Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill — Clause 1 — Age of Consent for Homosexual Acts — 10 Feb 1999

The majority of MPs voted to reduce the age of consent for homosexual acts from eighteen to sixteen bringing equality to the the law affecting heterosexual and homosexual acts.

The majority of MPs voted to reduce the age at which buggery, indecency between men, and homosexual acts in private is legal from 18 to 16.

MPs were considering the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill

The motion supported by the majority of MPs taking part in this vote was:

  • That the clause stand part of the Bill

The clause in question was Clause 1[1] titled: Reduction in age at which certain sexual acts are lawful.

("Buggery" is the legal term for anal intercourse either between men or between a man and a woman.) The clause also sought to reduce the age at which other homosexual acts were permitted from 18 to 16.

Historical Hansard | Online Hansard |

Public Whip is run as a free not-for-profit service. If you'd like to support us, please consider switching your (UK) electricity and/or gas to Octopus Energy or tip us via Ko-Fi.

Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (Aye)Minority (No)BothTurnout
Con12 104 (+2 tell)072.8%
Independent0 10100.0%
Lab283 (+2 tell) 12071.2%
LDem31 2071.7%
PC3 0075.0%
SNP1 0016.7%
UUP0 7070.0%
Total:330 126071.2%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
Tim BoswellDaventryCon (front bench)aye
Peter BottomleyWorthing WestCon (front bench)aye
Graham BradyAltrincham and Sale WestCon (front bench)aye
Alan DuncanRutland and MeltonCon (front bench)aye
Michael FabricantLichfieldConaye
Robert JacksonWantageConaye
Bernard JenkinNorth EssexCon (front bench)aye
Robert KeySalisburyConaye
Eleanor LaingEpping ForestCon (front bench)aye
Sir Peter LloydFarehamConaye
Mr David PriorNorth NorfolkConaye
Shaun WoodwardWitneywhilst Con (front bench)aye
Mr Donald AndersonSwansea EastLab (minister)no
Joe BentonBootleLab (minister)no
Mr Jamie CannIpswichLabno
Mr Eric ClarkeMidlothianLabno
Tom ClarkeCoatbridge and ChrystonLabno
Mr Tam DalyellLinlithgowLabno
Mr Denzil DaviesLlanelliLabno
David MarshallGlasgow ShettlestonLabno
Mr Bill O'BrienNormantonLabno
Mr Raymond PowellOgmoreLabno
Mr Ted RowlandsMerthyr Tydfil and RhymneyLab (minister)no
Mr Jimmy WrayGlasgow BailliestonLabno
Mrs Ray MichieArgyll and ButeLDemno
Bob RussellColchesterLDem (front bench)no

About the Project

The Public Whip is a not-for-profit, open source website created in 2003 by Francis Irving and Julian Todd and now run by Bairwell Ltd.

The Whip on the Web

Help keep PublicWhip alive