HOLYROOD put political indifference “above women’s lives” when it defeated a Bill to criminalise the act of paying for sex, campaigners said.

Ash Regan’s “unbuyable” Bill was voted down on Tuesday night by 64 votes to 54.

It sought to bring the Nordic model to Scotland by criminalising the act of buying consent with the threat of jail or a £10,000 fine, and decriminalising those selling it as well as providing greater support to exit prostitution.

In the run-up to the stage 1 vote, SNP Community Safety Minister Siobhian Brown said that while the Scottish government “strongly supports the principle of criminalising those who purchase sex,” it would not back the Bill.

Despite support from Labour and Tory contingents, as well as two SNP rebels, Ruth Maguire and Michelle Thompson, the Bill was defeated with the help of vocal opponents the Scottish Greens.

Scottish Women’s Convention (SWC) chairwoman Agnes Tolmie branded the vote “a devastating failure to protect those women who are already among the most exploited, marginalised and vulnerable.”

She added: “Women involved in prostitution have been abandoned by a political system that instead of offering them protection has opened them up to even greater risk and vulnerability; this is not just disappointing, it is morally reprehensible. 

“This vote will be remembered as a moment when political indifference was placed above women’s lives.”

Speaking after the vote, Ms Regan accused Holyrood of choosing “cowardice over action,” adding: “Inaction is not neutral. It is a decision, and it has consequences.

“Those who voted against criminalising the perpetrators of violence against women, have a stain on their parliamentary voting record.”

Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman argued it would increase “vulnerability to violence and abuse” by driving the practice underground.