Lynda
Waltho: The hon. Gentleman refers to the New Zealand
example and the legislation, which is interesting and relevant.
However, the evidence—or opinions—that I referred to
earlier from Debbie Baker, stated that after five years of
decriminalisation
“it hasn't
really made a difference to the average girl out on the street, except
there is more competition and the prices have gone down. Girls are
working longer and harder and taking more risks to get a job, they
aren't really checking out their
clients.” In
addition, research by Melissa Farley in San Francisco shows that
research does not stop the violence, abuse and stigma built into
prostitution, and that it has increased dramatically in New Zealand
since decriminalisation. Street prostitution has increased by 200 to
400 per cent. in Auckland alone. That is evidence rather than
opinion.
The
Chairman: Order. Interventions ought to be fairly
short.
Dr.
Harris: It is clearly opinion. What elevates opinion to
the level of evidence is a moot point, but what helps is that it is
public. [Interruption.] The Minister for Security,
Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing says, “It depends whether
you agree with it.” Sadly, that is the approach often taken. I
was about to say how the matter is dealt with in academia. I do not
claim to be an expert on academia or this area of it, but I think that
there is a separate way of analysing it.
[Interruption.] As he says, the Minister was
speaking in jest. It was
funny.
Paul
Holmes: We have heard the opinion that violence in New
Zealand has increased in the five years since decriminalisation, but in
a five-year review published in June last year, the New Zealand
Government concluded that there had been no increase in prostitution
and that women were now more able to report violence. The
Government’s review was overwhelmingly positive, saying that
five years of decriminalisation had worked to improve conditions for
sex
workers.
Dr.
Harris: That is helpful, and it is part of my reply to the
hon. Lady. This is an important debate.
Let us deal
first with the question of opinion versus evidence. Everyone is
entitled to their opinion, and weight of opinion can be important, but
on a question of fact and whether intervention A causes outcome B, the
ideal is to have a properly designed study. That is difficult on this
subject. I suppose that New Zealand could run trials where the law
changed on the north island but not the south island, but it chose not
to. In
the absence of a controlled trial, one must do what one can with
outcomes. However, what one must do in order for opinion to be more
helpfully considered as good evidence rather than simply a submission
is say at the outset, “These are the outcomes that we’re
concerned about. These are the outcomes, at the outset, that
we’re going to measure. We’re not going to decide
retrospectively
what the baselines were when and what particular issues we’ll
measure. This is how we’re going to measure them, and this is
how we’re going to do the review. The review is going to be
organised with clear terms of reference. It’s going to engage a
wide range of pre-existing opinion and expertise. It’s going to
have an external stakeholder group to check that it’s not
getting carried away internally, and it’s going to publish its
findings so that they can be criticised and debated by other academics
or people with contrary
opinions.” That
is what New Zealand did in its five-year review, coming up with the
conclusions that my hon. Friend cited. With great respect to the hon.
Lady, simply quoting two people who disagree with the policy is in no
way a match for a Government-organised review that considered
independent advice and evidence, used predetermined outcome measures
and carefully measured the
outcomes.
Lynda
Waltho: The hon. Gentleman refers to my comments as
opinions. In one instance, I might agree. However, I also cited
research. The research by Melissa Farley to which I referred draws
attention to the New Zealand prostitution review committee, which
stated that street prostitution in Auckland more than doubled in just
one year, 2006-07. That is not opinion; it is
fact.
Dr.
Harris: So then we come to another issue. Are assertions
of figures and findings facts? If the hon. Lady remembers the debates
in the House about scientific matters and the Human Fertilisation and
Embryology Bill, during which we were on the same side, she will recall
that facts and figures were displayed by all and sundry. In such
circumstances, all that one can do is look at where the figures were
published and analyse whether they are a fair statement.
One also must
analyse if it is the right outcome measure, to determine if we want to
reduce street prostitution per se—I do not accept that the hon.
Lady’s figures are valid, but let us say that they are—or
if we want to reduce harm. So, if we had a scenario where the number of
attacks on women was reduced to a tenth of the original figure but the
number of women engaged in street prostitution doubled, clearly the
outcome measure that the hon. Lady is concerned about is harm to women
and not the number of women in the industry.
That is why I
stressed the importance at the beginning of recognising the right
outcome measure. Otherwise, one might find oneself in a situation where
one says, “Yes, it’s great, we’ve halved the
number of women in street prostitution by our policy,” which
might be the consequence of clause 15 and the amended section 1 of the
Street Offences Act 1959, but we have quadrupled the amount of risk
that those women face. I am sure that the hon. Lady would not want that
situation to result.
Nadine
Dorries: I imagine that it would be almost impossible to
evaluate the number of women working in prostitution until there is
legalisation or licensing of brothels, because most of those women may
have been working underground or in indoor situations and it would be
the legalisation that brought them out into the streets. So it would be
almost impossible to say that figures have doubled if one had no idea
how to quantify the previous figure.
Dr.
Harris: Certainly there is an issue about identifying the
baseline. However, street prostitution, even when it is unlawful, can
be counted by census, because it is on the street and outreach workers
can establish the number of women involved, usually by judging the
distance between women on the streets where prostitution happens.
Clearly, if an activity is decriminalised, it becomes more observable,
but the purpose of decriminalisation is obviously not to hide away that
activity even more, nor is it necessarily to reduce the number of women
involved; it is to reduce the harm. That is why I want to ask
the Minister, when he responds to this debate, if the aim of his policy
is to reduce the amount of prostitution or if it is specifically to
reduce the amount of abusive prostitution and/or to reduce the harm,
including forms of harm other than abusive prostitution, associated
with this problem.
I have set
out why the New Zealand system is a sensible one for the Government to
have considered and even to have consulted on. I have also set out why
I am satisfied that the review that the New Zealand Government
published, which was comprehensive and which was not criticised by our
Government for its accuracy or impact, is the way forward.
That brings
me back to the point that I raised several times in one of our previous
debates. It is that the Government, in order to justify their position,
should first consult on their proposals, and if they were going to
conduct prostitution law reform they might have consulted relevant
groups to find out their views. Furthermore, if the Government were
going to review the evidence, which they claim to have done, they must
publish that review. Otherwise it is an alleged opinion or conclusion
of a review of the published evidence and we are not allowed or able to
comment on it, nor are other academics allowed to criticise it or to
express support for it. In the absence of a published review, all we
can see is that the Government, in this clause and in other clauses,
are taking an approach that cannot be said to be evidence-based;
indeed, it could be said to be
evidence-free.
James
Brokenshire: I rise briefly to make some general comments
about clause 15. I hear and note the points made by the hon. Member for
Oxford, West and Abingdon, along with some of the facts, evidence,
opinion and possible supposition that he has put forward. However,
considering whether or not we should make a significant change to
legalise the arrangements for street prostitution would take a
significant weight of evidence, persuasion and validation. Although the
points that he has made are interesting, I for one am not convinced to
take that step in the future, based on what I have heard thus far,
although I respect the points that he has made and put on the
record.
12.15
pm I
have some questions for the Minister about the operation of the clause.
Based on what the Minister said in his previous debate on some of the
amendments, I understand that the substance of the clause is to
regularise the law by deleting the term “common
prostitute”. “Persistent” being on two or more
occasions is, in many regards, a reflection of what the common law is
at the moment when seeking to define a “common
prostitute” for the purpose of the events.
Could the
Minister confirm what the arrangements are, and would be moving
forward, for recording warnings given to someone found to be loitering
or soliciting? Would the recording be at a local level or on the police
national computer? Where are the records kept? In other words, is the
focus and intention of the clause very much localised, rather than in a
police force area or crossing police force boundaries, and therefore
dependent on local intelligence, with the knowledge of local community
officers or local police officers about whether someone has been acting
“persistently”—on two or more
occasions—triggering the offence? Or, is the intention that the
clause should be more wide ranging, perhaps necessitating a more formal
recording of those warnings given to test whether there has been an
offence in those
circumstances? Could
the Minister give some indication about what guidance or advice is
given to police officers concerning a first occasion? That is, the
first time that someone is found to be soliciting in a particular
location or loitering for the purposes of prostitution. As many have
said in Committee, there is a need to consider other
issues—addiction, mental health, the potential risk of
trafficking. Therefore, what inquiries are made by police officers on
that first occasion? I hope that they do not simply move someone away,
cautioning them on that first occasion without further investigation or
consideration. That would not necessarily follow through on some of the
substantive problems and issues that might
arise. A
criminal justice approach may be appropriate—I recognise that,
and the proposed amendments simply reflect the existing law—but
so is a better understanding of the interventions available. The
reliance on the criminal justice system may not be necessary. Various
factors may be picked up at the earlier stage, to signpost people for
assistance and prevent an offence from occurring. Therefore, in the
context of considering the clause, it would be helpful to get from the
Minister a better understanding of current practice and whether ACPO or
the Home Office intend to provide any further guidance, revised and
updated, in connection with the operation of the clause and the new
offence, albeit that they reflect existing law and practice and the
common law definitions alluded to by the Minister
earlier.
Mr.
Campbell: I shall respond first to the points raised in
our discussion. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon asked
what is the purpose of the measure: to end prostitution or to end harm
to prostitutes? Its purpose is to reduce demand, particularly for
prostitutes who are controlled for gain and those who are trafficked.
It follows logically that the ambition must be to reduce the number of
such prostitutes and, globally, the number of women involved in
prostitution. It is not a choice between the aims of reducing
prostitution or of reducing harm, because they are two sides of the
same coin. We disagree, however—I suspect fairly
fundamentally—on whether the criminal justice system should have
a significant, or any, part in that
process. The
hon. Gentleman asked again about the publication of evidence. The
clause 15 measures come not from the demand review, but from the
prosecution strategy, which was subject to full consultation and
considered a range of published research. The strategy was published in
January 2006.
The hon.
Gentleman made a number of points about criminalising women and what
the effect of the measure would be in that respect. Again I point out
that the intention is not to criminalise women. At every stage of the
process, including the process that I shall describe in my remarks
about how the provision will work, we seek to give women the advice and
support that they need to get out of prostitution. However, they
sometimes resist so-called “tough love” and other forms
of intervention, and have to be gently pushed out of prostitution,
encouraged to leave, or even coerced a little. They need a framework
that will give them every opportunity to leave prostitution, but, if
criminal justice intervention helps to focus minds and support and to
get them into the right place, we believe that such measures are right.
It is not a question of criminalising for its own sake; it is nothing
more than using the criminal justice system as a last resort. For some
women—perhaps those who are the most
damaged, live the most chaotic lives and have found themselves in
prostitution in terrible circumstances—it may be necessary to
use the measures under discussion.
Let me
introduce two other points that the hon. Gentleman did not mention. We
are talking about one of the riskiest forms of prostitution, and it is
not enough to say that women need to be given just the freedom of
choice; we need to do everything we can to give them the evidence, the
information and the support they need to make the choice to leave
prostitution, which many prostitutes tell us they would prefer to do,
because they do not want to live in such circumstances. Another reason
why we think that the criminal justice system may have a part to play
in some situations is that these women cannot act with impunity: they
cause a nuisance and create concern in local communities, so the
community has a right to expect that, if they have been given every
opportunity to leave prostitution, they will be gently pushed in that
direction.
Another point
is that, if such a situation arose in my constituency and we wanted
these measures to have an effect, not many of my constituents who came
to complain would ask, “How does academia regard this issue? Has
this been tested? Have we been able to challenge this? Which bits of
evidence have you actually used to frame this measure?” We have
to get real in this argument. I do not dispute the need for an
evidence-based approach when we make public policy; on the contrary, I
have gone out of my way to point out that that is what we have
attempted to do and, I believe, succeeded in doing. But we want the
measure to have a realistic and practical effect, and that is not a
situation wherein academia can hold sway, however important we regard
the advice that we take to be.
Dr.
Harris: We need only think of Ipswich to recognise an
important question that needs to be considered: what policies make the
lives of women in that situation safer? Given that we are talking about
sometimes life-or-death situations, it is important to bring academic
evidence to bear. In my opinion, what makes the women safer is that,
first, there are well funded exit strategies for them; and, secondly,
that we do not force them into more dark, dangerous and isolated places
if at all possible, while recognising the balance that must be struck
regarding nuisance. Simply to say that a community wants prostitution
out of the way—in a wood, for example, where women
are at far more risk—is not the right approach. The problem is
multi-faceted. I hope that the Minister recognises
that.
Mr.
Campbell: That is precisely what the Government are doing
by introducing these measures. The hon. Gentleman is taking us back to
a debate about either/or, but in our view it is not a question of
either/or. We need to put in place the right measures to hold
accountable for their actions not only men but, if necessary,
prostitutes, and to push them towards the support that many of them
tell us they want and need. They are not necessarily the sort of people
who would arrive at that conclusion very early in the
process.
It is not a
matter of just using the criminal law and not having in place the
measures that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. I repeat for the
record that we accept that there have to be exit strategies. That is
the reality of much of the work being done now, which we want to
extend. The implication of having those exit strategies is that women
need to be informed but they might also need, in some circumstances, to
be pushed towards making those choices; that might be where the
criminal justice system has a part to play. I have accepted that there
are resource issues and that it is important that we have proper local
services that are properly resourced. We are currently considering what
other resource implications there might be. My final plea is that
people should not go away thinking that this is either/or matter,
because it is
not.
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