Conservative chairman Francis Maude has revealed fears that his Party’s past anti-gay policies may have been a contributing factor to his gay brother’s death.

In an exclusive interview with PinkNews.co.uk, he told of his sadness at the death of his openly gay brother, Charles, who died of AIDs 12 years ago, and admitted that the government’s approach to gay rights in the 1980s and 1990s could have contributed to his plight.

“The gay scene in London in the 1980s was quite aggressively promiscuous and I think if society generally and the government I served in had been more willing to recognise gay people then there would have been less of that problem,” Maude told PinkNews.

“A lot of people like my brother would not have succumbed to HIV and lost their lives.”

The MP for Horsham admitted that Section 28, which prohibited local councils from publishing materials on homosexuality and led to the closing of gay support groups, was an error.

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