Attended a briefing on tackling the demand for prostitution. The Government is looking at some form of legislation to curb demand for prostitution as opposed to the more traditional emphasis on the supply-side of the equation.

Not going to go into all the complexities of the discussion – as this is not an easy one to get right – but the MP from Ipswich (Chris Mole) where five women were murdered came to tell us of his experience.

Since the murders, the social services, police and other authorities and agencies have all been working together to eradicate street prostitution. They have brought about a reduction from thirty prostitutes on the street to none.

So – as I pointed out to Vernon Coker (Government minister) – maybe legislation isn’t the key; maybe the thrust of the Government’s action should be on support, training, housing and drug rehab exit strategies to get girls off the street and out of prostitution altogether.

The meeting was pretty discursive and Vera Baird, Barbara Follett and Vernon were all seemingly happy to have this wide-ranging discussion.

They did seem to be advancing, however, the view that legislation was the answer in as much as it was an equalities issue and that there could be no equality as long as men could still buy women.

Well – in ideological terms – yes of course. But in my view that has to come about mostly through cultural change – and legislation is at best only part of the route to changing culture – especially in a world where we still have 140,000 women waiting to bring cases about Equal Pay to the tribunal and there is such disparity on women’s pay. We have even had the Equal Pay Act for forty years – and still have issues with unequal pay.

Legislation just won’t deliver a magic wand solution. So legislate with caution was my message. It is more important to get the support in there and give people routes out of prostitution. I am pleased they are looking into it from the male demand perspective – about time! And of course – the volume of trafficking from Eastern Europe brings an whole other level of activity to bear.

Anyway – helpful discussion and much thinking to be done. The world’s oldest profession ain’t easy to tackle…