"Upskirting bill" to become law

Five bills received royal assent today and will become law.

In particular The Voyeurism (Offences) (No.2) Bill, known colloquially as the Upskirting Bill, received Royal Assent today (12 February 2019). It becomes the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019 and will come into force on 12 April 2019.

What is the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019?

The act adds two new offences to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to cover the practice known colloquially as ‘upskirting’.

The new offences apply in instances when:
  • Without consent, an individual operates equipment or records an image beneath a person's clothing to observe their genitalia or buttocks, whether covered or uncovered by underwear garments 
  • The offender has a motive of either obtaining sexual gratification or causing humiliation, distress or alarm to the victim. 
  • The Act also ensures that the most serious offenders, where the purpose of the offence is for sexual gratification, are made subject to notification requirements (often referred to as being placed on the ‘sex offenders register’).
So what has happened today is that the last Private members bill which was initially blocked by Sir Christopher Chope despite enjoying overwhelming cross-party support was effectively taken over by the government and taken through parliament using government time.

The Chief Whip has promised that the government is looking at ways to make sure that the FGM bill to which Christopher Chope similarly objected last Friday is brought forward and passed into law in a similar manner.

It is essential that this happens. FGM is a vile practice which needs to be stamped out and the FGM bill is a sensible measure which will help protect women and girls from being hurt by it.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more