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Policing and Crime Bill

We have a number of amendments grouped with the amendment so ably moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman. He made his points very well. We received strong representations, for example, from Equity, which feels that its members working in that field are being completely misrepresented if they are portrayed as working in the sex industry; they actually work in the entertainment industry. In any case, we are probably starting from the wrong place with the first name of lap dancing which is, I think, an American term implying something to do with sitting on laps. In the world of entertainment in this country there is a strict "no touching" rule anyway, so we might have to step back even further and address the whole way that we talk about this business, because we need to draw clear lines of definition. Nor does this provision do any service to our overseas visitors who come over here and might be interested in going to an adult entertainment venue, quite possibly with their wives or girlfriends, but would absolutely not dream of going to a sex encounter venue. When they are told that something is classified as that, how on earth are they supposed to know that it is a perfectly respectable burlesque venue? On the other hand, if they are looking for a sex encounter and turn up at the perfectly respectable burlesque venue, they will be mightily disappointed. Calling it such an inappropriate name does no service to those who work in it; neither does it to the customers who have every right to expect it to be accurately labelled for what it is. That should start in the legislation, so I hope that the Government will think about renaming those venues.