Robert McIlveen: Legalise prostitution

Robert McIlveen lives in Sheffield and is doing his PhD there on the Conservative party, its organisation and electoral strategy.

> Policy Summary

Prostitution should be legalised under a regulatory framework with the aims of hampering the trade in trafficked women, improving public health and cutting off an income source for organised crime.

> Policy Explanation

There are an estimated 80,000 prostitutes working in the UK, with large numbers of women trafficked from abroad and effectively enslaved. While prostitution itself is technically legal, advertising, soliciting and other aspects of it are not. While this policy does not necessarily imply approval of prostitution itself, a pragmatic policy offers benefits. Bringing in licensing and regulation, something Conservatives would usually seek to reduce, has been done in several other countries, such as the Netherlands and Germany, which seek to protect the women and men working as prostitutes while hitting traffickers, pimps and kerb-crawlers. This policy views many sex workers as victims of crime, and by regularising the ‘industry’ to alleviate this.

The scheme should involve the registration of prostitutes, licensing of brothels (with suitable caveats about location, hours etc up to local councils) and regular health checks on prostitutes, with condom use mandatory. STD infections are sky-high in this country at present, with unprotected sex with prostitutes becoming more common, especially with trafficked and enslaved women.

Combining the regularisation of prostitution with a crackdown on pimps, traffickers and kerb-crawlers would mean that we could attack prostitution as a source of income for organised crime and more effectively tackle human trafficking.

> Political Risks and Opportunities

The obvious risk is that most Conservatives will instinctively oppose ‘condoning’ prostitution. There would also be condemnation from some feminist groups. A typical response would be that we should crack down on prostitution, not encourage it. These  would have to be countered by arguments from pragmatism and principle. Pragmatically, prostitution has always existed, including in much less tolerant states than our own. Ending it is impossible, so making the best of an unfortunate reality is the right thing to do. From a Gordon Brown perspective, it would also bring in tax revenue, although this is very much a side-benefit. Legalising prostitution would enable the police to focus on the more important criminals behind the industry, including those involved in child prostitution, rather than its principal victims and enable prostitutes to access legal and employment rights they are currently denied. Paying national insurance an receiving targeted health checks are among the positive benefits for the workers.

The opportunities in this are less obvious, but real. This is not the sort of thing the public would expect from the Conservatives, in much the same vein as IDS’s Centre for Social Justice  would counterbalance traditional Tory themes on Law and Order without contradicting them. This policy represents an attractive blend of compassion and pragmatism with a moral virtue of liberating victims of enslavement. If adopted it is defensible both in terms of pragmatism and principle.

As a policy it might have something of the Liberal Democrat conference floor about it, yet this perhaps is a positive. If we can demonstrate our caring compassionate side on an unlikely subject we will grab the attention of voters who have convinced themselves that we do not care about the vulnerable in society and change their minds. Taking the hard edge off the party has been a core achievement of David Cameron since his leadership: this would be an extension of that attitude.

> Questions for ConservativeHome readers

• How can we counter a Daily Mail style condemnation of this idea?
• Can we sell a policy on pragmatism alone?
• Legally, what would a regulatory framework look like?

> Costs

Bureaucracy costs money, but in this case tax revenues would also increase, probably producing a small net gain for the Exchequer.

Comments

[TomTom]

Germany did this aeons ago.........strange that Britain is as bizarre as the Americans in its failure to grasp the nettle.

[tapestry]

What's this got to do with JCB diggers? More likely to get adopted once in power than previous to it - I don't think it quite fits in with current Cameron PR offensives.

Mind you, his pro-women slant might find this a convenient add-on. If IDS were to adopt it first under Social Justice, there's be a chance.

[Don Jameson]

I can buy a DVD perfectly legally, but that doesn't stop organised gangs flogging fakes at car boot sales on an industrial scale.

Legalisation or regulation won't of themselves solve the people-trafficking component of prostitution, I fear.

Interesting idea (and it gets my vote), but I think you need to get past the CH hurdle before worrying about the Daily Mail, and frankly I'd be surprised if you make it.

[Serf]

Gets my vote.

It neatly separates a trade that is as old as civilisation and involves free choice, from the horrific sex slave trade and the tyranny of the pimps. It is a far more humane thing to do than the old "pretend it doesn't happen" approach.

I think the biggest resistance to such an idea will come from women who fear that their menfolk might get corrupted. How do we overcome that? I think we have to focus on the failures of the current system and the tragedy of those being trafficked.

[Mark Fulford]

I can buy a DVD perfectly legally, but that doesn't stop organised gangs flogging fakes at car boot sales on an industrial scale.
Copyright pirates have much lower costs and trade on the price difference. I don’t imagine that the same price difference would exist between legal and illegal prostitution, so I don’t think the analogy holds. Easy to check though: what happened in countries that did legalise prostitution?

It’s unfortunate, but this policy really is necessary and will be beneficial.

I agree that the main reason is to combat organised crime and protect the women involved, but the economic gains would appear to be significant. Not just tax receipts from 80,000 new workers, but probably a large proportion of that number off benefits too.

[Mark Fulford]

I can buy a DVD perfectly legally, but that doesn't stop organised gangs flogging fakes at car boot sales on an industrial scale.
Copyright pirates have much lower costs and trade on the price difference. I don’t imagine that the same price difference would exist between legal and illegal prostitution, so I don’t think the analogy holds. Easy to check though: what happened in countries that did legalise prostitution?

It’s unfortunate, but this policy really is necessary and will be beneficial.

I agree that the main reason is to combat organised crime and protect the women involved, but the economic gains would appear to be significant. Not just tax receipts from 80,000 new workers, but probably a large proportion of that number off benefits too.

[David Walsh]

"While prostitution itself is technically legal"- so really you are proposing no change then?

[Elvis]

Shouldn't we be compassionate and aim to free people from prostitution, rather than decrimilising it and keeping people stuck in it, under a new 'acceptability'?

Sounds like a libdem policy to me.

[tory2]

tom tom it's a state or local matter in the US and there are legal brothels-mostly I thin in counties that went heavily for Bush!

i woudl add that in Germany the chrisain democrats have been solidly opposed-perhpas because they're more Daily mail than the Tories!

[William Norton]

I suppose if, alongside legalising prostitution, we also nationalised it, that would stamp it out?

At the very least you'd need a regulator ("OfTART") and an army of inspectors to enforce minimum standards, EU working time directives (and they'd be employed by local authorities, you know the people who made such a stunning success of council housing).

The Disability people would stick in their oar to worry about ramps for wheelchair access or perhaps specially adapted scooters ("Knocking Shopmobility") and I can't see Trevor Phillips missing the chance to make a speech about ethnic representation. The Equal Opportunities Commission will probably be worrying about gender balance - a few punters could be in for a very big surprise indeed.

Hmmm...I'm reserving judgment on this one for now.

[Mark Fulford]

ROFL.

While I'm in favour of this, I'm trying (and struggling) to find a difference between the arguments for legalising prostitution and those for legalising cannabis. I suspect it will fail through fear of the slippery slope.

[Mark Wadsworth]

YES!

A socially and economically libertarian party should not outlaw or interfere in activities which may be distasteful to some but do not harm others, i.e. prostitution, smoking cannabis, fox hunting, gay relationships etc.

Legalisation of prostitution, if handled correctly, should help reduce the level of those activities that DO harm other people, in particular, slave trading, child prostitution and kerb crawling and all things being equal, boost tax revenues.

Much the same goes for drugs; cannabis is no more harmful that alcohol or tobacco; the real cost to society of heroin and the like is the amount of crime (roughly half of all theft offences) that is needed to finance a drug babit. Again, taxation and legalisation go hand in hand, so this would cut crime and boost tax revenues.

As to fox hunting, while unpleasant for the fox concerned, the number of foxes actually hunted to death probably pales into insignificance when compared with the amount of wildlife run over by hunt saboteurs.

[Alison Anne Smith]

Whether you agree with it or not, I don't think its a vote winner so its gets a No from me.

[deborah]

I agree with Alison.

[Kristian Shanks]

That photo must be in either Stack 4 or Stack 3 of the Main Library at the university if I'm not mistaken Robert. I was just up in Sheffield yesterday getting my own MA thesis bound, in fact. Ah well, never mind.

In any case, I don't support the legalisation of prostitution because it is exploitation of women by men, and it is done by women because they can't pay the bills or support themselves. I'd rather have our efforts put into doing our best to ensure that opportunities for real jobs are available to them instead. In addition, how do you regulate prostitution? Are you going to have policemen going to brothels every night? If you don't think human traffickers and other such criminals would find a way around these laws, then I think thats pretty naive.

[Drew SW London]

All very well, except that there are no voting instructions today - wonder why?

[deborah]

Voting instructions have been a bit late in arriving before - I don't think it's a conspiracy.

[Jonathan M Scott]

I'm sorry to say this, but only a man would think of such a dreadful policy. This is no way to get the women's vote - and Labour and the LibDems would have a field day with it.

Of course prostitutes are victims; it is not a 'career' of choice. But this policy suggestion is simply no way to combat the problems associated with prostitution.

Think again, Robert.

[Serf]

Of course prostitutes are victims; it is not a 'career' of choice

All of them? Are you Sure?

[Peter Franklin]

Here are some further questions for ConservativeHome readers:

So there are no trafficked sex slaves in Germany or Holland?

Would you want your neighbourhood designated as a red light district?

Would you want the state to facilitate your own daughter’s descent into prostitution?

How much confidence do you have in the state to properly regulate the sort of people who use prostitutes and make a living from them?

If regulation is so good for prostitutes do you propose extending it to child prostitutes?

Assuming an exception is made for child prostitutes, won’t legalisation of ‘adult’ prostitution (that is the prostitution of highly vulnerable young people with a history of abuse, mental illness and drug addiction) provide a cover for child prostitution?

Given the authorities don’t even have the will to stop the dregs of humanity making life a misery in ‘ordinary’ residential areas, what makes you think they will be anymore successful in the red light zones to which the dregs will undoubtedly be attracted?

Do you propose imposing red light districts on areas with large Muslim populations – or indeed on any other neighbourhood that doesn’t want them?

Didn’t Balsall Heath in Birmingham show the way forward on prostitution – when the community united to drive out the curb crawlers by visibly recording their car registration numbers; and hasn’t Balsall Heath been an incredible example of regeneration since they got rid of prostitution?

What is to stop an unregulated sector from growing up around the regulated centres – as happened with the Dutch cannabis cafes?

Isn’t the growing demand for prostitutes, a demand being met by trafficking, being created by the erosion of cultural standards – standards that will be further eroded once government becomes the biggest pimp in the country?

How are your legalised brothels going to find the staff? Presumably you won’t allow them to use illegally trafficked women – so, what’s it to be, a new immigration policy of ‘open doors for whores’?

Seeing as the Daily Mail offends the delicate sensibilities of so many liberals and libertarians, perhaps the distribution of this publication could be restricted to special state-run centres, where social workers will be on hand to make sure that readers aren’t unduly influenced by Melanie Phillips’ latest column?

[Automated Robot]

This proposal is unsound and so has more to worry about than the views of traditional conservative/patrons of ConservativeHome:

1 - Prostitution has no benefits. Legalising it with the rationale of damage limitation is an illogical response based on coping, not cure.

2 - Legislation in isolation, has never been an effective constraint on human behaviour. It does however set a tone and expectation within society. Legalising prostitution will not reduce it (or trafficking for that matter) it will only formalise it.

3 - Evidence suggests that the effect of regulation and clean(er) and safe(r) environments, has been to create a structured market with commercial drivers. In simple terms this leads to segmentation and creation of an under class of prostitutes who are desperate/rejected (through disease, substance dependency, circumstance) and enjoy even less protection and attention than before.

4 - Legalisation is a blunt instrument: politically attractive as a show of "strength" and of short term benefit when problem areas are "cleaned up" but the long term effects undermine even these benefits.

5 - Legalisation is a policy of despair and a lack of ideas: people know the long standing nature of the problem needs long term solutions ("built to last" even)

Therefore I vote against this proposal.

[Mark Fulford]

Let's go ahead and cure it then. Any suggestions?

[TomTom]

i woudl add that in Germany the chrisain democrats have been solidly opposed-perhpas because they're more Daily mail than the Tories!

Posted by: tory2 |

Not sure you are right. Such matters are national policy and Munich is alone in having a Sperrbezirk banning prostitution inside The Ring and making it legal only along the outer motorway ring...............Frankfurt has brothels in the CBD near the banking quarter on Kaiserstrasse - Cologne has it over near the university...............compulsory health checks, income tax levies and licensing

[Paul Staines]

No need to over regulate it. Just legalise it.

[Mark]

In principle I agree with the suggestion - but in practice we need to deal with the root causes of the problem as well (often drug addiction). If we can do that it'll work.

I do think though that it won't win us any votes as we'd get slaughtered by the Sun, Mail and Express.