Clause 14 - Child sex offences committed by children or young persons
Sexual Offences Bill [Lords]
4:15 pm
Ms Julie Morgan (Cardiff North, Labour)
I support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre. I put my name to it because I support the spirit behind it. I accept that there may be a problem with what is ''ordinary, consensual adolescent behaviour.'' We all know what my hon. Friend means and where he is trying to get to. Although the amendment is not perfect, I support the spirit in which it was drafted.
The message we give to young people is important and we must remember the high teenage pregnancy rate in this country. We must not give a punitive message to those young people who have become pregnant at an early age, and who we know engage in sex at an early age. The law as it stands clearly fails, because so many young people under 16 are pregnant. It is important that we give a message that we want to concentrate on young abusers in the Bill, and there is a significant number of them, as has already been said. They cause terrible anxiety and problems. In order to do that, we need to get rid of the concept that we are widening the net and drawing in behaviour that we know is ordinary and part of growing up.