as far as I know in any society, no
amount of criminalisation or prohibition will prevent the activity from
happening.
There
is also the view, which is perfectly proper and in accord with much
legislative teaching, that prostitution is a sin—an inherently
bad activity that should be frowned upon and made more difficult by
society and its legal system. Again, our legal system has not
traditionally taken that position; it has traditionally not
criminalised prostitution and it is not illegal to be a prostitute. It
is illegal to do several things that are accessory to the activity of
being a prostitute, such as soliciting in the street, advertising, and
running a disorderly house—a brothel—as it was once
called. The view is perfectly proper and respectable, but it is not
consonant with the way in which the British legal system has approached
the issue hitherto.
There are
some serious issues associated with prostitution, and we have dealt
with them to some extent in the debate. We must range fairly widely,
however, because
of the context of the stand part debate and the substitute clauses
before us. We have already dealt with coercion—a serious issue
whereby there is reason to believe that a person has been coerced into
offering services as a prostitute. The law and society should take it
extremely seriously. There are several aspects to it, such as the
position of young people, which we raised during our debate about the
previous clause and my amendment to it. It is never right that somebody
exploits for the sexual advantage of others a person who is vulnerable
and powerless by virtue of their age, and that is why we take a strong
view about those who put a child in that position. There has
rightly been much debate about trafficked people, and we need to
reconsider the issue. I am strongly of the view that we need not only
to ratify the European convention on human trafficking, but to put our
law into a position in which it can be ratified. I listened carefully
to the Under-Secretary yesterday, but I am still none the wiser about
exactly what the Government intend to do to bring our law into
compliance with the treaty obligations that we have signed by virtue of
that convention. If the legislation before us is not the vehicle for
doing so, it is hard to see a more appropriate statutory vehicle for
ensuring that we can ratify the treaty. We need changes to our
immigration rules and the right to remain. Those issues may be
difficult for the Government for all sorts of reasons, but they need to
grasp them and deal with them in short order if we are to deal
effectively with
trafficking.
I
have some sympathy with those who say not only that knowingly using a
person who has been trafficked for sexual purposes, as a prostitute,
can be construed as an offence under present legislation but that we
need to consider wider applications of appropriate offences. To me, it
is a straight matter of accessory if the person involved knows the
situation. I stress to the hon. Member for Broxbourne that reasonable
knowledge is part of the equation. We cannot prosecute people at
will simply because they have been to a person who turns out
to have been trafficked for sexual purposes. There must be a reasonable
belief that the person was not capable of giving consent, as set out in
the Sexual Offences Act, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge
quoted.
The
same applies to a British citizen who is not a trafficked person, but
is literally coerced into being a prostitute by the threat or reality
of violence against them by the person controlling them. That, too, is
already a clear offence on the part of the pimp or whoever, but if we
can ensure that it is better prosecuted, understood and dealt with in
our legal system, we should do
so.
We
then move into areas that are not, strictly speaking, coercion, but
where there is a strong imperative that leads a person to enter into
prostitution. The key example is drugs. This is the one point on which
I disagree significantly with the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead,
who asserted that drugs were not often a driver. From my policing
experience, I must say that they are the major motor for a lot of
people who fall outside the other categories that we have discussed, or
even for those who are in them. If we can successfully get people off
highly addictive drugs, the need to fund their drug-taking activities,
or simply get the next fix from their pimp if that is they way they
find themselves
operating, is removed, and much of the imperative to commit the
high-value, acquisitive crime of prostitution
disappears.
Harry
Cohen:
I do not think that the difference between us is
stark. I do think that drugs are a key factor for many women on the
streets, for example, but when considering the law on prostitution we
should not consider that as the sole stereotype. What about the
prostitutes from the home counties who commute to London, do a
day’s work and go back out? They are not necessarily drug
addicts.
Mr.
Heath:
I entirely accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I
agree that we should not employ stereotypes, but it worried me slightly
that he dismissed the drugs argument, whereas I think that it is a
major
factor.
The
last driver that makes people wish to work as prostitutes is economic.
That covers a wide range of people, from those who simply cannot
subsist without an additional or main source of income and find
themselves driven into prostitution as a consequence, perhaps but not
necessarily to pay for a drug habit, to those at the other end of the
scale who see it as an effective way of earning rather a lot of money.
It would be hard to argue that such people had been coerced in any way;
they see it as an attractive career option in which they wish to
engage.
A
wide range of issues push people into prostitution. That is why it is
important to deal with the real mischief and ills of the system, which
are principally to do with children, trafficking and violence. In a
different way, the problems are about the availability of drugs and the
ability to rehabilitate those on drugs. It would be unhelpful to
generalise and say, “It is bad that this sort of thing happens
and we want it to stop.” I do not think that that would be an
effective solution.
There are
other problems with street prostitution with respect to people’s
behaviour, either when they are soliciting, or when their pimps are
soliciting and advertising their activities, or on the part of clients.
We should be aware of that behaviour. Legislation to deal with curb
crawling and soliciting is in place, but it is not particularly
effective. The legislation demands a great deal of police time and
activity, sometimes in ways that move the police officer close to the
role of agent provocateur—they might arrange for inappropriate
behaviour to take place to make an arrest. We should be firmer on such
behaviour because it causes the most offence to the general public.
More generalised rules on harassment and a more vigorous prosecution of
harassment cases would be entirely
appropriate.
We
should deal with another ill—the risk presented to prostitutes.
If we need an illustration of that, we need look no further than the
incidents in Ipswich to which the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead
referred. We should be aware that prostitutes take high and sometimes
lethal risks. They certainly risk becoming victims of violent
behaviour, rape, and assault and battery. If we arrange our legal
system to isolate prostitutes from support—the support could be
mutual or institutional—we will increase the risks of such
crimes. We need to have great regard to that. The more we remove the
activity from view, the more we put people’s
physical safety and, indeed, their lives, at risk. It is currently
visible to an extent, and people are not afraid to go to the
authorities, which are accountable, to report their suspicions or
actual incidents of alleged criminality.
David
Howarth:
Another point on the same lines that my hon.
Friend might wish to consider arises from the Kulick study, which the
hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead mentioned—it is also
mentioned in Belinda Brooks-Gordon’s book “The Price of
Sex: Prostitution, Policy and Society”—namely that in
Sweden, one of the effects of criminalising the customer was a drop in
price. Because the price dropped, prostitutes had to take more clients,
and were consequently more exposed to the risks that my hon. Friend
described.
Mr.
Heath:
There are a lot of question marks against the
experience of Sweden, and I do not think that we should take at face
value any initial results. We need to take care to look at every
consequence of Swedish policy decisions and, indeed, as has been said,
at other arrangements and their
effectiveness.
I
return finally to clause 72, which will introduce compulsory
rehabilitation sessions. I am all for rehabilitation—it is an
essential part of the provisions. I take “rehabilitation”
to mean more than some sort of reverse coercion; I take it to mean
genuine support to deal with the issues that women face—it is
usually women—including their economic situation or drug
addiction. I find it hard to reconcile what the Government are saying
here with the reduction in the number of drug treatment centres around
the country. We should be very worried about that, because this is a
significant part of the proposals.
12
noon
I
question whether compulsory rehabilitation under the model that the
Government propose will have the effect that they desire. This is not a
criticism of Ministers’ intentions, but a concern about the
outcome. I fear that it will result in the exact opposite of what the
Government want. First, it runs the risk of criminalising a large
number of prostitutes. Many will be unable or unwilling to meet the
terms of rehabilitation orders, for economic or other reasons, and will
find themselves in jail as a consequence. That is the way in which we
used to deal with prostitution, and it was ineffective then, yet we
are, apparently, to revisit it. That point was made expressly by Harry
Fletcher, the assistant general secretary of the National Association
of Probation Officers, who
said:
“These
new measures will turn the clock back by 25 years. Thousands of
prostitutes face the prospect of being jailed for up to 72 hours if
they fail to obey new court orders set out in the Criminal Justice and
Immigration Bill...Prostitutes are unlikely to attend compulsory
meetings when they know that there is no alternative source of
employment or income. It is highly unlikely that three sessions with a
trained counsellor will persuade any prostitutes to give up their
work.”
He concluded that
there will be a high breach rate and that a large number of people will
be criminalised—a situation that we thought we had turned away
from some time ago.
There are
other questions about the effectiveness of the measures, particularly
regarding who the counsellors and supervisors will be, what basic
training they will have, what regulation will cover their operations
and what sort of services they will offer. Will they be able to mandate
other services to provide support that is diagnosed as being required?
I return to drug rehabilitation; if that is a key component, as it
often is, will other providers of supervision or support be leapfrogged
in order to provide those services? If not, will there be long waiting
lists for rehabilitation? That would also result in the breach of
orders and mass
criminalisation.
This
policy is not mature and has not been properly thought through. I
return to the point that the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead made:
this is a huge, complicated and serious issue, and the measures are not
a sensible addendum to this complex Bill, which has many disparate
parts. The policy is well-meaning, but its likely consequences are
difficult to discern. I find it difficult to accept that it will have
the beneficial effect that Ministers hope for, and I fear that it will
have a damaging effect.
I must say to
the hon. Member for Kettering that I do not believe that criminalising
demand is the right way forward. I respect his reasons for proposing
his new clause, but I am not convinced that it would work. Indeed, it
would attack the reasons for concern that I have identified and which I
am anxious we should properly address if we are to ensure that
vulnerable people are protected from
harm.
Mr.
Burrowes:
We have had a wide-ranging debate, given that we
are dealing with a standard clause. I congratulate my hon. Friend the
Member for Kettering on the considered way in which he dealt with this
serious issue. I endorse his commendation of CARE and Chaste, and the
reference that the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead made to the
POPPY project, which plays a key role with other organisations that my
hon. Friend mentioned in seeking to deal with the sharp end of the
problem—trafficking—and to find accommodation and support
for those vulnerable members of our community who are preyed upon in
the area of prostitution. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for
Broxbourne for the passion that he brought to the debate. We must focus
on the seriousness of the issue and deal with the principles and
practice of the
clause.
On
practice, I invite the Minister to clarify the problem that the
Government are addressing. Is it that as many as 80,000 individuals are
involved in prostitution in the UK? Is the purpose of the clause to
reduce that number as a whole, or is that restricted to delivering an
overall reduction in the number involved in street-based prostitution?
Is the aim limited to street-based prostitution, or is there a general
desire to reduce the number of people involved in prostitution
generally? Is there a focus on the 70 per cent. who start in
prostitution as children or young teenagers, and where in the clause do
the Government seek to tackle that? Is the provision focused on those
95 per cent. involved in street-based prostitution who use class A
drugs? Where do the Government seek rehabilitation orders for those
with underlying concerns about family, physical abuse, domestic
violence, debt, family breakdown, and so on, which are often underlying
causes, and significant factors, that go hand in hand with drug
abuse?
The principles
must also be clarified. Where do the Government stand on the principles
of prostitution? Those principles were outlined by my hon. Friend the
Member for Kettering and, to some extent, by the hon. Member for Leyton
and Wanstead. Where do human rights principles stand in relation to
prostitution, and where do the Government stand on the principle, which
we all seek to uphold, that in general the human body should not be a
source of financial gain? That principle is generally upheld in British
society, but it seems to be thought of differently in relation to
prostitution. Surely the principle that the sale of human bodies and
their parts is degrading and incompatible with human dignity should
inform the debate in this area, as in other areas, when we are
concerned about the purchase of one person’s body by another for
sexual
pleasure.
Another
issue of principle relates to gender equality. Is that not also a
relevant principle in prostitution, when that is built inherently on an
imbalance of power? I seek to distinguish myself from the hon. Member
for Somerton and Frome. He spoke about vulnerability, which we all
coalesce around. However, any suggestion that this is an attractive
option is at the margin of the debate. We should deal with the
situation, in terms of statistics and principles, as an
issue—
Mr.
Walker:
Does my hon. Friend accept that most men who visit
prostitutes, for whatever reason, are in the main taking advantage of
very damaged
people?
Mr.
Burrowes:
Yes. By the very nature of the situation, when a
man goes into a brothel or seeks the trade of a street prostitute,
there is an imbalance of power between the bought and the buyer. Given
that the vast majority of prostitutes are women, we are concerned about
the principle of the commoditisation of women’s bodies. That
principle must underline our debate, and it is of concern to this and
other societies when gender inequality is deepened. That imbalance of
power can be seen in not only gender, but race. The individuals who are
involved in prostitution are predominantly from ethnic and disempowered
minorities, or from other countries. Indeed, 81 per cent. of
prostitutes are now coming from overseas. Tied in with that,
inevitably, is a greater risk of people being trafficked in the
circumstances about which we are all concerned. When the Government
tell us, as they often do, that they are upholding the principles of
race and gender equality, and human rights, those principles must
inform the debate, and clause 72 must deal with those issues
properly.
We have all
been talking about the protection of the vulnerable, and that must
properly inform our approach to prostitution. We have heard the
statistics, so I will not repeat them, but when we consider the large
number of people who come from those vulnerable communities, it is
important that the Government do not create incentives for the
exploitation of vulnerable individuals in our
society.
David
Howarth:
I am following what the hon. Gentleman is saying
very carefully. He talks about the creation of incentives by the
Government. I would like to hear his view of a case that I have come
across, which is that of failed asylum seekers who, because of the
Government’s policy of effectively putting such asylum seekers
into a state of destitution, are caused to go into prostitution. Does
he think that the Government are doing what he claims that society in
general should not do?
Mr.
Burrowes:
I appreciate your leave in permitting a
wide-ranging debate, Sir Nicholas. I will not go into the areas of
asylum and immigration policy at this stage, although there will be an
opportunity later in the Bill to deal with immigration to a certain
extent. However, there is a concern about statistics showing that it is
those who have come from overseas, whether they are asylum seekers or
others, who are, more often than not, the street and off-street
prostitutes. They are prone to vulnerability, as the hon. Gentleman
suggests. We therefore need to take the issue seriously.
I want to
focus on the issue of kerb crawling. The Government have, under
existing legislation, tried to criminalise supply and demand regarding
street prostitution. We must accept that the law is inadequate in
practice. I think of my experience, as a duty solicitor, of going to
Haringey magistrates court in the morning and visiting the cells, which
more often than not are filled up with street prostitutes. When one
opens the hatch, there is someone in the corner who is probably
withdrawing from class A drugs and in a state of
half-life—damaged, vulnerable and exploited. They come before
magistrates who, in a state of embarrassment, look at how they can
possibly not do anything and come up with a token financial penalty.
The prostitute then goes on their way and comes back the next week,
month or year. I concede that the Government are seeking to deal with
that by way of a rehabilitation order. I shall shortly address that in
more detail.
The other
side of the equation is the demand side, which is addressed by
prosecution on the basis of public nuisance and the problems caused in
the community. That seems to be the focus of attack in relation to
criminalisation. We therefore get the ludicrous situation that I have
seen in court when the driver who has stopped says in his defence that
he was simply asking for directions, which is treated with short shrift
by the magistrates—they have heard it all
before.
Once
the defence advocate has been unable to get any further in relation to
soliciting, the case moves on to the other aspect, which is where it
stands or falls, of whether the kerb crawling was causing a nuisance.
While one can argue that an area has been downgraded so much that it
would not be a nuisance to have prostitutes loitering on the street
corner, the local magistrates give that short shrift when they still
care passionately about that area, however much it might have gone
downhill in recent years. The issue of nuisance is the area for
enforcement and prosecution. That does not match the issues that have
arisen in today’s debate, when we have examined the whole
question of exploitation, trafficking and vulnerable people. There
seems to be a mismatch in terms of current law and practice that clause
72 does not properly
address.
Although
the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead might suggest that there are
many involved in this industry who are not deficient or deviant, this
is not a benign matter. While it may not be the top of your list of
television programmes to watch when you get home, Sir Nicholas,
“The Secret Diary of a Call Girl” is nevertheless worth
looking at. I hasten to add that the programme is on mainstream
television. I understand that it is very popular and that it features
Billie Piper and others— [
Interruption.
] I
am trying to give a reason for watching it. In many ways, the programme
portrays a glamorous side to the whole industry. As we have
heard, that is not supported by the statistics, or the experiences of
those who come before the courts and who are open to vulnerability and
exploitation. Abuse, coercion and lack of choice are very real problems
that the Government must
address. 12.15
pm
Looking
at the Government’s approach, and particularly at clause 72 and
the orders to promote rehabilitation for prostitutes, we must ask
whether we have the resources to match the Government’s desire
to rehabilitate street prostitutes and divert them away from their
trade. The Government are focusing on drug addiction, which is
certainly a key factor in street prostitution. However, where are the
resources to deal with that in terms of rehabilitation?
There are 115
residential rehabilitation services in England with 2,441 beds.
However, for women and single parents with children—which will
be the case for many street prostitutes—there are just nine
services that provide 143 beds. The provision is sparse, poor and
reliant on the third sector, which often does not receive the funding
assistance required.
Government
measures to address the treatment of drug addicts predominantly involve
providing a substitute drug. Some £110 million is spent on
substitute prescriptions, predominantly for methadone, even though we
know that that might not, indeed often does not, lead to recovery from
addiction—it might lead to a hundred or so of those people a
year moving towards full recovery from addiction. Nevertheless, one has
to question whether the rehabilitation order will provide the true drug
rehabilitation leading to recovery that is required.
If there were resources to match the
rehabilitation order that could provide three meetings and encourage
rehabilitation by way of methadone prescriptions, there would still be
concern that people—predominantly women—would effectively
be left to a half-life of addiction to methadone, which is more
addictive than heroin and leads to great problems. The difficulty is
whether the orders will deal with the heart of the problem, which is
not just addiction, but child abuse, family breakdown, domestic
violence and debt.
There is a
reference in the clause to a “supervisor”. However, there
appears to be no information about the person who will perform the role
of supervisor, other than a broad test of suitability for the role. I
invite the Minister to provide details of who the supervisor is
intended to be, and whether there needs to be more specific information
and guidance in the Bill. In proposed section 1(2A) of the Street
Offences Act 1959, reference is made to “the supervisor”
or,
“such other person
as the supervisor may direct.”
It is unclear who that person is, or
whether it is the supervisor or the courts that will determine the
suitability to act.
The other
question for the Minister is who will supervise and regulate the
supervisors. There does not seem to be much in the Bill that deals with
the suitability of a person to act as a supervisor. Finally, there are
references in the provision to three meetings. What is the magic focus
of that number of meetings? Why are three meetings prescribed for the
rehabilitation order? Why not more?
Why must they take place within a six-month period? The reality is that
the Government are seeking to deal with the situation by way of trying
to divert street prostitutes away from their trade and to deal with
those who are addicted to drugs. I know from
many clients in such a predicament that they are chaotic. They have
limited ability to keep appointments, and it is fair to say that their
ability to attend three meetings in six months might be limited. The
result of that—no doubt we will be able to debate the sanction
in more detail under schedule 14—will be enforcement and
detention for up to 72 hours. We must ask whether the Government are
realistic in their approach on the rehabilitation
order.
I
move briefly on to new clauses 8 and 22. Both, in many ways, have the
honourable intention of wanting to focus on trafficking, but they come
at that from different angles. I welcome very much the context set out
by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering, which is the concern that
more than 4,000 women are coming into the UK as a result of
trafficking. We need to address the issue of demand. Should we be
restricted to the issue of kerb crawling, or should we look more
seriously at how to reduce the number of women going into prostitution
per se, as opposed to just street
prostitution?
It
is welcome that we can use the debate to focus on the criminality of
the pimp, the brothel owner, and those who traffic women. We need to
look at ways in which they can be exited from the industry, rather than
taking the limited and perhaps unrealistic approach of seeking just to
rehabilitate street prostitutes.
The concern
raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering was very well put.
There have been references to the Swedish model. However, it must be
made clear—we can debate different countries’ examples at
length—that despite the positive approach of Sweden, it appears
from studies that it is subject to less trafficking than its
neighbouring countries. An EU study of countries published in 2005
suggested that the number of people trafficked per 100,000 of
population was lower in Sweden than in any other country in the study,
except the Czech Republic.
David
Howarth:
The problem with such studies is that they do not
take into account the problems of reporting. When prostitution is made
illegal from the client’s point of view, the flow of witnesses
in trafficking cases may well decline, so that comparison might not
show what the hon. Gentleman thinks that it
does.
Mr.
Burrowes:
The concern about the clause and our
whole approach to the debate about prostitution is one of “out
of sight, out of mind”. People think that we can deal with the
street prostitutes who are seen to be causing a nuisance in our
communities, but that we are not quite sure about how to deal with
those who are out of mind, so we do not. The debate initiated by new
clause 8 is very helpful because it brings to the fore the women who
are trafficked, who are often out of sight yet are already covertly
exploited. We need to look at ways, whether through legislation or
otherwise, in which we can try to bring them to
light.
It
is accepted that there may well be some flaws in that survey, but we
need to work harder to bring this growing problem to light in our
communities. The
council in Enfield has been the first to carry out a study of the whole
area of trafficking, across the realms of different forms of
trafficking, to try to bring what is happening to light. There was a
recent case involving a Lithuanian who had been trafficked when the
brothel was prosecuted in a very limited way. That highlighted to
people in Enfield, as much as elsewhere, that this is an issue on our
doorstep that cannot be out of sight and out of
mind. As
honourable as the intentions behind the new clause are, my concern is
how we could reconcile it with the current offence of loitering or
soliciting. How could the police use their discretion to criminalise
the demand but not the supply? That issue needs further
consideration.
In
new clause 22, it is accepted that there is a proper focus on the
prostitute who is being trafficked. It states that
“any person who has paid for the
sexual services of a prostitute who has been
trafficked”
could be
required to attend three meetings. Looking at the details, however,
what would be addressed at those meetings, and what measures would be
put in place to ensure that a person ceased to engage in such conduct?
I am not sure how realistic and practical those aims would
be.
Away from
legislation, I suggest that there is a great need for a cultural
change. We need to follow the Swedish approach in relation to their
campaigning and how they have sought, through a very effective public
awareness campaign, to challenge men’s attitudes. My hon. Friend
the Member for Broxbourne made a similar point when he talked about
men’s attitudes towards purchasing
sex.
Mr.
Walker:
Does my hon. Friend accept that no solution to
prostitution will be perfect and answer all questions? However, there
is no harm in public life in aspiring to make things
better.
Mr.
Burrowes:
Absolutely. Without wanting to range too
widely, we have the Olympics coming up in which concern has been
expressed by the POPPY project and Chaste about the potential problems
of prostitution and trafficked women. We should take the excellent
opportunity of the Olympics, when people are looking at this country
and at London in particular, to take the lead in an awareness campaign
in relation to this whole area of prostitution.
I would like
the Government to ensure that proper referral systems are in place.
There are now statistics on trafficked women within the criminal
justice system, but we need to go further and have a proactive approach
in terms of referrals at police stations, council buildings and other
areas. We need to know the extent of the problem, and to ensure that
adequate support mechanisms are in place for victims, including the
safe houses that Chaste and POPPY seek to provide. I understand that
those specifications would enable the Government finally to ratify the
convention. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say
about those particular
details.
I
welcome the debate, especially the contribution from my hon. Friend the
Member for Kettering. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s
reply.
Mr.
Coaker:
We have had an extremely interesting and
wide-ranging debate, as it needs to be, ranging from the issue of
prostitution to the interaction between that and the whole area of
trafficking, which, in my view, has changed the nature of the debate.
What we were talking about before mainly concerned street-based
prostitution with some off-street brothels. Street prostitution has now
expanded to include the involvement of women from overseas in
off-street work. That has raised real concerns, which were first
brought to my attention many years ago by my hon. Friend the Member for
Northampton, North. She will not remember this, but almost 10 years
ago, she discussed her concerns about what was going on in some of the
massage parlours and brothels in Northampton. To be honest, some of
today’s debate has really been about trafficking, which we would
not have debated a few years ago. We would not have expected to be in
the House of Commons in 2007 talking about modern day slavery.
Effectively, we are talking about not just women who are chained, but
women who are deceived. The important point that the hon. Member for
Broxbourne made was that people can be deceived. Frankly, many of the
people who are trafficked have been deceived, rather than locked up,
chained and brought over
here.
12.30
pm
Important
as all the other issues are—of course they are
important—the issue of trafficking has produced a new sense of
urgency and, frankly, it has challenged some opinions that we might
have.
I
agree with the point that sometimes some of these issues are difficult
to wave a magic wand at, to solve overnight, and to change in a way
that we would all want them to change by tomorrow morning. However,
that should not deter us from the fact that we can make a
difference—and do make a difference. While there might be a
clash of opinion in debate, we should always seek to change public
policy in a way that will benefit people, not only in our
constituencies but throughout the country. To a very great extent, all
the contributions that have been made by members of the Committee have
done
that.
In
both my opening remarks and in the more formal part of my speech, I
shall seek to address many of the points raised by hon.
Members.
Mr.
Coaker:
I will ask the hon. Gentleman if he would not mind
being patient, because I will seek to address his points at the end of
my remarks. I hope he will forgive me; I have not forgotten him and I
will get to his points later. Indeed, what I will say then will also
address some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Enfield,
Southgate, particularly the points about trafficking and what is being
done to combat it. I shall make some general comments, but I will also
make some specific
points.
I
would like to address the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member
for Leyton and Wanstead. I do not agree with all his points, but the
fact that he challenges all of us to think about whether these
provisions are right is an important aspect of what we are
doing.
I would just
like to say that we do not want people to go to prison for this
offence. That is why we have introduced this new measure, in
particular, and it is one reason why we are introducing the new
rehabilitation order.
On the issue
of trafficked women and its interaction with immigration, which my hon.
Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead raised, we are moving towards
a position where, if somebody is identified as a victim of trafficking,
they will not be subject to immigration rules. That is the point that
we want to reach. There is an awful lot tied up with reaching that
point, because part of the process is ensuring that—the hon.
Member for Enfield, Southgate raised this issue—we set up a
national referral mechanism so that people can be referred to a central
point where we know that they will be identified in a credible and
authentic way as victims of trafficking.
I know that
my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead was not suggesting
this, but we cannot have a situation whereby people just say that they
are trafficked. There must be a process of identification. That process
must be fair and we must assume that, once people have been through it,
they are victims. We do not want to see victims of trafficking being
subject to immigration rules. We are working on that process, and it is
all part of our working towards a position in which we can ratify the
Council of Europe convention.
The
Government will ratify that convention—there is absolutely no
doubt about that—and that will be supported by everybody in our
Parliament. The debatable point is this: do we ratify the convention
prior to knowing that all the processes and procedures are in place,
such as the national referral mechanism that we need, or do we put
those procedures in place in order to ratify the convention? We want to
complete the process of ratification as quickly as possible. Some
people say that if we were to ratify, we would put those procedures in
place more quickly. There is no difference between all of us in trying
to achieve the process of ratification.
Hon. Members,
including my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead, will know
that the strategy that we have on trafficking involves, first,
preventing it happening to begin with. There is a huge amount of work
going on in source countries to try to raise awareness of the problem.
Secondly, we aim to enforce the law in this country. Indeed, we have
changed the law. It was said on the Floor of the House yesterday that
there have been 67 prosecutions under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. We
want more to take place. We need to develop our work—this is
where the Government accept that we need to do more—on the
protection of victims and the assistance given to them. There is no
question about that; we have accepted it and we are developing our
work.
I
defer to the barristers, lawyers and solicitors present—in the
sense of the law, anyway—but I strongly believe that when
somebody knowingly has sex with a trafficked woman and there is no
consent, that is rape. I thought that the hon. Member for
Cambridge—he will intervene if I get this wrong—made the
point well that freely given consent is the key. Somebody can be
frightened of violence and fearful of what may happen to them, and the
court might choose to regard that as suggesting that consent was not
freely given.
The issues are
complex. A general point was made about rape, which is difficult
prosecuting territory, as I understand it from people who prosecute it
and want to raise the number of people prosecuted. The situation is no
doubt similar when prosecuting people in the sphere of prostitution. We
all need to understand that more people should be prosecuted. That is
what we want, and we need to work together to understand how it can
happen. I take the point that we need to examine further section 4 of
the 2003 Act, which the hon. Member for Cambridge mentioned, to see
whether we can use it to develop our work. I shall do
that.
Mr.
Heath:
Have there been any prosecutions of
“respectable” newspapers and magazines for advertisements
that can be construed as relating to procuring the services of
trafficked persons—the sort of thing that was illustrated in the
intervention in the House yesterday? Many of us feel that some
newspapers and magazines are happy to preach from a moral standpoint
while taking revenue from the proceeds of trafficked
women.
Mr.
Coaker:
The answer to that is no. As far as I aware, there
have been no such prosecutions, as there is not a specific offence on
that matter. To reiterate the point that I made yesterday in the House,
I have met the Leader of the House and the Solicitor-General about
this. I cannot remember all the other people who were present, but the
Newspaper Society and the Advertising Association were represented. We
talked to them about that very issue, and we shall return to see
whether they have done some of the things that they said they would do
and whether they are applying the guidance and codes of practice that
are in place.
I say to the
hon. Gentleman that we certainly need to consider the matter. There is
no specific offence at the moment, but the matter is of concern not
only to him, but to all members of the Committee. Frankly, some of the
adverts that appear in newspapers should concern us all. My
recollection is that one of the raids that took place under Pentameter
1 was done as a result of intelligence gleaned from adverts. That backs
up the hon. Gentleman’s point that there is an issue of concern
to consider. We have gone down the voluntary route and are talking to
various people to see what more can be done, but we need to keep the
matter under
review.
Mr.
Walker:
Like the Minister, I think that this has been an
excellent debate. We have discussed the issues without personal
rancour, which is a refreshing thing to do in the House of
Commons.
I
am a little concerned about the fact that somebody must
“knowingly” have had sex with a trafficked woman. Someone
going to a brothel populated by eastern Europeans might or might not
know whether those people were trafficked, but there is a chance that
they were. If someone puts himself in that position, he should make
absolutely sure that they are not trafficked. If he does not know, he
should not be there, because he would face prosecution if he was
caught.
Mr.
Coaker:
As a non-lawyer, I do not think that people can be
prosecuted on the basis of chance: intent has to be
proved.
Mr.
Burrowes:
Legislation has sought to move, or at least
limit, the occasions relating to intent when dealing with sexual
intercourse with a minor. Someone’s defence may once have been
that they did not know that the other person was under age, but the
Government, through legislation, have sought to make it an offence for
someone to have sex with a minor, regardless of whether they knew that
that person was a minor, and their saying so may not afford them a
defence. I invite Ministers to reflect on whether there could be a
similar situation in respect of someone who enters a brothel and has
sexual intercourse with a trafficked person, not knowing that that
person was
trafficked.
Mr.
Coaker:
I will reflect on that. However, with respect to
rape, there needs to be no consent and no reasonable belief in consent.
[Interruption.] I get there in the end. I will buy a wig at some
point. Consent is important and we will need to consider it in respect
of some of my later points, if hon. Members will be
patient.
My
hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead mentioned changing the
definition of a brothel. We consulted on that, but there was huge
opposition to changing the rules to make them refer to two or more
people. There was big opposition to such change, from the public and
the police, and so on. We are reflecting on that and will
perhaps be looking to consult again. That has not been
forgotten; it is just that there was no consensus about trying to move
forward on
it.
I
agree with the important point that my hon. Friend the Member for
Northampton, North made about multi-agency working and people coming
together. That is necessary and something that we need to
do.
In
respect of the rehabilitation orders, which the hon. Member for
Somerton and Frome mentioned, the only current option is a fine.
Although the hon. Gentleman was not saying so, it is important for
there to be the option of a fine or a rehabilitation order. We have
been consulting on that measure since 2004. The hon. Gentleman will
know that among its supporters were the Association of Chief Police
Officers, the National Christian Alliance on Prostitution, the
Magistrates’ Association, the Justices’ Clerks’
Society and the Local Government Association. A considerable number of
people supported
it.
The
hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate will know that we have concentrated
on street prostitution in the new strategy that we introduced 18 months
or so ago. Obviously, our broader strategy is trying to deal with
prevention and under-18s, and so on. However, there is particular
emphasis, as a result of the consultation, on tackling kerb crawling
and the nuisance that was being caused and trying to support women out
of prostitution. We would like to see more support and development of
services in local areas. That will be an important area of work for
local authorities and will be part of their local area
agreements.
The
clause would amend the Street Offences Act 1959 to introduce a new
penalty for those convicted of loitering or soliciting for the purpose
of prostitution. The Government published a co-ordinated strategy on
prostitution in January 2006, which recognises that women and men
involved in street prostitution are in need of support to help them
develop routes out and
envisages that every opportunity will be taken to signpost those
involved towards dedicated services. Wherever possible, that should be
done voluntarily, but where persistent involvement makes some coercion
necessary, the strategy encourages diversion from the criminal justice
system into treatment, through a conditional caution or a
prostitution-specific court diversion
scheme. Those
involved in street prostitution are often significantly socially
excluded and disengaged from support services, often as a result of
drug addiction. The complex issues that they face and their chaotic
lives mean that routes out of prostitution will necessarily be slow and
may involve a number of relapses. Many will refuse help that is freely
volunteered and may exhaust the opportunities available for diversion
from the criminal justice system before a route out is
taken.
Mr.
Hollobone:
What is the Home Office’s official view
on the reasons why prostitutes are prostitutes? There is a difference
of opinion between those of us who think that most prostitutes are drug
dependent, and the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead who believes
that a lot of people are prostitutes for economic
reasons.
12.45
pm
Mr.
Coaker:
Our view is that the majority of people based in
street prostitution have a drug addiction problem. The issue is much
more complex in respect of off-street prostitution. I am generalising.
I am not saying that drug addition applies to everyone on the
street.
The
strategy acknowledges that the law on loitering or soliciting requires
reform for it to be fit for purpose. The offence of loitering or
soliciting, which is currently punishable by way of a fine, is
frequently described as a revolving door, so we wanted to introduce an
alternative to a fine, such as the rehabilitative penalty. The new
orders will not be highly prescriptive, nor will the requirements be
particularly onerous, given the low-level nature of the offence.
However, they will require offenders to attend three sessions with a
supervisor in order to begin to deal with the reasons behind their
involvement in
prostitution.
The
clause does not specify who can or should perform the role of
supervisor, only that they should seem to the court to have the
necessary qualifications or experience to help the offender make best
use of the meetings to address the causes of their offending and find
ways in which to stop it. In practice, we expect that role to be
performed by someone based in a dedicated support project and already
working with those involved in prostitution, but there could be others.
Although the courts will have the discretion as to whom is considered
appropriate and capable of carrying out the role, guidance will say
very clearly that those with the most relevant skills will already be
working in specialist projects. That partly answers the question of the
hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate. There are numerous advantages in
using existing project workers to act as supervisors, not least the
fact that many might continue to be in contact with the individual long
after the order has been
completed.
Clause
72 also introduces schedule 14, which makes further provisions about
the new order, including the consequences of breach and the mechanism
for amendment.
New clause 8 would make it an offence to pay for the sexual services of
any person, whether that activity takes place on or off street and
whatever the relationship between the people involved. It would
introduce a maximum penalty for the offence of six months’
imprisonment or a fine not exceeding £5,000, upon
conviction. As
the hon. Member for Kettering will know, the Government undertook a
comprehensive review of the legal framework in relation to prostitution
as part of the paying the price consultation in 2004. That review
specifically considered the merits of introducing an offence to
criminalise those who pay for, or offer to pay for, sex along the lines
of the new clause and the approach adopted in
Sweden.
The
results of that consultation contributed to the development of the
current co-ordinated prostitution strategy, which was widely welcomed
by stakeholders as being a positive and constructive way forward. It is
being rolled out at a national and local level. Although the strategy
rejected the option of introducing a specific offence of paying for
sex, it supported the principles of the Swedish model, focusing on the
areas of prostitution where exploitation and violence are commonplace,
and where the existence of a sex trade is a nuisance for local
communities.
We
are clear that, where street sex markets exist, enforcement activity
should be directed at those creating the demand for
prostitution—the kerb crawlers and punters on foot. We already
have offences that enable the police to deal effectively with anyone
buying or attempting to buy sex from someone on the street, and believe
that robust enforcement and awareness-raising can and does have an
impact on attitudes and
behaviour.
As
for off-street prostitution, the strategy states that the demand for
commercial sex from under-18s or individuals trafficked to this country
is completely unacceptable. We have specific offences that cover paying
for the sexual services of a child. It is illegal. Rape remains the
appropriate offence with which to prosecute those who pay for sex with
an individual who does not consent.
New clause 22
would introduce a rehabilitative order similar to those under clause
72. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead will
concede that I have dealt with some of the matters that have been
raised. While we have criminal offences covering kerb crawling, paying
for the sexual services of a child and arranging or facilitating
trafficking for sexual exploitation, paying for the sexual services of
a prostitute who has been trafficked is not a specific criminal
offence, although that is something that we are considering. It would
therefore be unfeasible to introduce a rehabilitative order for that
behaviour.
I come now to
the point mentioned by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate and
others. We have some concerns about a generic offence that criminalises
paying for sex, as adopted in Sweden. Most notably, to pick up on the
point made by the hon. Member for Cambridge and his hon. Friend the
Member for Somerton and Frome, we have concerns about the impact that
such a move might have on those involved in selling sex and their
vulnerability to exploitation and violence.
I am also
concerned that criminalising all sex buyers could force some of those
involved in selling sex to
continue to do so but to adopt more covert practices. That would drive
it underground and create a more hidden sex market, making it
increasingly difficult for support services and enforcement agencies to
identify and make contact with those individuals. That could expose
them to heightened violence, exploitation and unsafe sexual practice.
As the hon. Member for Cambridge said, it is worrying that, since that
offence was introduced advertising on the internet, for example, has
increased. I recognise
that there is considerable support for us to do more to tackle the
demand for prostitution and trafficking. I would not wish to rule out
possible changes for the future. We need to look more closely at the
experience of other jurisdictions, such as Sweden, that adopt
alternative approaches to see how we might strengthen our approach to
tackling demand in England and Wales.
Therefore, I
intend to visit Sweden—and the Netherlands,
incidentally—early next year. Ministerial colleagues will be
coming with me. We will find out more about how the new offence is
working—I think that that was the point made by Liberal Democrat
Members—gather evidence and see the impact that the change of
policy has had on those involved in prostitution. That will be part of
a longer term piece of work to consider what more we can do to tackle
the demand for prostitution and trafficking. We expect it to take about
six months.
Let me now
deal with some of the comments raised by hon. Members on both sides. We
intend to look at the demand and at other aspects related to
prostitution. That will start with the visit that I will make with
ministerial colleagues early in the new year. In particular, we want to
try to gather evidence so that we can answer some of the points about
whether the measure has made a difference, driven the problem
underground, sent it into other countries or whatever else. The
research is limited and the research that has been received is mixed.
We need to clarify what is going on.
Until then,
our message is clear. Sex with a person who does not consent, whether
an individual has paid for it or not, is rape. That remains the
appropriate offence with which to prosecute in such circumstances. We
also have offences in place to tackle the specific problems of street
prostitution, paying for sex with under-18s and trafficking. I ask hon.
Members to support clause 72, and hope that given what I have said hon.
Members will not press their new clauses at the appropriate
time.
Question
put and agreed to.
Clause
72
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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