There have been various suggestions to lower the age of consent to 14 – in 1998 the New Labour government proposed this, but despite some Left wing and Youth support this had been dropped by early 2003 as lacking support, a decade later in early 2013 the suggestion by civil servants to lower the age of consent to 14 was rejected by the Conservative led coalition as "offensive" (at least under some circumstances) and attention was drawn to the impact of recent scandals on the reception to any proposals.