Clause 67 - Sexual activity in a public lavatory
Sexual Offences Bill [Lords]
3:00 pm
Mr Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
There is a long and complex history to this clause. The difficulty in going down the route that my hon. Friend tempts me with is that there may
then be some doubt as to whether the Government think that sexual activity in a public lavatory is not okay. We do not think that it is okay. We have therefore decided to send out a clear signal. The Government already have a strategy that would deal with sexual activity in a public toilet, but through this clause we are adding a further offence and further powers, so that there is no doubt that sexual activity in a public lavatory is not acceptable.
The offence in the Public Order Act 1986, as well the common law offence of outraging public decency, will remain in force. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) and other Committee members know, an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill makes the latter offence triable either way. That amendment makes the offence more flexible and thus more usable in practice. I ask for your forbearance, Mr. Gale, and for the patience of Committee members as I try to put the jigsaw back together again by referring to the various Government amendments before us.
Amendment No. 118 removes the reference to ''public lavatory'' in subsection (1)(a) and inserts the full definition of public lavatory in that subsection. Amendment No. 121 deletes the definition in subsection (3) because it is clearer to have it in subsection (1)—the definition remains absolutely the same. Government amendment No. 119 substitutes the words in subsection (1)(b) that an offence is committed if a person engages in ''activity within subsection (2)'' for ''an activity''. Paragraph (c) specifies that it is a sexual activity. That paves the way to deleting subsection (2), which specifies the sexual acts covered by the clause.
Subsection (2) is the crux of why we consider the current clause 67 unworkable. It would be difficult to prove that any one of the specified sexual activities had actually taken place when the activity took place behind a close cubicle door.