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Policing and Crime Bill

I was unable to speak on Second Reading, but I have been following the proceedings of the Bill very carefully. I very much support the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and the comments of my noble friend Lady Hanham. These children come from broken families where there is violence. They are often homeless. They turn to drugs and shoplifting and enter prostitution. As the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, said, many of them have been in care. There is recent evidence that the sex industry has been targeting children leaving care, and who are then trafficked within our borders into the sex industry. If those children and young people go into prostitution, we as a society have let them down. We should be doing all that we can to protect them, not to criminalise them.