Policing and Crime Bill

It does have large communities, but they are not as diverse as those in Britain. The mechanisms that we would need to use extend beyond those that would work in New Zealand. I have not challenged the New Zealand Government-sponsored review of their legislation, although I have spoken to women who have worked with prostituted women in Britain and who currently work with prostituted women in New Zealand. They believe that that report is not a proper description of what is happening on the ground there. I did not answer my hon. Friend's question about violence against prostituted women in Sweden because I could not find the citations that she asked for. I can tell her, however, that I have spoken to Kajsa Wahlberg, a chief police officer in Sweden, who has made the specific point that one of the consequences of the Swedish legislation is that women are safer. I want to conclude by looking at the issue of human rights. People have cited the conclusion of the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that introducing strict liability in the Bill would make it difficult for an individual to know how to regulate their conduct, and suggested that that could lead to an abuse of the rights of the punter. I would like to direct Members' attention to the parts of that report that clearly state that measures aimed at preventing prostitution can actually protect human rights. Our international human rights obligations are quite clear under the United Nations convention against transnational organised crime, the convention on action against trafficking in human beings, the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the Beijing platform for action, and the declaration on the elimination of violence against women. All those international human rights instruments require states parties to tackle the demand for sexual exploitation. The Bill is our first serious attempt to do that since the legislation on kerb crawling 20 years ago. I urge Members to support my amendments and to support the Bill.