Conversion Therapy Bill

Conversion Therapy Bill

“Legislation will also be introduced to ban conversion therapy.”

The purpose of the Bill is to:

● Ban conversion therapy practices intended to change sexual orientation.

The main benefits of the Bill would be:

● Stopping abhorrent practices which do not work and cause extensive harm.

● To protect people’s personal liberty to love who they want to love.

The main elements of the Bill are:

● Strengthening existing criminal law by ensuring that violent conversion therapy is recognised as a potential aggravating factor upon sentencing.

● Introducing a criminal offence banning non-physical conversion therapies to complement existing legislation which protects people from acts which inflict physical harm. The offence will protect under-18s, regardless of circumstance, and over-18s who do not consent and who are coerced or forced to undergo conversion therapy practices.

● Ensuring those found guilty of conversion therapy offences have any profit they obtained from those crimes removed and strengthening the case for such individuals to be disqualified from holding a senior role in a charity.

● Introducing Conversion Therapy Protection Orders. These would set out certain conditions to protect a person from undergoing the practice, including removing a passport for those at risk of being taken abroad, or any requirement the court considers necessary to protect that person.

● Protecting freedom of speech, ensuring parents, clinicians and teachers can continue to have conversations with people seeking support.

● Respecting clinicians’ independence. Our legislation will not impact the existing professional frameworks that guide clinicians’ ability to support people. Robust, exploratory and challenging conversations which are part of regulated care do not fall within the scope of the ban.

Territorial extent and application

● The Bill will extend and apply to England and Wales.

Key facts

● Studies relating to conversion therapy for sexual orientation show that:

o there is no robust evidence that conversion therapy can change sexual orientation;

o there is self-reported evidence that conversion therapy causes harm; and

o people’s motivations for seeking conversion therapy tended to be associated with conflict about sexual orientation.

● Approximately 16 countries have placed some sort of nation-wide ban on conversion therapy practices, including Canada, France, Germany and New

Zealand.

● Recognising the complexity of issues and need for further careful thought, we will carry out separate work to consider the issue of Transgender Conversion

Therapy further.