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:
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● Stopping abhorrent practices which do not work and
cause extensive harm.
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● To protect people’s personal liberty to love who they
want to love.
The main elements of the Bill are:
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● Strengthening existing criminal law by ensuring that
violent conversion therapy is recognised as a potential
aggravating factor upon sentencing.
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● 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.
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● 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.
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● 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.
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● Protecting freedom of speech, ensuring parents,
clinicians and teachers can continue to have conversations
with people seeking support.
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● 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.
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● Approximately 16 countries have placed some sort of
nation-wide ban on conversion therapy practices, including
Canada, France, Germany and New Zealand.
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● 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.
