PLANS to lower the age of consent for gay teenagers to 16 will be debated by the States on Tuesday in the first full session of the ministerial era.

Dropping the age of consent for gay couples from 18 to 16 is on the first States Order Paper of the year, in a proposition from Home Affairs Minister Wendy Kinnard that would also make anal sex between men and women legal.

The Draft Sexual Offences (Jersey) Law 200- will be debated on Tuesday, along with other propositions on a petition against an shellfish processing plant in Grouville, a move to delay the Census until 2011 and the membership of the planning application panel.

The Sexual Offences Law was originally lodged by the former Home Affairs Committee, headed by Senator Kinnard, because the different ages of consent for heterosexual and homosexual couples (16 and 18 respectively) would be almost certain to represent a ‘predisposed bias’ in the eyes of the European Court of Human Rights.