Clause 15
12:15 pm
Alan Campbell (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Tynemouth, Labour)
I shall respond first to the points raised in our discussion. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon asked what is the purpose of the measure: to end prostitution or to end harm to prostitutes? Its purpose is to reduce demand, particularly for prostitutes who are controlled for gain and those who are trafficked. It follows logically that the ambition must be to reduce the number of such prostitutes and, globally, the number of women involved in prostitution. It is not a choice between the aims of reducing prostitution or of reducing harm, because they are two sides of the same coin. We disagree, however—I suspect fairly fundamentally—on whether the criminal justice system should have a significant, or any, part in that process.
The hon. Gentleman asked again about the publication of evidence. The clause 15 measures come not from the demand review, but from the prosecution strategy, which was subject to full consultation and considered a range of published research. The strategy was published in January 2006.
The hon. Gentleman made a number of points about criminalising women and what the effect of the measure would be in that respect. Again I point out that the intention is not to criminalise women. At every stage of the process, including the process that I shall describe in my remarks about how the provision will work, we seek to give women the advice and support that they need to get out of prostitution. However, they sometimes resist so-called “tough love” and other forms of intervention, and have to be gently pushed out of prostitution, encouraged to leave, or even coerced a little. They need a framework that will give them every opportunity to leave prostitution, but, if criminal justice intervention helps to focus minds and support and to get them into the right place, we believe that such measures are right. It is not a question of criminalising for its own sake; it is nothing more than using the criminal justice system as a last resort. For some women—perhaps those who are the most damaged, live the most chaotic lives and have found themselves in prostitution in terrible circumstances—it may be necessary to use the measures under discussion.
Let me introduce two other points that the hon. Gentleman did not mention. We are talking about one of the riskiest forms of prostitution, and it is not enough to say that women need to be given just the freedom of choice; we need to do everything we can to give them the evidence, the information and the support they need to make the choice to leave prostitution, which many prostitutes tell us they would prefer to do, because they do not want to live in such circumstances. Another reason why we think that the criminal justice system may have a part to play in some situations is that these women cannot act with impunity: they cause a nuisance and create concern in local communities, so the community has a right to expect that, if they have been given every opportunity to leave prostitution, they will be gently pushed in that direction.
Another point is that, if such a situation arose in my constituency and we wanted these measures to have an effect, not many of my constituents who came to complain would ask, “How does academia regard this issue? Has this been tested? Have we been able to challenge this? Which bits of evidence have you actually used to frame this measure?” We have to get real in this argument. I do not dispute the need for an evidence-based approach when we make public policy; on the contrary, I have gone out of my way to point out that that is what we have attempted to do and, I believe, succeeded in doing. But we want the measure to have a realistic and practical effect, and that is not a situation wherein academia can hold sway, however important we regard the advice that we take to be.