History of the Act
This section tells you about the history of the Sexual
Offences Act - how we got to where we are now - and
about the progress of the Bill through Parliament.
The Bill began with review and consultation exercises on
sex offenders and the law on sex offences. To view the
review documents and responses to these, please click on
the 'Consultation'
link. We then formulated our proposals, which are
outlined in our white paper, 'Protecting the Public'. To
view the white paper, please click on the 'White
Paper' link.
The Sexual
Offences Bill was introduced in Parliament in the
House of Lords on 28th January 2003 and published on
29th January. It received its second reading on 3rd
February and went into committee on 31st March. It then
had Report on 2nd and 9th June,
followed by third reading on 17th June. The
Bill had it's Second Reading in the House of Commons
on 15 July and finished it's Committee stage on 14 October.
Report and Third
Reading in the Commons took place on 3 November. The
final Parliamentary stages took place on 18 November
and the Bill received Royal Assent on 20 November, making
it the 'Sexual Offences Act 2003'.
You can view the following
The debates in the House
of Commons and the
House of Lords upon introduction of the white paper
'Protecting the Public' on 19 November 2002.
The
debate that took place in the House of Lords following
the Bill's Second
Reading
The
debate on the First
day of committee, 31 March
The
debate on the Second
day of committee, 1 April
The
debate on the Third
day of committee, 10 April
The
debate on the Fourth
day of committee, 28 April
The
debate on the Fifth
day of committee, 13 May
The
debate on the Sixth
day of committee, 19 May
The
debate on the First
day of Report, 2 June
The
debate on the Second
day of Report, 9 June
The
Third Reading debate, 17 June
The
debate following Second Reading in the House of Commons
The
debate on the first day of Committee (Commons), 9 September
The
debate on the second day of Committee (Commons), 11
September
The
debate on the third day of Committee (Commons), 16 September
The
debate on the fourth day of Committee (Commons), 18
September
The Home Affairs Select Committee is a parliamentary
body that scrutinises the Government's Home Affairs
policy. It produces several reports in each session
of Parliament, on different aspects of that policy.
The
Home Affairs Committee Fifth Report for the 2002 - 2003
session (June 2003) dealt with the Sexual Offences
Bill. The
Government recently published its reply to that report.
The
debate on the fifth day of Committee (Commons), 14 October
The
Third Reading Debate (Commons), 3 November
The
Lords Consideration of Commons Amendments debate, 13
November
The
Commons Consideration of the Lords Message debate, 18
November
The
Lords Consideration of the Commons Message debate, 18
November
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