I find this aspect of the BBC report interesting -
A two-year UK parliamentary inquiry into the sex trade, to be published next month, is expected to recommend the same Swedish model for England and Wales, although any change in the law is extremely unlikely before the 2015 general election.
The Newsnight introduction to the piece says something like the BBC has seen the "final reports from a group of MPs" taken together with the panel discussion, it seems the underlying research is about as reliable as that used by Harman and McShane in the last parliament - i.e. pretty much made up to suit the argument they want to put forward. Laura Lee makes the point that sex workers have not been consulted, and the academic makes the point that the "research" contradicts academic research which is peer reviewed. Of course, they are more or less shouted down and ignored by the person from the Poppy project, and the MEP - which are the usual tactics such people seem to adopt.
This seems like a rerun of the discussions that preceded the 2009 legislation, and presumably is intended to set the stage for Harman should labour come to power in the 2015 election.
I think it's a bit previous of the BBC to stage this debate now, before the report has been published, because the "research" on which it is based is most likely seriously flawed, if not actually entirely made up and fictitious. Until the report is published the research it is based upon cannot be analysed. So the debate goes on without any reference to the facts - though that seems always to be the case.
The panel discussion and the attitudes of the Poppy person and MEP are almost comically reminiscent of the episode of Borgen in which a similar panel told a sex worker that she does not know what goes on in her industry - which was the case in this discussion!