Britain has around 70,000 prostitutes who make an average of £2,000 a week according to a report by MPs that has called for soliciting to be decriminalised.

The influential Home Affairs Select Committee found that sex workers in Britain charged an average of £78 for services and had around 25 clients per week.

While a quarter of those selling their bodies work on the streets the vast majority of prostitutes operate out of brothels and massage parlours.

The details were contained in a report compiled by MPs who undertook a major study into the sex industry in Britain today.

They have now urged the Government to immediately decriminalise prostitution and allow brothels to open in order to protect sex workers’ welfare.

MPs also called for all convictions for soliciting to be wiped from the slate, in order to make it easier for sex workers to leave prostitution and find other forms of work.

But the committee fell short of recommending the introduction of a so called ‘sex buyer law’ that would make it illegal for a customer to pay for sex but not for the prostitute to sell it.