Official Report 324KB pdf
This is the third evidence-taking session on the Prostitution Tolerance Zones (Scotland) Bill. We have with us Councillor James Coleman, who is the deputy leader of Glasgow City Council, and Ann Hamilton, who is the council's principal policy development officer.
Does that mean that I am not allowed to ask questions?
You are allowed to ask questions that are relevant to the submission.
I will outline briefly Glasgow City Council's position on street prostitution in Glasgow. My colleague will provide technical background information on our proposals and on what we are doing.
The partnership approach has been important in Glasgow and the problem of prostitution is a strategic priority for agencies in Glasgow. We accept absolutely that harm reduction is important—all of the agencies are involved actively in harm reduction and have been for a long time. However, we are trying to examine some of the other activity that has not been undertaken in areas such as prevention, exiting and changing attitudes towards prostitution. The focus for health promotion must move away from the women. We always give the responsibility for safe sex to the women, yet it is the men who ask for unprotected sex and are prepared to pay more for it. We want to shift the focus on to the men and highlight the public nuisance that they create. They have a role to play in health promotion and are responsible for the violence that the women suffer and for the women's lack of safety. It must also be stressed that men who pay women for sexual services often take money from a family income to do so.
Thank you for your comments. I would like to ask a couple of questions about your written submission. It states:
The intervention team is working with between 50 and 60 women. Some of those women have been in contact since the team was established. Some have exited prostitution completely and some move in and out of it. We have found that it is much more difficult for women to leave prostitution than any of us imagined—they require a huge amount of intensive support to do so.
In your submission you state:
Traditionally, pimps are defined as men who run a number of women and profit from women whom they control. In Glasgow and other cities in Scotland, there are partners who profit from, and may have their drug habit paid for by, women's involvement in prostitution. Such partners are not in charge of a number of women.
Last week, Base 75 and the Women's Support Project (Glasgow) gave evidence to the committee and talked about education. They described how young boys who are asked why women prostitute themselves reply that the women like sex or give other answers along those lines.
The project was piloted in two secondary schools a year ago. It is now recommended as part of materials on violence against women entitled "Action Against Abuse". Those materials are available to all secondary schools in Glasgow and take-up has been very positive.
The committee and I would be interested to receive any statistics that you have compiled on that approach.
I read your submission with great interest. From both the evidence that you have given and the evidence that Glasgow representatives gave last week, the effectiveness of the partnership working is clear. Such partnership working is crucial in dealing with the problem of prostitution.
The bill is enabling rather than mandatory.
That is right. The bill is enabling. It would not force Glasgow City Council to make use of the powers. However, if the council does not have the powers at that point to plan an alternative to its red-light area, how will it continue to offer appropriate support to that population of women? The council has been in contact with Base 75 and is doing a fantastic job. However, as prostitution is increasingly dispersed across Glasgow as the red-light district becomes smaller, how will the council cope?
That is a valid point. Your comment about Glasgow green is true. As we know, Glasgow green has been updated and modernised. Modern housing is being built and the prostitution problem conflicts with that.
The committee has heard from Base 75 about the specialist service that is provided, but that is only one element of the approach. We have been working with all the mainstream services—health, the police, social work and education—with a view to helping them to improve their service for women who are involved in prostitution. We are about to launch a leaflet for all council staff outlining the problems that women who are involved in prostitution face. The leaflet states that those women do not have a sexual problem and that they suffer from severe social exclusion. It suggests ways in which council staff can assist women. The health service has also considered mainstreaming harm reduction. It is not the case that women can go only to Base 75; if it were the case, we would undoubtedly face a major problem if the women moved.
I accept that. As far as I can see, Glasgow has gone further in mainstreaming in its services than any other area has. That does not alter the fact that major difficulties will emerge if those 1,400 women are spread throughout the city. There is evidence that that is beginning to occur. There is now prostitution in some housing estates where it did not occur before, because the existing areas are becoming smaller and the conflicts are increasing. Without a massive increase in resources, you will have a major problem.
We currently have arrest referral systems. Several alternatives to custody are working, but not to the extent that we would like. We have been trying to influence local magistrates and lay justices in that respect and we will pursue that matter.
I want to continue with that line of questioning. From what has been said, do you accept that, if there is dispersal and the red-light area no longer exists, it will be more difficult for the women to use the support services that are currently in place?
I think that it will be more difficult, which is why we are constantly reviewing what is happening. We have a group of staff from different agencies who examine the level of complaints, where women are being arrested. We constantly review that and consider how to respond to the changing pattern. The situation varies from week to week and, as Councillor Coleman said, we know that it will change significantly in the future. One response might be to relocate the drop-in centre or to make it much more of an outreach service. The changing pattern will be taken into account when we are planning services for women.
Paragraph 1.8 of your submission states your view that tolerance zones are a short-term measure and you have made it quite clear that, ideologically, you are against tolerance zones. In your view, how long is the short term?
It is probably not that short term. Tolerance zones will certainly need to continue in the near future. We need to establish the prevention measures that I talked about. We need to consider more services for women who want to exit prostitution—I am thinking of drug programmes, for example. A range of measures needs to be in place in order for us significantly to reduce the number of women who are involved in prostitution in the city. Although the submission says that tolerance zones are a short-term measure, they will probably be there five or 10 years down the road.
I want to ask about the cost of the Routes Out of Prostitution social inclusion partnership. Did you say that so far 10 women have moved out of prostitution? Are we talking about more than 1,000 women? How much has the project cost so far?
I think that there has been a misunderstanding. Routes Out of Prostitution comprises a number of different elements. One is the partnership of agencies. There is also a small unit that services the partnership and considers strategic responses on issues such as legal reform and prevention work. Another small team is dedicated to long-term work with women on exiting prostitution. That is the intervention team, which is only a small part of Routes Out of Prostitution's approach and comprises a co-ordinator, three development officers and an administrative worker. I do not have the figures that you request with me, but I can get hold of them.
Roughly how much does the project cost?
The figure is around £130,000 to £140,000 a year. I said that 10 women have exited completely, but, as a result of support from the intervention team, many women who come along do not require to come back. The intervention team was established to work with women who are involved with street prostitution, but it has found that women who are involved in indoor prostitution—in saunas, for example—come along. Such women might require less support in exiting. It is difficult to track where women are.
Of the estimated 1,400 street prostitutes in Glasgow, how many operate outwith the two main recognised areas to which Richard Simpson referred?
Do you mean the east end and the city centre?
Yes.
I think that the police would confirm that most street prostitutes operate in the east end or the city centre. One important point is that they are there only to locate men who are interested in them—they then go elsewhere.
The areas are effectively pick-up points.
That is right.
I am slightly confused by the evidence that we have received from agencies in Glasgow on the attitude there. In effect, Councillor Coleman admitted that an unofficial tolerance zone operates in Glasgow. However, he seems totally opposed to the bill, which would allow councils that wish to introduce tolerance zones to do so. We heard evidence from Aberdeen City Council that it would probably take that route if it had the opportunity to do so and we will take evidence from the City of Edinburgh Council later today. Why is Glasgow City Council opposed to councils being able to consider that route where it is appropriate for their area, even if it is not appropriate for Glasgow?
Your question goes back to what I said earlier. There is an unofficial tolerance zone, which, as we heard, allows us to put policies in place to work with the women in that part of the city. However, that does not mean that we accept prostitution. Prior to the present council administration, nobody considered prostitution to be a problem issue in Glasgow.
I accept what you are saying. However, the proposed legislation does not say that the council necessarily thinks that prostitution is a good or acceptable thing. Instead, it seeks to create an area where prostitution can be managed and where services that might help people to get out of prostitution can be provided. Ann Hamilton said earlier that she does not expect it to be a short-term issue. Indeed, it will take a long time to deal with the routes into prostitution, because evidence suggests that many people who have been abused in the past move into drugs and then into prostitution to fund their drugs habit.
Surely it would also be possible to set up services for women in the same way that we have set up Base 75 and initiatives in other places in Glasgow. That would be an excellent step forward in any city, and would not require the establishment of tolerance zones.
How do you get access to the prostitutes if you do not know where they are? That is the problem that Edinburgh is facing at the moment.
That is the contradiction. Either you help the women or you put a legitimate stamp on prostitution and classify it as a business.
I do not agree.
Glasgow and Aberdeen run areas that might be called red-light areas, tolerance zones or whatever. However, the problem arises when the space in those areas is used up and no other areas for such activity will be welcomed by local residents, businesses or the women themselves. As a result, it is difficult to see how the bill will assist Edinburgh or Aberdeen in its problems with locating such areas.
I welcome the representatives of Glasgow City Council. I know Ann Hamilton very well from various meetings; however, I do not know Councillor Coleman so well. Perhaps I should declare an interest in that I represent Glasgow in the Parliament.
Women are undoubtedly safer when they are in an area that is covered by closed-circuit television, but they are not safe. CCTV also makes the police's job easier in identifying those who perpetrate violence, but the vast majority of violence takes place where the women are providing sexual services outwith the tolerance zone. Our submission quotes the Base 75 statistics, which show that 98 per cent of the assaults that were reported to Base 75 happened in places such as flats and hotels. A tolerance zone makes women a bit safer while they are in the zone, but it does not make them safer generally.
As a former Glasgow City councillor, I am delighted to welcome representatives from Glasgow to Edinburgh—I have never been able to say that before.
The first thing to say is that we could call prostitution the oldest oppression rather than the oldest profession.
Not all men think that.
No, I am certainly not saying that they do. Not all men abuse women or children. A lot of men—particularly young men—have the perception that buying sex is acceptable and a laugh and that it does no harm.
I have two final short questions. One concerns the women being helped out of prostitution. Do you have any records that indicate that women who have come out go back in again? That must be a problem.
While we have been supporting women out of prostitution, one of the barriers that has been reported back to us has been the benefits trap. Women go into low-paid employment and find it difficult to pay the rent and re-establish their lives. Women face a stigma and find it difficult to give up going to Base 75 and being friendly with other women in the same boat.
I do not dispute the fact that the police try to do their job but, nevertheless, there have been roughly half a dozen murders in and around the city centre. I know that the police cannot be everywhere every minute, or even every hour. There are lookouts, pimps and so on. I know that that is a difficult question and I do not expect you to answer it.
One of the women was murdered in the red-light district—the others had gone elsewhere. There is danger in women going elsewhere. However, they are picked up in the red-light district.
In your submission you state:
In Glasgow, a number of services are involved with the red-light area—cleansing, security, policing and so on. We are concerned that the police would say that it was for local authorities to consult on, establish, maintain and manage tolerance zones. Effectively, they would have little role in such zones. At the moment, there is fairly high-profile policing of the red-light district. In the main, the police do not charge women with offences. That is the only difference between the role of the police in the red-light district and their role in other parts of Glasgow.
However, you can see that it would inevitably fall to local authorities to establish, consult on and manage tolerance zones.
That appears to be the way in which the scheme would work. I understand that when the Edinburgh pilot took place SCOT-PEP worked closely with the police to establish rules about what could and could not happen in the tolerance zone. Presumably, under the bill that would be the responsibility of the local authority. The bill refers to a code of conduct. Local authorities would determine how many women could work in a zone and a number of other issues related to conduct. Dress was one of the issues mentioned in the SCOT-PEP code of conduct.
You have said that you have an effective system of management and that all the different agencies that come into contact with prostitutes take a co-ordinated approach. You have also said that you do not regard it as a system only for the short term. I do not suggest that Glasgow City Council is endorsing prostitution as a way of life, but you admit that you manage it.
If you do not manage it, you provide the means that help the police to manage it and that help prostitutes to manage themselves.
No.
Surely prostitutes are assisted in managing their way out of prostitution.
We respond to women's needs. We assist in harm reduction and in enabling women to exit prostitution. We certainly do not manage prostitution in the city. That does not happen.
That is too much sophistry for the official report, so we will cut to the chase. Why, when you recognise that your present arrangement for dealing with the problems that prostitution causes for prostitutes, their families and the general community will have to continue for a considerable period, are you unwilling to support an enabling bill that will allow Aberdeen and Edinburgh to do that in their way?
We oppose the bill on principle, as it would endorse and legitimise prostitution and the harm that it does.
However, you would concede that your suggestion that having a policy of tolerance zones legitimises and endorses prostitution is a matter of opinion.
No, that is the experience in Glasgow.
You have never had a tolerance zone, so how can you have that experience?
You should allow Ann Hamilton to finish answering the first question before asking another one.
The experience is our having responded to women within a traditional red-light area in Glasgow for a considerable number of years. Base 75 was established in 1987 and before that there were outreach services. The approach has always been about reducing the harm to women. It is not about managing prostitution and enabling prostitution to happen in a safer, easier way.
With all due respect, that was not my question. My question was, how can you allege that a tolerance zone policy will legitimise and endorse prostitution? Your reply was that that is your experience in Glasgow. You then told me that you did not legitimise or endorse prostitution in Glasgow—I do not believe that you do, but neither do I believe that Edinburgh does.
It is not our experience but our analysis that leads us to believe that a tolerance zone would legitimise prostitution. It is our analysis that prostitution is a form of violence against women and a means of social exclusion of women.
I understand all that. How do you explain the fall in the numbers of women working as street prostitutes—remember that the bill refers only to street prostitutes—in Edinburgh and the rise in the number of street prostitutes in Glasgow?
They are two very different cities. The big difference is that Glasgow has a major problem with drug abuse and poverty. As I understand it, much of the prostitution in Edinburgh happens indoors, which is a different setting altogether. I do not think that we can compare the two cities.
I have striven not to compare the two cities. That is why I was somewhat disappointed by your submission. In Utrecht there is a much higher level of compliance by the prostitutes, not in a disused bus station but in an industrial area that operates during the day. Sydney has a completely different take on street prostitution than does Melbourne. Every city has its own mix of culture, history, geography and local conditions, which produces a different situation. I suggest that it would be a good idea for Glasgow to accept that every city will come up with its own solution, not by endorsing prostitution but by helping to address the worst aspects of prostitution in the short term.
How you see prostitution informs how you consider solutions. If you see prostitution as inevitable and acceptable and you think that it will always be with us, you will consider different solutions, such as official tolerance zones. If you look at prostitution in the way that Glasgow does, as harmful to women and having an impact on women's mental and emotional health, you would not want to legitimise it in any way.
I am not legitimising it. Through the bill, I am attempting to do things that you suggested in your submission, such as
There is confusion about what are the benefits of a tolerance zone and what is good practice by SCOT-PEP. SCOT-PEP has undoubtedly done a lot of work on harm reduction and tackling a range of issues with women who are involved in prostitution. Our point is that a tolerance zone is not needed to do that; an approach is needed that is women-centred and that provides opportunities and services for women. That is the benefit of having services like SCOT-PEP and Base 75. It is not about whether there is a tolerance zone.
Well, Aberdeen City Council saw it as crucial to have the drop-in centre beside where the women work. Edinburgh has also found that the number of women who access SCOT-PEP's services and health services has dropped, because they are no longer coterminous. So there is experience—not opinion—to show what happens when services are targeted where the women work. We have called it a tolerance zone, but we could have called it anything that we liked—it is just about organising services to get them to the women most effectively.
But the difference is that if you cannot make your service available within the area, or if you have dispersal, you have to consider different ways of providing the same service to women.
I agree.
That might be done through outreach. It might be done through satellite services. There might be a range of ways of doing that, but the benefit is the service that is provided, not the tolerance zone.
In other words, if the service is the important thing and it can be delivered in any number of ways, providing it in the way that Aberdeen and Edinburgh want to provide it does not imply endorsement of or legitimacy for prostitution.
For the way that they provide the service at the moment, that is right, but if you say that the local authority will now consult on, establish, maintain and manage tolerance zones—prostitution zones—that will legitimise prostitution. It will make it part of normal society and part of the normal workings of the council.
No. It will mean that the women will not be subject to prosecution.
Margo, I think that we will have to beg to differ on this issue. Councillor Coleman, do you want to add to what Ann Hamilton said?
No, except to say that I am glad that we have had the opportunity to come through and speak to the committee. It is good that the committee is discussing prostitution. As the submission says, local authorities have tended to turn a blind eye to prostitution, and it is good that a committee of the Scottish Parliament is discussing it in the open. I hope that this is the start of a process, because prostitution is far wider, deeper and nastier than street prostitution. The committee should examine it in more depth.
I do not think that we would disagree with that. I have a couple of questions. Perhaps the information could be provided later. Ann Hamilton mentioned women who are in difficulty and on benefits finding their way into prostitution to resolve the situation. It would be helpful if you could provide information on benefits and the poverty issues. Jim Coleman mentioned that Glasgow City Council produced a submission on the sentencing process. Richard Simpson picked up on the differences between Edinburgh and Glasgow in terms of women ending up in Cornton Vale. It would be helpful to have that submission.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
Okay, comrades, we will continue with the second evidence-taking session. I welcome Professor Peter Donnelly, the director of public health and health policy in Lothian NHS Board, and Jim Sherval, the drug policy and research co-ordinator in Lothian NHS Board. This is the first time that you have attended the committee, and you are welcome. I understand that Professor Donnelly will speak for a few minutes, after which I will open up the debate for questions. If Jim Sherval has anything to add, he should feel free to do so.
Thank you for the invitation to address the committee. I will keep my opening remarks brief, because it is probably more important to have questions and answers.
That would be lovely.
I shall establish the locus and interest of a health board such as Lothian NHS Board in the matter. It is quite simple: we are charged not only with trying to provide good health services, but with improving the health of the population as a whole and, specifically, with reducing health inequalities. People who are involved in street prostitution are a particularly disadvantaged group. They are at risk of attack and their health is at risk. Many of them are drug users and a great many have histories of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. They are therefore a legitimate priority group for us.
Underlying the experience in Edinburgh is the HIV problem of the early 1980s, which drives a lot of the pragmatism that is found in the city and the Lothians. As far as we can tell, street prostitution has not been a vector for the onward transmission of HIV.
Before we start to ask questions, I should inform our witnesses that I will have to leave the committee at half past 3 and will hand over to Sylvia Jackson, who is the deputy convener. I mean no disrespect in doing so.
A proportion of street prostitutes in Edinburgh are drug users. The proportions might differ from city to city, but I support the view that was expressed earlier that each city is different in terms of its problems and the necessary solutions.
Did you find that it was easier to provide health-promotion assistance to street prostitutes while the tolerance zone was in place than it is now?
Yes. A large part of the services are provided by SCOT-PEP, which we support financially. SCOT-PEP found it easier to access clients when street prostitution was in a defined and understood area. Because that organisation was able, with our help, to have in the area premises that were open at appropriate hours, uptake of the services was considerable. However, because of the unfortunate demise of the tolerance zone, that has ended. Street prostitution has become dispersed, access to services has fallen off and needle-exchange programmes have largely collapsed—the health consequences of that are quite worrying.
Do you have evidence of adverse health consequences, or are you referring to concerns and anecdotal evidence?
It is too early to come to a definitive conclusion. As yet, according to our colleagues in genito-urinary medicine, there has not been a large upsurge in sexually transmitted diseases, but I would not expect to see such evidence yet. Members will appreciate that the dispersal of prostitutes and the fall off of access to, and uptake of, services make that a difficult question to answer. Put simply, we do not know what we do not know. It seems to be reasonable to assume that because the services—which Lothian NHS Board pays for—are not seeing people, those people are being put at greater risk.
Are you providing advice or support to other areas of the health service, such as GPs and health clinics, in order to help them to identify problems associated with prostitution?
Jim Sherval might want to address the drugs aspects and the good co-operation on drug services with GPs in the Lothians region. People are trying to put alternative outreach services in place, which are based in a static caravan and use outreach cars. However, given the demise of the tolerance zone, it is very much a make-do-and-mend situation. Members will appreciate that there are real difficulties with that set-up and that there are real limits to what can be done. Needle exchanges have been most adversely affected, which has obvious consequences for the spread of HIV.
The local health care co-operative for north-east Edinburgh has a clinic, to which GPs have referred many women who were using drugs. It is a multi-agency development involving Turning Point Scotland and Lothian NHS Board's drug action team. Therefore, there are other local services, but they are available only during the day and there is evidence globally and locally that the services are needed all the time because people lead somewhat split lives. Local services are fully apprised of the situation, but are not always ideally situated to provide the necessary help.
I have read Professor Donnelly's paper and I feel that not enough research is being conducted on tolerance zones to conclude whether they are a good or a bad thing. Do you agree?
Such a conclusion depends on the evidence that people are looking for. If people are looking for a strictly scientific study conducted by a university and funded by a research council, in which the experience in a formally established tolerance zone and that in an unregulated zone are compared, they will not find one. I cannot find one and I have looked very hard.
Your paper also stated that, when tolerance zones were introduced in Sydney and New South Wales, decriminalisation dramatically improved policing. My understanding is that the bill is concerned with tolerance zones, rather than with decriminalisation of prostitution. Are they, in effect, one and the same?
I am neither a lawyer nor a legislator, so I defer to the committee on the latter aspect and to legal colleagues on the former. I am trying to reflect the public heath imperative, which is very much concerned above all else with harm minimisation and prioritising the health of the women, their families and their clients.
You said that, as regards the impact on public health, there is a negative health impact on communities near tolerance zones because of drug dealers, increased kerb crawling and fear of discarded needles, condoms and the like. Surely you need to balance the positive effect that you and others claim for tolerance zones with the possible negative impact on communities within their vicinity.
I have tried to stress that the negative impact on communities living near a tolerance zone, whether formally or informally established, "should not be underestimated." Those are the exact words that I use in the paper. I think that that is fair. I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of the intention of the legislation is that, first, it will be enabling, rather than mandatory. Therefore, it will be up to each council to decide what is right for it.
Over the past few weeks, there has been considerable discussion of tolerance zones and, to a lesser extent, the use of industrial zones, which I think could be highly dangerous for women, especially if those industrial zones are situated in isolated areas or are on the outskirts of towns or cities.
It could be argued that Edinburgh has experience of a situation that is akin to that, because there have been about 20 licensed saunas in Edinburgh for many years, although they are not exactly the same as brothels. It is interesting that the number has been fairly static and has not, as many people feared it would, risen over the years; it has stayed at about 20. The licensing procedure gives the council and the police a right of access and some control. That is not exactly the same as the other measures that the committee is discussing, but it is similar.
If I remember correctly, the evidence from Glasgow City Council seemed to be that when the red-light area disappears or is no longer needed—the council talks about it as a short-term measure—the council will have to consider other ways in which to support prostitutes. From what you say about the demise of the tolerance zone, Edinburgh is now in that situation. What is your view of Glasgow City Council's comments? It seems to think of the matter more positively and hopes that support services can be built up. For example, I think that mobile support was mentioned. Might dispersal in Edinburgh be different from dispersal in Glasgow? Perhaps that is the root of the problem.
I will answer your questions in reverse order. An opportunity to research the issues more thoroughly might flow from the committee's deliberations on the various models that exist in Scottish cities. The most useful research would be to examine cohorts of street prostitutes to understand better how they ended up in that situation. That would allow us to support them—through the ways that others have suggested—in exploring other means of supporting their drugs habits or making ends meet. It would also allow us to find out what happens to such women. My hunch is that we would be fairly horrified by the backgrounds and experiences that lead women to prostitution. Such research might also relate to raising the health expectations of what is a vulnerable and high-risk group. That is the kind of research that we should collectively endeavour to support.
Some of the material that is coming out is fascinating. The number of street prostitutes who are returning to the west from Edinburgh, following the ending of the tolerance zone, is interesting.
Those are interesting thoughts.
The licensing system for saunas is, in a sense, managing off-street prostitution. Could it be made a condition of such licences that anyone who seeks employment in a sauna be required to have counselling prior to accepting employment?
Again, I understand why that suggestion would be made. My concern, however, is the same; if counselling were to be made a legislative prerequisite of working in a licensed sauna, the result could be a growth in unlicensed saunas. Perhaps the way to square the circle is to say that counselling should become part of the package that health caseworkers and others offer. It could become part of their right of access to licensed saunas.
Do you want to add anything to that, Jim?
No. I just wanted to make a comment about compulsory treatment or counselling, which could militate against the benefits of people going voluntarily for counselling. It is important that the offer of information and advice is made and that people who have confused ideas about where to go for help and so forth have somewhere to go. It is particularly important for that offer to be genuinely made and readily accessible—there should be no barriers to such offers. To make such information and counselling compulsory could add to the feeling that we are talking about a homogeneous group instead of about individual women.
I want to put on record my thanks to Margo MacDonald for introducing the Prostitution Tolerance Zones (Scotland) Bill. Whether we agree with the bill or not, it has brought prostitution out into the open and allowed us to speak about it. We have also learned a lot about the suffering of many of the women who are involved in this profession—although I would prefer not to call it a profession.
Those are fair questions, and I am not sure that I am the right person to answer the legal aspect of the first one, but I will have a go. You can ask some lawyers about the advantages and disadvantages of having tolerance zones legally established as opposed to the matter's being dealt with in another way. I understand that the bill is enabling legislation, so it might suit Edinburgh to set up such zones. Our experience of de facto tolerance zones suggests that it would probably suit Edinburgh to use such zones. It might not suit Glasgow, which is fine. As I understand it, the legislation would allow each city to take its own approach.
It seems to me that we are talking about two specific aspects of prostitution and tolerance zones. One is policing, which is a matter for the police, and the other is public health, including both the health of the prostitutes and the wider health of the community. Local authorities such as Glasgow City Council do not want to take on responsibility for tolerance zones because they feel that they might be seen to be managing prostitution. When Lothian and Borders police gave evidence last week, they said that they did not want to take on responsibility for managing tolerance zones. It is my view that the matter is more one of public health. Would Lothian NHS Board like to take on the responsibility of managing a tolerance zone?
We have been very proactive. We have taken risks and made ourselves unpopular—we have not taken the easy line. We have spent money and we have put people who work for us in risky situations and I think that we have, as a result, prevented what could have been a catastrophic explosion of HIV and AIDS in Edinburgh. I might be misinterpreting the question. If so, I apologise. If you are asking whether we are prepared to take a lead, our track record speaks for itself.
I do not take anything away from the work that Lothian NHS Board has done, as the board's record speaks for itself. You are right that the issue should be about joined-up government and should involve local authorities, the police, health boards and other agencies working together to find solutions.
It is inevitable that each agency involved would have to manage the bit of the problem for which it was responsible. I do not think that it would be possible to have a single overall manager, although I do not claim to be an expert in the field. Those who manage street cleansing would still manage street cleansing; the same would be true of health services and social services. Everyone would have to manage their bit. However, I am not sure that the issue is about management; rather, it is about co-ordination, co-operation and trying, in a collective way, to do what is best.
Do you envisage that Lothian NHS Board would act as the co-ordinating agency?
It would be arrogant in the extreme for me to suggest that the health board should take over running part of the city simply because there was a de facto or legally established tolerance zone. I expect that all the agencies involved would work out who would do what and would agree on a co-ordinating structure.
That is not my intention. I am sorry if you have misinterpreted where I am coming from. The police in Edinburgh and Glasgow City Council certainly seem to be reluctant to be the main agencies. Given that a tolerance zone for prostitutes would involve a huge public health issue, I was asking a genuine question about whether the health board would see itself as the lead agency in such an initiative. Other agencies, such as the local authority in Glasgow and the police in Edinburgh, seem to be backing off from their perceived role in advancing the issue. Their attitude seems to be that overall responsibility belongs not to them but to someone else. I wanted to find out how you felt about that.
I am trying to think of helpful analogies. The statement that you have made—that the issue is primarily a public health matter, although many agencies are involved—would be true of some of the difficult and challenging work that is done on drug misuse. Although the police, social services, health services, local authorities and voluntary agencies are all involved, they somehow manage to find a way forward. Jim Sherval has better information on that aspect than I have and might want to add to what I have said.
I ask Mr Sherval to deal with the question briefly. We have gone as far with this issue as we can.
Managing is a slightly loaded term. However, the day-to-day co-ordination of services in the Edinburgh tolerance zone was carried out by the voluntary agency, SCOT-PEP. The women had a strong role, along with the prostitute liaison officer and GUM services. Although the voluntary agency may not be the responsible body under the bill, it was the key service provider and conduit. I am not sure whether that answers the question, but I hope that it adds more detail.
I will put your mind at rest by assuring you that Lothian NHS Board will not be the lead agency if the bill is passed—the bill identifies the local authority as the lead agency. Am I correct in assuming that, although Lothian NHS Board may take the lead in promoting services and feel responsible for ensuring that women are able to access them, you would not be happy about spending the board's money on introducing security systems such as CCTV?
Not only would we not be happy about doing that, but I guess that we would not be allowed to do it.
The police, too, made the point that each part of the partnership has particular responsibilities. The bill would allow the police to make an application to the local authority to discontinue the zone. I can discuss with health authorities whether we need to be more specific about the circumstances that could trigger such an application. One can imagine that happening if there were an outbreak of infection. However, that is an operational matter; it is not dealt with in the bill.
No. I apologise if my earlier comments were not clearer. If we get the area right—ideally, by establishing it away from residential properties—there will be positive benefits to having a tolerance zone, rather than disbenefits. That would take to a defined area the problems of discarded needles and condoms, of local women being stopped on the street and of kerb-crawling.
There should be street cleansing in such an area. If agencies work in partnership, the council's cleansing services should ensure that that happens.
Yes. The crucial point is that the establishment of a zone would allow us to focus input of services on one area.
We touched on the lack of evidence that exists. Do you agree that in Edinburgh that may be due partly to the fact that for almost 20 years the system was not broken? Do we need to fix it and to research it?
That is fair comment, to which I have two brief responses. First, lack of evidence does not equal lack of effect—it simply means that no one has looked at the matter yet. Secondly, because of the individual nature of the cities that are involved and of the scenes in those cities, researching and drawing conclusions on a comparative basis is desperately difficult, as I have said. Probably the best approach is to allow each city to do what seems to work for it.
I thank you for raising those issues with us, particularly those that relate to needle exchange and discarded needles.
Not really. I was probably referring to the difficulty that Professor Donnelly mentioned with doing a lot of survey work on the issue. Anecdotally, the proportion seems to be lower in Edinburgh, but such things are relative. The proportion might be 90 per cent in one place and 50 per cent in another place, but 50 per cent is still quite a high proportion, although it might not be at the extreme level that is found elsewhere. That lower level may have been sustained over a number of years. There has probably been better access to information through more qualitative, rather than more quantitative, research.
Thank you.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome Sue Laughlin, the women's health co-ordinator for Greater Glasgow NHS Board, and Mike McCarron, the greater Glasgow drug action team co-ordinator. I invite Sue to say a few words, after which we will ask questions.
I will confine my remarks to a few minutes. It cannot be stressed too much—I am sure that you have heard quite a lot of evidence to this effect—that the burden of poor health, both physical and psychological, that is carried by women in prostitution is massive. As I say in my submission, women who enter prostitution are already likely to be carrying a burden of poor health that will be exacerbated by their being involved in prostitution, including their exposure to disease, lack of safety and the trauma of engaging in prostitution. That fact has been neglected. We also realise that the health of men can be compromised, given that they are not prepared to take responsibility for safe sex practices in the wider population, and their health is also affected by the existence of prostitution.
I will complement what Sue Laughlin has said by giving a brief picture of the prevalence of drugs in greater Glasgow and Glasgow city. The drug action team covers greater Glasgow, which includes Glasgow city and five other local authorities—or parts of those five authorities. However, today I shall focus on information about Glasgow city.
I have two quick questions. First, what research is the drug action team undertaking to track street prostitutes through the various support mechanisms that Mike McCarron has just listed?
That is important at a time when we are building up services and are engaging and tracking what happens to a rising number of individuals. In the past year we have moved about 1,000 extra people into treatment services. Between them, the agencies involved—particularly health and social work—hold information about how many people are accessing and progressing with services.
Greater Glasgow NHS Board's written evidence states:
I do not think that that question has informed the development of the work that we have undertaken to ensure that health services—mainstream services as well as specialist services—respond to the needs of women. That is the approach that should be taken in our view. The activities that have developed in Glasgow have come about because of a policy of improving the health of women. The health of women is affected by the inequalities that they face in society and by the abuse that they face—and we regard prostitution as a form of abuse. It is in that context that we have sought to improve our services for women.
Although I am not disputing any of the things that you have just said, I am not entirely convinced that that answers my question. I totally accept that that is the basis of your work, but I was trying to get at the marked contrast between the evidence that we received on Glasgow and the evidence from Aberdeen and Edinburgh. I am referring to evidence from various agencies, including the police, local authorities and health boards. They recognise that tolerance zones in those cities offer an appropriate way to provide services to women where they are needed.
As I have already said, services have not developed because of the existence or otherwise of a tolerance zone; they have developed as the result of another policy imperative. We do not see how introducing a tolerance zone would make any difference. Our observation is that, when a different view is adopted, the responsibility is not taken to identify and implement a comprehensive approach whereby health services become more sensitive to women's needs.
If, as has been suggested, Glasgow's red-light district becomes unsuitable in the next two or three years for various reasons, such as the development of the area, the women might disperse through other parts of the city. How will you provide services to them when they are not in an easily identifiable area?
Women already use services all round the city. They do not use just the specialist services that are available to them when they are in prostitution. We have evidence that they use our Sandyford initiative, which brings together family planning, the genito-urinary medicine service and our centre for women's health. We have some evidence that they use primary care services, and the challenge is making those services understand and be more responsive to women's needs when they attend, rather than concentrating our efforts on specialist services that label women as prostitutes rather than acknowledging that they are women.
I support that. I tried to make the point that by developing a range of services throughout the city, we have found that women, who live in different parts of the city but who enter the town for prostitution, access their local drugs service because of their drug problems. They go there not as prostitutes, but as women who have drug problems, many of whom have family connections. They receive a service that is given from that point of view.
I will ask an obvious question. How do you maintain that holistic approach and integrate drug treatment in localities with what happens when women come into the town? I take it that the support that they receive in the red-light area does not tackle drugs but deals with the prostitution element and how women can get out of prostitution, but I do not know. Will you explain how that all ties up?
Base 75 gives women in the city centre who are there for the purposes of prostitution and who have a drug problem, not only advice and counselling on prostitution, but medical treatment and help such as free condoms, methadone prescriptions and so on. They will also be offered opportunities to move into flats.
You have outlined a number of ways in which you are trying to help. As you and previous speakers have suggested, the fact that most prostitutes are on drugs—as their predecessors, going way back in time, were addicted to alcohol—creates a catch-22 situation. I wonder whether tolerance zones are a temporary phenomenon and whether they will survive. If you were dictators with complete powers and no shortage of finance and every legal means at your disposal, how would you tackle the problem of prostitution, bearing in mind that it has been present since Persia, ancient Greece, Babylon and so on? I think that it will always be with us, but what would you like to happen in terms of the law? My feeling is that, if Glasgow's tolerance zone were abolished tomorrow, prostitutes would congregate in the back lanes of the city centre and elsewhere. The police have so much on their hands that they would have no time to deal with the situation.
We need a primary prevention approach. I do not agree that the fact that we have always had prostitution means that we cannot do that. Ultimately, only primary prevention will lead to health improvements—which is what I am concerned about—for prostitutes, their families and the community. Simply reducing the harm to women will not seriously address the severe health problems that they experience. The motivation for some of that has traditionally been to ensure that disease is not transmitted from a group of women who are perceived as being the carriers of the disease into the wider community.
The evidence that you have heard and the statements that have been submitted should inform you that, in the main, women become involved in prostitution in order to get money to feed their drug habit or that of a partner. We recognise that significant numbers of extremely damaged people who have been through care systems are involved in prostitution and that that means that the situation cannot be changed overnight. The social justice issues must, however, be addressed—which the Parliament and the Executive are now doing—as well as housing, training and employment issues. Women must be shown that it is possible to start doing something about their drug problem and their other family matters and to move on to a socially and economically included lifestyle. The more women who do that, the more hope other women will have and the more our services will make an impact. That has to be the solution, because women do not want to be involved in prostitution. There is an argument and an analysis that they are being prostituted, that they are the victims and that they are on the wrong end of a power balance with the male gender. That needs to be gone into and understood.
That is consistent with our overall approach to health policy in general, which has changed significantly in recent years to acknowledge that we must address the causes of poor health and health inequalities, rather than just the symptoms. I put the prevention of prostitution within that context. There are precedents for that in other policies that we have developed.
I apologise for not being here at the beginning of your submission. I have visited many of the places and clinics that are mentioned in your submission, in particular the Sandyford clinic, which is an excellent initiative. Any time that I have been there I have seen that it is well used.
As I said in the paper, women who enter prostitution already carry a significant burden of ill health. We know the correlation between previous trauma, in particular the experience of child sexual abuse, and drug abuse and prostitution. They are already an unhealthy group of women. They have to cope with those experiences and some of them will exhibit a range of mental health problems, and may be using drugs as a form of coping with some of those previous traumas.
Would the introduction of tolerance zones improve the safety of women in prostitution? Would it improve the health of the women? Could the resources that have been spent examining tolerance zones have been better spent in the health service?
In as much as tolerance zones would do nothing for prostitution per se—they are not likely to reduce prostitution; we are talking about tolerance zones as a means of managing prostitution—I cannot see how they would have any impact on the health consequences of being engaged in prostitution. There was a second part to that question, which I am afraid I have forgotten.
I will direct the question about the resources that may be used to all the witnesses. Aberdeen City Council said in its evidence to us last week that if tolerance zones were introduced, health centres, for example, would have to be provided. Could the moneys that councils and health boards might spend on that be used in better ways for the women who are involved in prostitution?
Those services must be deployed regardless of whether there is a tolerance zone. There is no other answer. The agencies must be able to respond to the needs of their locality, within the powers that they have, in ways that will benefit the women. That means that more resources must be deployed where the women are.
We need to focus specifically on downstream measures. If we accept that there is a strong correlation between child sexual abuse and prostitution, we have to ask whether we have sufficient services and whether we have the quality of services that can support women, and indeed men, who have experienced child sexual abuse. Perhaps we should think about the resources that might be put into a specific, targeted approach to improve the quality of health services and other services to deal with that across the board.
One piece of research showed that 75 per cent of the women whom we are talking about showed signs of mental health problems that merited their having treatment. We need more resources to give women counselling and support, because we do not have enough. We will need to invest a range of relevant resources, given the women's backgrounds and experience of trauma, in addressing the problem.
Sue Laughlin has just posed the first question that I was going to ask. Given the women's backgrounds of high levels of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, in terms of a primary preventive role do we provide adequate services for young people and adolescents who have been abused? If we do not, that seems to be the area of primary prevention on which we must concentrate, which I think is what Sue Laughlin was saying.
That is the case. We need more downstream measures. We need to try to prevent the abuse, so measures must be put in place to do that. We need to be able to address the abuse effectively in such a way that it does not generate the sort of social problems that we end up dealing with, such as drug addiction, homelessness and prostitution. There is a clear correlation between the experience of major trauma in people's lives and many of the social problems to which we end up having to respond.
My other question follows on from what Iain Smith said earlier. The major problem is that you have a red-light area that is gradually disappearing. Are you saying that the services that you are putting in place will be ready to deal with the dispersal of 1,400 prostitutes when the zone disappears, as it will—within three years if we accept Councillor Coleman's response or within five years if we use Ann Hamilton's response?
As I said, most of the women are using health services already. It is not that they are not known to our health services.
Do you mean outwith the current zone?
Outwith the current zone, in the communities in which they live. A lot of the work that Base 75 and the intervention team undertake, and a lot of the links to the sort of work that Mike McCarron talked about, ensure that there is a pattern of service delivery that women can access in communities. I cannot tell you that every one of our health services will be equipped to cope with the traumas of abuse in three or five years' time, but there will be services that women can access, because those services are already there and the women are using them.
It is a daunting challenge. Currently, 33 per cent of people with serious drug problems are women. Historically, they have been less able to access services, so the number has been lower. At the moment, I understand that of the people who use integrated health and social work care in the city, 35 per cent are women. We actively try to engage them. In a place such as the Glasgow Drugs Crisis Centre, where people are taken into three-week beds, 40 per cent of people are women.
I have two quick questions. One concerns Glasgow and the involvement in the time-out centre: will it be relevant to the problem that we have been discussing or more generally? The other question is: is there any need for change to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974? You mentioned earlier the element of justice. Does the legislation need to be amended so that women who move out of prostitution as a result of support have their criminality expunged more rapidly, because it is a barrier to their employment and rehabilitation?
We hope and plan for the time-out centre to be integrated into the pattern of service delivery that we have tried to develop and which we must continue to develop, rather than the centre being separate. That would allow us to take an integrated approach, of which the women will be a part. A planning process needs to be undertaken to ensure that.
Thank you for your submission and for your evidence, in particular the evidence on young women—I recognise that young men are also street prostitutes.
The approach is to seek harm reduction. I have been trying to argue that the health consequences of the act of prostitution are so profound that we should consider measures to reduce the incidence of prostitution and, I hope, to abolish it altogether. I do not think that I have seen any evidence that the introduction of tolerance zones will help us to do that.
Your submission also says that if we are considering legislative changes, the creation of tolerance zones is not the most pressing element of preventing prostitution. I will sum up what I think you are saying, but please feel free to contradict me if I am putting words into your mouth. You seem to be saying that the bill is useful, because it has raised the issue of prostitution, which the Parliament should consider, but that a tolerance zones bill will not necessarily bring the long-term changes that we need to deal with prostitution.
I will repeat what I have just said. I do not think that there is any evidence to show that the bill will make a significant difference to the primary prevention of prostitution. The inconsistencies that it might create across different council areas would also cause problems. If the bill is enacted and councils choose to set up tolerance zones, there would not be a consistent approach and understanding in Scotland. That would not be good for the health of the Scottish population, local populations or the women.
I support that. The assistant chief constables made the point that there is a need for a national policy framework and a range of appropriate interventions for women. The important issue of criminalisation must be properly understood and considered by Parliament in the context of that debate.
I would like Sue Laughlin to explain why she thinks that the prevention of prostitution by tackling the root causes of most prostitution—poverty and inequality—is incompatible with a sensible and pragmatic means of delivering a duty of care towards people who are involved in prostitution?
The presence of a tolerance zone implies that there is something about prostitution that means that it cannot be removed. I do not think that tolerance zones are a primary prevention measure. They would serve to institutionalise prostitution and so make it more difficult to ensure that we take the primary prevention measures that would make the ultimate difference.
I have heard you say "I think" a number of times and you have opinions on a number of issues. You have said three times that you think that a tolerance zone policy would encourage and increase the number of working prostitutes. You also said that there is no evidence to show that a tolerance zone policy would diminish prostitution. How, then, do you explain that the number of street prostitutes in Edinburgh is falling and that the number of saunas in Edinburgh has remained static over the past 20 years?
I am not familiar with how the data were collected in Edinburgh.
Through the pay rates in the saunas, and the police counting the women.
It seems to me that the balance of prostitution in Edinburgh is different from that in Glasgow. New prostitution, in the form of trafficking, raises a range of issues. We have sought to consider that issue as part of the Routes Out work. From our limited understanding, we know that women who have been trafficked are likely to end up in saunas or in private flats, which might well be the case in Edinburgh.
The police told us in their evidence that one of the great benefits of knowing exactly where the women are is the intelligence that can be built up on prostitution and associated criminality. It also diminishes the women's fear of the police; their relationship—police to prostitute and prostitute to police—is understood and is part of the idea of having a tolerance zone in operation.
There are a lot of questions there.
I am interested in that, because I do not think that they are connected either. A range of services is being provided, and that will continue to happen, which is fine. However, is having a national attitude towards prostitution per se compatible with having different local policies towards prostitutes in each Scottish city, given that the geography and history of the penetration of intravenous drug use in each city is different? Why should we all be the same?
One would expect responses in the different cities and health boards to be tailored, depending on the historical circumstances, but I would like to think that we would take a common view on what might ultimately make a difference to public health. Our judgment is that improving the quality of our services rather than building up specific specialist services, which are often run by the voluntary sector, will ultimately make that difference. In my submission, I tried to make the point that other areas have chosen to fund the voluntary sector to provide specific targeted services for tolerance zones but, by and large, they have left their mainstream services untouched in respect of improving their sensitivity to the women in question and women who are similarly marginalised.
Do you agree that, simply by having this debate, other health boards might be encouraged to consider your policy for the well woman? To do justice to the other health boards, they would say that their policy might not be as well developed as your policy, but women's health is at the core of their health strategy.
I think that the liberalisation of prostitution has led to an increase in prostitution. As I said, anything that runs the risk of increasing prostitution will worsen the health problems of women in prostitution and the wider community. Establishing a location in which it is acceptable to be a prostitute seems to say that it is acceptable to be a prostitute, which is incompatible with a primary prevention approach.
So harm reduction and prevention cannot be managed together.
A harm-reduction approach is needed as part of an overall approach to prevention. However, one must ensure that a harm-reduction approach is not incompatible with the overall prevention approach. That concerns us.
We will finish the questioning there. We could go on for ever, but there are still three more witnesses to come.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
We will resume the meeting, colleagues. This is turning out to be another long day.
As you said, I am director of social work for the City of Edinburgh Council. I have worked in social work in the area for 35 years. I was chair of the Lothian region HIV/AIDS management team in the mid and late 1980s and have been a member of the Edinburgh drug action team since its inception—I am now chair of that team. Through such involvement, I have led on the subject of street prostitution for the local authority in a number of ways, most notably in 1997, when I participated for the city in a tripartite review of services to street prostitutes.
I will add a political perspective to what the director of social work has said. I have dual responsibilities in that I am responsible for policy and political direction on social work matters and, as an elected local councillor, I have democratic responsibilities to my constituents, which will not be dissimilar to those of members of the committee.
I ask Ray de Souza whether he has any brief comments to make. We are a little short of time.
I am the lead officer for the drug action team, which is responsible for commissioning and co-ordinating services for people with drug and HIV-related problems. As the committee has already heard from the three main partners—the council, the police and the health board—the team itself has really no more to add at this point, other than to say that its strategy is firmly based on the principles of harm reduction. Indeed, all the comments that Councillor Thomas and Les McEwan have made support the drug action team's principles and strategy.
I hope that the representatives of the City of Edinburgh Council can help me, because I am genuinely concerned about some of the comments that they have made.
The point is that we cannot legally identify a tolerance zone because at the moment no such thing exists.
That did not prevent you from identifying the previous two zones. Why do you need the bill to identify another tolerance zone?
The council did not identify the zones—I suppose it was more of a police operational matter. Earlier, I said that the biggest benefit of the bill is that it would give legal status to some of the measures that a local authority might want to take. At the moment, we do not have such powers; we cannot legally determine that a certain area is a tolerance zone.
However, you supported the previous two unofficial tolerance zones. If another tolerance zone were created, even without the bill, would you also support that?
Yes.
So you do not need the bill in order to recognise a tolerance zone.
The point is not that we would be able to recognise a zone, but that we would be able to establish one. At the moment, no agency has the power to do that. One of the written submissions that you have received states that Edinburgh faces a difficulty not because of a lack of powers, but because of resistance to the siting of a red-light area within a developing residential and business area. However, the first part of that statement is not true. The problem has been that, when the first tolerance zone in Edinburgh had to be moved because the zone was a developing residential and business area, no one had the power to establish another zone. The police, in consultation with a working group that was set up, took it upon themselves to establish the zone in another area. However, when that zone ran into difficulties, the problem was that no agency had the power to see the matter through to a conclusion.
However, the experience in Edinburgh shows that, for a tolerance zone to exist, the local authority does not need the legal powers that the bill seeks to give it.
That is true, but we should consider the reasons why the tolerance zone came into being in the first place. It is a historical fact that, when the Danube Street brothel closed, street prostitutes by and large congregated in particular areas. Subsequently, as a matter of expediency, the police took the situation a step further by concentrating the activities in the Coburg Street area.
Your submission states that a specified tolerance zone has benefits. It continues:
We have no problem with that whatever, but I think that you are focusing on the wrong point when you say
You have not answered my question.
In all fairness, the witnesses are talking about setting up a new zone, although perhaps I am wrong.
If there is a need to set up an area within which prostitution can be concentrated, with all the benefits that would accrue from that, someone must have the power to set one up, otherwise it will not happen, as has been demonstrated in Edinburgh.
A tolerance zone will not be set up unless there is public support for it. This is a huge nimby issue. Even if there is legislation, unless a suitable area is identified, there will be no tolerance zone.
I think that Councillor Thomas's point was that there would be difficulties even if we had the powers in the bill. For example, there would be difficulties in identifying a zone. Perhaps I should not say this but, as the director of social work in the City of Edinburgh Council, I know that whenever we want to set up a new service the nimby people crawl out of the woodwork. No one wants a public service on their doorstep and one can understand why people do not want a service of this sort on their doorstep.
Do you think that prostitution is a public service?
It is not a public service, but it is a service.
I might have misunderstood, but Councillor Thomas seemed to imply that the position from which the City of Edinburgh Council starts is that prostitution will always exist. That might or might not be the case, although I suspect that it is the case. Do you accept that the important thing about prostitution is that it is harmful to those who are involved in it and that the policy should be to reduce, prevent and ultimately eliminate it?
It is not only the City of Edinburgh Council's view that prostitution will always exist—that view is widely accepted. You have summed up our approach, which is about taking a responsible, mature and pragmatic attitude to a situation that we wish did not exist. However, the world is not like that. With that in mind, we seek to reduce harm, improve health and reduce the criminality that is associated with prostitution as best we can.
We listened to the previous witnesses from the members' lounge. The provision of clearly defined and good-quality services for women—as happens in Glasgow—is not an alternative to providing specialist services. Our view is that we must build up and improve generic services, but we also recognise the need to provide services that are focused on certain areas. We argue that street prostitution in the city is one area to which such a specialist focus needs to be applied. That is not to say that in Edinburgh we do not share a vision of a society in which street prostitution has disappeared, but the reality over my lifetime is that street prostitution—which can be traced back to antiquity—has not been eradicated, so we must take a pragmatic view. At the same time, we retain a vision that through primary preventive services we might make a huge dent in the number of people who are engaged in such activities.
Thank you, but I wish to press you further. How would you respond to the argument that has been advanced in some of the evidence today that introducing legislation for tolerance zones in a sense legitimises prostitution and, to an extent, condones it, and therefore means that the primary objective of eliminating prostitution is not pursued?
I may have read the consultation paper more closely than I have the bill, but my understanding of the bill is that a zone would be consulted on only where it was proven that there was a need to do so. So something has to exist or happen within a locality before there is a move to use the powers that the bill will give.
I am not sure that that answers my point, which was that it has been suggested that if you have a formal tolerance zone, rather than the present approach, where informal arrangements are made—usually led by the police—for areas in which prostitution already takes place, you are, in a sense, legitimising prostitution. How would you respond to that accusation?
I understand that point, but I do not see that we condone prostitution or any illegal activities associated with it if we support moves to legitimise tolerance zones. We provide a great many services to drug misusers, such as rehabilitation services. We do not condone drug misuse, but we know that we have a responsibility to provide services to vulnerable people who are involved in such activities. There is a parallel. A toleration zone could be one of many ways of dealing with the problem. As Mr McEwan said, the argument is not toleration zones versus routes out of prostitution. Both approaches can work together, and both have worked together in Edinburgh.
The straight answer to the question is that if the bill is enacted, the activity would indeed be legitimised in the area of the tolerance zone. However, it is another question whether we as a society would be increasing the overall incidence of prostitution or preventing the decrease of the incidence of prostitution.
That is the focus of the argument. The argument from Glasgow is a principled one; it is that if we institutionalise prostitution by a tolerance zone, we fail to tackle the problem in an appropriate way. The parallel of drug misuse is not a good one. The equivalent would be setting up a zone in which drug misuse was legitimised, but you are not in any way trying to do that by providing a drug misuse service. The worry is that the bill will institutionalise, and therefore to some extent legitimise, prostitution. I accept that you are trying to cluster the prostitutes so that you can provide a service to them, but in so doing you are setting up a zone and stating that it is okay to have prostitution there. That is Glasgow's objection.
When the toleration zone was operating, there was better management of the situation. I picked up some cuttings from the Edinburgh Evening News of 28 December, about people in Leith taking to the streets to "reclaim" them from the prostitutes. It is arguable that the increased dispersal of prostitutes since the ending of the zone has made the difficulties for local people worse.
I was glad that Richard Simpson picked up on that point. The responses have not really clarified anything for me, but I am obviously conscious of the differences of approach between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Could you come to a question, Sandra?
I would like to hear the witnesses' reaction to those points. Today's evidence seems to have suggested that a tolerance zone will bring marvellous benefits. I cannot identify any benefits from what the other witnesses have told us. Tricia Marwick asked where the Edinburgh tolerance zone will be. Will it be at the Gyle centre or further out? How will the prostitutes get there? How will the zone be policed? How will services be put in place? The bill would in effect legalise prostitution, so I could never support it. However, I would like to hear your thoughts.
Tackling prostitution will always present a number of agencies with dilemmas. There are so many dimensions to prostitution that one would need to break the issue down into bite-size pieces before tackling it. If we are to go down the route of legislation, that means having to legislate for each particular problem or issue to do with prostitution as it affects the community.
You have read the evidence—95 to 97 per cent of prostitutes are drug users and say that they have not chosen prostitution. I have real difficulty with the evidence that you are giving.
Do you mean that the women are saying that they have not chosen to be prostitutes?
Yes. If they did not have to feed a habit, they would not choose to be prostitutes.
Absolutely. We acknowledge that women have not chosen to be prostitutes. However, having a tolerance zone makes it easier for us to deliver services to them that help them to make an appropriate choice to keep themselves healthy and to decide at the appropriate time to exit prostitution. That is an important point—we are not condoning prostitution or prostitutes. However, by engaging with prostitutes appropriately in a tolerance zone, we are able more easily to help them to enter services.
We are not condoning prostitution or prostitutes. We are certainly not condoning their clients. The problems are caused by the clients rather than by the prostitutes. However, we must deal with the situation that confronts us today. No one is saying that the situation in Edinburgh is the same as the situation in Glasgow or Aberdeen—clearly, it is not. Historical and social factors have led to there being a need for different solutions for different problems. We are saying that there is evidence—which was presented to the committee last week by organisations such as SCOT-PEP and today by Lothian NHS Board—that when the toleration zone was in operation in Edinburgh the situation was managed better, in relation to harm reduction, health issues, health promotion and the crime that is associated with prostitution.
You say that the bill is a tool that local authorities could use. Glasgow City Council referred to the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. Is that not another tool to eradicate prostitution and to deal with women's drug abuse and mental health problems? Would you not consider using that legislation, instead of simply establishing a tolerance zone?
Over past years, we have used everything that is available to us, including the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 and the powers that it gives us to introduce byelaws. We will consider that issue. As is the case with most problems in life, there is not one easy solution to the overall problem of prostitution. We need to have a range of solutions at our disposal. The evidence that has been presented has shown that over the years the tolerance zone worked well, by and large. Such a zone could work well again, although it would be difficult to find an appropriate site for it.
Sandra White raised the issue of safety. Previously it was suggested that, since the tolerance zone ceased to operate, there has been less safety and the number of violent acts has risen. Can you clarify the position to ensure that we have it on the record correctly?
The information that we have received from SCOT-PEP and other colleagues is that in recent weeks the risks that prostitutes face have increased, because of the dispersal of prostitution throughout Edinburgh. We are dealing with anecdotal evidence. The culture of prostitution in the city involved prostitutes looking out for one another. That is not the case if prostitutes are dispersed. To avoid prosecution or arrest, prostitutes will enter cars very quickly, which places them at greater risk. Previously they might have taken time to negotiate with potential clients.
You rightly said that this is enabling legislation and that local authorities are not being forced to establish tolerance zones. There are 32 local authorities in Scotland—30 of which either have no opinion on, or are opposed to, the bill. Aberdeen City Council is operating a tolerance zone without the legal back-up of the bill and the City of Edinburgh Council, which you represent, has been party to tolerance zones. Would implementing the bill not be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut?
It might have made it easier for Edinburgh to maintain its zone had it had the legal back-up of the bill.
I am in no doubt that had Edinburgh had the powers outlined in the bill, it would still be operating a tolerance zone.
I first became a councillor in Glasgow Corporation in 1964. That local authority had 111 members, and if the idea of a tolerance zone had been introduced, not one of the 111 councillors would have voted in favour of it, but time moves on and views change.
When he appeared before the committee, Deputy Chief Constable Wood outlined the history of the establishment of the tolerance zone in Edinburgh. It came into being after a well-established brothel went out of business because of the increasing frailty and subsequent death of the owner. Prostitution went on to the streets, and the zone was established through the imaginative and pragmatic approach of the police. It would be impossible to speculate on how things are likely to go in the future.
I appreciate that it is difficult to forecast the future, but what is your view of the French system, which operates state or municipally owned brothels? In the future, might that approach be more effective than tolerance zones, or is there no place for such a system in our society?
It does not necessarily follow that tolerance zones today mean legalised brothels tomorrow. The tolerance zones in Edinburgh were established to deal with specific types of prostitution. The saunas in Edinburgh have been mentioned. They deal with a different type of prostitution. There are different strands to prostitution and the sex industry. I do not agree that a prostitution tolerance zone would automatically lead to legalised brothels, and I would not support that suggestion. It is a possible solution to a specific problem, which may work in some areas but not in others.
Would you outline the number of acts of the Westminster Parliament and the Scottish Parliament that apply only to Edinburgh? Through my role as convener of the Subordinate Legislation Committee, I know of a parking law that applies only to Edinburgh and Glasgow. Tricia Marwick stated that enforcing the bill might be like
I am not sure that it could. I am not a lawyer and I am not an expert on the legislation. Politically, such an approach would be difficult and, as things stand, I am not sure that the council would have the necessary legal back-up.
The powers to provide the measures that Margo MacDonald suggested are contained in section 12 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, which places a duty on local authorities to promote social welfare on such a scale as may be deemed necessary. However, the question is whether those powers are specific enough to overcome some of the difficulties that were apparent when the second tolerance zone in Edinburgh came under threat. The answer is no.
That was why I was asked to convene a steering group to determine whether we required regulations to stiffen the provisions in the statute book.
That is true, and the same applied to Coburg Street.
I thank the witnesses for giving evidence to the committee. I am sorry that you had to wait for so long. Thank you for being very patient.
In last week's private session, we discussed prosecution policy and the roles of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. It was advised that the Justice 1 Committee had taken evidence on that subject. I have read the Official Report of that meeting and it raises several issues. Could we write to the Crown Office to get some clarification, rather than having an additional witness session?
Do members agree with that approach?
Meeting continued in private until 18:26.
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