Help ban purchase of sex in Scotland, John Swinney is urged

First Minister John Swinney has been challenged to help pass a bill criminalising the purchase of sex.

The members bill put forward by former community safety minister Ash Regan, who is now an independent MSP, is aimed at driving down demand for prostitution.

The Scottish Government has said it supports the principal of criminalising the purchase of sex, but reform is needed of the bill before the final vote to address unworkable elements.

Today at First Minister’s Questions, SNP MSP Ruth Maguire urged her own party’s administration to help make the law possible.

She said: “We have an opportunity to legislate to tackle male demand for prostitution and really disrupt a trade in women and girls that’s both a cause and a consequence of violence. Does the first minister agree that we must do all we can to ensure this legislation is fit for purpose and passes so that we can finally make good on a policy position that we have held for decades – that prostitution is violence against women, and we will not accept the harm it causes for a second longer?”

Regan’s bill aims to make it easier for women and girls to exit the sex trade and shake stigma caused by prosecutions arising from it, while also reducing human trafficking.

Opponents of the measures argue that it will drive the prostitution underground and make conditions more dangerous for the women involved.

Swinney said the Scottish Government has taken a “neutral stance” on the bill, despite “strongly supporting” its main principle.

He said Regan must address issues raised about her proposal and told Maguire the government would be ‘engaged’ in taking the legislation forward.

Swinney told parliament: “A number of stakeholders have voiced concerns about the safety of women, and it is paramount that legislation put forward to this parliament must be safe for women involved in and exiting prostitution and recognise online exploitation”.

Regan described prostitution as “one of the only areas of gender-based violence that is condoned currently by the Scottish Government”. She welcomed the government’s qualified support for her Unbuyable bill, which she said will “give police the powers that they need to close this gap in the law”, and invited Swinney to meet sex trade survivors to hear their “horrible” stories.

Swinney said a minister would engage with Regan “and with others”. He went on: “I say this out of a desire to be helpful in this respect: there are challenging issues within the bill that we have to address properly to make sure the legislation can be applied. And that will be the process the government will engage in.”

The questions followed a vigil outside parliament in memory of women killed by men in Scotland. Tory MSP Pam Gosal said each had their future “erased” and their families “shattered and accused ministers of “sticking their heads in the sand” over grooming gangs.

Gosal, whose Prevention of Domestic Abuse bill is at stage one, called on Swinney to “do the right thing and agree to the grooming gangs inquiry so we can uncover the true scale of abuse of women and girls that are occurring in Scotland”.

Swinney condemned male violence towards women and vowed to “engage constructively” on Gosal’s bill, with several reforms having been made in recent years.

On grooming gangs, he said he received a briefing from police on Monday and had a discussion with Professor Alexis Jay on the “complex issue”.

He said: “Nobody is putting their head in the sand. This has been looked at in detail because there are complexities about the interaction on the call that has been made for us in this issue with the child abuse inquiry that we have already statutorily established. So there are no straightforward ways through this issue, but I assure parliament that the government is giving every serious consideration to this important issue.”