Sexual Offences (Pardons etc.) Bill — Curtail Debate and Decide on Second Reading — 21 Oct 2016 at 13:30

The majority of MPs taking part voted to curtail debate on the Sexual Offences (Pardons etc) Bill[1] and to move to a decision on if the Bill should proceed further towards becoming law; however not enough MPs supported the proposal for it to take effect.

MPs were considering a Bill to pardon men convicted or cautioned in the past for consensual homosexual acts which are now legal.

We can't say if those MPs voting to take a decision on the Bill were in favour of it or not; they may have wished to support, or oppose, its second reading.

The specific offences in respect of which the Bill would provide pardons were:

The Bill restricted pardons to cases where the other person involved in the conduct constituting the offence was over 16 years old and consented to it. Other exemptions to pardons provided for by the Bill were conduct which would be an offence under section 71 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sexual activity in a public lavatory). Only conduct which would not be an offence on the date the Act comes into force would be pardoned.

The majority of MPs taking part supported the motion:

  • That the Question be now put.

The debate was however not curtailed, and the question under consideration (That the Bill be now read a Second time) was not put to MPs. An explanation was provided as follows:

  • The Deputy Speaker declared that the Question was not decided in the affirmative because fewer than 100 Members voted in the majority in support of the motion (Standing Order No. 37).

Had the majority of MPs agreed the Bill should be read a second time it could have made progress to becoming law.

No decision on the second reading was subsequently made that day as the debate continued up to the threshold of 2.30pm as set by Order No. 11(2)(b))

Further consideration of the Bill was technically put off until Friday 16 December although there is no guarantee it will be reached on that day.

Debate in Parliament |

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
Con7 0 (+2 tell)02.7%
Independent1 0033.3%
Lab18 007.8%
LDem0 000.0%
SNP31 (+2 tell) 0061.1%
Total:57 009.7%

Rebel Voters - sorted by vote

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
Philip DaviesShipleyCon (front bench)tellno
David NuttallBury NorthCon (front bench)tellno

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