Archbishop of York speaks out in the House of Lords on Prostitution

The Archbishop of York in the House of Lords

My Lords, Clause 14 is entitled: "Paying for sexual services of a prostitute subjected to force".

That is the controlling element: the force. It seems to me that a person who purchases sex ought to know. If I drive a motor car that does not have a proper licence, an MOT or insurance and then say, "I did not know", the law is very clear. I have always believed that law always states public policy. If you withdraw the whole question of strict liability, it will become very difficult, as the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, said. Finland had in the end to decide because there was no way that they could prosecute some people who were engaging in forced sex. It is not about prostitution in general, it is of a particular kind where people are subjected to force.

The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, speaks with great eloquence and persuasion. There is a bit of me that says, "Yes, the accused always needs a very good defence". But if the statute clearly states what the law is, ignorance—as you and I know—cannot be a defence. You cannot say, "I didn't know", if the statute is very clear. If on a Sunday, instead of being in church, I decided to go to a car boot sale and bought a lot of goods there and was then arrested for purchasing or having stolen goods, or if I decided to sell the same goods another day, the defence would say, "This was in an open place, so it was absolutely safe", but the trader, the seller, would say, "You bought them knowing that they were in a car boot sale". If I bought an electrical good that short-circuited and ended up injuring someone, I could not say, "I was not aware, I was not so sure that the goods were not of the right quality".

It seems to me that the law of strict liability simply states a policy: that in cases where force has been used, you ought to ask, you ought to know before you purchase that sex. If people simply say that they are assuming that all prostitutes have not been subjected to trafficking, to abuse or to people behind them who say that they must engage in that activity, we are really saying that some of the women who engage in those acts do so freely. In the past week also, prostitutes have written in our daily papers saying, "From my experience, it may have well looked as if I was genuinely and freely engaging in this, but there were pimps behind me forcing me to get into this activity".

For me, strict liability is a statement of policy and a statement of law, just as we have it on so many other things. On the nuancing by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, about a child, if the policy had not been stated as it was, most people would get away with it. They would say, "The child looked to me as if they were 16". My dear friends, I do not think that that is the way that we should go. As far as I am concerned, if you remove strict liability, you can forget the clause itself. It will lose its power, it will lose its definition and people will not know. I beg to say that the Government have got it right; I am not one of those who constantly supports them, as you will know, but I think that they have got the clause right. If you do your research and if you get as many letters as I do, you will know that most people are saying that trafficking has become endemic. Women are being forced into activities in which they would rather not be involved. Gang and organised crime is part of all this. Let us send out a very clear statement that in this country, if you purchase sex where the prostitute has been subjected to force, you ought to know. If you do not know, the law will state clearly what the penalties will be.