Catholic Church following the decision of the Church of England on the ordination of women as priests. Criminal justice In her speech at the 2000 Conservative conference, she called for a zero tolerance policy of prosecution, with the punishment of £100 fines for users of cannabis. This was well received by rank-and-file Conservative delegates. Over the years, Widdecombe has expressed her support for a reintroduction of the death penalty, which was abolished in the UK in 1965. She notably spoke of her support for its reintroduction for the worst cases of murder in the aftermath of the murder of two 10-year-old girls from Soham, Cambridgeshire, in August 2002, in the Soham murders. She supported the argument that the death penalty would have deterrent value, as within five years of its abolition the national murder rate had more than doubled. Environmental and science issues She is a committed animal lover and one of the several Conservative MPs to have consistently voted for the ban on the hunting of foxes. Widdecombe was among more than 20 high-profile people who signed a letter to Members of Parliament in 2015 to oppose David Cameron's plan to amend the Hunting Act 2004. In 2007, she wrote that she did not want to belittle the issue of climate change, but was sceptical of the claims that specific actions would prevent catastrophe. In 2008, she wrote that her doubts had been "crystalised" by Nigel Lawson's book An Appeal to Reason; in 2014, she likened Lawson's difficulty in getting the book published to the book-burnings in Nazi Germany. Later in 2008, Widdecombe claimed that the "science of climate change is robustly disputed",, then, in 2009, that "There is no climate change, hasn't anybody looked out of their window recently?" She was one of the five MPs who voted against the Climate Change Act 2008. The previous year, she voted to support a parliamentary motion supporting homeopathy, disagreeing with the Science and Technology Committee's Report on the subject. LGBT rights Widdecombe supported the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967 in England and Wales. After that, Widdecombe consistently opposed further reforms while in Parliament. Out of the 17 parliamentary votes between 1998 and 2008 considered by the Public Whip website to concern equal rights for homosexuals, Widdecombe took the opposing position in 15 cases, not being present at the other two votes. In 1999, Widdecombe stated that "I do not