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Mr. Bercow: I might be wrong, but is it not the case that Department for Education and Employment circular 11/95 lists, among other types of misconduct, the engagement of a teacher in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a pupil, even if that pupil is over the age of consent? That seems, if I may say so, fundamentally to undermine my hon. Friend's thesis.
Mr. Swayne: I fear that I do not see how that example undermines my thesis. Indeed, I regard it as entirely irrelevant to the point that I am developing. It is more in tune, certainly, with the provision that gives protection to those who need it from people whom they would otherwise trust. However, I am concentrating on the fundamental principle that the two types of sexual behaviour are equal. It is my contention that they are not. I contend that the vast majority of the people whom we were sent here to represent do not regard it as equal. They are tolerant of different types of behaviour, but they are nevertheless aware that types of behaviour are not equal and they welcome law that reinforces inequality.
As I said to the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon, there is no absolute abrogation of what might be called human rights in this respect. Those parties disappointed at 16 by being unable to pursue their homosexual desires are only being asked to wait two years until they are marginally more mature and better able to make the decision.
Mr. Fabricant:
Does my hon. Friend accept that people will do what they are going to do whether or not there is a law? The point is that the Bill will decriminalise acts that will be performed anyway. It will enable vulnerable young people to seek medical help and, sometimes, the help of the police when they have been obliged to do something that they would not have wished to have done.
Mr. Swayne:
Much of what my hon. Friend says has force, but the last part about medical help is fatuous nonsense. People are perfectly capable of seeking advice without bringing any criminal penalty upon themselves.
Ms Oona King:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Swayne:
Let me answer my hon. Friend first. He was entirely right to say that many of the acts that we are debating will take place no matter what. If the Bill passes, there will be no huge change in behaviour. It will have an impact only at the margin, but we should not ignore that margin. Young men would undoubtedly be encouraged by the force of the law to sublimate their unnatural desires,
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East):
Once again, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I found myself quite rightly corrected by you earlier for making an over-long intervention. I trust that I shall not be corrected now for making too short a speech, because I intend to make simply the point that I tried to make in that intervention and one other.
I did not intend to speak, because I made two substantial speeches in our previous debates. They are on the record, and can be found on my website--www.julianlewis.net--for the edification of my constituents and anyone else who wants to know my views.
The argument about the need to decriminalise people who are currently below an age of consent would, if carried to its logical conclusion, undermine the very concept of any age of consent. Yet, as societies have become more civilised, they have taken greater care of their children, raising ages of consent rather than lowering them. The first age of consent in this country was 12. It was later raised to 13, then to 16. At any one of those stages, it could have been argued that it was wrong to pitch the age of consent so high, because it would criminalise those who were below that age.
As I have said before--it remains as true as it was--the purpose of an age of consent is not to criminalise those below that age, but to protect them from being seduced by people above that age. That is the concept on which the age of consent is based. It is thus fatuous to say that the age of consent must be reduced in order to decriminalise those below it, because those people are never prosecuted in any case.
My second and final point is the one that I unavailingly tried--not once, but twice--to put to the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) during his speech. I was surprised to hear him say that I had not advocated that the age of consent should be equalised. The hon. Gentleman attended a sitting of the Standing Committee for the previous version of the Bill at which I argued that, if equality was the prime issue, there was a stronger argument for equalisation at 18 than at 16. The reason for that is medical--as I started to explain earlier. I maintain that the argument is not about morality, but about health.
I could not attend the whole of today's debate because I had to move an amendment in Committee on another Bill; but, on this and other occasions, I have never heard
a refutation of the medical fact that HIV most frequently results from penetrative, anal sex--whether between two males or between a male and a female.
Ms Ward:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that health issues are not age related, but are the same whether one is 16, 17, 18 or 80?
Dr. Lewis:
I am delighted that I gave way to the hon. Lady because her point brings me to what my brief contribution is primarily about--the difference between an adult and a child. Someone aged 16 or 17 is not an adult and is not recognised as an adult. Those Members who argue that such people are adults, when it comes to the risk of contracting HIV through unprotected anal sex with people who really are adults, are the same Members who argue that 16 or 17-year-olds should not be allowed to be put in harm's way in the armed forces. As usual, such opponents want it both ways.
Mr. Shaun Woodward (Witney):
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way.
There is a serious misunderstanding. HIV and AIDS do not know the barriers of sexuality. The problem with HIV and AIDS is that millions of women and small children will die--not because they are homosexual, but because HIV is a virus that spreads through penetrative sex. It is wholly unfair and irresponsible of the hon. Gentleman not to recognise those problems in Africa.
Dr. Lewis:
In forgetting which party he was elected to represent, the hon. Gentleman has also forgotten the content of a debate in which we both participated some months ago. It was explained then that the circumstances appertaining in Africa to resistance to the HIV virus did not apply in this country. The hard medical fact in Britain--it is only for Britons that we legislate at present--is that, if one has unprotected anal sex with a man, whether one is a man, a boy or a woman, one is at much greater risk of contracting AIDS than one would otherwise be.
Mr. Gerald Howarth:
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Unfortunately, the turncoat hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) was not in the Chamber when my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) mentioned that the chief executive of the Public Health Laboratory Service said that gay men still remain the single largest group at risk of acquiring HIV. Is that not game, set and match?
Dr. Lewis:
I believe that, in terms of what has been recognised by the medical authorities in this country, it is beyond doubt, beyond question, beyond a scintilla of the slightest hesitation, that the people most at risk in this country, for whom we are legislating, are the people who engage in unprotected anal sex.
Kali Mountford:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Lewis:
No, I will not. I must conclude my remarks.
As a result of that increased risk, the logic of what is being proposed today is that people who are recognised as being under the age of majority--under the age of 18, under the age at which this society recognises that people
have the responsibility to take life-and-death decisions for themselves--are being exposed to a greater risk of catching a deadly disease.
Mr. Fabricant:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Dr. Lewis:
No, I am not giving way. I am concluding my remarks.
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury):
The arguments that have been deployed by hon. Members on both sides of the divide this afternoon have been presented with great passion and have obviously sprung from deep personal belief and commitment. I shall not single out everyone who has spoken--but, although I shall not be in the Lobby with her tonight, I want to tell the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) that her speech was presented with a generosity of spirit and an idealism which reflected the best of the motives of those who are supporting the Bill tonight.
I want to chide some of those who spoke in support of the Bill, because I think that their arguments, although deeply felt--I appreciate that I differ from them, and I try to understand their point of view--misrepresented the equally strong feelings held by those of us who will vote against Second Reading.
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