Policing and Crime Bill

The hon. Gentleman is in danger of making our case for us. The difficulty in holding people to account has led us to introduce the strict liability clause and although he does not accept it, the penalty we propose is proportionate because it corresponds with other actions that can be taken to suppress demand. He asks me for examples of prosecutions for rape. My understanding is that the figures would not be broken down in that way; if that is not true, I shall set out the alternative. We could not say categorically whether people had been prosecuted for rape in such circumstances, but we must not lose sight of the reality that the men we are talking about have not been held to account. Whether the evidence—in the view of some people—would be akin to rape or whether it was actually evidence of rape, men have walked away from their responsibilities. The offence is one of the measures that we are putting in place to hold them to account and it is an important step forward. I turn to the amendments tabled by the Home Secretary and a number of Members, which deal with control for gain in relation to clause 13. Amendments 211 and 214 would narrow the offence under clause 13 by removing the term "controlled for gain" and substituting the word "coerced". Members tabled similar amendments in Committee and the matter was discussed at length. The amendments tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) and the new clauses tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon, which I have already discussed, would clarify the scope of the offence to ensure that it could not be used to prosecute men paying for sex with prostitutes who have freely consented to their involvement in prostitution, who work in a safe environment and who are directed, in a limited way, by a madam. Our amendments would remove the term "controlled for gain" in light of concern about what would be covered by the word "control". We do not want to interfere with the way in which "controlled for gain" has been interpreted by the courts in relation to other offences under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 by attempting further to define the term in the Bill. We have instead replaced the word "control" in the offence with a requirement that the prostitute involved must have been subject to force, threats or deception. We believe that that is consistent with the aims of a number of amendments tabled in Committee and on Report. I note in particular that, by using the term "force, deception or threats", our amendments appear to have a similar effect to amendment 211, tabled by the hon. Member for Totnes. Government amendments 46 to 53 would amend clause 13 to make it an offence to pay for sex with someone who has been subject to force, deception or threats from a third party of a kind likely to encourage the provision of sexual services for which payment has been made or promised. The third party must have acted for or be in expectation of gain for himself or another person. We believe that the term "force, deception or threats" covers the conduct that we have always been clear that we wish to capture—for example, paying for sex with someone who has been trafficked and forced to work as a prostitute—while clearly excluding circumstances in which someone chooses to work as prostitute entirely of their own free will. We have used those terms because we believe that they best respond to the concerns raised in Committee, while ensuring that we do not compromise the policy objective of tackling the demand for prostitutes who are being exploited. On the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones), we do not feel that the word "coercion" would add greater clarity to the offence, as it is still not clear what threats or other types of pressure it might cover. We have therefore chosen language that we consider to be more precise.