{"id":406813,"date":"2026-02-04T04:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T04:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/406813\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T04:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T04:59:08","slug":"scottish-parliament-rejects-prostitution-bill-at-stage-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/406813\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Parliament rejects prostitution bill at stage one"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bill was backed by the Conservatives and Labour, with the Greens and Liberal Democrats opposed. <\/p>\n

Tory justice spokesman Liam Kerr described the bill as “flawed”, citing concerns from Police Scotland, external<\/a> that the proposed legislation would have cost up to \u00a3321m a year to enforce. <\/p>\n

However, he urged MSPs back the proposals at stage one as part of efforts to reduce violence against women and girls. <\/p>\n

Labour’s Pauline McNeill, backing the bill, said there was an “uneven power dynamic” within prostitution “where it is overwhelmingly women who are exploited and men causing harm”. <\/p>\n

She said prostitution was not a “true choice” for women who are “driven into sex work through poverty and other traumatic circumstances”.<\/p>\n

Speaking against the bill, Green MSP Maggie Chapman said: “Where sex work happens between consenting adults, I believe the state should support people not penalise them for how they choose to live.” <\/p>\n

The Liberal Democrats also opposed the bill. Party leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said evidence from other countries, such as Australia, suggested criminalisation can result in increased marginalisation and additional barriers to accessing support services. <\/p>\n

“We can’t wish prostitution away and as it will forever exist we need to make sure it happens in the safest possible way,” he told MSPs. <\/p>\n

However, Regan insisted that the “Nordic model” proposed in her bill was the only way to reduce harm. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bill was backed by the Conservatives and Labour, with the Greens and Liberal Democrats opposed. Tory justice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-406813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}