Clause 47 - Indecent photographs of persons aged 16 or 17
Sexual Offences Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Ms Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Citizenship and Immigration), Home Office; Stretford and Urmston, Labour)
The judges and courts will be very familiar with existing case law and will apply their knowledge of that to individual cases. That is the right way to go about it because our ideas about the definitions change with time. It would not be helpful or feasible to try to establish a definition of indecency in legislation. That is much better left to the evolutionary approach through case law.
The clause will change the definition of a child in respect of indecent photographs under the Protection of Children Act 1999. The age will be raised from under 16 to under 18. The clause offers a reasonable but limited defence to allow the private use of indecent photographs of a child over the age of consent who consents and who is in the circumstances about which we have talked.
Question put and agreed to
Clause 47, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.