Tackling the demand for prostitution: Home Office report in full (pdf)

Ministers have been prevented from introducing an outright ban on paying for sex because they found that prostitution was too big a business and commanded too much public support.

A Home Office study released yesterday revealed a £1 billion market with 80,000 sex workers. It estimated that as many as 10 per cent of men had used a prostitute at some point.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has shelved plans to legalise small brothels - put forward when Tony Blair was in office - but has been unable to go farther and push through a ban on paying for sex, after a MORI poll indicated that 47 per cent of people would oppose it.

Instead Ms Smith confirmed yesterday that she would introduce a criminal offence, with a maximum fine of £1,000, of paying for sex with a prostitute “controlled for another person's gain”. She will also start a campaign to discourage men from using prostitutes.

The Home Office report concluded that Britain was not yet ready to follow Sweden's ban on paying for sex. “The Swedish Government created their offence only after several years of close consultation with practitioners and over time the attitudes of the Swedish public grew to support the proposed legislation.

"In the UK, public attitudes are currently much more divided, suggesting that the Government needs to work to challenge the attitudes of sex buyers and the public as a whole before criminalising the purchase of sex per se becomes a viable option.”

The Home Office is preparing an advertising campaign to highlight the connection between prosecution and people trafficking, of which about 4,000 women in Britain's sex industry are victims.

Britain is split on the issue of prostitution, with opposition to it being much stronger among women (61 per cent) than among men (42 per cent).

The Home Office believes that the new measures will shame men who pay for sex by “removing any ambiguity from possible offenders' minds about the potential consequences”.

Ministers are hoping that yesterday's changes, which will also allow kerb crawlers to be prosecuted for a first offence, will help to change the culture surrounding prostitution.

Three ministers, Vernon Coaker, Barbara Follett and Vera Baird, visited Sweden this year to look at the more stringent regime there. The report suggests that it remains a preferred option, “not least because the message it sends is very clear”.

The three ministers also visited the Netherlands, which has decriminalised brothels and street prostitution in certain areas. They found, however, that the Dutch policy did not reduce the numbers involved in prostitution.

They concluded that the Dutch option was not effective, ruling out a proposal to permit small brothels, with two prostitutes and a maid.

The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats said that the changes would have little effect and that the present laws should be enforced.

One man who has helped to rehabilitate women working as prostitutes said that the Government had not done enough to tackle the underlying problem of drug abuse. The man, who did not wish to be named, said: “The vast majority of street prostitutes are hardened drug addicts and I am disappointed the Government has failed to recognise that drugs are the main driver. From my experience, if you get rid of drug abuse and addiction you get rid of street prostitution.”

Case study: I'd prefer a legal brothel

Paige, 22, a single mother and recovering heroin addict, is desperate for trade. But after four hours on Manchester's bleakest street, exposed to the chill night in blouson, jeans and trainers, her pockets are empty, despite a circling stream of drivers in slowly moving cars.

She blames the weather, heavy-handed police and competition from Eastern European girls.

Paige, along with her mostly older competitors, believes that Jacqui Smith's initiative will push the punters back to suburbia, forcing girls like them to take more risks.

She says: “Why can't they just make it legal? I would much prefer to work in a legalised brothel, but not a massage parlour where they rip you off.”

A Wigan girl, she began smoking heroin and went on the street to feed her addiction. That was four years ago.

“I am not forced into it,” she says. “It's just that, if I don't do it, I don't get my money.” She needs £40 a night to get by. She is limping badly. “The girls got jealous of me making money so they beat me up,” she said.

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