mostly opposed. The divide cut through party ranks, with Margaret Thatcher and Enoch Powell among the Conservative members voting in favour. The coalition in favour of the bill was later described as "a combination of Gaitskellites and future Thatcherites." The bill was also supported by the senior leaders of the Church of England, including Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury. According to gay activist Peter Tatchell, dissent against the bill could be summed up by the Earl of Dudley's 16 June 1966 statement that "[homosexuals] are the most disgusting people in the world... Prison is much too good a place for them; in fact, that is a place where many of them like to go—for obvious reasons." The Bill received royal assent on 27 July 1967 after an intense late night debate in the House of Commons. Lord Arran, in an attempt to minimise criticisms that the legislation would lead to further public debate and visibility of issues relating to homosexual civil rights made the following qualification to this "historic" milestone: "I ask those [homosexuals] to show their thanks by comporting themselves quietly and with dignity… any form of ostentatious behaviour now or in the future or any form of public flaunting would be utterly distasteful… [And] make the sponsors of this bill regret that they had done what they had done" Legacy In BBC History, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite wrote "This was a hugely important moment in the history of homosexuality in Britain — but it wasn't a moment of sudden liberation for gay men — and nor was it intended to be." One particularly important consequence was the increased freedom of assembly for gay rights groups, leading to an increase in gay rights activism in the 1970s. Conversely, there was a clampdown on the homosexual activities that were not protected by the law. In the decade after its passage, prosecutions for gross indecency involving males trebled. No subsequent reconsideration of the issue of male homosexuality in statutory law took place in England and Wales until the late 1970s. In 1979, the Home Office Policy Advisory Committee's Working Party report Age of Consent in relation to Sexual Offences recommended that the age of consent for homosexual acts should be 18. This was rejected at the time, in part due to fears that further decriminalisation would serve only to encourage younger men to experiment sexually with other men, a choice that some