Are Harriet Harman’s knickers in a twist over lap-dancing ban?

'The Sisters' are putting pressure on Commons Leader Harriet Harman and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to honour pledges they made to help local councils oppose the opening of lap-dancing clubs. In Harman's case, it could cause her some embarrassment.

Harman is already under fire for promising to stop Sir Fred Goodwin's £703,000 annual pension, although there is nothing in law so far to enable her to do so. Now she is under pressure to fulfil a pledge to give residents powers to curb the growth of lap dancing clubs, which have doubled in recent years.

Jacqui Smith made a pledge to impose tougher controls a centre-piece of her keynote speech at Labour's annual conference last autumn. She honoured part of the promise in the Queen's Speech by extending the scope of the Police and Crime Bill to include a clause that would bring lap-dancing clubs under the same licensing system as sex clubs for the first time. In future, they are to be known as 'sex encounter venues'.

However, women campaigners led by the Fawcett Society are warning that a coach and horses can be driven through the Bill because it currently means local authorities could adopt powers to curb lap dancing clubs. It does not automatically mean they will.

And the Fawcett Society says that a patchwork approach to the new powers could provide ap-dancing club operators with the grounds to successfully challenge a ban in the courts. Peter Stringfellow successfully challenged an attempted ban on nudity at his London club by arguing that a borough next door had not done so, and it was therefore anti-competitive to ask him to cover up his girls.

A circular has now gone round to Labour MPs from the Labour group on the Local Government Association urging them to support an amendment to the bill by the MP for Stourbridge, Lynda Waltho, to apply the new powers to all local authorities, not just those who choose to do so.

Waltho, who has been campaigning on this issue for some time, managed to extract a commitment from Harman last June to support the bill. Waltho asked Harman in the Commons: "Does she not agree that it is absolutely ridiculous in this day and age that one can object to a neighbour building a porch, but cannot object to a lap-dancing club opening 200 yards up the road? Will she further commit to steering this issue through to a successful conclusion so that we are not subjected to an endless game of ping-pong between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Home Office, which I greatly fear?"

Harman, as Minister for Equality and Women, said: "I make that commitment to my hon friend... The important point is that local communities and local authorities need to know that the law is there to back them up. If the local community and the local authority think that it is inappropriate for a lap-dancing club to be opened in a particular area, the law should be there to back them up, but it is evident that that is not the position currently."

Just to bind herself even more tightly, she said MPs had said it was no longer time to consult, but to act. "I can give the House that commitment today."

It is to be hoped it is not another case of Emperor Harman having no clothes.

THE MOLE: SEX ENCOUNTER VENUES

FIRST POSTED MARCH 19, 2009