The home secretary, David Blunkett, today announced the most radical overhaul of sex crime legislation for more than 100 years, aimed at sweeping away the "archaic" laws governing homosexuality, while tightening protections against rapists, paedophiles and other sex offenders.

Leader. Government plans to reform the rape laws will require a cultural shift in the popular perception of 'date rape' as somehow not a real crime.

Child protection agencies and sex crime experts give their responses to the David Blunkett's proposals

Summary of each of the main points of the new Bill.

Alan Travis, home affairs editor. The history of Britain's sex laws including previous attempts to overhaul them.

Josie Appleton. The White Paper replaces out-of-date laws with a vast bureaucracy of new sexual offences, indicating that New Labour has an obsession with sexual behaviour that more than rivals that of its Victorian forbears.

Philip Johnston, home affairs editor. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, yesterday promised legislation, possibly in the next parliamentary session beginning this autumn, to modernise offences that in some cases date back to the 19th century.

Colin Brown, political editor. The definition of paedophile behaviour is to be radically extended this week in a bid by ministers to try to prevent the "grooming" of children for sexual abuse. Measures to be unveiled by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, go far beyond the expected Government response to growing public concern about paedophilia.

Sandra Laville. British laws on homosexual sex were ruled unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights yesterday. The judgment strikes at the heart of legislation regulating sex between homosexuals and obliges the Government to liberalise the gross indecency laws that date back to the 1800s.

Philip Johnston. A review of the laws that the Government's new White Paper proposes to repeal.

Philip Johnston. Explanation of the White Paper.

Reactions from Labour, Conservative and Lib-Dem MPs.