1 - The Committee's task

Summary

1.1 We were appointed on 13 July 1977 by the then Home Secretary “to review the laws concerning obscenity, indecency and violence in publications, displays and entertainments in England and Wales, except in the field of broadcasting, and to review the arrangements for film censorship in England and Wales; and to make recommendations”. The Government had already announced its intention to set up a Committee to examine these matters. On 14 December 1976 the Minister of State at the Home Office explained in the House of Lords (on the Second Reading of the Criminal Law Bill) why the Government had decided not to legislate on the basis of Part III of the Law Commission's Report on Conspiracy, which concerned public morals and decency. Legislation along such lines, said Lord Harris, “would be bound to raise more fundamental questions about the general law of obscenity” than it had been the Law Commission's task to examine and it was the Government's view that a broader look should be taken at the subject before legislation was brought forward.

1.2 We held our first meeting on 2 September 1977 and have met 35 times in all. Immediately after our first meeting we issued a general invitation to members of the public to write to tell us of their views. We sent letters to over a hundred organisations who we thought would have a special interest in the subject, and we placed an advertisement in every national daily newspaper, seeking the views of their readers. Later on, we recognised a gap in the evidence we had received: there had been a very small response to our invitation from the women's movement, despite the strong views held about pornography by many who are active in the movement. We took further steps, and it was made known in Spare Rib and the Women's Page of The Guardian that we wanted to hear from women. As a result of all these measures we received written submissions from something like 150 organisations and groups and from nearly 1400 individuals. We are most grateful to all those who took time and trouble to help us in this way.