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Long title | An Act to reduce the age at which, and to make provision with respect to the circumstances in which, certain sexual acts are lawful; to make it an offence for a person aged 18 or over to engage in sexual activity with or directed towards a person under that age if he is in a position of trust in relation to that person; and for connected purposes. |
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Citation | 2000 c.44 |
Territorial extent | England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 30 November 2000 |
Commencement | 8 January 2001 |
Other legislation | |
Amended by | Sexual Offences Act 2003 |
Status: Partially repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Revised text of statute as amended |
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LGBT rights in the United Kingdom |
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The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 (c.44) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It set the age of consent for male homosexual sexual activities and for heterosexual anal sex at 16 (17 in Northern Ireland), which had long been the age of consent for all other types of sexual activities, such as vaginal sex or lesbian sex. As such, it made the age of consent for all types of sexual acts equal, without discrimimating on the basis of the type of act or of the sexes of those involved in the act. It also introduced the new offence of 'having sexual intercourse or engaging in any other sexual activity with a person under 18 if in a position of trust in relation to that person'.
An attempt to equalize the age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual sex was made in 1994, when Conservative MP Edwina Currie, who proposed an amendment to that effect to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill. Even though over forty Tory MPs joined Currie, the measure was lost by twenty-seven votes. [1] [2] Immediately afterwards, an amendment to reduce the age of consent for homosexual sexual activities from twenty-one to eighteen was agreed to by a vote 427 to 162. [3] The election of a Labour Government in 1997 afforded Parliament a further opportunity to examine the issue.
In 1996, the European Court of Human Rights heard Morris v. The United Kingdom and Sutherland v. the United Kingdom, cases brought by Chris Morris and Euan Sutherland challenging the inequality inherent in divided ages of consent. The government stated its intention to legislate to negate the court cases, which were put on hold.
On 22 June 1998, during consideration of the Crime and Disorder Bill by the House of Commons, Labour MP Ann Keen proposed an amendment adding a new clause equalizing the age of consent: Keen's motion passed by a vote of 336 to 129 (a majority of 207). [4] On 22 July, following a concerted campaign by Conservative peer Baroness Young, the House of Lords voted 290–122 (a majority of 168) to disagree with the amendment. Not wishing to lose the whole bill, the government allowed the issue to be dropped.
On 16 December 1998, the government introduced the bill which would have eventually become this Act. MPs from all major parties were permitted a conscience vote. On 25 January 1999, the Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons by a vote of 282 to 81, but the House of Lords rejected it once again, this time by a vote of 222 to 146 (a majority of 76).
On 19 January 2000, the newly established Scottish Parliament passed by a vote of 90 to 16 a non-binding motion "that the Parliament endorses the principles of equalising the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual activity and creating a new criminal offence of breach of trust as set out in the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill considered by the UK Parliament in the 1998-99 parliamentary session and agrees that the UK Parliament should consider any Bill introduced in the same terms in the current session".
On 28 January 2000, the government reintroduced the bill: on 28 February, the Commons voted 317–117 to grant it a third reading. Since the Commons had passed it in two successive sessions of Parliament, the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 could have been used to enact the bill had the House of Lords not passed it before the end of the session (regardless of whether the Bill had been outright rejected or simply not put up to a vote). The Lords passed the bill at second reading, but during committee stage, by a vote of 205 to 144 (a majority of 61), they agreed to an amendment which would have maintained the age of consent for anal sex (whether with a male or with a female) at 18. The Government (which is in charge of parliamentary business in both Houses and opposed this change) did not allow the Lords a third reading vote on the amended bill. At the end of the session, on 30 November 2000, then-Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin certified that the procedure set out in the Parliament Acts had been complied with. The bill received royal assent a few hours later, and was enacted as the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000; its provisions came into force throughout the UK on 8 January 2001.
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 and the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009, which consolidated most previous sexual offences legislation, kept in place the equal age of consent achieved by the Act.
The fact the bill had been enacted without the Lords' consent became significant in the wake of passage of the Hunting Act 2004, which had also been passed using the Parliament Acts. The passage of that Act was challenged in the case of R (Jackson) v Attorney General [5] on the basis that the Parliament Act 1949 itself had been unlawfully passed. If the latter point were true, then the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 would also be invalid, though this would have only had an effect in Scotland, since in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland the provisions had been consolidated in legislation not passed under the Parliament Acts. The challenge to the Hunting Act was ultimately unsuccessful.
The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 are two Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which form part of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Section 2(2) of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that the two Acts are to be construed as one.
OutRage! was a British political group focused on lesbian and gay rights. Founded in 1990, the organisation ran for 21 years until 2011. It described itself as "a broad based group of queers committed to radical, non-violent direct action and civil disobedience" and was formed to advocate that lesbian, gay and bisexual people have the same rights as heterosexual people, to end homophobia and to affirm the right of queer people to their "sexual freedom, choice and self-determination".
The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, or "An Act to make further provision for the Protection of Women and Girls, the suppression of brothels, and other purposes," was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the latest in a 25-year series of legislation in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland beginning with the Offences against the Person Act 1861. It raised the age of consent from 13 years of age to 16 years of age and delineated the penalties for sexual offences against women and minors. It also strengthened existing legislation against prostitution and homosexuality. This act was also notable for the circumstances of its passage in Parliament.
The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have developed significantly over time. Today, lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights are considered to be advanced by international standards.
The Bolton 7 were a group of gay and bisexual men who were convicted on 12 January 1998 in the United Kingdom before Judge Michael Lever at Bolton Crown Court of the offences of gross indecency under the Sexual Offences Act 1956. Although gay sex was partially decriminalised by the Sexual Offences Act 1967, they were all convicted under section 13 of the 1956 Act because more than two men had sex together, which was still illegal. One of the participants was also six months under the statutory age of consent for male gay sex: at the time, such an age was set at 18, while the heterosexual and lesbian age of consent was instead set at 16.
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights, clamping down on unlicensed rave parties, and greater penalties for certain "anti-social" behaviours. The Bill was introduced by Michael Howard, Home Secretary of Prime Minister John Major's Conservative government, and attracted widespread opposition.
Sutherland v United Kingdom originated as a complaint by Mr Euan Sutherland to the European Commission of Human Rights that the fixing of the minimum age for lawful homosexual activities at 18 rather than 16, as for heterosexual activities, violated his right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The complaint was first filed on 8 June 1994 and ultimately led to the equalisation of the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual acts.
The Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 is a New Zealand Act of Parliament that broadly legalised consensual sex between men as well as anal sex regardless of partners' gender. It removed the provisions of the Crimes Act 1961 that criminalised this behaviour. The legislation established a uniform age of consent, setting it at 16 for both same-sex and opposite-sex partners.
The Sexual Offences Act 1967 is an act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It legalised homosexual acts in England and Wales, on the condition that they were consensual, in private and between two men who had attained the age of 21. The law was extended to Scotland by the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 and to Northern Ireland by the Homosexual Offences Order 1982.
Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, commonly known as the Labouchere Amendment, made "gross indecency" a crime in the United Kingdom. In practice, the law was used broadly to prosecute male homosexuals where actual sodomy could not be proven. The penalty of life imprisonment for sodomy was also so harsh that successful prosecutions were rare. The new law was much more enforceable. Section 11 was repealed and re-enacted by section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, which in turn was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised male homosexual behaviour.
The ages of consent for sexual activity vary from age 15 to 18 across Australia, New Zealand and other parts of Oceania. The specific activity and the gender of its participants is also addressed by the law. The minimum age is the age at or above which an individual can engage in unfettered sexual relations with another person of minimum age. Close in age exceptions may exist and are noted where applicable. In Vanuatu the homosexual age of consent is set higher at 18, while the heterosexual age of consent is 15. Same sex sexual activity is illegal at any age for males in Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Samoa, Niue, Tonga and Tuvalu; it is outlawed for both men and women in the Solomon Islands. In all other places the age of consent is independent of sexual orientation or gender.
The ages of consent vary by jurisdiction across Europe. The ages of consent – hereby meaning the age from which one is deemed able to consent to having sex with anyone else of consenting age or above – are between 14 and 18. The vast majority of countries set their ages in the range of 14 to 16; only four countries, Cyprus (17), Ireland (17), Turkey (18), and the Vatican City (18), set an age of consent higher than 16.
Restrictions on sexual activity involving minors in the United Kingdom and its predecessors have existed since medieval times. During the 1970s, there was some political advocacy in favour of significantly reducing the age of consent, supported by various 'youth liberation' organizations and mostly by members of an international British activist group. Meanwhile, over a similar time period, the unequal age of consent for straight and gay young people was campaigned against by the LGBT rights movement. More recently arguments have occasionally been made in favour of reducing the age of consent, generally to an earlier point in adolescence.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the British Crown dependency of the Isle of Man have evolved substantially since the early 2000s. Private and consensual acts of male homosexuality on the island were decriminalised in 1992. LGBT rights have been extended and recognised in law since then, such as an equal age of consent (2006), employment protection from discrimination (2006), gender identity recognition (2009), the right to enter into a civil partnership (2011), the right to adopt children (2011) and the right to enter into a civil marriage (2016).
The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 is an act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Most of the act's provisions were merely a consolidation of already existing legislation, and as such subject to little controversy, with the notable exception was section 80, which partially decriminalised private homosexual acts between consenting adults in Scotland.
The Homosexual Offences Order 1982, No. 1536, is an Order in Council which decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults in Northern Ireland. The Order was adopted as a result of a European Court of Human Rights case, Dudgeon v. United Kingdom (1981), which ruled that Northern Ireland's criminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults was a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
An Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom is primary legislation passed by the UK Parliament in Westminster, London.
Section 28 or Clause 28 was a legislative designation for a series of laws across Britain that prohibited the "promotion of homosexuality" by local authorities. Introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, it was in effect from 1988 to 2000 in Scotland and from 1988 to 2003 in England and Wales. It caused many organisations such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender student support groups to close, limit their activities or self-censor.
A sodomy law is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes. The precise sexual acts meant by the term sodomy are rarely spelled out in the law, but are typically understood and defined by many courts and jurisdictions to include any or all forms of sexual acts that are deemed to be "illegal", "illicit", "unlawful", "unnatural" and/or "immoral". Sodomy typically includes anal sex, oral sex, manual sex, and bestiality. In practice, sodomy laws have rarely been enforced to target against sexual activities between individuals of the opposite sex, and have mostly been used to target against sexual activities between individuals of the same sex.
LGBT conservatism refers to LGBT individuals with conservative political views. It is an umbrella term used for what is bifurcated into two specific sub-categories, each with its own term and meaning. The first sub-categorical term, Pre-Stonewall LGBT Conservatism, refers to LGBT individuals embracing and promoting the ideology of a traditional conservatism in either a general or specifically-LGBT social context or environment. The second sub-categorical term, Post-Stonewall LGBT Conservatism, refers to self-affirming LGBT persons with fiscally, culturally, and politically conservative views. These post-Stonewall conservatives' social views, though generally conservative too, at the same time reflect a self-determination-stemmed and more recent socio-historical "gay-affirmation" on issues like marriage equality for same-sex couples, gay family recognition, civic equality generally for LGBT people in society, and also a positive role for (gay-affirming) religion in LGBT life, though there is not complete unanimity of opinion among them on all issues, especially those regarding the dynamics and politics of the closet and "identity management," and various legal and political issues The first term can include LGBT people who are opposed to same-sex marriage or other LGBTQ rights while the second term, contrastingly, usually refers to self-affirming gay people who unequivocally favor marriage as a legal institution for both heterosexuals and gays and who simultaneously prefer economic and political conservatism more generally. The number of self-affirming LGBT advocates for conservative ideas and policies became more apparent only after the advent of the modern LGBT civil rights movement in the 1970s even as many gay conservatives, labelled as "self-hating" at the time, did remain closeted in areas where anti-gay socially conservative politicians then led the most organized opposition to LGBT rights. The Realpolitik and ideology situations for LGBT conservatives today vary by their own self-definition, and each country's sociopolitical, cultural, and legal LGBT rights landscape.