Conversion Therapy Prohibition (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I first congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, on securing this important Second Reading debate on her Bill and thank her for the tone in which she opened it. Like others, I also acknowledge the courage of those noble Lords and Baronesses who have experienced direct discrimination or prejudice because of their sexual orientation.

As we heard in your Lordships’ House, the noble Baroness’s Bill would make provision to prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity conversion therapy across the United Kingdom. The Government share the noble Baroness’s goal to protect vulnerable people from harm, and it remains our intention to publish a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny.

However, I must express reservations about this Bill and raise concerns relating to four areas: the definition of “conversion therapy”; the inclusion of “suppression” within the offence; the use and lack of definition of “gender identity”; and the proposed territorial extent of the Bill. A number of these issues have been raised by your Lordships today.

I will take these issues in turn. First, on the terminology and definition, the Government now use the term “conversion practices” to reflect the fact that conversion acts take a range of different forms and to avoid conflation with legitimate talking therapies. Further, I am concerned that the definition is very wide in scope and appears to lack precision and clarity, therefore leaving it vulnerable to misapplication. It is vital that any legislation targeting these harmful practices does not affect the ability of parents, teachers, counsellors, religious leaders or healthcare practitioners to have open, exploratory and sometimes even challenging conversations, particularly with young people who are expressing or exploring their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

In particular, I worry that such a broad definition would create a chilling effect for those working in the legitimate clinical care sector, who may feel too nervous to conduct their jobs out of fear of potential criminalisation. This in turn could negatively impact those people who are seeking, and indeed needing, support in relation to feelings of gender distress or gender dysphoria, or in coming to terms with their sexuality.

I must also express reservations around the inclusion of suppression within the scope of the offence. This risks a very wide range of acts being criminalised and is likely to disproportionately impact freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

I move on to the use of the term “gender identity”. While we agree that any protections should include all those at risk, whether straight or gay, transgender or not, the Government have significant reservations about relying on the term “gender identity”. This is not a recognised term within our existing legal framework and is a contested belief. Introducing it in this way risks a lack of legislative clarity, which would likely make prosecutions difficult and set an unhelpful legislative precedent that could have much wider ramifications, in both criminal and civil law.

Finally, the Bill proposes to legislate for the whole of the UK. This would be problematic because, of course, criminal justice is fully devolved to our Scottish and Northern Irish counterparts.

Let me be clear that the Government’s opposition to this Bill does not mean that we are complacent about the harm that conversion practices can cause. We absolutely condemn conversion practices; they are inherently wrong and have no place in our society. As a number of noble Lords pointed out, many harmful physical and violent acts done in the name of conversion practice are already illegal in this country, as of course they should be. As Equalities Ministers have said, these acts are aimed at changing someone else’s identity, whether that be to or from being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, or indeed heterosexual, and have no place in UK society.

However, there remains a gap, albeit narrow, in the existing legislative framework, including surrounding non-physical and speech-based acts, such as one-off instances of significant verbal degradation or abuse, which are not covered by existing legislation. For other examples, I would point to the Cass interim report, which notes:

“The complex interaction between sexuality and gender identity, and societal responses to both; for example, we have heard from young lesbians who felt pressured to identify as transgender male, and conversely transgender males who felt pressured to come out as lesbian rather than transgender”.


These examples highlight just how complex but essential it is to legislate in a balanced and measured way, alive to all the potential impacts of the approach taken, both intended and unintended.

This is why the Government plan to bring forward our own draft legislation for pre-legislative scrutiny by a committee of both Houses on this issue, which has been thoughtfully considered over some time and, crucially, informed by public consultation. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for engaging on this important issue. Her Bill has allowed for further consideration and discussion on how to tackle these abhorrent practices. However, on the basis of the specific issues that I outlined, I express reservations on behalf of the Government on the noble Baroness’s Bill.