Gay Conversion Therapy

(asked on 5th September 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will proscribe the practice of conversion therapy in England.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 12th September 2017

This Government does not recognise so-called ‘gay conversion therapy’ as a legitimate treatment. A person's sexual orientation is not an illness to be cured. We have already worked with the main registration and accreditation bodies for psychotherapy and counselling practitioners, including the UK Council for Psychotherapy, to develop a Memorandum of Understanding to put a stop to this practice.

We are not aware of widespread instances of gay conversion therapy happening in the United Kingdom, but we want to get a better idea of the extent to which it is being practised. That is why we included questions on this topic in our national LGBT survey, which was launched this summer. We will publish the survey results and our response in the new year.

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