Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The short answer is yes. Just to give a bit of flavour to that, there are no delays with the EU settlement scheme; the right hon. Lady conflated two completely different schemes in her question. People’s status under the EU settlement scheme is decided very quickly, and 2.2 million people have now applied through that process. In the whole of the process, only two people out of the set of figures that she gave have been refused, on grounds of criminality, which is absolutely right.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

6. If she will bring forward legislative proposals to end marriages involving 16 and 17-year-olds.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

We have listened carefully to the debate on the legal age of marriage and continue to keep it under review. Tackling forced marriage is one of this Government’s priorities, and I am proud that we made it an offence in 2014.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister is aware that 350 children a year are married in this country. We do not know how many of those are forced marriages, nor do we know how many unregistered or overseas marriages there are. The Minister can change this instantly, and change the culture around it, by making the legal age of marriage 18. Will she do it?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, knowing as I do the work that she is doing on this. We are very much looking at the evidence. In 2016, the last year for which we have figures, 179 people aged 16 to 17 entered marriage, out of nearly half a million who got married that year. In a way, the hon. Lady’s question demonstrates the complexities of this difficult subject, but I am very keen to work with her and other Members to look at the evidence on this important issue.

Public Services

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

The Government must act to restore victims’ and survivors’ confidence in the justice system. Since 2010, the Government have systematically gutted the criminal justice agencies, police numbers have plummeted, Crown Prosecution Service funding has been slashed and, as a result, justice has been harder to achieve for victims. Despite the Government’s blatant electioneering in this Queen’s Speech, the public and survivors know that the freshly promised cash is only a plaster on a deeply wounded justice system.

I have been working directly with survivors to develop reforms that would prevent attrition as their cases progress. The reforms will improve survivors’ experiences of the justice system. One in five survivors do not report to the police because they are afraid of further violence from the perpetrator. It is a scandal that victims do not have the confidence in the police to keep them safe, and that was not helped by the 2017 bail reforms. My freedom of information requests revealed that the number of suspected child abusers released with bail conditions actually dropped by 56% in 2017-18 alone. Will Ministers agree to reform the law to introduce a presumption of bail conditions in all cases of violent and sexual offences?

I am pleased that the Government have signalled their intention to take up my recommendation of a police pledge card, which will provide survivors with crucial information about the criminal justice process and a single point of contact. Will Ministers now set out plans for its formal roll-out?

The Government say that they plan to publish and consult on a revised victims’ code and a new victims’ law in early 2020, but that promise was first made in 2015, and victims have endured delay after delay ever since. Why are the Government proposing to postpone it yet again? I am also concerned that the Government are only going to be consulting on it, not actually rolling out this vital law. Reform of the criminal injuries compensation scheme, which continues to discriminate against victims of childhood abuse, is also long overdue. When will the Government finally reform the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority so that victims with unspent convictions and those wrongly deemed to have consented to their own abuse can actually claim?

Child sexual abuse is a crime that, according to the Office for National Statistics, has over 2 million victims in this country. There was little in the Queen’s Speech to persuade me that that shocking figure will be halted or reversed under this Government. I am also disappointed that we discovered today that the Government are not progressing with age verification for online pornography.

A strategic cross-departmental response is required to prevent child abuse, secure convictions and support survivors. The Government must invest in sexual violence and abuse services that will support survivors to play a full role in society and, indeed, the economy. The Government should immediately fund the minimum number of services as recommended under the Istanbul convention, combining it with a mechanism to ensure that funding rises to match demand.

The all-party parliamentary group for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, which I chair, has found that 89% of survivors say that the abuse they suffered negatively impacts their mental health. Not surprisingly, survivors also report that the abuse affects their relationships, their career and their education. If the Government are serious about addressing the country’s poor mental health, they must train practitioners to recognise and respond to the trauma of child sexual abuse. Following the example of Scotland and Wales, the Government should create a national trauma strategy that encompasses all forms of early-life abuse and adversity.

The Home Secretary talked in her speech about the rehabilitation of sex offenders. I am extremely concerned that the Government’s existing programme is actually shown to increase the likelihood of sex offending upon release, and I am more concerned that the Government held back the report for five years. I hope this Government will do all they can to address that in the forthcoming legislation.

My final ask is that the Government legislate to end the abusive practice of child marriage in the UK. Victims, usually girls, are pressured and coerced into marrying adult men, and they face increased risks of social exclusion, domestic and sexual violence, and limited educational opportunities. The UN has called for the elimination of child marriage worldwide, yet it is still legal right here. It is appalling that this illiberal practice is still sanctioned here, with more than 800 victims since 2015. The Government must recognise that child marriage is child abuse, and they must legislate to protect the childhood and education of children by criminalising all marriages of anyone under the age of 18.

The Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Bill, the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill, the serious violence Bill and the Domestic Abuse Bill all present an opportunity for the Government to do something that will genuinely improve the lives of the survivors of childhood abuse and sexual abuse, and to prevent others from falling victim to it. Will the Government please act?

Operation Midland Independent Report

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend will understand that it is extremely important for credibility and trust in policing in this country not only that the police service is operationally independent, but that the organisations charged with its discipline and governance and for investigating complaints exactly such as this are also deemed to be independent. He will know that the IOPC, which is charged with that duty, has found no reason to conduct any action against that particular police officer. It would be inappropriate for me, as a Minister of the Crown, to intervene to countermand or to criticise that investigation in any way. However, both the Home Secretary and I will be carefully considering both the Henriques report and the IOPC report that came out this morning and what our next steps should be.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

If I went to the police to report that my car had been stolen, I would expect to be believed until the investigation or the evidence proved otherwise, but the situation is not the same if I were to report child abuse. I am concerned that commentators on the Beech case are using it as a way to discredit victims and survivors of child abuse and sexual assault. Will the Minister please confirm that if people do have the courage to come forward and report such crimes, they will be taken seriously, they will be supported, and the cases will be properly investigated?

[Kit Malthouse]

All allegations of crime, particularly such sensitive allegations, should be taken seriously, properly recorded, assessed sensitively, but then investigated with due impartiality. Those are the guidelines by which the police should be operating, and we will take steps to ensure that that is the case.

Domestic Abuse

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady and make the point that this Bill is critical to our being able to ratify the Istanbul convention. I very much hope that colleagues across the House will have that in mind as well as many other factors when it comes to the progress of this Bill. She mentions children. This has been one of the thorniest issues that we in the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have grappled with, because we have wanted to reflect the impact that domestic abuse has on children living in an abusive household. We have also been mindful of the fact that the age of 16 is a significant time when it comes to how children are treated in law and the welfare of children. Traditionally, offences committed against children below the age of 16 are seen in terms of child abuse, and above 16, we move into the parameters of adulthood. We have very much taken advice from the consultation. Most responses suggested that we stick at the age of 16 with the statutory definition, so it has been a balancing act. I am grateful to the Joint Committee because it has reiterated the need for children to be at the heart of our response. The impact of having children in the statutory guidance will be very significant when it comes to the commissioning of local services, and that will make such a difference to children’s day-to-day lives.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I also want to congratulate the Ministers, the Front-Bench teams and particularly the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee on getting this Bill to this place and on its safe passage. Because of the Government’s changes to pre-charge bail in 2017, there are serious safety concerns for victims, survivors and the general public. In February, Her Majesty’s inspectorate found a 65% drop in the use of police bail in cases of domestic abuse. Earlier this month, my freedom of information requests found a 56% drop in the use of bail for child sexual abuse cases. Will the Minister accept the recommendations of the Joint Committee and the all-party group on adult survivors of child sexual abuse to create a legal presumption of pre-charge bail in cases of domestic and sexual abuse?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady, who does so much work not only in her constituency, but in a national context, to ensure that children and adults who are subjected to sexual exploitation are looked after properly. We are very aware of the concerns around the changes to pre-charge bail. The reforms were introduced to reduce the number of people and the length of time spent on pre-charge bail, but we do recognise that there are concerns in the criminal justice system about the way that that has worked out on the ground. We are working with the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, HM Courts and Tribunals Service and others to ensure that these are addressed satisfactorily, including the consideration of both legislative and non-legislative options. I cannot give her an answer at the moment, but work is under way, and I hope that I can give her some information in due course.

Modern Slavery Act: Independent Review

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) on securing this debate, on his long commitment to this topic and on the difference that he has made. I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), Baroness Butler-Sloss and the review team on the work that they have done on the report. They are tirelessly trying to make the changes that we so desperately need to see in this country.

I speak as chair of the all-party group on prostitution and the global sex trade. Currently, the Modern Slavery Act does not recognise the gendered nature of slavery and does not do enough to effectively tackle trafficking and modern slavery for sexual exploitation. The APPG was concerned that the terms of reference for the independent review were too narrow in scope as they did not allow the review team to explore the links between the laws regarding prostitution and trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. That is why I welcome the commitment made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead in the foreword of the report to undertake

“a scoping review into laws surrounding prostitution in England and Wales and the extent to which they help or hinder police action against trafficking for sexual exploitation.”

I am grateful that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke has reiterated that commitment here today. I know the modern slavery review team are passionate about getting that aspect out into the public domain.

Trafficking and coercion of individuals into the prostitution trade is one of the two most prevalent forms of modern slavery in the UK, and it disproportionately impacts on women. In 2018, 1,192 adult women were referred to the national referral mechanism for sexual exploitation. Only 269 were referred for being potential victims of labour exploitation. Police figures submitted to the all-party group on prostitution and the global sex trade in 2018 indicate the scale of sexual exploitation in this country. Between January 2016 and January 2018, Leicestershire police visited 156 brothels, encountering 421 women, 86% of whom were from Romania. Northumbria police visited 81 brothels between March 2016 and April 2018. Of the 259 women they encountered, 75% were from Romania. More than half of those brothels were recorded by police as being connected to other brothels, agencies or non-UK organised crime groups. Modern slavery for sexual exploitation is happening right here in the UK on an industrial scale. The impact on victims is devastating.

Research by the European Commission shows that victims experience sexual brutality that causes serious damage to health and wellbeing; vaginal injuries that lead to sexually transmitted infections and HIV; and high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. Victims live in fear of reprisals if they try to escape. The rates of re-trafficking of those who manage to exit are high. Evidence from the POPPY project revealed that victims were exploited for an average of eight to 20 months before they could get out. Most women were exploited every single day of the week, seeing on average 13 sex buyers a day. We can therefore extrapolate that the average victim can be raped anywhere from 2,798 to 6,828 times. It is slavery through prostitution in the UK, and it is happening on our watch.

The basic principles of supply and demand underpin the phenomenon of trafficking and modern slavery for sexual exploitation. Without demand from sex buyers, there would be no supply of women and girls through sexual exploitation. Demand for paid sex is context-dependent, and one factor that influences the higher level of demand is the legality of prostitution. Legality has been found to contribute to normalisation, which in turn contributes to demand. In short, trafficking and modern slavery is larger in countries where prostitution is legal.

Demand reduction legislation was first introduced in Sweden in 1999. Research there has revealed that demand for prostitution has significantly decreased since Sweden criminalised paying for sex. At present the Modern Slavery Act does not seek or function to suppress the demand from a minority of men who pay for sex—the very demand that drives and funds trafficking and modern slavery for sexual exploitation. Since our Modern Slavery Act came into force, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and France have all criminalised paying for sex in order to combat demand for sexual exploitation, while removing the criminal sanctions that penalise victims. Demand reduction legislation is also in place in Norway, Iceland and Ireland, which means that England, Wales and Scotland now have substantially more sex-buyer-friendly laws than many of our surrounding countries, making us an attractive destination for sex traffickers.

Prostitution laws should be urgently updated to reduce demand for sexual exploitation by criminalising the purchase of sex, while removing all criminal sanctions applied to victims of sexual exploitation and supporting them to exit. That is the key way to tackle modern slavery of women in the UK. Once again, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead for securing this debate, and I look forward to working with the independent review team as they explore the links between prostitution laws and preventing modern slavery.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I will come on to that when I talk about victim support. The hon. Gentleman understands only too well how complicated this is, so I will try to keep to my themes, and I want to give the right hon. Member for Birkenhead a couple of minutes at the end to sum up.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister was right to identify this country’s pull factor. She rightly talked about the point that the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) made about women coming over here and being sexually exploited. Does she acknowledge that the Government must do more to address sexual exploitation in this country, and that a buyers law is the way to do that?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke for setting out the reviewers’ intention to look at prostitution in addition to the report that they have delivered. I welcome that review. I very much understand the points that hon. Members have made today and in previous debates. We have commissioned detailed research into what prostitution looks like in the 20th century, because we all acknowledge that it is different from how it was 20 years ago, particularly given the rise of online sex trafficking and prostitution. We want to wait for that independent research conducted by academics in south Wales, and we hope that they will be able to report this summer. We very much look forward to that, and we will of course review the evidence once it comes in.

The review rightly focused on transparency in supply chains. We are the first country in the world to require large organisations to report on the steps taken to prevent modern slavery in their supply chains. More and more businesses are reporting on their actions to protect vulnerable workers. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley mentioned Unilever, and other colleagues rightly mentioned the Co-op. In my role, I have the privilege of helping the Home Secretary with the business forum, which draws together some of the biggest business leaders not just in this country but in the world, so we can examine what they are doing to ensure their compliance with the Act. As hon. Members said, compliance can give companies a competitive advantage, but only as long as other companies are doing what they should be doing too.

The Home Office wrote to the CEOs of 17,000 businesses in October 2018 and March 2019 to notify them of our intention to undertake an audit of compliance. We are pleased that nearly 4,000 businesses have signed up to our newsletter for further information. This is an area that requires real action. I am therefore very pleased that, last week, the Prime Minister announced that we will develop a central registry for modern slavery statements published under the Act to empower consumers, investors and non-governmental organisations to scrutinise statements and hold businesses to account. I think that is a very significant development, and I was delighted when we managed to get it over the line, not least given our experience of the huge public pressure that the gender pay gap has put on businesses to ensure they treat female staff members properly and correct unfairnesses where they exist.

I am conscious of the work being done by various businesses and organisations, including, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said, the NHS and churches. The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority is also doing a huge amount to educate and hold people to account.

Child Sexual Exploitation Victims: Criminal Records

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman has a long history of campaigning on this matter, and he asked me about the system recently in Home Office questions. I remind him gently that the Supreme Court found that it was a coherent scheme of legislation. We are considering that judgment very carefully, because, of course, we must balance the rights of the individual against the rights of wider society in safeguarding the most vulnerable people in our communities.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is clearly evident that, as part of their grooming, children are coerced into getting criminal records, whether through child sexual exploitation or drugs and gangs. That has the desired effect in that it prevents the children from going to the police, but it also damages for life their employment and, most perversely, their likelihood of getting compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. Will the Minister please give guidance to the police, the judges and the Crown Prosecution Service to consider holistically that, when a child is presented with a criminal activity, it could be part of grooming?

[Victoria Atkins]

I remember being incredibly moved, but also impressed, by the work of the hon. Lady’s local police and safeguarding teams when I visited her constituency last year. The fact that the College of Policing guidance has been updated and improved to reflect the situation that she has described will have an impact on law enforcement, but of course, yet again, we ask all agencies to work together to ensure that these children are intervened on before real harm is committed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I thank my hon. Friend, but I cannot comment on the truth or otherwise of his contribution. However, I want to press on the House the Government’s commitment to bear down on this abhorrent crime, not least by providing the police with the support and resources they need in terms of investment and powers.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I commend the Home Secretary for his commitment to preventing all forms of child abuse, but he knows that it is not just the police who need resources; it is survivors as well. Many people come forward only in adulthood to report child abuse, but statutory support stops at the age of 18. Will the Minister make a commitment to provide support to victims and survivors regardless of their age?

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Lady has represented her constituents extremely well, and she has extremely brave constituents who have stood up in this context. We already provide support for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse, but I certainly take on board the point that she has made and I will be happy to discuss it with her personally.

Stalking Protection Bill (First sitting)

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 9th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the hon. Lady for asking about that. It can take time to bring together all the evidence needed for a full stalking protection order, but we all recognise that time is of the essence—I am sure we have all heard compelling evidence of serious harm ensuing. The point is to bring forward an interim order at the earliest possible opportunity, not to replace either a full stalking protection order or the pursuit of a stalking conviction where possible, but to ensure that we recognise that time is of the essence. In the most serious cases we would expect the police to use their existing powers regarding pre-charge bail conditions. I hope that answers the hon. Lady’s question.

I hope that Members will give their full support to the Bill and I welcome the cross-party support and constructive debate.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I may need your wise guidance as we go forward with the Bill.

It is also a great pleasure to serve on the Committee. The unbelievable passion, vigour and determination with which the hon. Member for Totnes has fought to get the Bill to this stage is something we must all learn from and admire—I am very grateful for it. I also pay tribute to the Minister, who has been superb on preventing violence against women and girls. As a team, they are a formidable force, and one of which I hope perpetrators are mindful.

I really welcome the new powers that the Bill gives the police to protect victims from strangers who cause them fear and harassment. The stalking protection order is welcome because of the criminal sanctions incurred for breaching it and because it will function as a responsive tool that the police can apply to protect victims while a case is being built against the perpetrator.

The Government, in their violence against women and girls strategy, promised to publish new authorised professional practice on stalking and harassment by the end of 2016, but they did not fulfil that commitment. I now understand from the Suzy Lamplugh Trust that the College of Policing intends to produce guidance in a more accessible form for police officers. The police force in my constituency is South Yorkshire police, and information sourced by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust through freedom of information requests found that in 2013 the force recorded only eight cases of stalking. By 2016 the figure had increased to 76, and in 2017 it was 305. That is positive news, suggesting that the police are already becoming increasingly attuned to the specific nature of stalking and more adept at responding to it.

The 43 police forces in England and Wales train their officers in various different ways in relation to stalking, resulting in inconsistency across the country in the police’s ability to recognise and respond to it. In May 2018 the Crown Prosecution Service made a commitment to provide refreshed stalking and harassment training to all prosecutors over the coming months, but there is no national mandatory stalking training programme for police officers. Does the Minister agree that there should be? We will see as we go through the Bill that there are issues relating to guidance, so perhaps the Minister will respond to those.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I cannot let the Minister off the hook on that one, because one of the key things that we need to be able to implement that support, and the whole raft of protections against domestic violence and other forms of violence against women and girls, is the ratification of the Istanbul convention. I know the Minister said she was going to tie that into the draft domestic abuse Bill, which of course has been put back another year, but could she give us any news on that at this point?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so; in fact, I gave evidence before the Women and Equalities Committee last week on this issue. We have the clear intention of ratifying the convention in the domestic abuse Bill. To ratify it, we need to have met the conditions. We are very nearly there—there is just an issue about extraterritorial jurisdiction in relation to a few offences—but we are going to make it happen, as it were, in the domestic abuse Bill, which will then enable us to ratify the convention. That is happening, it will happen, and I look forward to receiving the support of colleagues from all parties in ensuring that it does happen.

Commercial Sexual Exploitation

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is not only a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley; it is also a relief to be able to do so and I thank you for your kindness in enabling it to happen.

We need to recognise that there is a crisis of commercial sexual exploitation in this country. The trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable women and girls around the UK to be sexually abused is taking place on an industrial scale. That is for one simple reason: demand. There are a minority of men in this country who are willing to pay to sexually access women’s bodies. Currently, the law gives them licence to do this. For too long, Parliament has turned a blind eye to the suffering and societal carnage that these men create.

I am here today with two clear messages for the Minister. First, there is a sexual abuse scandal happening right now on her watch. It is enabled by prostitution advertising websites and driven predominantly by heterosexual men who pay for sex. Secondly, there is a solution: making paying for sex a crime to help to stem demand and then helping the women exploited in the sex trade to exit it, by removing penalties for soliciting and providing them with properly resourced support services. The Government and the officials who advise them cannot claim that they did not know what was going on or were not aware of the scale of the problem. To end the exploitation, we have to end the demand.

Let me contextualise the scale of this problem. A recent inquiry into organised sexual exploitation by the all-party parliamentary group on prostitution and the global sex trade, of which I am a member, found that sexual exploitation of women and girls by organised crime groups is widespread across the UK. There are at least 212 active, ongoing police operations into modern slavery cases involving sexual exploitation in the UK. Our inquiry suggests that this represents just a small fraction of the true scale of organised sexual exploitation.

While most police forces do not proactively work to identify all the brothels in their area, some do track them. The scale that they find is astonishing. Leicestershire police visited 156 brothels, encountering 421 women in the year ending 31 December 2017. Some 86% of those women in the brothels were Romanian. Northumbria police visited 81 brothels between March 2016 and April 2018. Of the 259 women they met in the brothels, 75% were Romanian. Over half of those brothels were recorded as connected to other brothels, agencies or non-UK organised crime groups. Greater Manchester police has identified 324 potential new brothel addresses since March 2015. It told our inquiry:

“the majority of those identified reflect the hotspot areas for modern slavery in Greater Manchester.”

Let me quote Detective Sergeant Stuart Peall from Lancashire constabulary:

“From what we can evidence there nearly always appears to be a man or some sort of control involved. The females we encounter very rarely pay for their own advertisements. They also don’t pay for their own flights into the UK. There is clear organisation from what we have seen”.

The methods used by these organised crime groups to recruit women include deception, coercion and the exploitation of women and girls’ pre-existing vulnerabilities.

Let us be clear: women who are trafficked by organised crime groups are being subjected not to forced labour, but to rape. Based on evidence from the Poppy Project, Equality Now calculated that, on average, victims are exploited into prostitution for between eight and 20 months. Most women who are trafficked in the UK reported being forced to have sex six or seven days a week and see an estimated average of 13 sex buyers per day. From that, we can extrapolate that the average victim of trafficking for sexual exploitation is raped anywhere between 2,798 and 6,828 times. Those rapes are committed by men who pay for sex. If we scale that figure up to the 1,185 women referred to the national referral mechanism for sexual exploitation in 2017, we start to see the scale of the problem.

We must recognise that commercial sexual exploitation is part of a continuum of violence against women and girls. Commonly, it begins when they are just girls. Many women who are involved in prostitution experienced different forms of abuse, often sexual, when they were children.

The grooming process, and the beginning of a girl’s experience of the continuum of violence, is worth reflecting on. For many girls, it begins with something seemingly innocent, such as getting a slightly older boyfriend and going for car rides with him. Things then become more risky, and she might drink alcohol or smoke cannabis at the boyfriend’s insistence, and the pressure to return the favour with sexual acts then begins. Very quickly, as happened repeatedly in my constituency of Rotherham, that becomes organised sexual exploitation where the girls are passed between adult men who systematically sexually exploit them in the most horrific ways. Since the events in Rotherham came to light, attitudes in the UK have started to shift towards recognising that those girls are not prostitutes who willingly choose to sell their bodies, but victims who are exploited by men operating in gangs.

Now that child sexual exploitation is viewed as a national crisis, it is time for us to recognise that sexual exploitation does not stop when people turn 18. Instead, the girls who do not get the support they need to escape and repair their lives continue to be sexually exploited, perhaps by the same organised gangs or pimps, into their 20s, 30s and beyond. Finally, after years of campaigning, we consider the grooming and subsequent exploitation of a child to be abhorrent, but we must ask why society’s attitude is that when they turn 18, they are suddenly consenting adults who make a choice about selling sex, even when we are aware of past childhood abuse, trafficking, slavery, coercive control, intimidation, violence or drugs and alcohol dependencies in the background.

Let us confront the fact that the term “free choice” rarely, if ever, accurately describes a person’s path into prostitution and the sex trade. Sometimes we are talking about girls who have not escaped their early life trauma, who were perhaps in and out of care, groomed under the influence of drugs in their teens, or repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted throughout their lives. That may sound emotive, but it is corroborated by the supporting statistics. Home Office research shows that 50% of women became involved in prostitution before the age of 18, and three out of four women involved are aged under 21. Another Home Office study in 2016 showed that 70% of the women had spent time in care, and 45% had previously experienced sexual abuse. Do we really believe that those women and girls can give informed consent when many are inherently vulnerable or trapped in a cycle of abuse?

Commercial sexual exploitation is happening on a staggering scale, and prostitution procurement websites, where women are advertised to sex buyers, are key enablers of it. A buyer can go to sites such as Vivastreet or Adultwork, casually search for women in his area and contact the mobile number provided to arrange an appointment. It is quick, easy and highly profitable for the web companies. The Joint Slavery and Trafficking Analysis Centre, which is hosted by the National Crime Agency, says that those prostitution websites

“represent the most significant enabler of sexual exploitation in the UK”.

Claims that the sites enhance women’s safety are deeply misguided. Prostitution advertising websites significantly increase the ease and scale of organised sexual exploitation in this country.

Thankfully, other countries have started to act. Since the United States signed into law the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 earlier this year, Adultwork and a host of other sites have shut down their prostitution adverts there. In France, the Paris prosecutor launched an official investigation on charges of aggravated pimping into Vivastreet, which has since shut down its prostitution adverts in France. In Britain, our inadequate laws against commercial sexual exploitation prohibit a person from placing a call card for prostitution in a phone booth but allow companies such as Vivastreet to make millions advertising women online. That has to change urgently. This week, Vivastreet claimed that it is

“working closely with the Home Office to help develop an industry-wide approach to identifying and preventing online trafficking.”

That is not enough. The Government must take on corporate pimps, not collaborate with them.

Our law needs to be updated so that it clearly sets out that it is a criminal offence to facilitate or profit from someone else’s prostitution. Under section 53A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, it is already an offence to buy sex from a person who has been subject to force, coercion or exploitation by a third party, which means it does not have to be proved that the buyer was aware of the exploitation of the person they were paying for sex with. Sadly, research by Dr Andrea Matolcsi of Bristol University in 2017 suggested that there was only a low level of awareness of the offence and that the maximum fine of £1,000 did not deter buyers.

Our laws are simply not fit for purpose. To reduce demand for prostitution and sex trafficking, the law has to send a clear message that it is never acceptable to exploit someone by paying them for sex. To do that, the Government should urgently extend the existing prohibition against paying for sex in a public place to make it a criminal offence in all locations.

Although prostitution websites facilitate commercial sexual exploitation, they are not the root cause. The root cause is demand. Only a minority of men pay for sex. A study of 6,000 men by University College London found that 3.6% of men reported having paid for sex in the last five years. The men who were more likely to have paid for sex were young professionals with high numbers of unpaid sexual partners, which quashes the myth that the sex trade is a place of last resort for the lonely few. It is the demand of those men that drives the supply of mainly vulnerable women and girls into the sex trade. It is the money of those buyers that lines the pockets of the pimps and traffickers. The sex trade, and all the harm and suffering it entails, exists because of them.

Let me be clear: someone paying someone else to perform sex acts on them is abuse, just as exchanging accommodation, employment, services or other goods in return for sex is sexual abuse. A man who pays for sex is not a regular consumer, innocently availing themselves of a worker’s services. Offering someone money, goods or services for sex is sexual coercion. It is a form of violence against women.

Globally, 96% of victims of sexual exploitation are women and girls. When people pay for sex, they undergo a convenient act of forgetting. Only 44% of sex buyers who took part in a London-based study thought that prostitution had a very or extremely negative impact on women, which shows that many people who pay for sex ignore the fact that the women they pay for are likely to be vulnerable, may be in desperate need of money to pay off debts to their pimp, and have little or no agency in the situation. They do not think about the life or events that lead a woman to being in a brothel as opposed to working in an office or a shop.

There has rightly been outrage about the recently publicised cases of men working for aid agencies who exploited women overseas by paying them for sex, but where is the outrage when they come back to this country and sexually abuse in our own backyard? Across the UK, men are paying to sexually exploit vulnerable women and girls who they have shopped for online. We need to join the dots between prostitution, modern slavery, sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation. The common thread is men who pay to sexually access the bodies of women and girls.

There is no separate and distinct market specifically for sex-trafficked victims; the market is for sex. Detective Constable Julie Currie of the Metropolitan police’s modern slavery and kidnapping unit told the APPG:

“In the vast majority of cases, males paying for sex would give no thought to where the woman has come from or what circumstances have led her into prostitution.”

As Dr Maddy Coy from Florida University states:

“Policy approaches which presume a distinct market for the purchase of girls’ bodies for sex from that of the adult women are blinkered to the myriad of connections that span the age of majority.”

What links these forms of exploitation is the men who pay to abuse women and girls, their sexist attitude of entitlement and objectification, and the sex inequality that underpins it. Crucially, we need to acknowledge that there is nothing inevitable about this exploitation, and that we can and must take action to tackle demand from men who exploit vulnerable people by paying for sex.

I say to the Minister today that to reduce the demand for prostitution and sex trafficking, the law has to send a clear message that it is never acceptable to exploit someone by paying for sex. To do that, the Government should urgently extend the existing prohibition against paying for sex in a public space to make it a criminal offence in all locations. At the same time, it is vital that people exploited through prostitution are not criminalised, but instead supported to exit prostitution and access the services they need. As a result, penalties for loitering and soliciting should be removed from the statute book.

This “end demand” approach to prostitution is often referred to as the Nordic model, or the sex buyer law. So far it has been adopted in Sweden, Norway, France, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, so it is already in operation on UK soil. We urgently need to extend this legislation to the rest of the UK.

There is extensive evidence of the effectiveness of the sex buyer law in reducing demand. In Sweden, which was the first country to adopt an “end demand” approach back in 1999, anonymous surveys conducted in 1996 and 2008 revealed that the proportion of men in Sweden who reported paying for sex dropped from 13% to 8% in that period. The most recent study of prevalence rates found that 0.8% of men in Sweden had paid for sex in the previous 12 months, which is the smallest proportion recorded in two decades and the lowest in Europe.

Crucially, public attitudes have changed. In 1996, 45% of women and 20% of men in Sweden supported criminalising paying for sex. By 2008, support for such criminalisation had risen to 79% of women and 60% of men. That is the point of the law—it changes attitudes and prevents commercial sexual exploitation from happening in the first place.

Reducing demand also makes countries more hostile destinations for traffickers. A review of the sex buyer law in Norway concluded:

“A reduced market and increased law enforcement posit larger risks for human traffickers... The law has thus affected important pull factors and reduced the extent of human trafficking in Norway in comparison to a situation without a law.”

Similarly, the head of Stockholm police’s prostitution unit has pointed out:

“How will the traffickers survive without sex buyers? The sex buyers are the crucial sponsors of organised crime. The traffickers are not into this because of sex... They are in this because of the money.”

Paying to sexually access another person’s body is a choice—a choice to abuse. The law must serve as a deterrent and send a clear message that society will not stand idly by while a minority of men exploit vulnerable women and girls.

Changing the law around the selling and buying of sex is crucial to prevent sexual exploitation, but there are other ways in which we can reduce demand. We should seek to change attitudes towards women, exploitation and abuse through education. We need to confront the uncomfortable truth that many children are being groomed for sexual exploitation from an early age, so we really need age-appropriate relationship education in primary schools. When it comes to reducing the demand for commercial sexual exploitation, we should also educate boys about respecting women’s bodies, about gender-based violence and about negative gender stereotypes. That is why I am very sad that last week the Secretary of State for Education rowed back on his commitment to introduce relationships education in 2019; now it will hopefully be introduced in 2020.

Providing routes out of commercial sexual exploitation is also important. Solutions are required that provide wraparound care at the moment that a woman presents in crisis. The Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill, which proposes the provision of up to 12 months of rehabilitative care, recovery and support for victims, could be vital in ensuring that vulnerable women and girls are fully supported in their exit from prostitution.

In line with that, the Government need to properly fund sexual violence support services, such as Rape Crisis, which are struggling to keep up with demand. As the MP for Rotherham, I have witnessed to what happens when, confronted with the evidence of widespread sexual abuse, those in authority have looked away; when they have described exploitation as a choice; when they have dismissed it, or minimised it; and when they have known about it but failed to do all they could to prevent it.

We have a duty to act now, not to look away. It is time for this Government to recognise that prostitution is a form of violence against women and girls. I urge the Minister to legislate now to end demand by criminalising those who pay for sex and by closing the loophole that enables websites to facilitate abuse. Being abused is not a choice, but our seeming indifference to it is.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next Member, Fiona Bruce, I will just say that I do not intend to put a formal time limit on speeches. I think everyone will have time to speak, provided that they bear in mind that I intend to call the first winding-up speech at 3.28 pm. Members therefore have about six or so minutes, without a formal time limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

And prostitutes who are victims of, or at risk of, sexual or domestic violence, abuse, exploitation or human trafficking. I have used both words deliberately through my speech.

[Sarah Champion]

Only one is correct.

[Victoria Atkins]

Forgive me. In that case, may Hansard note that when I have said “sex workers”, I was referring also to prostitutes, and vice versa? I do not want to fall over on the language, as other hon. Members have mentioned.

In addition, our focus on protecting victims extends to the £13 million trusted relationships fund, which we launched in February. [Interruption.] I am sorry about my microphone, Mr Paisley—it seems to be doing something. I do not have Siri on me, just in case anyone is wondering. The trusted relationships fund will provide funding over four years for initiatives to protect the most vulnerable young people from child sexual exploitation and wider forms of criminal exploitation. We have received more than 100 expressions of interest from local authorities for initiatives aimed at developing the protection that builds resilience in children and increases the consistency and quality of support for children and young people who are at risk.

The Government’s strategy to tackle sex trafficking facilitated via online classified advert sites, otherwise known as adult service sites, comprises three main strands of activity. First, the National Crime Agency is leading a multi-agency operational plan to investigate, disrupt and prevent sex trafficking facilitated via such websites. I have visited the unit at which that work is done. Again, I thank the officers involved in that work. They sit at computer screens, see the websites, read words very similar to those that have already been cited in the debate, and they then have to find a way of dealing with that when they leave the office and go home to their loved ones. My eternal thanks and gratitude go to them for doing that.

Secondly, the operational push is supported by the development and use of innovative technological capabilities to identify trafficking online. Thirdly, in support of the work the Home Office has spoken to the largest adult services websites operating in the UK so that it takes a proactive role in identifying trafficking-related material and preventing such material from being hosted. I am clear that the websites have a responsibility. Through engagement with such industries, we seek to ensure that they do what they should to ensure that their sites do not host criminal and exploitative behaviour.

Colleagues have mentioned the United States’ approach. Alongside our current work, we continue to monitor the impact in the US of the recent change in legislation brought in by the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, known as FOSTA. The Act gives sex trafficking victims more power to sue websites that knowingly support sex trafficking. Although such an approach has much to commend it at first blush, we are conscious of some emerging evidence that the prohibition of such sites results in the displacement, rather than the prevention, of abuse, and disperses trafficking-related advertisements across myriad smaller websites where they are harder to investigate. However, we will keep looking at that and see whether there are lessons to be learned from that approach, and from approaches elsewhere.

[Sarah Champion]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes, although I am just about to finish so that the hon. Lady has a chance to respond.

[Sarah Champion]

I will give my time to the Minister, because I would really like her to answer three questions. First, will she legislate to ensure that websites cannot financially benefit from exploited women? Secondly, will she stop criminalising women who are forced into prostitution? Thirdly, will she criminalise both the buyers and those who force women, and benefit from forcing women, into prostitution?

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

The Minister has two and a half minutes.

Gender Pay Gap

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

We focus on all sectors, all parts of the economy and all levels of pay. The press and colleagues throughout the House tend to talk about things such as the Hampton-Alexander review, which I appreciate is not in any way reflective of everyone, but it is important because it is about leadership at the top, from which will flow the expectation of a diverse workforce. We are very clear: we are absolutely not ignoring the women whom the hon. Lady describes. That is why we took the extraordinary step of introducing the national living wage, which was increased in April, enabling more women to find work. That is along with all the childcare help we are providing; we are spending more on childcare than any Government before us—£6 billion. This is all part of a plan to help women into the workforce, so that they have the financial independence they need.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

The EHRC has faced savage cuts under both this Government and the coalition Government. Does the Minister genuinely believe that the EHRC has the resources to enforce compliance, or is she passing responsibility without passing the cash?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The EHRC is to receive £17.4 million in 2019-20. I have spoken to the chief executive about the gender pay gap compliance issue. Of course we will keep in mind the EHRC’s responsibilities, but at the moment we are clear that that sum of money should be sufficient to enable it to do the work necessary to help with compliance.