Policing and Crime Bill

I think that we have to take one step back from those circumstances. We heard in Committee, and in the evidence sessions, about men who had come forward to say that they believed that women had been trafficked, or were being controlled for gain. They had alerted the women about where they might seek support in order to exit from prostitution, but I think that we have to take one step back from that and say to men: "If you get involved in these situations, it is no good saying that you didn't know." One might say: "How do you not know something that you do not know?" but that is a risk that they take. The bottom line is that if a person visits a prostitute, and there is any suggestion or hint that the prostitute was trafficked or is controlled for gain, or if the question even is in their mind, the person should not go ahead. That is a choice that they can make. To add to that, as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon will know, because he was on the Committee, there are circumstances in which men point women in the direction of support, but in every single example that the POPPY project cited, the men who pointed them in the direction of help and support had sex with them first. We are not talking about a simplistic, black-and-white situation; we are talking about a complex set of circumstances. The easiest and clearest way to put it is this: "If you don't want to get caught up in this offence, and there is any doubt in your mind, whether there is any evidence or not, just don't do it." I want to turn to another issue that rightly took up the Committee's time: lap dancing. In particular, I want to speak about amendments 194, 198, 199 and Government amendments 54 to 59. Lap-dancing clubs have grown in number in recent years, and have become an issue of concern for many local communities, who do not feel that existing legislation is adequate to address the impact of such venues on a local area. We have brought forward measures in the Bill to reclassify places that provide lap dancing and other similar entertainment as sex establishments under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982. That will give local authorities greater powers to control the number and location of lap-dancing clubs.