Clause 18
4:30 pm
Alan Campbell (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Tynemouth, Labour)
Amendment 25 shows that the hon. Member for Hornchurch and I approach this subject from completely different directions. I wonder why he has tabled it, and he wonders why we have left out such a measure. I am now a little clearer about that, but we believe that the amendment is unnecessary because a court would consider any public area of a railway station to be a public place. I am intrigued by the information that he brought to the Committee from his experience of going out with the transport police, and I shall certainly consider it because, if what he says is the case, we would need to do something about it.
Anyone caught soliciting on a platform, concourse or other public area would be covered by the offence, but the other reason why we resist the amendment is that, if we put in the Bill that a railway station should be considered a public place, that might have the unintended effect of excluding railway stations from being considered public places under existing legislation. It is a complicated matter and not as simple as it might seem. Given my commitment to reconsider the matter, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see fit to withdraw the amendment.
To respond to the remarks of the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon, a secluded place would still be a public place. I understand his argument about the safety of women, and I stressed particularly in this morning’s deliberations that the safety of women is the central reason for the proposals and that we certainly do not want unintended consequences. Unfortunately, however, men take women from the streets to secluded places now—