Prostitution

Baroness Kingsmill Excerpts

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his good wishes. On the question of consultation and the organisations that he referred to, yes, we are in listening mode and we will be very pleased to have further discussions with him. As I said in my initial reply, we have studied what the courts were doing with cases brought before them. That will also affect the development of future policy.

The 2009 Act was first implemented on 1 April. At the moment, we must see how it beds down. As it stands, it is for the decision of local police forces, but there is a lot of learning to be done about how to respond to these issues and I hope that that will continue to be so at both national and local level.

[Baroness Kingsmill]

My Lords, I wonder whether the Government have any plans to curb the demand side of the sex industry, as well as the supply side.

[Lord McNally]

As the noble Baroness is aware, that was very much the thrust of the 2009 Act. We shall see whether the Act causes a drop on the demand side. Having done a quick crash course on these issues, I do not believe that there is a silver bullet for this. As noble Lords know, some countries such as Sweden go for the demand side, while others such as Holland go for decriminalisation. The department is looking very carefully at the experience of countries abroad in how to deal with this as well as at how various experiments in approach in this country are progressing and what impact they are having on this problem.