Policing and Crime Bill

With Amendment 71, we are looking at the issue of the decriminalisation of associated workers in brothels. This is another step on our road to try to decriminalise as much of this as possible. In introducing these amendments, I commend the Minister for his versatility and energy. He had a lot more consensus, I think, on the Statement just now than he will find from any of us with this Bill. Nevertheless, I shall press on with the amendments in the hope that he will agree with us on some things. Our first amendment is to decriminalise the associated workers. They are extremely important. The women who work as receptionists or maids are essentially there to keep the sex workers safe, to raise the alarm if something very untoward happens and even to provide company in extremely dull times when there are no customers. None of those should be criminal acts and their presence when they might come across violent clients is essential. Of all the things I saw when we were invited to visit some of the premises in Soho, one of the most shocking was the safe room where women go when they are threatened with violence. There is a steel door and several bolts. It is not used frequently but frequently enough. Something so real as that was, for me, a salutary illustration that these women often face violence. It can appear when they are at their most defenceless. Amendment 72 concerns the definition of a brothel. I originally tabled this amendment to suggest that the premises should not be regarded as a brothel where there are no more than two prostitutes. The Minister will have noticed that I changed this late last week to four because I reread the Royal College of Nursing’s submission on this subject. With all the experience of nurses as health workers, they felt that four was the right number, so I decided to go for their recommendation. The Minister has heard me talk before about New Zealand so he will not be surprised to hear me say that, in New Zealand, the law makes a distinction between a small, collectively run brothel of up to four people working together and larger brothels which must be licensed. Reports from New Zealand say that the new legislation has increased the safety and security of women by enabling them to work in this way. By contrast, there is no evidence that it has made life more difficult for those hoping to license the larger brothels, that it leads to more disorder or anything of that kind. We are simply asking in the proposed new clause for recognition of the reality that, as long as women work in the sex trade, they should be kept as safe as possible. We aim to give the Government a chance to honour their commitment made on 17 January 2006. Fiona Mactaggart, then Minister of State at the Home Office, launched the Government’s Coordinated Prostitution Strategy. The strategy document said that the present definition of a brothel ran counter to the advice that the Government and others provide—that, in the interest of safety, women should not sell sex alone. It said: ""The Government will make proposals for an amendment to the definition of a brothel so that two (or three) individuals may work together"." With this amendment I invite the Minister to go back to the commitment made at that time. I beg to move.