Conversion Therapy

(asked on 21st January 2022) - View Source

Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what discussions she has had with the (a) Scottish Government and (b) Northern Ireland Executive to ensure that legislation banning sexual orientation and gender identity conversion therapy will provide the same level of protections for all LGBT+ people in the UK.


Answered by
Mike Freer Portrait
Mike Freer
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 26th January 2022

The Government has been liaising with Territorial Offices and the devolved administrations including the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive on this important issue. It is positive to note that developments in all four parts of the UK are such that there is work underway, at different stages, to end conversion practices often known as conversion therapy.

Officials will continue to work with their counterparts to discuss the UK Government’s proposals for England and Wales and share advice and progress on the approach to banning conversion therapy practices. We will share responses to our current public consultation relating to Scotland and Northern Ireland with relevant officials and we look forward to receiving further details of the Scottish Expert Advisory Group’s findings once they are developed. We have also provided the Scottish Parliament with written evidence on our plans to ban conversion therapy.

We are engaging with a wide range of international jurisdictions including Canada, France, New Zealand and Malta to understand the approaches they have taken or are developing to ban conversion therapy and to share our own developments too.

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