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Policing and Crime Bill

Unfortunately, given the limited time, I must carry on. Those are the experiences of those entering prostitution, and research shows that many involved have suffered abuse or violence in the home. Some 85 per cent. report physical abuse and 45 per cent. report familial sexual abuse. I will refer to my own experience of prostitutes when in Haringey; I did not meet them on the streets, but in the magistrates courts. I recall going down to the cells in Highgate in the morning as a duty solicitor, and in a similar experience to that described by my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins), seeing those prostitutes, who were, in the true sense of the word, pathetic. When I opened the hatch of the cell, I would see a prostitute who was damaged, vulnerable and plainly exploited. When they went before the magistrates, the magistrates were often embarrassed about what to do with them, saying ““What do we do with them? We saw them last week and we saw them the week before. Well, we'll give them a token financial penalty.”” And off they go, but they come back week in, week out. Some might say that prostitutes have a choice and that they have a right to earn a living. Some do, but the majority have a desperate existence. In the remaining time that I have, I would like to talk about what needs to be done to address these issues and make the changes that we all want. First, we cannot overstate the significant influence of drugs. The pimps, no doubt, want to make many women drug dependent in order to use them in prostitution. The prostitutes will then use drugs as a means of escape, and stay in prostitution in order to feed their habit. With 95 per cent. of street-based prostitutes on class A heroin, the statistics speak for themselves. Drugs have to be tackled, including by means beyond legislation, as other hon. Members have said. Secondly, there is the question of danger. Many have said during this debate, with a smile on their face, that prostitution is the oldest profession, implying that it is going to be with us year in, year out, and that we just have to deal with it. I am not saying that it is within the power of the state simply to brush it away, but neither am I saying that the position is static and has not changed. We must recognise that demand has increased with regard to those in most danger—those who are being trafficked. It is estimated that some 4,000 women in this country have been trafficked, and that 81 per cent. of prostitutes now come from overseas. That inevitably opens up the issue of trafficking. On 1 August, it will be the 175th anniversary of the release of all slaves in British colonies, thanks to the work of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton and others. Now, in 2009, British men gather slaves to themselves each day—now sexual slaves—to do their bidding. We must ask ourselves whether there has been progress, and what needs to be done. We certainly need to enforce current legislation better, because the number of convictions for trafficking is woefully low. Up to May 2008 it was at 84. Perhaps we must do better in introducing new legislation, and we must certainly examine clause 13 closely to decide whether it creates an ambiguity. Do we want to criminalise prostitution on the one hand while on the other hand saying that we wish to focus on those who are controlling it, gaining from it and trafficking? The concern is that we will not be able to deal with them properly. We also need to examine clauses 16 and 17 carefully. They resurrect issues that the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing and I debated during the passage of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, in relation to the practicality of rehabilitation orders. Will they really lead to people giving up prostitution, given the concerns about family breakdown, child abuse, domestic violence and debt? Will the three meetings, to take place within six months, really produce the desired result? Will there be compliance, rather than women being criminalised further with the prospect of imprisonment for breaches of an order? Will there be the resources that we all believe are needed to help people exit prostitution and to provide rehabilitation for them? Countries such as Norway and Sweden have those resources, but they do not exist in this country. There are good intentions behind the Bill in some ways, but in many other ways it creates solutions to problems caused by the Government's own legislative failures. It is the symptom of a tired Government and the embers of a fading and dying Government.