[2] The Victorian era saw the punishments shift to being more lenient but also more enforceable: the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 abolished the death penalty, while the Labouchere Amendment of 1885 criminalised all homosexual activity between men besides anal intercourse.

[5] On 29 June 1960, the House of Commons, by a majority of 114 (99 Ayes to 213 Noes), voted against a motion endorsing the Wolfenden Committee's recommendations.

On 26 May 1965, Leo Abse introduced a Ten Minute Rule Bill to decriminalise consensual and private sex between men over the age of 21.

[8] The Bill was subsequently introduced by Conservative MP Humphry Berkeley in the House of Commons, where it passed its second reading 164–107 on 11 February 1966.

Berkeley had added a provision clarifying that the Bill would not extend to Scotland, convincing some socially conservative Scottish MPs not to vote against.

[9] The Bill's consideration was interrupted by the dissolution of Parliament for the 1966 general election, which resulted, among other things, in Berkeley losing his seat; nonetheless, Labour's decisive victory increased the number of MPs who were likely to support decriminalising homosexuality.

The decriminalisation of homosexuality was one of multiple liberal social reforms to be passed under Wilson's 1966–1970 government and the wider move towards a "permissive society".

[12] Other reforms of the era included the legalisation of abortion the same year, the relaxation of divorce laws and the abolition of theatre censorship and capital punishment.

[15] These reforms arose due to several separate campaigns benefiting from growing public support and Labour's large majority, rather than from central government leadership.

[15] Wilson himself had no enthusiasm for moral legislation,[note 1] but there were Labour frontbenchers who supported the bill, including Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary.

In 1980, David Steel MP stated "I remember a conversation with the then sponsor of the Bill in 1965, Mr. Humphry Berkeley, in which I asked him why he proposed to cover only England and Wales.

Roy Jenkins captured the government's attitude: "those who suffer from this disability carry a great weight of shame all their lives" (quoted during parliamentary debate by The Times on 4 July 1967).