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I know that other hon. Members can speak about those issues, based on the experience and views of women involved in prostitution and of those involved in human rights.
I want to consider the provisions on rape, which, again, the Government have got wrong. I think that the Government accept that it is impossible to get a conviction for rape in the context of prostitution. However, they cannot have it both ways: they cannot say that because rape happens even though there are no prosecutions, we should have a strict liability offence with a low penalty, while also claiming that we can still prosecute for rape in those hard cases. The position is clear: it is impossible to get a conviction for rape in the context of prostitution. I wish it were not so, and that rape conviction rates were higher, but that is a problem in cases of rape outside the context of prostitution, and the Government have provided no evidence of prosecutions, let alone convictions, within that context. That leaves a gap. When someone knowingly has sex with a person who is not freely consenting in the context of prostitution, that should be punished by imprisonment. New clause 25 would rightly provide for that.
Dr. Harris: Of course I shall give way to the hon. Lady, who has strong views and has always been willing to have a proper exchange of views on such matters.
Fiona Mactaggart: The hon. Gentleman describes the existing situation, whereby men who rape prostituted women too often act with impunity. Does he realise that Cleveland police authority, which has the highest conviction rate for rape—twice the average rate of other police authorities—is also the most active in protecting prostituted women and tackling kerb crawling? Is he aware that it is possible to prosecute effectively if police and prosecution authorities work together to protect prostituted women? Cleveland has begun to show that, but it is not being done elsewhere in the country.
Dr. Harris: The hon. Lady’s comments would be evidence for the Government’s proposals if a causative association could be shown between the further criminalisation of prostitution and what she describes as an improved success rate for rape convictions. However, even she does not make the direct association— [Interruption.] I am sorry—I did not hear what she said just then; I shall give way to her again shortly, but I want to make my point clear. Policing prostitution as she described cannot be said to cause higher rates of conviction for rape. She states ex cathedra—I would like to see the published evidence—that there is such an association. Those on our side of the argument are talking about clear evidence of driving women away from the police. Making men more furtive will make women more vulnerable.
Fiona Mactaggart:
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there has been no research on causation. But let me offer him two facts. First, approximately 20 per cent. of all the prosecutions for kerb crawling in the country happen in Cleveland. Secondly, Cleveland police authority has double the average success rate, and a much higher success rate than the nearest police service, for rape prosecution. That authority takes seriously the violence
against women that is inherent in prostitution. I believe that, as a result—though no study has been funded and completed—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. May I say to the hon. Lady, and the House generally, that consideration of this group finishes at 9 o’clock and that many hon. Members are trying to catch my eye? The hon. Gentleman who has the Floor has been speaking for a long time. Interventions are helpful to the debate, but deny other hon. Members the opportunity to speak, so perhaps hon. Members will bear that in mind.
Dr. Harris: Perhaps it will be best if I do not take any more interventions.
I have the utmost respect for the way in which the hon. Lady has put her case on this matter in the past few months. However, all I can say about her comments is that she is entitled to her own opinions, but not to her own facts. We need evidence-based policy, which seeks to protect women and punish the real offenders.
New clause 25 would make it an offence for a person to make or promise payment, or use the sexual services of a prostitute, when he knows or ought to know that the woman essentially does not consent. Associated with that is a prison sentence, which is the proper penalty befitting the offence of deliberately having sex with someone who does not consent, or of being reckless—the new clause has a wide recklessness test—of that fact. In the worst cases a long prison sentence can be expected, because it cannot be right for such an offence to be greeted with a fine.
The fundamental difference between us is, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights makes clear, that the Government’s approach has no evidence to back up its effectiveness. It is not sufficiently clear for users to know when they are committing an offence, and it will make matters worse for the prostitutes because the men will be driven to seek out the exchange of money for services in a place where they will be less likely to be detected.
Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab) rose—
Dr. Harris: I have nearly come to the end of my speech, but I shall give way twice before concluding.
Keith Vaz: I am happy to accept “I have nearly come to the end of my speech.”
Philip Davies: The new clause specifically states that a person commits an offence when they know or “ought to know” that somebody is “the victim of trafficking” and so on. What does the hon. Gentleman mean by “ought to know”? I am not entirely sure what that means.
Dr. Harris: “Ought to know” is a recklessness test, which basically means that if the court decides that it is reasonable that the person should have known, given the information in front of him, that the other person was not consenting—that the person was controlled, or whatever definition we use—he would be committing an offence. I hope that I have answered the question.
Now I shall respond to the intervention by the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). He is right: the case has been made for new clauses 4 and 25, and I hope that the House will support them both.
Fiona Mactaggart: Given that so many hon. Members wish to speak, I aim to be brief. I want to speak about amendment (a) to amendment 47, amendment (a) to amendment 51 and amendments 215 and 216. Some are amendments to the amendments that the Home Secretary tabled to clause 13.
Earlier, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) reminded us of what, for many of us, is the trigger for the debate: the violence that is inherent in prostitution, and the cause of the fact that prostituted women are, according to the British Medical Journal, 40 times as likely to die a violent death as other women.
The Government’s proposal for a strict liability offence, which targets demand for prostitution, is based on clear evidence from other European countries that such an offence can reduce trafficking and also the demand for prostitution. For example, in Sweden, the number of men who pay for sex has reduced in the time that that country has had a stricter but comparable offence, from 13.6 per cent. to below 8 per cent. On the whole, that 8 per cent. pays for sex outside Sweden. Other Nordic countries have followed Sweden, including Norway. Despite being so much smaller than Sweden, it had a massively larger population of women who were trafficked for sexual purposes. Norway perceived that as a serious human rights problem, which it had to address. Finland has a slightly half-hearted version of the offence, with few prosecutions, although more have begun to be conducted.
Countries that have taken the opposite approach, such as the Netherlands, regret it and have experienced the growth of criminality and abuse that is inherent in prostitution.
It is also important to realise that public opinion on the issue can follow leadership. The Swedish law has become more popular since it was introduced. When the Minister for Women and Equality commissioned research in the United Kingdom into whether people thought it right to make it illegal to pay for sexual services, to start with, only a third thought so. When there was a prompt and people were asked whether such a law should be part of a campaign to reduce trafficking and exploitation, a clear majority of respondents supported it. That is why, despite being profoundly attracted by the Swedish approach, I felt it right to support the Home Secretary’s more limited definition, which says that there should be a strict liability offence of paying for the sexual services of someone who is controlled for gain.
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However, I am anxious that the further amendments that my right hon. Friend has tabled will limit the proposed offence more than I believe she intends to. I think it certain that the exploited women of Ipswich would not be covered by the language used in amendment 47, which refers to persons subjected to “force, deception or threats”. We are talking about vulnerable young women whose vulnerability is exploited, sometimes with violence, but sometimes with profound emotional blackmail and with psychological pressure
and force. If we are to keep to the original intention of the Bill, it is essential that we ensure that the—I think inadvertent—over-narrowing that is inherent in the Government’s amendments is overcome.
That is why I have proposed amendments to the Government’s amendments. In doing so, I have used language from other legislation. Although there are profound disagreements between the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) and me, for example, everybody in the House is absolutely united in wanting to protect women who are controlled, exploited, deceived, psychologically threatened and so on. My amendments, which use language drawn from the UN protocol on trafficking and from our legislation on forced marriages, would have the effect of including all the persons whom we wish to include. However, my amendments would do that without causing the problem caused by the original language, whereby, for example, a maid or a landlord could be described as controlling a prostitute or woman for gain. I always denied that that problem, which is portrayed as a common one, existed, but one has to face it when one has lost an argument.
The language that I have included says, first, that force should include psychological threats. That is language drawn straight from the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007. Secondly, I have referred to the exploitation of a person’s vulnerability. That language is drawn from article 3 of the UN protocol on trafficking, which says:
“‘Trafficking in persons’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force”—
that is similar language to the Home Secretary’s amendment 47—
“or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception”—
again, that phrase is used in the Home Secretary’s amendment—
“of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person”.
In fact, my amendments are still narrower than the international definition of trafficking. Nevertheless, I believe that they incorporate the fundamental issues.
I have talked to Home Office Ministers about that. I think that we are on the same page, but we need to start writing on it. Let us be clear: we are talking about an offence that will be tried in the magistrates court. It rightly carries a low penalty, and the reason is that the aim is to deter demand and ensure that those who would seek to pay an exploited woman for sex should obey the rule for any buyer anywhere: caveat emptor—buyer beware—and take care. For example, if one of our constituents came to us and said, “I bought this bottle of perfume from a table outside the shops, but it doesn’t smell of anything, even though it says ‘Dior’ on the label,” we would all be inclined to say, “Well, you have avoided the protection that you might have had if you’d gone into Debenhams and bought your perfume from there.” The situation that we are talking about is exactly the same.
Lynne Jones:
My hon. Friend is arguing that the Government’s proposals as amended by her would help to keep women safe and help victims of trafficking. Could she cite evidence that the laws in Sweden have been effective in doing that? She gave no information on
that point. Have the laws in the countries that she has named been subject to reviews of their effectiveness, as has been the case in New Zealand, which she has not cited, but where completely the opposite approach has been adopted?
Fiona Mactaggart: Those laws have indeed been subject to such review. There is quite clear evidence from research showing the extent to which there has been a reduction in trafficking in Sweden. I cannot find the citation, which is buried somewhere in this heap of paper, but I will send it to my hon. Friend by e-mail. That is also evidenced by the figures that I gave comparing Sweden and Norway. She referred to New Zealand, where there has been a Government-sponsored survey of the impact of the law. In this debate we are looking into how we can use the prevention of demand to protect women, and we are considering a legal mechanism to effect that prevention of demand. However, there are other mechanisms to prevent demand.
Small communities, where people know each other, act as a very effective mechanism to prevent demand. If someone knows the guy knocking on the door of the brothel and is aware that some of the women in the brothel are exploited or controlled by other people, they will be likely to tell their neighbours that he is sleeping with exploited women and paying for it. That changes the nature of the sex market in New Zealand—the fact that it is miles away from anywhere also changes it. The community is very small there and it is different from other places. I have quite specifically compared us to similarly diverse and similarly densely populated European countries that, I believe, have stronger lessons for Britain.
Keith Vaz: I know that my hon. Friend has a great interest and passion in the subject. However, she has clearly not had the opportunity to read the Home Affairs Committee report into human trafficking, which we published last Thursday, following a year-long investigation. The best way to stop demand is to stop the women from being trafficked into the country. That means going to the source countries. Once those women get here, it is too late. My hon. Friend’s complaint is actually against prostitution. It is not about human trafficking; she just wants to stop prostitutes.
Fiona Mactaggart: My right hon. Friend is using an inaccurate definition of trafficking. Trafficking does not require people merely to be transferred across a border. Rather, trafficked women are often moved around within countries. There are women trafficked from Glasgow to Nottingham, Slough or London daily. We therefore cannot simply deal with such gross exploitation and violence towards women by protecting women from Romania or Thailand; we have to protect the women in our own communities who are trafficked and exploited through violence, pimping and abuse.
Lynne Jones: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Fiona Mactaggart: May I just finish this point?
This is a point on which the Government and I do not completely agree, but I have chosen to support them in what I believe they are trying to achieve. I urge the Minister to accept my amendments because, without them, he will not achieve what I believe he is trying to
achieve. The Government have identified the ill as the exploitation and control of a prostituted woman by another person. In effect, that is a modern day form of slavery. We are talking about women who do not have a choice because of “force, deception or threats”, to use the Government’s words. We also need to include the psychological exploitation that is so often at the heart of prostitution.
The Bill will not do what the legislation in Sweden has done. It will not make any man who pays for sexual services an offender. There is a strong argument for doing that. I believe that buying someone else’s sexuality destroys human relations and creates a grossly unequal society. At present, however, I am not arguing for that position. I am hoping that the Government will accept my amendments and ensure that this offence will include women who are controlled by psychological means and exploited because they are vulnerable. Ministers have taken that position from their platforms in the past, and said that those women should be protected.
Lynne Jones: My hon. Friend responded carefully to my earlier intervention, saying that there was evidence that trafficking in countries such as Sweden had been reduced. However, she did not address the question of whether violence against women in the sex industry per se had been reduced. In relation to New Zealand, does she not think that that country has just as many big cities as Sweden? To suggest that it has no large communities is an inaccurate reflection of that country.
Fiona Mactaggart: It does have large communities, but they are not as diverse as those in Britain. The mechanisms that we would need to use extend beyond those that would work in New Zealand. I have not challenged the New Zealand Government-sponsored review of their legislation, although I have spoken to women who have worked with prostituted women in Britain and who currently work with prostituted women in New Zealand. They believe that that report is not a proper description of what is happening on the ground there.
I did not answer my hon. Friend’s question about violence against prostituted women in Sweden because I could not find the citations that she asked for. I can tell her, however, that I have spoken to Kajsa Wahlberg, a chief police officer in Sweden, who has made the specific point that one of the consequences of the Swedish legislation is that women are safer.
I want to conclude by looking at the issue of human rights. People have cited the conclusion of the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that introducing strict liability in the Bill would make it difficult for an individual to know how to regulate their conduct, and suggested that that could lead to an abuse of the rights of the punter. I would like to direct Members’ attention to the parts of that report that clearly state that measures aimed at preventing prostitution can actually protect human rights.
Our international human rights obligations are quite clear under the United Nations convention against transnational organised crime, the convention on action against trafficking in human beings, the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the Beijing platform for action, and the declaration on the elimination of violence against women. All those
international human rights instruments require states parties to tackle the demand for sexual exploitation. The Bill is our first serious attempt to do that since the legislation on kerb crawling 20 years ago. I urge Members to support my amendments and to support the Bill.
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