Chamber and committees

I want to make a point to the chamber about the timing, because that is an issue that the Government has raised. We never seem to know our own history in here, so I note that the Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland) Bill, which was passed in 2007, moved from introduction to enactment within a matter of months, and that was in an election year. Stage 1 was in January and stage 3 was in February. There was seemingly no panic about that bill, even though it was more complicated than this one.

We have to ask whose interests are being threatened. It is not the little girls in care homes who are vulnerable to grooming, not the women who, as we speak, are being trafficked in vans across Europe towards Scotland, not the students who are being lured in by free accommodation, not the abused, not the addicted and not the desperate women who are being coerced by debts and threats. That is the reality of prostitution.

Survivors have told us repeatedly that the loudest voices in the debate are from those who were never for sale. That is a scandal. One person told us that every delay tells men that they can keep doing what they are doing, and tells women that their lives do not matter.

—and its duty to have a proper debate on this.

They do not want your sympathy; they just need your vote. Those who vote against the bill today will find that it will become a stain on their voting record.

The Lord Advocate said that

“women involved in prostitution are disproportionately likely to be victims of serious … offences,”

but the men

“who purchase sex, whether on or off the street, are statistically more likely to perpetrate domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women and girls.”

She went on to say that

“It is therefore essential that the issue is considered within the broader context of public interest and societal harm.”

That is not ideology; that is Scotland’s chief legal officer, giving her evidence, having had a long career as a sexual crimes prosecutor. The academic literature aligns with that. Across countries, and for decades, men who buy sexual access score higher on sexual entitlement, acceptance of coercion, hostility towards women and rape myth acceptance, which is one of the strongest predictors of sexual aggression.

What does that look like in their own words? One buyer describes meeting a woman who was visibly unwell and disoriented. He said, “She looked like she was under the effect of chemicals. She was disorientated when I tried to talk to her, but I decided to give her a go anyway.” Another writes: “It truly is like living in a fantasy world, getting to pick from a range of girls to suck my cock and be fucked by me—all my teenage fantasies right there.” We hear again and again the language of ownership, the language of consumption and the language of contempt.

Another punter said: “If you want the best head, a junkie will do it best. I saw her when she was homeless. She wore that bikini for weeks on end, and I would fuck her unshaven, unkempt, unshowered. I’d do it again if I had the chance. She is an object placed there for men like us to use.” When women do not perform enthusiasm, they are punished, financially and verbally. Another review says: “Avoid. Let her learn the hard way that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” This is the mentality of the men that members are being asked to protect by not backing my bill.

Evidence suggests that about 11 per cent of men have bought sex. That figure is out of date, however—I think that it is higher now. Most of them are in relationships and are economically stable. Many hold positions of authority and power—headteachers, senior professionals, princes and politicians.

Police and prosecutors understand, and they see the pattern repeatedly. They back my bill. Men who are arrested for sexual assault often turn out to be sex buyers. Domestic abuse perpetrators frequently have a history of buying sex. Men who are stopped for kerb crawling already have previous offending against women. Digital evidence shows patterns of purchasing surfacing across different crimes.

Demand for sexual access is not a separate behaviour. It sits as part of the wider continuum of violence against women and girls. That is why the Nordic model is such a game changer, because it does not criminalise the sellers—Maggie Chapman and I have that in common. The model does not pretend to manage the harm; it targets the demand and the entitlement that drives the system.

If we fail to pass the bill, we are not protecting women’s safety; we are protecting men’s violence. We are shielding the minority of men who, in their own words, reveal exactly what they believe women to be for. Let us be clear: hiding sex buyers behind claims of women’s safety is not protection; it is exploitation. The silence that the buyers hide behind is not innocence; it is entitlement enforced by power. The Parliament now has to decide who it stands with: the exploited or the exploiter.

My bill, including the title, is four and a half pages long and has 11 sections. Among all the issues raised at the committee—I have listened carefully to what has been said at stage 1 and have committed to a number of amendments to address those issues—the Government has not articulated one issue to me that I had not already covered in my various conversations with the minister. If it is a matter of money, what price does the Government put on the safety of women and girls? I even presented a Christie commission-based public-value case to the Government, showing that the bill will actually save Scotland money.

The bill would enact a law that is backed by Police Scotland, the Crown Office, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls and the Lord Advocate—a law that has been in force in eight countries for more than 26 years—and it reflects the Government’s own strategy. If this is beyond the capability of the Parliament and 128 MSPs, in the two remaining months of a five-year parliamentary session, the public will ask us what we are doing here.

I got to this stage 1 debate with just my own small team, alongside brave survivors, many of whom are in the public gallery, and a network of women’s rights and child safeguarding campaigners. I thank them. They have done and are doing what women have always done when those in power fail to act on our behalf: organise at kitchen tables between dinner and tea. I have had no support from the Government or privately funded lobby groups. I have not even had the NGBU resource that the public would assume that the public purse funds for all members’ bills. I have had radio silence from the Government on technical issues that are within its control and even on requests from survivors to meet the Government, which is shameful. I am sorry, Presiding Officer, but that is shameful.

I have been a Government minister for four years and a back bencher in the Parliament for five years. Colleagues, I have to tell you that I have never been more ashamed of the lack of courage that is being displayed in the Parliament—not even to meet survivors of exploitation, which is probably happening metres from this building, let alone to stand up and be counted on a matter that is life or death. This is not about greyhound tracks that are not even operational; this is about life or death for vulnerable women and girls—but, you know, the Parliament is too busy.

The state has a duty to protect women and girls from sexual exploitation by abusive, dangerous men. If it does not act, I am afraid that all members will be complicit in that harm.

As I look around the chamber this evening, I see some MSPs sitting here who know that they should register an interest, but I am sure that they will not, for varying reasons. The vote on the bill is not a conscience vote, but I believe that it should be, as such votes have been for other members’ bills. I also see former colleagues and friends on the benches who I know back the bill and support the principle. I wonder whether they will have the courage to say so with their votes—I hope that they will.

Millicent Fawcett famously said, “Courage calls to courage”. The most courageous people in the Parliament today are the survivors of prostitution. They have called to us all. They have bared their deepest trauma and shame in the hope that we will listen to them and in the hope that we will save the next wee girls who are targeted to have their bodies accessed by entitled, abusive sex buyers. Will you finally heed their call to courage? Will you listen to and act for them? MSPs who hide behind the polished lies that are directly out of the sex trade handbook should be ashamed, frankly.

I want to address the point of harm. The only thing that would be harmed by my bill is the sex trade, and there is no excuse not to apply critical thinking and research to this debate, as other legislatures, even in the UK, have done and have told us about. They are watching this Parliament today.

Will the minister take an intervention?

This is directly on that point. Would the member and the committee have been able to satisfy themselves on that point a little bit better if they had not engaged with the lived-experience panel that was against the bill but had engaged in person with the survivors who are for the bill?

No, it has not.

I will come to the member in a moment.

Since 2002, there have been nine bills or formal proposals on prostitution. There have been a dozen consultations, multiple expert groups and, in this instance, a full stage 1 scrutiny of a bill. If the answer is another commission, Parliament deserves to know the answer to this question: what is a commission going to tell us that two decades of evidence have not already shown us?

Deputy Presiding Officer, I will take the intervention, but only if I am going to be given the time back.

I have been very concerned—I would have made an intervention on the committee convener had she had time to take it—about the seeming lack of comparativeness between those who advance the argument that they do not agree with the bill and say that they have lived experience, and survivors with lived experience. Can the minister explain why she met lobby groups and people who said that they did not agree with the bill, but she refused to meet the survivors, who could have told her about the real reality of prostitution?