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

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by addressing one of the claims made in support of a new law on conversion therapy. I hear regularly that Conservatives must support a Bill like this in order to keep our manifesto promise, but in fact a conversion therapy law was not part of any party’s manifesto at the last election. Forbes magazine’s LGBT correspondent decried that state of affairs in 2019, saying:

“None of the major U.K. parties has listed a ban on LGBT+ conversion therapy as a manifesto policy”.


The public have never voted for a law like this and we are not bound by any manifestos to support this or any other Bill.

We know that horrendous things happened to gay people in the past, but we can be thankful for good legislation that protects gay and trans people from abuse and coercion. But the impression given by those pressing for this law is that gay and trans people are being abused in their thousands by churches and therapists and that there is nothing the law can do about it. If a gay or trans person goes to a therapist or a church and they feel that they have been abused, they should report it to the police. If what they heard breaches the existing law, the CPS can prosecute. Of course, if it does not breach the existing law, that means that whatever was said to them was not abusive. They might have had an unpleasant experience, but you cannot criminalise unpleasantness. People have choice and agency. Groups such as Stonewall have calculated that a new conversion therapy law is their best shot at silencing dissent. They have realised that a law that prohibits people from suppressing trans identities is effectively self-ID by stealth, because anyone who disputes someone’s trans identity could find themselves having to answer to the police and the criminal courts.

If you read the details of these self-selecting surveys carefully, a different picture emerges. Many of the people reporting conversion therapy had merely prayed alone that God would change them. Is that what we want to criminalise? Do they expect people to turn themselves in to the police for praying for themselves? There is a great woolliness in the discussions about banning conversion therapy, which are emotive and often based on anecdote, but that does not provide a basis for legislation. Reference has been made to the national LGBT survey under the May Administration, but what needs to be noted is that that survey forgot to define what conversion therapy is, forgot to ask whether the experience was historic or recent and forgot to ask whether it took place in the UK or overseas. Legislating for something that we cannot define and cannot even prove exists is dangerous and cuts across the European convention rights in Articles 9, 10 and 11. It will inevitably mean trampling over the rights of innocent people.

Reference has been made to the Scottish Government, who have spent two years working on a 12-clause Bill for consultation. The public perception has been disastrous, with front-page banner headlines about parents of gender-distressed kids facing seven years in jail for not going along with their transition. That Government introduced a broad law that required the statutory equality body to produce guidance on the law. That guidance says that

“not affirming someone’s gender identity”

can count as conversion therapy and it is said to be illegal for parents to refuse to support their children receiving puberty blockers. Is this the sort of law that your Lordships want to impose on the population here? It is a law that takes children from their loving parents for helping them feel comfortable in their own skin and that rewrites mainstream religious belief. If noble Lords think, “That’s okay. We would never have a law like that here”, look at the law in Victoria, which is the template Stonewall legislation. There are no safeguards in the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and the fines are unlimited.

There are two options, which can be summed up by the approaches of the Netherlands and Sweden. In both countries, legal assessments were carried out to see whether a law on conversion therapy was needed. In both cases, the assessment found that abusive practices were already illegal. Both said that sending a signal is not a good enough reason to legislate.

In the Netherlands, politicians have decided to press ahead anyway; they say they want a new law for situations where “no abuse takes place”—but at least they are honest. In Sweden, on the other hand, it looks as though the Government may do the sensible thing and drop the plan.

Finally, the Bill as drafted is a dangerous attack on civil liberties, on religious freedom and parental and wider human rights; it is socially divisive and unnecessary. Noble Lords must at the very least amend it and, preferably, reject it.

UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this report, which I think is reasonable, balanced and realistic. I also welcome the Government’s response. I speak as a veteran of the Brexit wars, having been chief of staff and special adviser to the Secretary of State in DExEU in 2017-18. One of our jobs was to meet heads of different Governments on a bilateral basis and explain Brexit from the UK perspective. It was also important for me to understand the European perspective, which for many was that the EU was a redemptive project to avoid the horrors of war.

On the issue of Horizon, which the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, has so ably enunciated over many months, I welcome the decision. But I have to say that I was disappointed by the somewhat churlish tone of some noble Lords when the decision was made, given that the issue was weaponised by the European Union for many months, notwithstanding the fact that it was laid down in the TCA. The tone was: how dare perfidious Albion have the temerity to seek a better deal and better value on behalf of British taxpayers?

The future relationship with the European Union should of course be seen through the prism of British national interests. Our relationship with the EU matters: in 2022, 42% of total UK exports went to the EU and 48% of imports came from the EU. We also have to give consideration to the wider health of the European economy and the UK’s role as a global soft power nation, militarily, diplomatically and economically. Brexit catastrophism has been somewhat overplayed. Even economists have conceded that, notwithstanding that goods trade has remained becalmed, service exports since 2021 have risen 3.6%—significantly higher than most G7 countries.

On the subject of being churlish, it would be churlish not to admit that the Windsor Framework has changed the playing field in respect of our relationship. I neither supported nor voted against it. I believed that it was an unacceptable interference in the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation and that the continued jurisdiction of a foreign legal entity was wrong in principle—but we have to see our future relationship in an unsentimental, realistic and pragmatic way. I believe there will be great opportunities in the reboot of the TCA in 2025-26; we will have a new Commission and new bilateral relationships. But we also must remember the thoughts of Martin Selmayr, the former chief of staff to Jean-Claude Juncker, who said at the time of Brexit that the EU’s strategic objectives were twofold: to make Brexit as difficult and fractious as possible to encourage others not to leave, and to prevent the UK, as a third country, obtaining a competitive economic advantage. This is in the context of a situation where the EU’s share of world trade by dollar denomination—which, 30 years ago, was 30%—will probably be around 15% by the end of this decade.

I welcome the positive aspects of the report and the encouragement to work closely with the European Union on defence, security, intelligence, technology and energy. I agree that we should utilise the existing institutional framework structures for more regular meetings—I think there is a consensus across the House on that. We should have more comprehensive engagement at a bilateral level, such as, for instance, the successful engagement we have had with Portugal, our oldest ally.

In the context of Ukraine, I support involvement with the Permanent Structured Cooperation—PESCO —project, which my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford referred to, provided that there is adequate oversight and transparency and proper accountability to this Parliament, as my right honourable friend in the other place David Jones raised in the European Scrutiny Committee. Of course, there will still be problems, including with rules of origin, electric vehicles, the coupling of fishing and energy policies, carbon pricing and people mobility. The UK adequacy decision for the exchange of data is bound to be a temporary issue, and we will have to come back to the issue of GDPR.

The EU lacks the bandwidth to consider the relitigation and renegotiation of the TCA. Germany has its own problems, and the wider EU has problems with demographics, climate change, mass migration and geopolitical issues involving Russia, China and the tilt to the Pacific. In addition, associate membership is pie in the sky. As my noble friend said, variable geometry models are 20 years old—they will not work. We do not want less accountability and democracy at the centre of the EU, and to pay in but not have our voice heard.

Finally, the report outlines the path to a mutually beneficial, respectful and pragmatic relationship between the EU and the UK, and, in that spirit, it is timely and very welcome.

Parliamentary Democracy in the United Kingdom

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this timely debate, notwithstanding the hyperbole of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. It gives us the opportunity to put forward some practical alternatives.

We have much to learn from the United States. Woodrow Wilson said:

“Quite as important as legislation is vigilant oversight of administration”.


We could take a leaf out of the book of the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the US House of Representatives, with its subpoena powers, substantial administrative heft and sector expertise. Speaker Bercow’s 2010 reforms in the other place made some much-needed progress on the Select Committee model that had existed since 1979, but it is still work in progress. A powerful robust ways and means committee would certainly add to the effectiveness of parliamentary oversight.

HM Treasury is too powerful and stifles innovation and independent thinking across departments. Surely the Northcote-Trevelyan paradigm from the mid-1800s is defunct, as we have seen in the recent contentious cases of Dominic Raab and Sue Gray. The case for a permanent Civil Service is receding and is less compelling than it has ever been. As a former special adviser, I would argue more generally that the bureaucratic impasse of write-rounds and public consultation is inimical to expeditious legislation and governance.

I believe in the bicameral model of Parliament, but this House also needs reform. We need to look at the size of the House and at those who do not regularly attend, and we need to look at the role of the Bishops in this place—notwithstanding the position of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield, who is about to make his maiden speech.

Finally, the judiciary too cannot be immune from the imperative for openness and transparency. Self-selection and lack of transparency reduce accountability and public trust. We need confirmation hearings for senior departmental, executive and judicial appointments across both Houses, via a Joint Committee. This should be debated soon. In short, there is much work to do.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, we seem to have gone out of sequence, so my noble friend Lord Hannan will now speak where my noble friend Lord Jackson would have spoken.