Government confirms it will not back prostitution offences bill

The Scottish government will not support a bill that would criminalise paying for sex, it has confirmed.

The Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill, tabled by independent MSP Ash Regan, is unlikely to pass without the government's backing.

Victims and Community Safety Minister Siobhian Brown said while the government backs the fundamental principle of the bill, it has concerns about enforcement and the risk of violence against sex workers.

Regan said the government's failure to back the bill "represents a profound failure of political courage, moral clarity and leadership on violence against women and girls".

She previously said the bill would deliver "transformative progress in tackling male violence against women and girls".

In Scotland, soliciting in public, "kerb crawling" and brothel-keeping are illegal but paying for sex and arranging for it online are legal.

Under Regan's proposals, a new offence would be created and the existing offence of soliciting or importuning by sex workers would be repealed.

MSPs will vote on the bill's general principles on Tuesday. It would need to pass two more stages of parliamentary scrutiny to become law.

Although a small number of SNP MSPs are expected to rebel and vote for the bill, it is unlikely to pass without government support, with the Greens and Liberal Democrats opposed to the plans.

In a letter to Holyrood's Criminal Justice Committee, Brown said: "The Scottish government has concluded that whilst we support the fundamental principle of criminalising the purchase of sex, we still retain significant concerns with the provisions as drafted in the bill, and are very aware that there are women in prostitution who have said that this bill as drafted will lead to them being at a higher risk of violence.

"With only weeks left in this parliamentary term, we do not think there is sufficient time left in this session to be able to amend the bill to properly mitigate that risk as well as make other very necessary changes. Consequently, we are regretfully unable to support it at stage one."

Brown said the government had doubts about whether a new offence could be "adequately enforced", raising particular concerns over online activity.

She committed that ministers would table a bill to criminalise paying for sex "as early as possible" in the next parliament if the SNP returns to government following May's election.

Brown added that the government needed more time to consider the implications of repealing the existing criminal offence.

Regan said: "The vote is about the principles only.

"On a day when the world is recoiling at the Epstein scandal, the government has chosen to side with the abusers against the victims."

Following the government's announcement, she said: "Ministers publicly state that women are not for sale and that men should not be able to buy sex.

"Yet when given the opportunity to turn those words into law, they have chosen instead to vote against the very principle they claim to support.

That contradiction will not be lost on survivors who they have ignored throughout."

The Scottish Conservatives confirmed they would back the bill at stage one despite saying it was "far from perfect".

The party's justice spokesperson Liam Kerr said: "It is disappointing that the SNP government are preparing to reject it at the first opportunity rather than helping to improve what has been proposed."

However, Green MSP Maggie Chapman said the bill "would only create more exploitation by driving the industry even further underground".

She added: "It wouldn't do anything to stop trafficking or coercion and would only make sex workers themselves more insecure."