FOIs from NI Health Trusts show no issue with ‘conversion therapy’

• Freedom of Information responses from all of NI’s Health and Social Care Trusts show almost no complaints mentioning ‘conversion therapy’ or ‘conversion practices’ have ever been received.

• All Trusts but one said no complaints had ever been received. NIPSO, PCC, PHA and RQIA also reported they had no knowledge of any complaints. No other bodies are recognised by the Department of Health as receiving patient complaints.

• The Belfast NHS Trust has said it has “received <5 complaints” but “No concerns were identified by the Trust relating to clinical treatment and care provided.”

• The total absence of actual complaints about ‘conversion therapy’ stands in stark contrast to figures released from Stonewall earlier this month, bizarrely claiming 31% of those who identify as LGBT in Great Britain had undergone the practices.

Northern Ireland has six Health and Social Care Trusts, including the Ambulance Service. Four other bodies can potentially receive complaints from patients: NIPSO; Patient and Client Council; PHA; RQIA.

Freedom of Information requests were sent to each of these bodies, asking whether they were aware of any:

“complaint against a medical practitioner, practice, trust or other body, on the grounds of ‘conversion therapy’ or ‘conversion practice’”

In every single case, except for the Belfast Trust, they responded that they had no records of any complaints.

The Belfast Trust said it had received “<5” relevant complaints, refusing to give a more specific answer as the number was so small that individuals might be identifiable. However, it clarified that:

“No concerns were identified by the Trust relating to clinical treatment and care provided.”

James Kennedy, NI Policy Officer for The Christian Institute, comments:

“This confirms what we have long said: there is simply no need for a law on so-called conversion therapy. When MLAs propose a new law, you would think they would first assess whether there is any need. Instead of asking our Health and Social Care Trusts that handle these issues, some MLAs have blindly accepted the incorrect claims of a handful of activists as fact.

“Many have justified a new law as a necessary intervention on pseudo-medical interventions, but these stopped generations ago. These new FOIs from the Health Trusts show there is no sign that harmful practices are taking place in Northern Ireland today.

“The claims from groups like Stonewall are untrue and they are damaging to good community relations because, on the one hand, they tell gay and trans people they are victims when they are not, and, on the other hand, they accuse churches and other innocent groups of crimes they did not commit.”

“If, however, a new law is not intended to tackle medical practices, then the public would be right to be very wary of what it really does intend to curtail. The truth is that a new law on conversion therapy would infringe on the freedoms of ordinary, innocent people who reject LGBTQ+ ideology. It would impact especially Christians who seek to uphold biblical teaching on marriage and gender, and parents who caution a child against gender transition.”

Stonewall figures

LGBT lobby group Stonewall recently published figures claiming that 31% of LGBTQ+ people in Great Britain had been subject to conversion therapy/practices. The figure emerged from a survey carried out for Stonewall by pollsters Opinium, with a sample supposedly “nationally representative” of the wider LGBTQ+ population.

The survey also claimed that 8.2% of LGBTQ+ people had undergone ‘exorcism’ in the last five years – a figure that one commentator points out would mean 24,600 exorcisms annually for LGBTQ+ people, which appears ludicrous against fewer than 42,000 marriages in churches each year.

The Stonewall claims have also been heavily criticised as the figures are so far out of step with the UK Government’s National LGBT Survey results, which had a far larger sample, and found that just 2% of respondents had claimed to have undergone ‘conversion therapy’. But even using that data is problematic, as it did not define ‘conversion therapy’, restrict responses to experiences in the UK, or limit the timeframe (many responses will have taken place in other countries or long in the past).

Stonewall’s figures also include ‘pseudoscientific counselling sessions’, which are sometimes purported to take place within formal health settings.

The new FOI figures pour cold water on any attempt to use Stonewall’s figures in Northern Ireland. If fewer than five complaints have ever been made to healthcare bodies in the entire country, it seems completely impossible that 31% of LGBT+ people in NI (which amounts to many thousands) have experienced ‘conversion therapy’.

Rainbow Project study

In 2022, the Rainbow Project was commissioned to carry out research into ‘conversion practices’ for the Northern Ireland Executive.

When a final report was published in 2024, it included the accounts of just ten people, some of which recounted practices that clearly fall short of potential criminalisation. One recounted that they had merely experienced “prayer, Bible studies and teaching”. Another explained that they were upset with the diagnosis of autism they had received, but the researchers appear not to have sought a professional medical opinion. None of the cases suggest a new law is necessary.

English political commentator James Esses published an investigation into the research project, finding through FOIs that, though the researchers had initially proposed to interview 15 people, they had run out of potential participants at just ten. They claimed they were reaching “a saturation point”, i.e. there was nothing new to find out through further interviews.

He noted: “Some of the documents show that the study had been so heavily advertised that they decided to return the entirety of the advertising budget. …Those calling for a new law would have us believe that thousands are impacted. The researchers ran out of steam at a mere ten.”

ENDS

Notes for Editors:

• Eóin Tennyson MLA intends to bring a Member’s Bill on ‘conversion therapy’, copying proposals consulted on by the Scottish Government in January 2024, but later shelved in September 2024.
• The Christian Institute recently commissioned an independent legal opinion into Mr Tennyson’s plans from top KC, Aidan O’Neill (who led for ‘For Women Scotland Ltd’ in last week’s Supreme Court judgement on ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010).