Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill

Luke Pollard Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 1st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) for the way in which he introduced the Bill. He is not known on the Opposition Benches as the most moderate of characters, but what he set out today was a moderate Bill—a Bill that seeks to find a consensus and a compromise between those campaigning for full-fat equality and those with gender-critical views. He has done so with a focus on not taking one side of the debate or the other, but putting the victims of this abhorrent and cruel practice first. That is what each of us, on all sides, should be thinking about when considering the Bill. What happens to those people, out of sight and often out of mind, who are preyed on by others who seek to attack them for who they love and who they are?

Conversion therapy is not always in the spotlight. It is not someone being beaten up in the street. It is not someone having paint flung at them. It is not someone being kicked out of their family home for who they are. It is a practice that is established and accepted in, frequently, professional forums, and in places we go to where we open ourselves up and where we seek the support of institutions and professionals. That is why the Bill matters. It seeks to expose those places where this abhorrent, cruel, 21st-century torture is perpetrated on LGBT people.

I am proud to be Plymouth’s first out MP, which I think gives me a special responsibility to be vocal about the effect of legislation, and of the lack of legislation, on communities and people like me. If we in this House do not have an eye on that effect, we turn a blind eye and legitimise the torture and abuse that happens to people. We must not do that.

I was pleased when the Government said in their last manifesto that they will ban conversion therapy, and I was pleased that my party and every main party did so, because it sought to create a consensus that hate and torture are not welcome in the UK regardless of our politics. I am proud to be a Labour MP, and I am proud to be part of a campaigning party and a party of equality, but I want every party in this House to be a party of equality when it comes to rooting out abuse, which is what this Bill offers.

We have just heard the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) make a proud Conservative case for stamping out something, and I am proud to make a Labour case for stamping out hate and inequality. I am proud to say that our duty to society means that we must consider the most vulnerable, because that does not attack all of us but lifts people to a level where everyone is protected. That matters and, if a Conservative case can sit happily alongside a Labour case, we should pass a consensus Bill.

The LGBT community has been waiting too long for this legislation, which has been promised too many times, but let us be clear about what would happen if the Bill were not passed today. We are possibly only weeks away from a general election in which we know there could be more division than we have seen in a long time. It worries me deeply that we have allowed attacks on trans people to be a legitimate part of how we win votes. It is never acceptable to attack a minority, and it is never acceptable to seek to win votes on the back of the most vulnerable, persecuted and attacked minority.

With this Bill, both sides of the House have an opportunity to turn our back on that and to say that equality matters from any political perspective, because people matter. My word, people come in all different shapes and sizes, which is a good thing. It is in celebrating our diversity that we gain strength, not by pretending that everyone is the same. That would be a dull, horrible future. It would be a version of Britain that erases people, that erases the bit that makes this country great—that we can all be different, that we can all be proud and, importantly, that we should all be protected under law.

It is important that the Bill is drawn as broadly as possible, covering all aspects of the LGBT+ community. I spoke in a previous Westminster Hall debate on this subject, as did a number of Members present, and I described how removing the T, so that the Bill protects only LGB people, is a trap door. As the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton said, if we allow that trap door, people who enjoy protection from torture because they are lesbian, gay or bisexual will simply be told that they are trans, and that loophole will be used to attack people whether or not they have a transgender identity. It is a trap door, which is why the Bill must be as broad as possible.

I have spoken to equality activists and members of the LGBT community in Plymouth about the Bill, and they have asked me to pose two questions to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown. First, does the Bill include asexual people and, secondly, does it include non-binary people? These are fair questions, and they are important because, if we are considering the full extent of the LGBT+ community, we must consider those people who might not necessarily describe themselves as transgender, and might not especially describe themselves as LGB in some way. Some clarity in the explanatory notes, or on the face of the Bill, would be useful to affirm to those communities that they are captured by the measures. I understand from what my hon. Friend has said that they will be, but I would be grateful if he mentioned that when he winds up.

This House needs to consider how we come together, rather than how we divide. I support my hon. Friend’s plea for the Bill to go to Committee, where those who have a legitimate challenge—from their point of view—can table amendments. What I would like to hear in the debate is this: in which clause is there a problem? In which clauses might alternative wording address that problem?

Over the past few months, I have seen my crazy, ridiculous hon. Friend, who normally runs headlong into walls to knock them down, take his time to be balanced, calm and considerate. I do not know whether it is a temporary affliction or part of a new chapter in his behaviour, but I have seen him make every effort to speak to people he agrees with and disagrees with, to take on board their views. Not only is that something that we should, for all our sakes, encourage in his behaviour, but it makes the Bill better, because it makes it supportive.

The gravity of this issue cannot be overstated. Recent polling by LGBT anti-abuse charity Galop found that one in five LGBT people and more than a third of trans people in the UK have been subject to attempted conversion. Another charity, Mind, which focuses on mental health issues, found that those who have undergone such practices are twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts and 75 times more likely to plan to attempt suicide. There are real-world consequences. That has led Mind and 20 other mental health charities, NHS bodies and professional counselling and psychotherapy organisations to define conversion practice as “unethical and harmful” and to call for them to be banned. I agree with them and with the Bill.

However, there will be people watching the debate who have perhaps not searched out the text of the Bill. They will be looking at the tone of the debate to see whether this House reflects their views and, for the LGBT+ community, whether it reflects their right to exist. That matters. The words we choose matter. To those LGBT people who are watching this, I echo the words of the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton: they are seen, they are welcome and they are loved. I want everyone to be authentically true to who they are. There should be no impediments in law, no loopholes or trapdoors, that allow someone who is true to who they are, authentically themselves, to be subject to abuse or torture in the way that, as we have established on a cross-party basis, happens in relation to conversion therapy.

[Miriam Cates]

I completely agree with the hon. Member about the tone of this important debate, but, as I am sure he is aware, abuse and torture are absolutely illegal in this country, and we all support that. There are multiple pieces of legislation that deal with abuse, torture and harmful practices, and nobody in this place would reject that. The problem for those of us who question the Bill is that it contains no threshold for torture, abuse or even harm, so it will capture practices that are not harmful and for which we should not be legislating.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Given the risk of running into the same wall that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown ran into, I will portray moderation on my side. I think that that is precisely why she should give the Bill a Second Reading and table any amendments, as she sees fit, to define the matter of concern and make her case in Committee. I believe that there are currently loopholes in the law that allow that abhorrent abuse to go on.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

A number of practices are illegal in this country, such as forced marriage, which is something that the LGBTQ community experience, including those who may also go through conversion therapy. That is wrong. Does my hon. Friend agree that the time to tackle that is now? The LGBTQ community have been waiting at least five years since the Government first promised to ban that awful practice.

[Luke Pollard]

I agree with my hon. Friend. People have been waiting too long; let us ensure they do not wait any longer. Let us also send a message to Members of all parties, until the general election concludes, that attacking trans people and LGBT people because of who they are is unacceptable. That should be called out on a cross-party basis. It has no part in our politics.

Legitimate debate about improving this Bill should define us at our very best. The debate so far has been a good one, because it has allowed people to voice their different views, and we should continue that in Committee, allowing people to table amendments where required to improve the Bill and ensure it does exactly what it says on the tin and stops these abhorrent, cruel practices from ever happening again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neale Hanvey]

I thank the hon. Member for that observation. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) said that a young person has to wait 10 years, for example, for gender reassignment surgery, but during that time they will start on puberty blockers and other such medicines, and possibly cross-sex hormones, and the damage is done. Whether they have surgery or not is pretty academic at that stage, because irreversible treatment will have been administered.

The other point I would make in response to the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) is that there was an option not to introduce this Bill and move the issue forward. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown could withdraw the Bill and we could establish a process of community engagement, through community assemblies, citizens’ assemblies or something of that nature. We could thereby have the debate we should have had five or six years ago, where everybody’s voice is valued, everybody gets to have a say, the Churches are involved right at the beginning and an accommodation is found that makes this kind of practice absolutely unacceptable—there is a clear output that this will never happen, but it does not have the strand of queer theory running all the way through it. That is the real problem.

Let me move on to the document on the Bill published recently by the Gay Men’s Network, because the hon. Gentleman addressed this in some detail and it is important to respond on some of the legal points. The GMN has among its number some legal experts, including a criminal barrister and an award-winning legal academic. It makes comments about the legislation under a few headings, the first of which is

“The wide net of criminal liability in the bill”.

The document states:

“The bill provides via clause 1, 4 and the Sentencing Act 2020 that:

a. a single act

b. the purpose and intent of which

c. is to change or suppress

d. sexual orientation or transgender identity

e. be a criminal offence if not excused by a defence in clause 1(2)

We draw attention to the terms ‘suppress’, ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘transgender identity’.

‘Suppress’ in comparative Scottish proposed legislation is defined widely, it includes, for example, a concerned parent forbidding an autistic daughter from wearing a breast binder because regulation of clothing is specifically cited as an act of suppression.

This bill proposes that the terms ‘Sexual Orientation’ and ‘transgender identity’ mean the same as in the Sentencing Act…this is problematic because that act defined neither term. It is important to note that the meaning of ‘sex’ (and therefore sexual orientation) is not settled in law and a Supreme Court Case on the subject is pending.”

[Luke Pollard]

I have been listening intently to the hon. Gentleman, but I am curious because the Bill he is referring to is not the Bill we are considering. Where is “suppress” in the Bill that we are considering? It would help me to follow his thoughts if he could help us with that.

[Neale Hanvey]

I have stated where it says “suppress” and the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown mentioned “suppress” in his contribution.