Amendment of Law Relating to

Part of New clause 3 – in the House of Commons at 8:45 pm on 21 February 1994.

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Photo of Mr Michael Alison Mr Michael Alison , Selby 8:45, 21 February 1994

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have always had the greatest admiration, enhanced this evening by the fact that he picked out one paragraph of the guidance from the British Medical Association. I want to quote that paragraph again so that it goes on the record twice. It can be seen to have a different perspective and significance according to which way one looks at it. The guidance said: Official homosexual community organisations and clubs operate a clear over-21 policy to comply with the present law. This means that younger men are denied access to advice which such organisations can provide and are less exposed to the social climate within the organised homosexual community which strongly supports 'safer sex'". If we remove the 21 limit, as my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) proposes, and reduce it to 16, the incentive for what are described as official homosexual community organisations and clubs to retain an over-21 membership policy will be entirely removed. They will drop their membership age limit to 16. They will draw into that particular vortex exactly those whose sexual orientation is not properly determined and is open to alteration and redirection in the context of a highly organised, self-conscious community. If it does introduce young men to safer sex of a homosexual kind, it will have the effect of predetermining them perhaps to lose precisely that option of family life and normal parenthood which is what they should have held open for them.

Therefore, I hope that the Committee will ignore the limited and exclusive advice in human rights terms advanced by the hon. Member for Sedgefield, which relates purely to those who are already predetermined and committed to a particular orientation, whatever their age. I hope that the Committee will focus on the needs of those who are bobbing about in an uncertain sea of sexual development between the ages of 16 and 18 and who need every support and protection that they can get, precisely as my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary advised us to do.