ON Friday, Westminster was at its best and worst as MPs debated my ‘Turing Bill’ to pardon gay men found guilty of historic crimes no longer on the statute book.

I’d won the Private Members’ draw, and had chosen a piece of legislation I knew could win all party support. In fact, I’d been approached by Tory whips earlier this summer, and in a scene straight from House of Cards and been told that if I chose this Bill they’d support me “with no tricks and no games”. The Tories under Cameron had long been keen to repackage the party as friendly towards gay rights.

I’ll return to events last Friday in a moment, but first let me say why I wanted to pass the Turing Bill. When I was born in the 1960s two men who were in love could be sent to prison for what they chose to do in the privacy of their own home. It’s hard now to fathom the mindset of those who defended such gross intrusion into the lives and rights of others.

Small wonder that it was hard to come out as gay. Who’d want to be gay in a country where you’d to hide who you were, and lie if you wanted to keep your job. It was, after all, legal to sack someone simply because you’d discovered they were gay.

You could refuse to rent a house to a gay person. You could arrest a gay couple if they shared a hotel room. And perhaps most horrifyingly of all, because of the discriminatory age of consent you could arrest a 21-year-old for sleeping with his 20-year-old boyfriend. He could be tried, convicted and sentenced for underage sex.

As a young journalist I made a film about how the law discriminated against gay men. I interviewed military personnel with exemplary records who’d been followed home by the military police, determined to investigate a tip off about a same sex partner. I interviewed gay men who’d been entrapped by ‘pretty policemen’, a practice defended by Chief Constable Anderton of Greater Manchester, beloved by the tabloids as “God’s Copper”. He’d send out attractive young police officers to give gay men the eye. If the gay man responded, he’d be arrested, and his life ruined. Gay men weren’t protected by law. They were under sustained attack by the law.

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I never forgot the men in that documentary and the ruined lives. So when I was chosen top of the Private Members’ ballot I saw a golden opportunity to do some good by addressing the injustices of the past. My “Alan Turing Bill” was sponsored by Stonewall, the gay rights organisation, and is named after the code-breaking hero charged as a homosexual after the war and chemically castrated.

Sponsored by Tory, Labour, and SNP MPs, my Bill proposed a pardon for any gay man convicted of a crime which is no longer a crime. It would confer no immediate advantage except this; bringing closure to those who’d had to thole unfair criminal convictions.

So back to the debate last Friday. We heard some wonderful speeches from the SNP benches. But it was never my intention to make the issue party political, and I was delighted to see Labour and Tory MPs rise to speak. The Conservative MP Iain Stewart talked about how tough it was to come out as a boy in Glasgow. And his colleague Nigel Adams said he was voting for my Bill to atone for his vote against gay marriage. He gracefully apologised to family, friends, and constituents.

And then the Government minister rose to his feet at 2pm. He knew if he talked for thirty minutes he would filibuster the Bill, and it would be dead. And that was what he did, as the House booed with disgust. One Conservative MP told his front bench he thought them “slippery and discourteous”.

I’m sorry I didn’t get the Bill through. I’m sorry for the old men who wanted an acknowledgement they’d done no wrong, and that it was society’s homophobic laws which were wrong. But who knows? Is this Holyrood’s opportunity to pick up the baton Westminster dropped? I hope so.