division_name: Sexual Offences (Pardons Etc) Bill
motion: <p class="indent" pid="b1107.3/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;In 1952, he was convicted of gross indecency&#8212;in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence&#8212;and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison&#8212;was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b1107.3/7" pwmotiontext="yes">Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can&#8217;t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I am and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and so many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly. Over the years, millions more lived in fear of conviction. I am proud that those days are gone and that in the past 12 years this Government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan&#8217;s status as one of Britain&#8217;s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality, and long overdue.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b1107.3/10" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;I consider it to be fair and just that everybody who was convicted under the Gross Indecency Law is given a pardon. It is illogical that my great uncle has been the only one to be pardoned when so many were convicted of the same crime. I feel sure that Alan Turing would have also wanted justice for everybody.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b1113.1/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;They may have been legally convicted, but they were unjustly convicted.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b1133.2/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;the deadline for printing a Bill&#8230; be brought forward to the Wednesday of the week prior to the day of the second reading.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b1133.2/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Unlike what occurred in England there were relatively few successful prosecutions for private consensual sex between adult males north of the border during the 20th century; indeed it was a policy of successive Lords Advocate in Scotland not to prosecute private, consensual sex between men.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="b1133.2/8" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The main focus of the law was upon men who engaged in sex in public spaces: in &#8216;cottages&#8217;, tenement closes, parks; and men who sold sex on the streets of Scotland&#8217;s urban centres. This was not the result of &#8216;liberal thinking&#8217; but was chiefly the result of evidential requirements under Scots Law.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="italic" pid="b1134.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">The House divided:</p>
  
  <p pid="b1134.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">Ayes 57, Noes 0.</p>