Policing and Crime Bill

I support the amendment to which my name is attached and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, for moving as she did. The United Kingdom’s human rights obligations make it absolutely clear that children who are involved in sexual exploitation should not be deemed as committing criminal acts. It is difficult to understand why the Government resist the amendment in the light of the efforts that they have made over the years to safeguard and protect children. There have been two arguments. The first is the one echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, that there may be exceptional cases where criminal justice intervention is necessary to prevent a harmful situation and allow a child to access support. That was the point made by the Minister in the Public Bill Committee in the other place. Indeed, the Government have from time to time tried to assert that criminalising people is not a bad thing but a helpful way to get them access to the services that they need. As I understand it, that was the approach taken by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. I oppose that position. It is important to state that criminalisation is not an acceptable way to help people. The Joint Committee on Human Rights stated: ""We find it surprising that the Government proposes to rely on the criminal justice system to address institutional or individual failures within the services available to children and young people. It appears to us to be more appropriate to strengthen their duties and capabilities of children's services to respond to children involved in prostitution"." The confidence that the Government have in the benefits of criminalisation alarms me. Criminalisation gives people a criminal record, which limits their chances and choices for the rest of their lives. That is particularly important when we are talking about people aged under 18, who we hope will be able to live their lives without some things that they have done in their youth being held against them. The second argument made by the Minister has already been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller: that by decriminalising we shall be sending out a message that it is somehow acceptable. With enormous respect to the Minister who made that suggestion, that is an absurd misunderstanding of the nature of deterrence. The young people going into that form of exploitation are not asking themselves what is the law in this country regarding prostitution. Reference has been made to the work carried out by Barnardo's about sexually exploited young people. Its work found that young people are in prostitution because of a lack of choice, because they are socially, emotionally and economically vulnerable. They have been failed by services at an early stage in their lives. The key point is that Barnardo's list of effective work with those young people includes giving them attention. In the words of Barnardo's, they have few, if any, concerned attentive adults in their lives, so they are attracted by the attention that they get from the adults who then go on to exploit and abuse them. For all of us, that is a sad prospect and is illustrative of how inappropriate the Government's argument for retaining the criminalisation of such young people is. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, had to leave but, as she could not be here, she asked me to put on the records that ECPAT UK is very concerned that the Committee should take seriously the points made about the decriminalisation of children involved in prostitution.