Minister has ‘significant and deep concerns’ about Ash Regan’s prostitution Bill

A Scottish Government minister has highlighted “significant and deep concerns” about a new Bill which could quash convictions for those involved in prostitution.

Siobhian Brown raised concerns about the move – which is part of legislation put forward by Alba MSP Ash Regan as part of her Bill to criminalise the buying of sex.

The community safety minister insisted that quashing convictions was an “exceptional” measure and “not a step that can be taken lightly”.

While Brown acknowledged Holyrood had passed legislation to quash convictions of those caught up in the Post Office Horizon scandal, she said the cost of this was “estimated to be £804,000 based on 200 people”.

Community safety minister Siobhian Brown wrote to MSPs on the Criminal Justice Committee setting out the Government’s initial view on the Bill (Jane Barlow/PA) PA Media

She noted that documents submitted as part of Regan’s Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill suggested that since 1982 a total of 10,459 women have been convicted of soliciting.

With these documents also indicating that Police Scotland “currently holds 2,773 case records involving 791 individuals”, Brown said this “raises some concerns about the accuracy of the associated costs – around £250,000 – detailed in the Bill’s financial memorandum”.

Her comments came after a paper published last week by the Scottish Government indicated the approach Regan is proposing could have a “limited impact” on preventing trafficking and sexual exploitation.

She went on to state there was “insufficient detail” on how proposals to provide support to those involved in prostitution to help them change their lifestyle “would work in practice”, including how long such measures would be available for and what the costs would be.

Regan’s member’s Bill also sets out to criminalise those buying sex while decriminalising those selling it.

Under the proposals, those convicted of buying sex could be fined up to £10,000 if the case was prosecuted in the sheriff courts – with these courts also able to impose jail sentences of up to six months.

Brown stressed that while the Scottish Government backed the “underlying intent of the Bill to challenge men’s demand and to tackle commercial sexual exploitation”, she added there were still “significant questions and concerns regarding the measures within the Bill and how they would work in practice, the extent to which they would deliver on the policy intent, and the associated financial implications”.

Her comments came after a paper published last week by the Scottish Government said evidence was “limited” on the impact of these “challenging demand approaches”.

In the wake of that, sex worker safety charity National Ugly Mugs urged MSPs to “pull the plug” on Regan’s “misguided and dangerous” Bill.

Chief executive Lynsey Walton said: “Sex worker groups, alongside leading NGOs like Amnesty and the World Health Organisation, have long warned that criminalising the purchase of sex only serves to make life more difficult and dangerous for sex workers, while having no impact on trafficking and exploitation.

“We are pleased that the Scottish Government has now accepted that the international evidence backs this up.

“MSPs now need to pull the plug on Ms Regan’s misguided and dangerous legislation, and focus on supporting sex workers’ rights to work safely and free from stigma.”

Regan said that her Bill “aims to address the issue of commercial sexual exploitation” and had been shared with the Scottish Government since its first draft last year.

The Alba MSP added that the Scottish Government report “did not evaluate legal models, such as the Nordic Model (which criminalises buyers and decriminalises prostituted persons), with the authors explicitly stating that this was “out of the scope” of the review”.

Regan said: “Unlike my small team, the civil service and the Government did not attempt to conduct comparisons across legislative models. The review does not assess how the Nordic Model performs relative to legalisation or full decriminalisation.

“No critical appraisal of evidence quality was undertaken, with the authors admitting that they lacked time to assess whether the included studies were reliable or robust.”

She continued: “Where concerns are raised, they are about implementation — not the model itself.”

Regan said: “The debate on commercial sexual exploitation is now out of the shadows and into the Scottish Parliament, and I welcome scrutiny of all evidence to ensure Scotland becomes a nation where there is equality of the sexes.”