Conversion Practices

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) on leading today’s debate. I thank him particularly for sharing the deeply moving stories of Sienna and Ben. I also want to thank the 213 people from Darlington who signed the petition to ensure that trans people are protected under any ban, and the 325 residents of Darlington who signed the e-petition to ensure that LGBT conversion therapy is made illegal.

I cannot believe that we are still having a debate about this. It has been announced in two previous Queen’s Speeches. It has been relentlessly pursued by a team of dedicated Members on this side of the House, including, most notably, my hon. Friends the Members for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) and for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn). It has been raised in dozens of written parliamentary questions, and it has been raised many, many times in the Chamber. Indeed, it has been promised by countless Ministers at the Dispatch Box.

I know that the Minister is a good man. Indeed, he was described as an angel in a debate just last week. I know his personal intentions on this matter, and I know a good number of other Ministers who also want to see this policy delivered. The role of any Government is to protect their citizens, and Conservative Governments have a great track record: the Children Act 1989, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the Modern Slavery Act 2015, the Serious Crime Act 2015, the Stalking Protection Act 2019 and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. To my mind, banning conversion practice abuse falls firmly within the remit of those Acts by protecting our citizens.

Our country has made significant progress in many respects on LGBT rights, but with rights come responsibilities, and we cannot be said to be in favour of equal rights if we are giving rights without balancing them with the responsibilities of protection. I have spoken on this issue many times in this place, yet despite the support right across the House for banning this dreadful practice, there has sadly been no progress. There is an argument that this abuse is already covered by the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, but there is no guidance for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. Will the Minister please look into that?

There are jurisdictions around the world that have made progress on a ban, so I ask the Minister: what is so difficult? Why can we not make progress? Why is the UK so unique that we cannot do this? The Minister will say that it is difficult and complex, and that the Government are looking at it, but I encourage him to stop looking and, please, start doing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Member, but I will not take any more interventions—I am conscious that there are others who need to speak. The point about surgical and medical interventions is precisely what the Cass review has been working on. I will come to the issue of precisely how a Bill would be drafted, so the hon. Member will hear my comments on that in a moment.

However, I need to ask the Minister another question. Last summer, I wondered whether we would back here in another year asking exactly the same questions. Well, here we are, asking the same questions and, I suspect, getting exactly the same answers, going round in circles. I feel sorry for the Minister; I know that his hands are tied. The hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) was spot on in that regard, although perhaps even this Minister would not be able to live up to his celestial claims. Surely the Minister is getting fed up with making excuses for his colleagues, who do not have the courage to tell LGBT+ people that banning these abusive practices is not a priority for the Conservative Government.

We have a different approach; we acknowledge that there are complexities.

[Peter Gibson]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I will push on to give others time. There are complexities but it is our job to protect the public from harm. Labour, like the BMA, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and countless other organisations, believes that conversion practices constitute abuse. We are clear that a Bill to ban those practices must, of course, be carefully and sensitively drafted, so that it does not cover psychological support and treatment, non-directive counselling or the pastoral relationship between teachers and pupils, or religious leaders and worshippers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) set out clearly that those practices are not a part of religious worship. She provided a clear answer to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who always puts his points respectfully. These are matters that legislators can work through sensibly, and I am confident we will do so.

A ban would not cover quiet conversations and friendships, contrary to the claims of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). A ban would not cover discussions within families, which are based on the need for love and support. A ban would not—and must not—have an impact on the provision of psychological, medical and supportive services for children and young people. As I said, much more support and psychological counselling is needed, not less, and that is very clear from the interim Cass review.

Labour also believes that any ban must be carefully, tightly and clearly worded, and appropriately implemented and assessed. That should surely be par for the course for any legislation, and it must apply to a ban on conversion practices, too. I remain confident that it is possible to deliver a ban without ending up in the quagmire in which the Government have found themselves.

I have the utmost respect for the Minister; I know he is in a difficult spot. I say, slightly cheekily, that someone cannot choose their boss. However, if he did rise to say again that this is all too difficult and complicated, I would gently ask him whether he considers the Conservative Government are still fit for purpose.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Gibson]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Anneliese Dodds]

Sorry, but I have said I will not to give others time.

LGBT+ people need a Government that will not simply use complexity, which is common to all legislation, as an excuse for inaction. The Government should instead ensure that every LGBT+ person can live their lives in dignity and free from abuse, just like everyone else.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stuart Andrew)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this morning, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) on securing the debate. I fully empathise with the strength of feeling shown today on this issue, appreciate the candour of the debate, and empathise with some of the emotional and harrowing stories that we heard, in particular those of Sienna and Ben.

So-called conversion therapy practices are dangerous and pseudo-scientific. They are based on two ill-founded beliefs: one is that being LGBT is a defect and that not being LGBT is somehow preferable, and the other is that it is possible to forcibly change somebody who identifies as LGBT to fit that preference.

I want to lay out my position clearly. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people are invaluable, loved and integral members of the UK communities, and they deserve to be able to live authentically and openly, without fear of discrimination or of being targeted by perpetrators of conversion practices. To put it simply, conversion practices are wrong, and they do not work. The practices can take many different, sometimes overlapping, forms. They may involve the use of physical or sexual violence to hurt, scare and punish the victim. They may also involve abusive and hateful language—shouting at and continuously berating someone for being gay or trans.

Such harmful efforts may also be pitched as therapy, but far from being legitimate support, they are carried out by someone with a predetermined outcome in mind and a specific desire to change the individual accordingly. They may involve telling the LGBT person that their identity is wrong or an illness, and claiming that they can be fixed to be “normal.” To be clear, I absolutely condemn those acts. No individual should be forced or coerced into changing their identity.

I completely understand and empathise with the strong views expressed by hon. Members who want to see meaningful and timely action by the Government. I fully appreciate that the uncertainty around the Government’s next steps in this space, and how those have been reported and discussed, has sometimes been unsettling and frustrating, not least for the LGBT community, who are undoubtedly the group most affected by the issue. I express my sympathies with those sentiments and my apologies for the delay. I continue to be committed to tackling conversion practices—as I was long before I was a Minister—and delivering on our manifesto commitment to combat harassment and violence against LGBT people.

I am working closely with the Minister for Women and Equalities in the hopes of setting out further details in Parliament on the Government’s plans in this space in the near future. Last week in this hall, a debate was held on the 20th anniversary of the repeal of section 28. There was a consensus that this country has come a long way on LGBT rights. I am proud that the UK has built one of the most comprehensive and robust legislative protection frameworks for LGBT people in the world, but of course there is more to do. Many harmful, physically violent acts done in the name of conversion practice are, rightly, already illegal in this country, but there remains a gap, albeit narrow, in the existing legislative framework, particularly surrounding non-physical and speech-based acts, such as specific instances of verbal degradation or abuse that are not covered by existing legislation.

[Peter Gibson]

The Minister will be aware of my recent written parliamentary question and the question that I raised in my speech about whether the provisions in existing legislation, such as the Offences against the Person Act 1861, are sufficient to tackle some abusive practices that are used in conversion therapy. Are the Government actively looking at providing guidance for the Crown Prosecution Service and the police, based on what may already be on the statute book, to provide them with the tools to tackle those practices?

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. There are elements that could bring about prosecutions, but we are aware that more work needs to be done on providing the guidance that the police, the CPS and so on need. There have been accusations that nothing has been happening in the past couple of months, but that is part of the work that we have been looking at. What could we do to provide encouragement and confidence to those who are implementing the protections of the law and give them the guidance that they will need? I hope that we will be able to provide more of an update on that in the time to come.