A PLEA to fast track a law making it a crime to pay for sex has been rejected by MSPs.
Holyrood's Justice Committee decided that a new consultation must be held on Labour MSP Rhoda Grant's proposal, despite a consultation on the issue being carried out two years ago.
Ms Grant claimed her Purchase of Sex Bill would reduce the demand for prostitution and build on existing laws. She argued that an earlier attempt to pass legislation meant the issues had already been aired.
She said that her Bill would help make Scotland an "unattractive market for prostitution and therefore other associated serious criminal activities, such as people-trafficking for sexual exploitation, would be disrupted".
A previous attempt for a total ban was introduced by former MSP Trish Godman but it was not adopted as part of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill.
She wanted to create three new offences on the purchase, advertising and facilitating of sex. Ms Grant told the committee the consultation for Ms Godman's Bill had influenced the new proposal
However, the committee decided her Bill pursued a "more narrow proposal".
In a letter to Ms Grant outlining the reasons for the decision, committee convener Christine Grahame said the existing consultation did not contain the most up-to-date data such as the latest figures indicating trends in the level of prostitution offences nor an analysis of the most recent legislative initiatives to make the case that a Bill was needed.
Under current law, it is possible for a consenting adult aged 18 or over to have sex with another consenting adult in return for payment without an offence being committed. Other laws apply to soliciting and kerb crawling.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article