Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Chamber

Plenary, 28 Feb 2007

28 Feb 2007 · S2 · Plenary

Item of business

Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland) Bill

Smith, Iain LD North East Fife Watch on SPTV

I welcome the opportunity to explain why I cannot support the bill.

Before voting on the bill, members need to ask themselves some key questions. Is the bill likely to reduce the ability of women involved in prostitution to access services such as drug counselling, sexual health services and those providing routes out of prostitution? Is the bill likely to increase the exploitation of women, the number of underage prostitutes or the trafficking of women for prostitution? Is the bill likely to increase the risk to street prostitutes of being seriously injured or killed by their clients? If, like me, members think that the answer to those questions is yes, they should not support the bill.

The bill is not likely to reduce the number of women who are involved in prostitution but it is likely to change the way in which they operate. I was a member of the Local Government Committee, in the first session of the Parliament, when it considered Margo MacDonald's first member's bill on prostitution tolerance zones and I was a member of the Local Government and Transport Committee, in the second session of the Parliament, when it considered her second member's bill on the subject. I pay tribute to the work that she did to raise awareness of this difficult issue. I was struck by the evidence that I heard during our consideration of those bills. Many women who are involved in street prostitution are the victims of violence or abuse and are still in abusive or exploitative relationships. Further, as somebody said, the funding of drugs habits—those of their partners as well as their own—was a major reason for women being on the streets. It was also clear that the practice of arresting women, fining them and, effectively, forcing them back on to the streets in order to raise the money to pay the fines makes no sense. That will not be changed by this legislation.

I recognise that, while the informal tolerance zone operated in Edinburgh—and also, in reality, in Glasgow—those women were offered greater access to health and social services and were able to protect themselves and help one another look out for the dangerous clients who they knew posed risks to them and keep an eye on things such as underage prostitution. However, those things were lost when the zone was lost.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. As the policy memorandum says, this bill started out with the aim of protecting communities from

"the nuisance, alarm or offence arising from street prostitution-related activities in or near public places"

and of redressing the balance between the purchaser and the seller.

Unfortunately, as amended at stage 2, the bill goes well beyond that policy intention and into the area of moral condemnation. I do not dispute that, at present, the balance is wrong. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it is on the purchaser—the man—that the law should normally focus. However, the bill retains section 46 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982.

We should be primarily concerned with the issue of the causing of nuisance, alarm or offence rather than the issue of soliciting or loitering.

The expert group on prostitution that was set up by the Executive stated in its report that criminalising soliciting, of itself, does not contribute to protecting vulnerable people or addressing community concerns. We should bear that in mind and reject the bill, which goes down the wrong road.

Search Hansard contributions

Plenary, 28 Feb 2007

In the same item of business