Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I will concentrate on clause 72 and be as quick as I possibly can. My background in this is that, earlier this year, I hosted a meeting of a coalition of organisations called Safety First, which is looking at issues that surround prostitution, particularly the plight of prostitutes and their families. The organisations include the National Association of Probation Officers, the Royal College of Nursing, the Sex Worker Project, the Multiple Choice Rehabilitation Centre, the Zacchaeus Trust, various religious leaders, the English Collective of Prostitutes, the GMB branch of sex workers and two brave individuals, Pauline Campbell—the mother of Sarah, who lost her life in Styal prison—and Toni Cole, the former prostitute who brought the first private prosecution for rape in this country. The coalition came together in the aftermath of the five young women who were murdered in Ipswich. The response of the community and people of Ipswich was not to blame the women themselves, but to do all that they possibly could to ensure the safety of such women in the future. The coalition pointed to the criminalisation of consenting sex as a major cause of risk to safety that prevents women from seeking assistance and protection and exiting prostitution. Why? Because criminalisation pushes prostitution underground. It makes women more vulnerable to attack and less accessible to support. Many felt strongly that, by focusing on remedies in the criminal law, we avoid the underlying issues and causes of women entering prostitution and the need to provide real support to allow them to exit it. The coalition fears that clause 72 will criminalise prostitution once again, and thousands of women face the risk of imprisonment as a result. The Secretary of State did not take us through clause 72 when he introduced the Bill, but the clause will introduce the compulsory rehabilitation order and promotes it as an alternative to a fine. Anyone who is arrested for loitering or soliciting will be forced to attend three meetings with a supervisor approved by the court"““to promote…rehabilitation by assisting the offender…to address the causes of””" their involvement in prostitution and to find ways to end that involvement. Failure to attend any of those sessions will result in a further summons and a possible 72 hours' imprisonment. Magistrates will have powers to make subsequent orders. So women could be forced onto a treadmill of orders, failure to attend, further orders and imprisonment, and round and round they go again. There is deep scepticism about the implications and effectiveness of these new orders. Within the criminal justice sector, NAPO has said that they will be unworkable and that they will turn the law back 25 years, to when imprisonment was the norm for prostitution. In the 1980s and 90s, the fines were increased, so that those who were unable to pay eventually went to prison. We found that, even then, 11,000 women were found guilty and put at risk of detention. In 2003, as a result of a lot of campaigning against such draconian measures for prostitution, on average, about 3,500 prostitutes were brought before the courts. NAPO's view is that, if the Bill goes through, we could return to a situation where up to 11,000 and more women are detained and imprisoned, when our prisons are overflowing. Magistrates will use these powers as an alternative to fines and will find them increasingly attractive. I shall briefly quote Harry Fletcher from NAPO, who said:"““Thousands of prostitutes will be criminalised and face three days needlessly in jail at a time when the system is in meltdown.””" Such a proposal is practically almost irrelevant. John Furniss of the Multiple Choice Rehabilitation Centre said:"““Three meetings is window dressing and meaningless. People will miss meetings due to their drug use.””" As we know, 93 per cent. of prostitutes have a drug dependency, according to Home Office figures. The proposal could be dangerously counter-productive. Siobhan Kilkenny from the Sex Worker Project says:"““Criminalising these people in whatever way it is dressed up will make the most vulnerable and invisible more vulnerable and more invisible and allow tragedies like the Ipswich murders to happen again.””" Further stigmatisation will force people underground and make them more vulnerable to violence and rape; in the past 10 years, 60 women prostitutes have been murdered. There are alternatives. We are taking the wrong approach; we should be taking the approach recommended by the Home Office itself: moving away from traditional enforcement under police crackdowns, and shifting prostitution from being a policing problem to a welfare issue. In those reports, we have said that we need to understand why women go into prostitution and why it is that, as a result of drug dependency, unemployment, housing problems and poverty, they are forced into that role. We need to create and invest in an effective response, which was set out in the Home Office reports of 2004 and 2006: early intervention, multi-agency working training professionals, outreach workers, one-to-one support, fast-tracking into drugs programmes that are crucial to stabilisation, fast-tracking into emergency accommodation, advice and assistance and specialised support for victims of domestic violence. All those matters are ready to hand, but they require investment of resources, and I regret that there have been cuts in the drugs programmes in recent years. We need to move forward into a caring, welfare approach, rather than a criminal process. We need to look at the resources. On that basis, when the Bill comes back on Report, I will seek to remove clause 72 and insert clauses that realistically tackle the problem and measures that provide the alternative resources to invest in the solutions that are needed and that the Home Office itself has recognised.