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Policing and Crime Bill

I stand corrected, and I am sure that what my hon. Friend says is the case at certain levels. The people with whom I am concerned in respect of this Bill are those who are controlled, those who are exposed and those who end up in prostitution via a route of need. Such people might need to feed a drug habit, the need might result from a dire financial circumstance, they may have been pimped or they may be under the control of another. My hon. Friend is talking about people who have made an active choice to go into prostitution; they actively manage their own affairs very well, given that they have considered their choice and are intelligent enough to have been able to make that choice. I do not detract from that, but the Bill was another great opportunity to have provided access to health care services, a route away from danger and harm for prostitutes and a way of controlling prostitution that would have benefited the prostitutes themselves and society as a whole. Instead, these provisions will mean that if a prostitute does not attend the three meetings with the named person, they will be fined or put in prison. Thus, a group of people whose job puts them in danger and criminalises them will be further criminalised by the Bill. This is bad law and it is a wasted opportunity. Prostitutes need better sexual health advice: they need to know about needle exchange programmes; about where they can get a constant supply of safe condoms; about how to protect themselves; and about how to operate in a way that will protect them and their families—including their children—who also have health needs. The Bill has done nothing to address that; these two clauses will further criminalise prostitutes and further expose a group of people who are already in danger. I suppose that I should declare an interest by saying that I was a member of the Royal College of Nursing in my former life. The RCN has said:"““The health issues experienced by sex workers have an impact over the long term for themselves and their children. The RCN has concerns that the measures promoted in Clause 16 and 17 of this Bill will not help men and women out of prostitution and fear that the measures in the Bill could actually lead to greater detention of some of the most vulnerable, stigmatised and marginalised people in society.””" So it is not only me and my Conservative colleagues who feel that these are bad clauses, because the RCN does too. The Government are quick to cite the RCN when it supports what they are trying to do, so I hope that they will take its criticisms on board too. The Government could have formalised what happens in a voluntary way at the moment; they could have formalised outreach services to help prostitutes and worked with the voluntary sector, which tries to get out on to the streets to work with prostitutes. The Bill could have provided a framework to assist those voluntary organisations in providing the access to health care and the assistance that prostitutes need, but it failed. Clause 20 deals with closure orders. Nobody likes brothels to operate in residential areas or areas that contain schools, playgroups or children, and I know that sensitivities are involved, but I also know that all that will happen when a brothel is closed is that the prostitutes will be driven out on to the streets, where they will present a greater danger to themselves. They will not stop being prostitutes—they will not cease to work, to earn their income or to do what they are doing. They will just be driven out on to the streets. I fail to see the usefulness of closing down a brothel for three months and I fail to see what the provision aims to do. I hope that the Minister will be able to elaborate on what the Government hope to achieve. The Government might be trying to cease the business in a given area, but they will not succeed because brothels will just open up again a few months later. Again, all the Government are doing is exposing prostitutes to greater danger and greater health risks. As was said before, no safety will be offered to such prostitutes—prostitutes will not be in a group, but will be out on their own on the streets. We know what happened in Ipswich; we know what has happened over and over again to prostitutes who are on the streets on their own. I would have though that the Government would have tried to stop that. I believe that society needs to be protected from those things that its members do not want to happen in their residential areas. I am not saying that brothels should be allowed to exist wherever or whenever, but that prostitution exists and will always exist in a civilised society. We are not going to do anything with the Bill that will stop that. I support moving the emphasis towards the demand side of prostitution and the fact that when someone is buying sex, they will be committing an offence, but why should that happen only when the person is buying sex with somebody who is trafficked? All the arguments have been made on that subject, so I shall not reiterate them, but the best argument came from my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen). He said the girls quite often do not speak English and the purchasers quite often do not speak English. How on earth will the clause work?