Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill

Debate between Suella Braverman and Peter Gibson

2nd reading
Friday 1st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The hon. Gentleman puts that incredibly well. It reminds me of Edmund Burke, who said:

“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”

Bad laws make bad customs, and in this place we want to avoid good people making bad laws. I am afraid that the coverage by the legislation of all sorts of horrendous behaviour that is being talked about means that there is no good reason for it. It is a bad law.

[Peter Gibson]

I hear what my right hon. and learned Friend says about existing legislation covering many of the things that this Bill is seeking to protect people from. Will she outline to the House what work she did, while at the Home Office, to ensure that sufficient provision, advice and guidance was given to the Crown Prosecution Service and to police forces to ensure that they had the requisite knowledge to deal with such issues under the existing law?

[Suella Braverman]

During my time as Home Secretary, we issued new guidance on non-hate crime incidents, and it supports many aspects of what we are talking about—not all, but some. We clarified the parameters for such non-hate crime incidents to protect minority groups, to protect the LGBT community, and to ensure that fairness and safety were applied by policing.

The next reason is that the scope of the Bill is incredibly wide, as the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath said. The Bill does not require the defendant to intend any harm to be caused in order for their action to be criminal, which I find incredibly concerning. That will capture so many types of behaviour where there is an innocent or well-intentioned objective and where legitimate practices, whether in the religious, therapeutic or teaching field—or just being a regular parent—will be caught. That might be inadvertent, as we have discussed today, but some things will necessarily be caught by interpretations of some of the clauses.