Is the Westminster Government going to drop its ‘conversion therapy’ Bill?

COMMENT

There’s been no end of speculation in recent weeks about whether the Prime Minister is going to drop the highly controversial plans for a ‘conversion therapy’ Bill.

This is because the Westminster Government has delayed publication of a draft ‘conversion therapy’ Bill, after previously announcing that it would undergo “pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee in this parliamentary session”.

Activists are claiming that the Government is too late to publish a draft Bill in time to complete pre-legislative scrutiny before the next election. But that simply isn’t correct. The Government pledged 12 weeks of pre-legislative scrutiny. It could start this before Christmas and still have plenty of time.

We should be cautious about recent speculation. We don’t want Rishi Sunak to turn Johnson’s ‘O-turn’ into a ‘Figure-of-eight turn’.

Interestingly, when Leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt, was recently asked by Lib Dem MP Wera Hobhouse, “whether draft proposals for a full ban on conversion therapy will come to the House before the next King’s Speech?”, Mrs Mordaunt didn’t repeat her previous pledge that: “We expect it to go to pre-legislative scrutiny to be ready for the fourth Session.” Instead, she said: “further business will be announced in the usual way”.

As a result, there has been feverish speculation in several newspapers that the Government is set to scrap its plans for a Bill – speculation prompted (and encouraged) by ITV journalist Paul Brand, a vocal campaigner for a far-reaching new law.

But it’s important to remember that no official announcement has been made. It’s also important to remember that we’ve been here before.

In March last year, a Government document outlining the Government’s intention to drop its planned Bill was leaked to Brand.

there are any number of good reasons not to progress with this Bill

At first, No 10 issued a statement confirming the leaked memo. However, only hours later – following a pile-on from Brand and some Conservative MPs – the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was said to have changed his mind. In a quite remarkable and abrupt ‘O-turn’, the like of which I cannot recall, a Bill would now be brought forward.

This ought to make us cautious about the recent speculation. We don’t want Rishi Sunak to turn Johnson’s ‘O-turn’ into a ‘Figure-of-eight turn’.

Of course, it is true that there are any number of good reasons not to progress with this Bill.

We recently wrote to the Prime Minister urging him not to proceed with his plans for a Bill after we uncovered details of the ban already in operation in the Australian state of Victoria. My colleague Simon Calvert explained clearly the dangers of copying Victoria’s mistakes in the UK:

 “Religious believers could undoubtedly experience the worst effects of this sort of law. As we have seen in Victoria, it won’t take long for state bodies to feel they have the right to dictate to churches what they can and cannot teach and precisely how to pray. Those who refuse to ditch the teaching of the Bible could soon find themselves at the mercy of the criminal justice system.”

We also published polling showing that just 4% of UK voters think that a new law banning conversion therapy should be a priority for the Government.

The leading activists are clear that their focus is not on targeting abuse, it’s on the ordinary work of churches. They want a new ‘conversion therapy’ law to silence the teaching of mainstream, orthodox Christian ethics on sex and gender.

Jayne Ozanne, leader of the UK-wide Ban Conversion Therapy campaign, recently complained to Times Radio that church youth camps are hotbeds of ‘conversion therapy’ and should fall within the scope of a ban. And that’s after calling for “gentle non-coercive prayer” to be outlawed if it does not endorse LGBT ideology.

just 4% of UK voters think that a new law banning conversion therapy should be a priority for the Government

A recently-appointed Government Minister, Jacob Young MP, even said in 2021: “I want to see people go to prison if they try to convince a gay person that what they’re doing is wrong.”

The Government should not be giving any encouragement whatsoever to those making such repressive demands.

We must pray that all political parties would come to understand that gay and trans people are rightly fully protected from verbal and physical abuse under existing law. New legislation is not only dangerous, but unnecessary.