Policing and Crime Bill

I, too, apologise for intervening when I did not speak at Second Reading. However, a question has since been put to me on this part of the Bill that I have not yet heard raised in our proceedings, although the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, alluded to part of it in her remarks on this amendment when she said that she hoped that the Bill would not reduce police attempts to address traffickers and controllers of these very unfortunate women. As I understand it, the Bill creates a new offence if a client visits a prostitute whom he knows, or should know, has been trafficked or otherwise forced into prostitution, even if in fact he may not know of her circumstances. The question is very simple: if the police are sufficiently aware of the prostitute’s circumstances to arrest the client, why do they not instead arrest the traffickers or the people who have forced the girl into prostitution? Surely the police have to say to the client that they know the unfortunate girl’s circumstances well enough to arrest him and that he must also know them, or he should. If the police are not in possession of the necessary facts, how can they successfully prosecute the client? If they are, why do they not instead arrest the traffickers or their agents in this country, or whoever coerced her in the first place and who therefore set up the circumstances in which they intend to arrest the client? I hope noble Lords will forgive me if that is a somewhat stupid question from someone who has not followed the finer points of the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s reply in due course.