Our proposal that the age of consent be reduced is based on the belief that neither the police nor the criminal courts should have the power to intervene in a consenting sexual activity between two young people. It is clearly the case that a number of young people are capable of consenting to sexual activity and already do so.

Letter (April 1976) to a housemaster at St Paul's Boys School, London, reproduced in "Patricia Hewitt backed NCCL policy of lowering age of consent" The Guardian (28 February 2014). Hewitt was then the general secretary of the National Council for Civil Liberties. A March 1976 press release from the pressure group, with Hewitt's name on it, had stated: "NCCL proposes that the age of consent should be lowered to 14, with special provision for situations where the partners are close in age, or where consent of a child over ten can be proved."