Conversion Practices

Debate between Florence Eshalomi and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Fovargue. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) for calling this debate. I come to this debate from a religious perspective. I am a serving Roman Catholic. I have worshipped at the same church on Brixton Road all my life. My life revolves around that church. I was not baptised there, but my sisters were. I met my husband there, and my children and my mum were baptised there.

We have to be clear that there are a number of people in the Christian faith who are proud of their sexuality, proud to be LGBT. It is important that religious leaders can offer support and counselling, because for many people in our communities, the church is the first support group. They trust the church more than politicians.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

On the church and faith settings, does the hon. Member agree that any proposed ban will impinge on many people in a faith setting? They may wish, as mature adults, to go to a meeting—a formal or informal discussion setting—to talk about sexual matters, but they might feel that a ban would restrict that, or prevent them from doing that. That is because of the very radical agenda being pursued by some, not all, of the activists.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the hon. Member for making that point. We need the Government to be clear, so that church leaders do not feel that they will be targeted on this. We should be happy and proud when it comes to GAY: God adores you. God adores all of us. That is the Bible that I was taught.

We must look at the timing of this debate. We have to be honest: this practice is not right; it has done untold harm to many LGBT people. A study in the US found that those who had undergone conversion therapy were twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts—that is a sin in the Bible. We need to look at how we can help people. That is not a rare occurrence; according to the 2017 national LGBT survey in the UK, one in 50 people who had undergone conversion therapy made suicide attempts. For trans respondents, that number was one in seven. Those figures should worry and horrify us. Sadly, a succession of Governments have been either too uninterested or too weak to act on that.

I understand that for some in the Government, this issue may be difficult, but we should not put it in the “too difficult” box. Plans for a ban were first introduced three ex-Prime Ministers ago in July 2018—more than five years ago—but after years of consultation, delays and rumours, those plans were missing from the King’s Speech last month. That is yet another promise that the Government have broken. I invite the Minister, who I know cares about this passionately, to think about the impact of that unacceptable delay.