Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. In a perfect world perhaps there would be no social evils. There would be no drug addiction, no violence, no alcoholism and no prostitution—maybe. But in the mean time, we have to live in a less than perfect world and deal as best we can with real life. In real life, some women and men are engaged in prostitution. That is the way in which they make their living. We may judge or we may not judge, but this is what they do. The question that we should ask is how that fact can best be managed by the local authorities in the areas where it occurs and by the police to ensure certain protection. We should try to ensure that no under-age people are involved; we should ensure that no people are brought in, perhaps from foreign countries, and are working against their will; and we should try to ensure that those involved are protected from violence and the health risks that their work brings. Surely the right policy approach should be to reduce the harm and to ensure that neighbourhoods are not made unpleasant for their residents. Surely we do not want prostitution pushed underground and women being in such fear that they dare not speak. The evidence suggests that it is often clients of prostitutes who inform the police when they suspect that someone has been trafficked. We need to ensure the availability of routes out of prostitution for that large number of people who it has been alleged seek a way out—and I am sure that a large number would like a different way of life. We need to try to ensure maintenance of good relationships with the local police, so they can get information and intelligence on criminal activity, violent customers and the crime that surrounds the work about which we are talking. That is why these criminalising measures are opposed by, for example, the UK Network of Sex Work Projects, which goes into the real world and works with people in prostitution to help them find a way out and a different way of life. It is enormously difficult work, and many dedicated people are doing it. The measures are opposed also by the Royal College of Nursing, because they will do nothing to ensure that women are able to go to health services or approach the people who bring vans on to the street carrying doctors and nurses who work at night to offer health testing. I assure the noble Baronesses, Lady Howarth and Lady O’Cathain, that many people who support the amendments are as concerned as they are about the girls from care who end up on the street. They are concerned about the people with learning difficulties and the vulnerable who are dragged into this work. They are concerned about the people who have been abused as children and find that this is all that life seems to offer them. They are concerned about those who are drug-addicted and need money to feed their habit. We are not divided not in our concern for these people, but in how we see them best helped. There is no evidence that the law helped those people in their childhood when they were abused. The law is too blunt an instrument to deal with these sorts of social problems. I hope that the House will think carefully before rejecting the amendments.