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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): I noted the point of order that the hon. Gentleman has raised with regard to the matter being sub judice. All I can say is that I think that this matter should be given more careful consideration.
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. During Business questions the Leader of the House inadvertently misled the House when she asserted that the Conservative group on the Welsh Assembly was prepared to go into some form of coalition with the nationalist party, Plaid Cymru. I have spoken with the leader of the Conservative group, Nick Bourne, who assures me that the Conservatives would not be prepared to form such a coalition.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Those kinds of arrangements are not a matter for the Chair.
Orders of the Day
Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
2.9 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill is based on the principle of equality before the law. It also provides added protection for the vulnerable. I am deeply committed to the Bill, although the Government and, I believe, the Opposition regard it entirely as a matter for a free vote according to individual conscience, rather than a matter for the party Whips.
I am saddened that yet another year has passed without this reform on the statute book. The House has endorsed the principle of equality not once but twice. We included child protection measures as part of the Bill last year and asked the other place to agree. Regrettably, it has rejected the Bill. It has opposed equality and failed to support--indeed, even properly to consider--the child protection measures.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West)
rose--
Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby)
rose--
Mr. Straw:
I shall give way later, but should like to make some progress first.
That was not a noble cause on which to oppose the will of the elected Chamber. I am sad at the delay that the Lords' opposition has caused, and at the need to reintroduce the Bill with, if necessary, the use of the Parliament Acts.
Whether or not the Bill is a matter of conscience, its issues have been considered several times by the House. Last year, we sent it to the other place with our overwhelming endorsement. We have had three separate votes on the Floor of the House, spending more than 13 hours in debate. In each vote, a majority of more than 180 favoured the Bill. In the debate on clause 1--on the equalisation of the age of consent--the Committee of the whole House voted in favour by a majority of 204. ln addition, the clauses on abuse of trust received 10 hours of discussion in Committee Upstairs.
Mr. Swayne:
The principle that underlies the Bill is that young men of 16 are sufficiently mature to be able to make an informed choice as to whether to enter into a homosexual relationship. However, the Bill's second provision is that they must be protected from people with whom they might enter such a relationship and with whom they should properly share a relationship of trust. Surely the second provision bears testimony to the falsehood of the first. Those two propositions cannot both be true. They are mutually exclusive.
Mr. Straw:
The first proposition is whether we should equalise the age of consent. We could decide to equalise at 12, as happens in some European countries, or at 14, 18 or 21. My judgment, which I hope the House shares, is that we should equalise at 16. The second issue affects
Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and The Weald):
Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mr. Straw:
I am in the middle of giving an answer to the right hon. Lady's hon. Friend. If she will hang on a moment, I shall come to her.
The second proposition before us concerns the circumstances in which people aged between 16 and 18 should be able to trust another person--specifically in a professional situation--but that trust can be abused. Our judgment is--although it is a matter for a free vote--that that position could be abused. For example, teachers or social workers in residential homes have considerable power over those aged between 16 and 18, as well as younger people, and it is possible that they could abuse that trust. That is our argument.
If the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) still wishes to ask a question, I shall happily give way to her.
Miss Widdecombe:
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy. He said that we could decide on equalising at other ages. Will he confirm that, even if the House wanted to do that, he is giving us no opportunity to do so through the procedures under which we are debating the Bill? We will not have an opportunity to amend the Bill. We must take it or leave it.
Mr. Straw:
I will not confirm that. Ministers propose, but the House disposes. If the House reaches a different view from that which I invite it to take, that is the end of that. The majority of the House is, I think, of the opinion that the Parliament Acts fall to be used in this case. The House has taken a view on the merits of the Bill not once or twice, but three times. The Parliament Acts can be used only if the Bill presented a second time is identical to that which was rejected by the other place on the first occasion. That is an argument in favour of the proposition before the House, and it is up to the House to decide whether to accept that proposition.
Mr. Robathan:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on abuse of trust?
Mr. Straw:
I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman later, but I want to make some progress.
For me, the central issue before us is one of equality, of seeking to create a society free from prejudice in which our relationships with others, including strangers, are based on respect, not fear. When I was a young man, homosexual acts between two men were unlawful, criminal offences attracting a penalty--can we now believe this?--of up to life imprisonment. What did such harsh criminalisation achieve? Let me answer that by saying, first, what the criminal law utterly failed to achieve: it failed to achieve the elimination, or reduction, of gay sex. There were probably as many people who were homosexual then as there are today, but while heterosexual people could enjoy sexual relations in peace, those who were homosexual lived in fear--fear of
exposure, and of the misery that comes from having to live a lie. Our society suffered too, for it lived a lie as well, and dealt with that lie by institutionalising hypocrisy, pretending that everyone was heterosexual, while knowing that many people were not.
Criminalising gay sex in private for those otherwise above the age of consent did not protect those of us who are heterosexual, but it deeply scarred many who were not allowed to come to terms with their own sexuality, in peace and with respect from others.
It is worth recalling another discriminatory aspect of the law, which explains why the Bill is necessary at all. The Offences Against The Person Act 1861, which created the modern offence of buggery, made a sexual relationship between two males a criminal act, but sexual relations between two females were not then, and have never been, specifically criminalised. The law has never criminalised all same-sex relationships--only those between males. In time, that led to the anomaly that the age of consent for sexual relations with females was 16, but between males it was set at 21 in 1967, and at 18 in 1994.
I wish that we had moved then to 16, but we did not. Subsequently, a challenge was made under the European convention on human rights and, by 14 votes to four, the Commission--not the Court--found that our law was discriminatory.
In commending the Bill, I would say that it is a moderate measure.
Mr. Robathan:
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and shall not heap yet more praise on him to embarrass him further than we did earlier.
May I return to the child protection measures? I sat on the Standing Committee that considered those matters, alongside the Minister of State, Home Office, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng). All of us who served on that Committee know perfectly well that the child protection measures are a fig leaf and a load of nonsense. We conducted an investigation into them. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the likely number of prosecutions might be around two each year and that the provisions will make very little difference?
Mr. Straw:
I do not accept that. Nor do I accept that the effectiveness of the criminal law can be determined solely by the number of prosecutions that follow from it. If that were so, the hon. Gentleman would be on his feet calling for the amendment of several highly publicised criminal offences created by the Opposition when in Government, although I would not.
Organisations that support equalisation and other measures in the Bill include the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and leading children's charities, including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Barnardos, NCH Action for Children, the National Children's Bureau and many others. Those people and organisations are at the forefront of dealing with the serious problems caused by the present inequality in our law.
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