No 10 rejects call to lower age of consent

Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Downing Street and Nick Clegg have joined forces to reject a contact by a foremost public health official for the age of consent to be lowered to the age of 15 if the proposal wins public help.

A spokesman for the prime minister stated the present law was created to defend children, a see echoed by the deputy prime minister who rejected a “blanket reduction” in the age of consent.

No 10 and the deputy prime minister spoke out following the Sunday Instances reported that Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Well being, referred to as for a decreasing in the age of consent to make it less complicated for 15-12 months-olds to look for contraception and other sexual well being guidance from the NHS. Official figures show that up to a third of youngsters have sex ahead of they attain sixteen, the official age of consent.

Ashton told the Sunday Occasions: “Due to the fact we are so baffled about this and we have stored the age of consent at 16, the 15-12 months-olds will not have clear routes to acquiring some support. My personal view is there is an argument for minimizing it to 15 but you can’t do it without the public supporting the idea and we want to get a sense of public opinion about this.

“I would not personally argue for 14 but I think we ought to critically be searching at 15 so that we can draw a line in the sand and actually, as a society, actively discourage sexual involvement underneath 15. By undertaking that, you would be in a position legitimately to organise providers to meet the need to have.”

Downing Street gave his proposal quick shrift. A spokesman advised the BBC: “We reject the phone to reduce the age of consent. Recent age is in location to safeguard young children and there are no plans to change it.”

The deputy prime minister echoed No 10. Asked on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 what he thought of Ashton’s call, Clegg stated: “I am not in favour of that. The age of consent has been a British law for generations in order to defend youngsters. This health skilled is proper in saying there is a issue – we have far as well high levels of teenage pregnancy.

“I am worried, like everybody is worried, about the sexualisation, the culture and the information so numerous young people are bombarded with. That is I am continually urging Michael Gove to update and modernise sex schooling in colleges which has not kept up with the net age.

“But do I think just a blanket reduction in the age of consent is the answer to this hard dilemma? No. So yes there is a issue. Yes we need to have to a debate. Yes we require to update intercourse schooling. But this is not the answer.”

The deputy prime minister utilized his appearance on the Andrew Marr Show to confirm that he is formally pressing George Osborne and David Cameron to raise the threshold for the individual tax allowance to £10,500 by the time of the following basic election. The Tories are expected to agree to the “worker’s bonus” which would exempt an additional .5m men and women from paying out cash flow tax and would save people an additional of £100. It is a single of the Liberal Democrats’ main signature policies. The Lib Dems say they have been the principal driving force behind raising the personalized tax allowance from £6,475 given that 2010.

Clegg said that Lib Dem support for raising the private allowance demonstrates why his party is rooted in the centre ground, in contrast to the Tories and Labour. He explained: “On long phrase fiscal policy it is as well crucial for our nation to have events lurching to the correct or the left. You seem to have this see from the right now that taxes must never ever go up and you should be shrinking the state to an ever smaller size in a somewhat ideological way. In the very same way the left are making a mistake in pondering you can repeat all the problems of the previous and borrow and invest more and a lot more and a lot more and bloating the state. I will not believe we must be ideological about this.”

No 10 rejects call to lower age of consent