The decriminalisation of homosexuality was one of multiple liberal social reforms to be passed under Wilson's 1966-70 government and the wider move towards a "permissive society". 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. These reforms arose due to several separate campaigns benefitting from growing public support and Labour's large majority, rather than from central government leadership. Wilson himself had no enthusiasm for moral legislation, but there were Labour frontbenchers who supported the bill, including Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary. The proposal legalised acts that met the conditions of being between two consenting adults in private. It did not apply to the Merchant Navy or the Armed Forces, nor to Scotland and Northern Ireland. 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. He was open about it. He said that the Bill was discussed on a Friday and that if he included Scotland in it most of the Scottish Members would stay to vote against it. Probably that was wise and sound judgment on his part." As with the Wolfenden report's proposal, the bill set the age of consent for homosexual activity to 21, five years higher than for heterosexual activity. It did not delete the offences of buggery and gross indecency. Men could still be prosecuted for these offences if their actions did not meet the strict requirements of the bill. For the first time, however, the maximum penalties were differentiated, depending upon why the relevant sexual act was still illegal: whether there was a lack of consent, the age requirement was not satisfied, or the act was not in private. At the time, most proponents of the bill did not condone homosexuality, but instead argued that it was not within the responsibility of the criminal law to penalise homosexual men, who were already the object of ridicule and derision. 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). Both the major parties permitted a conscience vote. Labour and Liberal members were mostly in favour, while Conservative members were