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People with learning difficulties fear their right to a sex life may be curtailed under proposed new laws aimed at protecting vulnerable groups from abuse, writes Janet Snell.

The government's Sexual Offences Bill, now going through Parliament, tightens up the law and is mainly aimed at combating child sex abuse. But it also covers other groups and at a meeting last week the government's National Forum of People with Learning Difficulties argued that the effect on their client group had not been thought through.

Joan Scott, the forum's co-chair, said its members were angry that people with learning difficulties could face a test on whether they were able to properly consent to sex.

"We see that as taking away our privacy and treating us differently from everyone else," she said.

Under section 33 of the bill, sexual activity with a person with a learning difficulty could be punishable by life imprisonment.

Scott added that once service providers heard that sex among vulnerable people may be illegal they were likely to take a tough line.

"Before you know where you are they'd be banning sex for people with learning difficulties. But we don't want to have to ask permission to have sex."

But the charity Mencap is supporting calls for a statutory test of capacity to consent to sex. Its report, Behind Closed Doors, published in 2001, argued that the incidence of sexual abuse may be four times higher for people with learning disabilities than the rest of the population.

A spokesperson for the charity said the problem lay in the broad definition of the term learning difficulty. "No one is arguing people with a mild learning difficulty should be stopped from having sex but those with sever problems need more protection than they get at present."

During the second reading of the Sexual Offences bill in the House of Lords, Lord Skelmersdale said people with learning difficulties could "never" give consent to sexual relations.

The bill is due to be discussed in committee.