HC Deb 16 February 1999 vol 325 cc658-9W
Mr. Simon Hughes

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will assess the first report of the New South Wales Attorney General's Department's Homosexual Advance Defence Working Party; and if he will make a statement. [71084]

Mr. Boateng

The Final report of the Attorney General of New South Wales (Australia) Department's review of the Homosexual Advance Defence was issued in September 1998. The report concluded that it must be a standard of the law that claims of non-violent homosexual advances can neither excuse fatal violence nor mitigate any offence of violence. It makes a number of recommendations, including legislative reform to exclude a non-violent homosexual advance from forming the basis of the defence of provocation. It is not clear whether the Government of New South Wales have accepted this recommendation.

We have no current plans to review the law on provocation as it applies in England and Wales.