Mr.
Campbell: Amendment 248 seeks to impose an absolute limit
of 24 hours on the period that the police would be able to detain an
offender following their arrest for a breach of the new rehabilitative
order that we intend to introduce in clause 16. Detention in these
circumstances may be necessary, as we discussed earlier,
in order to ensure that an offender who has not only breached a court
order but ignored a summons to appear at court can be brought before a
court to be re-sentenced for the original offence of loitering or
soliciting for the purposes of
prostitution. 4.15
pm The
hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon is correct. When the
provisions for the order were introduced in the Criminal Justice and
Immigration Bill, they allowed the police the power to detain an
offender arrested for a breach of an order for up to 72 hours. The hon.
Gentleman will recall, as I do, that that raised some concern among
hon. Members. We have acknowledged that, and paragraph 9 will now
oblige the police to bring the offender before a court “as soon
as practicable”. We are confident that that will provide
sufficient safeguards against undue detention without imposing an upper
limit with which, in certain circumstances the police, through no fault
of their own, would be unable to
comply. Let
me give the hon. Gentleman and the Committee an example. If an arrest
was made on a Saturday afternoon, the police might not be able to bring
the offender before a court until Monday morning at the earliest. In
such circumstances, 24 hours would not be a practicable time limit to
set. I have stressed as often as I can in discussions on this matter
that it will be a last resort for the police to detain offenders so
that they can enforce the orders where they have been breached. We
accept that there must be limits on the power to detain, but we
consider that the requirement for the person to be brought before the
court “as soon as practicable” is sufficient to prevent
the police from detaining the offenders for unreasonably lengthy
periods. In other words, it gives the police time to deal with
circumstances such as when an arrest takes place at the beginning of a
weekend but when the court might not be sitting until Monday. It covers
those situations. By including the words “as soon as
practicable”, the measure specifies an end limit in terms of
hours. It has to be “practicable” and it has to be
“as soon as”.
I understand
the concerns expressed by the hon. Gentleman, but he must accept that
if we are to introduce this order, it is necessary to strike a balance
between the disproportionate use of power against those involved in
street prostitution, and the need to ensure that the orders can be
effectively enforced. We believe that we have struck the right balance,
and that the provisions ensure that the power will be used
appropriately.
The hon.
Gentleman asked what would constitute an unreasonable excuse for
failing to comply with a rehabilitation order. “Reasonable
excuse” is an established term. It is used in existing
legislation in relation to breaches of community orders, for example,
so it is understood. Ultimately, it will be for the court to decide
whether the offender has a reasonable excuse for failing to comply with
the order. If an offender was unable to attend a meeting because of
illness, for example, but they could provide evidence in the form of a
doctor’s note, that would be considered a reasonable
excuse.
I think the
hon. Gentleman is perhaps seeking—either setting it out now or
in the Bill—a whole series of scenarios or descriptions of what
would constitute a reasonable excuse. The reality is that there will be
as
many excuses as there are people who breach the order, so we do not want
to be too prescriptive. We want to give some discretion to both the
supervisor and the court. We believe that, particularly in the case of
the court, they would understand what was meant by reasonableness. We
would not want to make a list of acceptable excuses, because some of
the people receiving the orders will not have signed up to them
themselves and will not need any encouragement to find ways to
circumvent them. We do not want to be too prescriptive; we want to
leave it to the discretion of the courts in
particular. Dr.
Harris: I understand the Minister’s point and his
reasons, and I am grateful to him for setting them out so clearly. The
difficulty is that some people might not turn up to the meetings
because they are in acute heroin withdrawal and need a fix. It is a key
question whether that will be considered a reasonable excuse. If not,
people will be penalised for drug addiction when the whole purpose of
the rehabilitation is, I guess, to track them into treatment services.
Although I accept and understand the Minister’s reasons for not
giving a list, I think that people out there want to understand in that
clear, obvious example what the Government’s intention is in
establishing the statute. It is likely that those circumstances could
arise several
times.
Mr.
Campbell: The hon. Gentleman refers to a particular
situation in which someone who is dependent on drugs might find it
difficult to comply with an order, but as I explained earlier, the
suitability of a supervisor for an order will depend very much on the
needs of the woman in question. If she has a drug dependency that
affects her life in the way that he described, it seems appropriate
that she should be referred first and foremost to someone with expert
knowledge about drugs who could help her end the habit. If so, I would
expect them to have a good understanding of how drugs can get in the
way of people’s lives. That might well constitute a reasonable
excuse. In
the same circumstances, if having discussed the options and understood
them, the woman decides to breach the order for some other reason, that
would certainly mean that she ran the risk of falling foul of what is a
reasonable excuse. It would depend on the circumstances, but we are not
talking about someone who deals only with generalities; we are talking
about seeking out experts and practitioners who can give the person the
support that they need. That is the whole point of the order.
The hon.
Gentleman also asked why we do not require the offender’s
consent. The reality is that for some offenders, a fine may be an easy
option. We know what will happen, because it happens to now to some
extent. The offender accepts the fine and finds when they are back out
on the streets that the only way to pay the fine is to go back into
prostitution. We are imposing an order and putting them on the path to
rehabilitation, even though they might regard that as a more difficult
option, bearing in mind that if they do not comply with the order, it
is possible to return to the original penalty, which could be a fine. I
do not think that the orders should be regarded as a soft option at
all. We should not give offenders the opportunity to pick and choose.
That is why we do not believe that the consent of the
offender is necessary in all circumstances. With those remarks, I hope
that the hon. Gentleman will feel able to withdraw his
amendment. Dr.
Harris: I have only one point to make in reply. Responding
to the Minister’s last point, if someone is determined just to
be fined, they will breach their order. Obviously, some monitoring will
be required to see whether any of that group of people successfully go
through the provisions; if none does and they all end up being fined
anyway, I accept that there is nothing that he can do under the
architecture of the Bill, but we ought to consider whether it is a good
use of everyone’s time. I hope that the Government will ensure
that there are adequate post-legislative review procedures if the
measure passes, so that the obvious problem of making rehabilitation
compulsory, with no consent required, is dealt
with. In
respect of the amendment, I understand the Minister’s point, but
regret that it was not in the explanatory notes. It is clear why he has
done what he has done. That said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Schedule
1 agreed
to. Clause
17 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
18Soliciting:
England and
Wales James
Brokenshire: I beg to move amendment 25, in
clause 18, page 17, line 12, at
end insert ‘and the
platform, concourse or any part of a railway station shall be
considered to a be public place for the purposes of this
section.’. This
is a testing amendment to enable us to understand clearly what the
Government mean by “public place”. The clause creates an
offence of soliciting a person for sexual services as a prostitute in
a
“vehicle in a
street or public
place.” From
my discussions with the British Transport police and having been out on
patrol with them on several occasions, I have learned that they have
always sought to make a distinction whereby the area around a station
is a private place, not a public place. Although the amendment may seen
a little obtuse, highlighting as it does a station, the area around a
station or a concourse, it was tabled to test the Government’s
thinking and to find out what they mean by “a public
place”. Do they envisage that the phrase will cover such
areas? It
is not inconceivable that in stations that are unmanned or perhaps
unlit in the late evening, there might be the potential for soliciting
to take place, but I want to understand clearly the Government’s
intention and whether they accept that a distinction can be drawn, with
an area of a station being a private place not a public place, and the
extent to which that phrase is intended to capture both types of area.
That point has been made to me by the British Transport police, so I
thought that it was appropriate to test the wording and find out the
Government’s
intentions.
Dr.
Harris: I have nothing to say about the amendment but, to
save time, I thought that I might ask my one question about the clause
now. It will not be a surprise
to the Minister to know that my concern about clamping down on
soliciting in the way described arises from the fact that the act of
soliciting will be likely to take place in more secluded areas further
away from the police. In my view and the view of sex workers, those who
represent them and the Safety First coalition, that will create more
dangers than the status quo. Are the Government aware of the impact of
pushing soliciting and loitering further into the shadows, given the
problem with the small minority of potentially violent punters who
would not object to that deepening darkness around the action of
soliciting? I
accept that soliciting can be a nuisance in residential areas, but I am
putting the other side of the argument. My other problem is that,
wherever the action takes place and if soliciting is clamped down on,
negotiations have to take place extremely quickly. The prostitute
cannot hang around and engage in a lengthy discussion through a car
window about how, what, where and who, but essentially has to jump in
furtively. She will therefore be unable to take the protective measures
and the risk assessment—strange term though that may
be—that she otherwise would. That is what prostitutes are
telling me and, I suspect, other members of the Committee. It is not
clear that the Government have recognised such problems, in the absence
of proper consultation on this and other
clauses. In
the measures on kerb crawling, the clause could have side effects that
will endanger women. I do not for one moment fail to recognise that
kerb crawling is a nuisance in public areas and that a balance must be
struck, but I need reassurance from the Government that they have
considered such matters. If there is evidence that street prostitutes
will come to more harm as a result of the measure, I hope that the
Government will review whether it is wise to bring in such a law rather
than enable the police to see more clearly what is going on and
prostitutes to have the protection of each other in a lit—not
dark—area.
The
Chairman: I shall use my discretion, at the request of the
hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon, because if we do not have to
go through the process of a clause stand debate, we shall make up time,
which will be helpful to the
Committee. 4.30
pm
Mr.
Campbell: Amendment 25 shows that the hon. Member for
Hornchurch and I approach this subject from completely different
directions. I wonder why he has tabled it, and he wonders why we have
left out such a measure. I am now a little clearer about that, but we
believe that the amendment is unnecessary because a court would
consider any public area of a railway station to be a public place. I
am intrigued by the information that he brought to the Committee from
his experience of going out with the transport police, and I shall
certainly consider it because, if what he says is the case, we would
need to do something about
it. Anyone
caught soliciting on a platform, concourse or other public area would
be covered by the offence, but the other reason why we resist the
amendment is that, if we put in the Bill that a railway station should
be considered a public place, that might have the unintended effect of
excluding railway stations from being considered
public places under existing legislation. It is a complicated matter and
not as simple as it might seem. Given my commitment to reconsider the
matter, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see fit to withdraw the
amendment. To
respond to the remarks of the hon. Member for Oxford, West and
Abingdon, a secluded place would still be a public place. I understand
his argument about the safety of women, and I stressed particularly in
this morning’s deliberations that the safety of women is the
central reason for the proposals and that we certainly do not want
unintended consequences. Unfortunately, however, men take women from
the streets to secluded places
now— 4.32
pm Sitting
suspended for a Division in the
House. 4.47
pm On
resuming—
The
Chairman: Fifteen minutes have passed, so we may resume
our deliberations. The Minister was on his feet and about to conclude
his
remarks.
Mr.
Campbell: Thank you, Sir Nicholas. You preface my rising
with a comment most times. I am beginning to get the
hint. I
was responding to the contention of the hon. Member for Oxford, West
and Abingdon that the soliciting offence runs the risk of driving the
practice to more secluded areas, if the police clamp down on kerb
crawling. There is evidence that such measures can help to reduce
street prostitution rather than merely displace it. Although there is
not time for this debate, the logical conclusion of his remarks is that
if we did not have a kerb crawling offence, the situation would be much
better. However, we think that the offence is necessary to tackle
demand for prostitution and to reduce street prostitution in
particular. With those remarks, I hope that the hon. Member for
Hornchurch will withdraw the
amendment.
James
Brokenshire: I am grateful for the Minister’s
comments. I hope that he now has a better understanding of the purpose
behind the amendment. The point made to me by the BTP is that this is a
complex question. Although one might think that station areas are
public, they might not be in all circumstances. The Bill needs more
scrutiny to ensure that it encapsulates what the Minister and I imagine
it encapsulates. That depends on the language and wording and on the
byelaws. An example given to me was that possession of a knife in a
station might not trigger the offence of possessing a knife in a public
place. Whether that is the case needs careful examination. On the basis
of the Minister’s assurance that he will look at this issue in
more detail, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Clause
18 ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Clause
19 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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