A children's campaigner today spoke of her delight at the prospect of tough new penalties for adults who make youngsters sell sex.

Sara Swann, founder of Bradford's pioneering Streets and Lanes project which helps children caught up in prostitution, said harsher punishment for offenders would be the only way to cut the abuse of children.

If the Government adopts the new proposals, adults who have sex with children aged 13 or under would be jailed for life; those involved in pimping out 13 to 18-year-olds would face ten years in jail, and "punters" caught buying sex with 16 to 18-year-olds, would get a five-year term.

Ms Swann has spent the last six years highlighting the problem of children abused through prostitution. Thanks to the pioneering work of Streets and Lanes, the plight of children as young as 13 being made to sell sex has been brought to national attention.

Ms Swann was invited to join a Home Office working group where she has spent the past 18 months with lawyers and other campaigners, helping to draft laws to cover a new set of sex offences, including child prostitution.

She says the new set of offences plug serious loopholes in the existing law which mean people who target children for sex only risk relatively minor penalties.

The charge of having sex with an under-age boy or girl carries a maximum sentence of two years. A man prosecuted under bestiality laws for interfering with a farmyard animal could get life.

"The new set of offences are brilliant because they carry some really strong penalties," said Ms Swann.

"At the moment the report is out for public consultation until next February, when it will become the Sex Offences Bill and will be debated in Parliament.

"It would be great if readers of the Telegraph & Argus support it, and contact the Home Office with comments.

"This type of offence always goes on behind closed doors, and prosecutions are very unusual.

"You can buy girls easily, it's a matter of making it known you are interested. It's such a difficult issue to police. At the moment there aren't appropriate offences, people who are caught aren't being hit hard enough.

"People assume there's this marvellous offence of 'child sex abuse' but it doesn't exist. The current set of sex offences are a joke. What we have at the moment is a patchwork quilt of provision.

"If young people knew we'd be serious in pursuing their abusers I think they'd tell us more than they are doing at the moment. We have seen cases where young people want to make statements, but they have been intimidated."

The report is on the Home Office site, www.homeoffice.gov.uk/atoz/sex_offence.htm