[Relevant Documents: Correspondence with the Minister for Women and Equalitieson LGBT conversion therapy, reported to the House on 27 July and 22 September 2020.]
6:15 pm
James Gray (in the Chair)
We come now to the second of these hybrid debates in Westminster Hall, which are actually being held in the Boothroyd Room in Portcullis House. From my point of view, they are an extremely good innovation.
Before we start our debate on LGBT conversion therapy, perhaps I can remind Members of one or two matters. Social distancing must be maintained in this room, as it has been already. Those who are here are expected to be here for the beginning and the end of the debate, including those who are with us virtually; please stay until the end. And those who are here physically should use a wet wipe to clear up their space after they have spoken.
With that, I call Elliot Colburn, who is appearing virtually, to propose the motion.
That this House has considered e-petition 300976 relating to LGBT conversion therapy.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. The petition is entitled, “Make LGBT conversion therapy illegal in the UK”. The prayer of the petition states that
“I would like the Government to:
• make running conversion therapy in the UK a criminal offence
• forcing people to attend said conversion therapies a criminal offence
• sending people abroad in order to try to convert them a criminal offence
• protect individuals from conversion therapy
Despite all major counselling and psychotherapy bodies in the UK, including the NHS, condemning LGBT conversion therapy, it is still legal and LGBT individuals in the UK are still exposed to this psychological and emotional abuse to this day. The very thought of this sickens me, and I would like to see it stopped one day.”
When the petition closed, it had 256,392 signatures, including 487 from my own constituency of Carshalton and Wallington.
I can think of few moments so humbling as opening this important debate today. It is a testament to the importance of this issue that the debate was heavily over-subscribed, and I know that many colleagues who wanted to get in could not do so. Briefly, I want to thank and acknowledge from my side of the House the campaigning done by my hon. Friends the Members for Darlington (Peter Gibson), for Bracknell (James Sunderland), for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), for Redcar (Jacob Young), for Watford (Dean Russell), for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher), for High Peak (Robert Largan), for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham) and others.
James Gray (in the Chair)
It may help the House to know that some 50 people originally put in to speak in this debate, of whom Mr Speaker has selected 20. If we are to achieve that number, as a courtesy to each other, I suggest a maximum speaking time of three minutes—two minutes would be even better.
“Converting gays”—just wonder for a moment about how primitive that concept is. It is a cruel hangover from a darker time—a time when to be gay, lesbian or trans was to be flawed or inadequate.
I do not know why I am gay. I do not know why I have green eyes or curly hair, but I do know that no one made me gay; I was born gay. When I was younger, to borrow from Alfred Kinsey, I would have taken a magic pill to make myself straight, but I now know that that was not because I hated being gay, but because I did not want to be the victim of prejudice. Who does? We know that there is no magic pill, nor do we need one. We need love and acceptance.
LGBT conversion is the very antithesis of that. It promises a cure where none is available and none is needed. We look back in horror at the tortures endured by our LGBT brothers and sisters, even in recent history—electro-shock therapy, lobotomy and the chemical castration endured by Alan Turing at the hands of a vicious and ungrateful political class and legal system.
Changing people’s sexual orientation is, as we know, scientifically impossible, but that does not stop bigots from trying. “Pray away the gay,” cry some religious groups, who somehow see no contradiction with the command that thou shalt love thy neighbour. People who hold out the promise of conversion are cruelly targeting the most vulnerable. It is abuse.
Some hon. Members know I was a journalist before entering politics, and I once made a film for the BBC in which I interviewed a conversion therapist. It was one of the most chilling encounters of my career. The man in question, who was utterly untrained, advertised himself as offering the last chance at a normal life. He preyed on the young and the vulnerable: teenage boys and men in their early 20s who were terrified of who they were. He talked of weak fathers and overbearing mothers. I sat in on one session, and it was gibberish.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) on leading the debate so well, and I congratulate his Committee on securing it. I have two key points for the Government. The first is that we must legislate. Deliver the promise to protect in law. Use the work done in the Government Equalities Office before 2019. Use the examples elsewhere, particularly in Spain and the Australian state of Victoria, which have already legislated. Our common law system enables the drafting challenge of defining conversion therapy to be met. There is no need to overcomplicate this issue. The police, prosecutors and jurors will know conversion therapy when they see it. Most critically, the victims will know it too, and they will have been equipped with a defence mechanism.
Such a law is an important step as a declaratory statement, as it is as a legal tool. If someone is LGBT, the law says that the state supports them. It supports how they want to live their life. When victims find themselves under pressure that is improperly applied to convert them to something they are not, they will know that it is against the law and that they can call it out. They can say to the person or people who are the source of this—[Interruption.]
The law gives the victims the opportunity to go to the police and, therefore, to have a weapon in their hand against the source of a conversion therapy. The state is on the side of victims’ freedom—the freedom that that individual is trying to take away from them.
The second point I want to make is that such protection must include trans people. They are by far and away the most vulnerable group among the LGBT community. Identity around gender dysphoria is surely a much more challenging thing to meet than a minority sexuality, but all must be protected. The law must include trans people, and not only because they are the group who need it the most. In 2018, it appeared that trans people were on a trajectory to achieve their rights and protections to live their lives as they wished, supported by the Government’s comprehensive LGBT action plan, but all that now seems to have changed. Trans people are a community under siege. Organisations whose principal raison d’être is to attack and challenge the very legitimacy of trans people have come into being, and they appear to trans people to be firmly in the ascendant.
The lived experience of trans people reflects the awful paucity of services for them in the United Kingdom, as graphically illustrated by VICE News in January and November. They also see 250 articles a year attacking them in our newspaper of record, The Times. They see that groups such as the Conservative Women’s Pledge and LGB Alliance, whose purpose seems to be to protect cisgender women from trans women, have the ear of Ministers. They see reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 abandoned, and the principle of gender-neutral legislation was reversed only last week.
Gender is much more complicated than sexuality, and the drafting of the ban on conversion therapy will need to protect those giving informed, regulated and properly peer-reviewed advice to assist those on the path to reconciling their gender dysphoria. If the legislation does not include the protection of trans people, however, it will send to them the unmistakable message that their Government do not want to protect them, do not value them and, at some level, do not really accept that trans is really a thing. That awful message would inadvertently make the Government themselves party to the practice of conversion therapy.
I was proud to be a Minister in the last Labour Government, which did so much to ensure that LGBT+ people were finally afforded equal rights in law. There is a difference, however, between ending bigotry and prejudice in law, and making the right to equal treatment and respect a reality for every LGBT+ person in our country. The petition aims to move us further towards that point.
That would seem like an obvious, non-contentious step when considering the mistaken beliefs that underly the existence of the degrading and dehumanising practice of conversion therapy: that sexual orientation can be changed; that LGBT+ people are a threat to society, evil or disordered; that LGBT+ people are ill, sick or can be cured; and that LGBT+ people can be persuaded or forced to become heterosexual by undergoing treatment or counselling. If that approach sounds almost medieval, that is because it is, yet every day, people in our country have their lives and mental wellbeing put at serious risk by being subjected to attempts, by people who have power over them, to change their sexual orientation.
The extent of the prevalence of conversion therapy in the UK is shocking, as we heard in the excellent opening contribution by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn). There is very strong evidence of the harm that conversion therapy inflicts: more than half of those who have gone through it report mental health issues, including breakdown, eating disorders, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. Evidence also shows that it is being inflicted mainly, but not only, on vulnerable LGBT+ teenagers. That is horrific, but it is not surprising. Being told by faith leaders or your family that you are sinful, evil, and disordered for being yourself creates self-loathing and trauma that only the strongest can survive. Being told to pray harder to change and to question your innermost feelings and thoughts, and being taught to hate yourself—none of that should be legal.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for his thoughtful opening of the debate and his moving acknowledgment of survivors. I think it very important that we see the debate as an opportunity for a call for action from the Government.
The debate is obviously of moment, particularly for the quarter of a million people who signed the petition. It is an acknowledgment, as the national LGBT survey demonstrated, that this is going on in our country: 2% in the LGBT+ community had received such therapy and 5% had been offered it. We must treat the term “therapy” with the contempt it deserves, because we must be clear that this is not therapy; it is a pseudo-psychiatric 21st-century snake oil. There is nothing more pernicious than to deem someone sick and then to try to coerce them into treatment for something that is right at the core of who they are and who they love. We cannot tolerate it continuing.
There was a similar petition in the Scottish Parliament entitled “End Conversion Therapy”, which was dealt with last year by its Public Petitions Committee. Stonewall Scotland, Equality Network, Scottish Trans Alliance and LGBT Youth Scotland all supported the principles of that petition. In response, the Scottish Government—positively, from my perspective, because this is not always how they respond—said they wanted to work with the UK Government to bring about a ban. I want to encourage that working together on this issue so that we can deliver a ban that works across the United Kingdom and impacts on those in my own constituency in Scotland who might be put in this position. I also want to see the Scottish Government and the UK Government working on the GRA issue. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) mentioned in relation to trans issues, we need that to be dealt with—on a UK-wide basis, in my view.
6:42 pm
Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank my colleague the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for his wonderful introduction to the debate. I have been contacted by many of my constituents about the petition, each of them as shocked as I am that the Government have still not acted to outlaw the practice of so-called conversion therapy inflicted on LGBT people.
The petitioners’ aims are not difficult to enact, nor are they asking too much. Their requests are clear and simple: they simply want LGBT people to live in dignity without having their sexuality or gender identity questioned. Every human being should have the right to express their own identity without the judgment of others. It is clear from the evidence surrounding this practice, compiled by the charity Stonewall, that that is not the case for everyone who identifies as LGBT in the UK. According to Stonewall’s figures, one in 20 LGBT people living in the UK has at some time been subject to or recommended for therapies that question their very identity. That number rises to almost one in 10 among young LGBT adults aged between 18 and 24 and almost one in five for trans people.
In a modern, supposedly decent society, that should not even be an option, and it certainly should not be legal. Many of the people subjected to such practices have them forced upon them by their families. In some cases, LGBT people are sent abroad for treatment by relatives who believe it will somehow cure them, when there is nothing—absolutely nothing—to be cured. The only result is severe distress and untold psychological trauma.
Every recognised medical and professional body in the UK has described the practice as dangerous. Many other public bodies have signed a common pledge against the practice. However, substantial evidence still shows that too many people continue to believe, despite the evidence, that sexuality and gender identity can be cured in some way. Enacting legislation to end these so-called therapies and ensure that no practitioner in the UK can consider them an option to which they can refer a patient would contribute greatly to preventing people from persisting in that belief.
I appreciate that the Government have previously made supportive statements on the issue. The Prime Minister himself described it as “abhorrent”, and as something that
“has no place in a civilised society”.
He made that statement last summer, but nine months on there has been no movement. There is clearly cross-party consensus in favour of legislating to outlaw this practice. Every day that the Government delay legislation, another LGBT person could be subject to this continued abuse. We have the power to act and the support to pass the legislation. All we need is the legislation to put our words into action. We can prevent further damage to the lives of LGBT people in this country, but only if we act quickly.
20 of 55 shown
In preparation for today’s debate and throughout my campaigning on this issue since being elected as an MP, it has been my absolute honour to speak to campaigning and charitable organisations, to experts from the fields of health, religion, education, law and beyond, and to legislators from across the world, including Malta, Canada, Australia, Spain and New Zealand, where these practices have either already been banned or are in the process of being banned. Most importantly, I am grateful to the survivors for speaking out and sharing their stories. Their bravery in shining a light on these abhorrent practices will help to save countless lives in the future if we can secure this ban.
First, we must ask ourselves what conversion therapy is and why it needs to be banned. According to a May 2020 report by the UN Office for Human Rights, and indeed according to a definition from the Government Equalities Office, so-called conversion therapy is an umbrella term used to describe interventions of a wide-ranging nature, all of which have in common the belief that a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity can and should be changed. These so-called therapies can manifest in many forms, from pseudo-psychological treatments and aversion therapies to practices that are religiously based, such as purification or fasting. At the most extreme, there has been evidence that this practice can also involve physical and sexual violence, including so-called corrective rape.
I will share just some of the stories of the survivors who have bravely shared their stories with me and the world, in an attempt to help campaign for the end of this practice in the UK. The first is Joe’s story. As a boy, Joe grappled with his hidden gay identity before leaving for his year in a yeshiva in Israel—a highly significant moment for many young Jews. He sought out conversion therapy and began weekly phone calls with a so-called therapist. After a year this clearly had not worked and instead he sought in-person therapies, where a group leader would force them to process moments of homosexual attraction, only for them to be scrutinised, judged and shamed, leaving Joe with an immense sense of depression. Thankfully, after hearing other gay Orthodox Jews speak out about their own experience, he stopped his conversion therapy, but the experience has left a scar to this day.
Next is Josh’s story. In 2017, Josh went undercover for the Liverpool Echo to a Liverpool church that offered a cure for homosexuality through a three-day starvation programme. The assistant pastor told Josh to starve himself and not drink any water before taking part in weekly prayer sessions, referring to being gay as “the deceit of Satan”. In the prayer groups the assistant pastor would shout phrases such as “kill it with fire” and “die in the fire,” while members of the congregation were seen crying, shaking, sweating and appearing to speak in tongues. It is shocking that the assistant pastor was an NHS doctor at that time, and I can find no evidence that he is no longer an NHS doctor.
Finally, I want to talk about Carolyn. At 17, Carolyn confided in her local vicar her feelings of self-hatred and depression, and her suicidal thoughts, because she did not feel like a boy. Her vicar took her to a doctor and a psychiatric hospital, where Carolyn was strapped to a wooden chair in a dark room. As images of women’s clothing were projected on to the wall in front of her, doctors would deliver painful electric shocks, hoping to associate the feelings of being a woman with memories of intense pain. As with Joe and Josh, that experience remains with Carolyn to this day.
Joe, Josh and Carolyn are just three survivors I have had the privilege of speaking to, and they experienced a wide range of so-called conversion therapies. I commend them for their bravery in speaking out, sharing their stories and campaigning to end these practices in the UK. Sadly, they are just three of many. In 2018, the Government’s first ever national survey of over 108,000 LGBT people in Britain found that 7% of respondents had either undergone or been offered conversion therapy. Some 13% of trans respondents had undergone or been offered conversion therapy. Of those who had been offered it, 51% said that it was conducted by faith groups and a further 19% said that it was done by healthcare providers or medical professionals. As the Ban Conversion Therapy coalition has outlined, though, given the clandestine and deceptive way these so-called conversion therapies are offered—giving them different names or dressing them up as alternative treatments—the real number is likely to be a lot higher. Tragically, we will never hear the testimonies of many who, grappling with their own identity while being told how wrong they were through these therapies, were left feeling that they had no other option than to take their own life.
It is important to point out that we are not talking about harmful practices that occurred some time ago; this is happening today, here in the UK, right now. A UN report into conversion therapy last year summed it up perfectly when it concluded that any and all forms of conversion therapy are
“inherently degrading and discriminatory. They are rooted in the belief that LGBT persons are somehow inferior, and that they must at any cost modify their orientation or identity to remedy that supposed inferiority.”
So strong was the report that it called for nothing less than
“a global ban on conversion therapy.”
Here in the UK, the practice has received almost universal condemnation. In 2017, a memorandum of understanding on conversion therapy in the UK was signed by NHS England and 12 other psychotherapy and health bodies, charities and organisations. I thank Igi Moon for their time speaking to me about the impact this has had. In another powerful intervention, in 2017 the Church of England also passed a motion condemning these practices and calling on the Government to ban them—a call that has now been echoed by over 370 global religious leaders and organisations. I pay particular tribute to Jayne Ozanne and her foundation for her leadership, her courage and her tireless efforts in campaigning on this issue.
Finally, in the national LGBT action plan of 2018, the UK Government committed to bring forward proposals to ban conversion therapy—a call that has been echoed many times in the House since that commitment was made. We have the agreement, the commitment and the coalition of voices from all parts of society urging a ban to be implemented. What we need now is the action. With every day that passes, another person is at risk of being subjected to this degrading treatment. We risk losing even more lives of people who feel there is no other way out.
I have two final points to make today. On what the ban must include, the Government do not need to start from scratch. Highly praised examples already exist in places such as Madrid, Malta and Victoria in Australia. Learning from those examples, and in line with the UN report’s recommendations, a ban must cover both the public and the private spheres and all forms of intervention, no matter what they might be, whether that be healthcare, religious, cultural or traditional, and so on. It must cover children and adults, those who have been coerced and indeed those who consented to such conversion practices. There must be an up-to-date definition of advertising to ensure that it encompasses public, private, community spaces and online advertising. The ban must include the sending, or the threatening to send someone, overseas to undergo so-called conversion therapies. As well as investigative frameworks, a punishment framework for non-compliance must be established, and mechanisms created for support and redress to victims. Finally, it must truly protect all LGBT+ people.
The ban cannot be just on gay conversion therapy. It must cover degrading and inhumane interventions aimed at changing anyone’s sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression. We must remember that this is about the practice itself and about the fact that absolutely no one should be subject to such abhorrent interventions. To avoid confusion and to protect those delivering real and actual support to LGBT+ people, laws passed elsewhere in the world have introduced specific mention of what should not be considered as part of a ban, including safe and supportive therapies.
My final point is about the need for a timeline. We have the commitment, the evidence and the international working examples, so what we need now is a Bill. I appreciate that the Government have been gathering evidence, looking to understand this better and exploring options, but I hope that the Minister will deliver some good news and tell us when a Bill will be published, so that we may debate it on the Floor of the House.
To conclude, the evidence is clear. So-called conversion therapy does not work. There is no scientific basis for it whatever. Parts of every section of UK society have come together, united in their condemnation and calling for it to be banned. Since 2021 looks like a year of restarting, reopening and regrowing, let us add to that positivity by getting a conversion therapy ban on to the statute book this year. As a gay man and on behalf of LGBT+ people in the UK and around the world, I will end by saying, we are here—our existence is real, our lives are valid, and we cannot and do not need to be cured.
I asked the man what his motivation was, and he told me that his gay son committed suicide using the car exhaust pipe in their garage. The boy had written two suicide letters: one for his father, and one for his lover. The man showed me the letter that had been written to him. The handwriting tailed off as the boy lost consciousness. He was pleading with his father to understand his anguish. He could not reconcile his certainty that he had been born gay with the church’s teachings, and he implored his dad to befriend his boyfriend and learn acceptance. “So what did you do?” I said to the father. He said he redoubled his efforts to convert and confuse the young. We must protect society from men like him. I welcome the petition, and the Government must now act.
Conversion therapy certainly causes untold damage and trauma for those who encounter it. Many survivors need specialist help because of the damage that that unethical and degrading process has caused. The Government must end the delay and bring the ban forward now. I welcome the petition, and I look forward to what I hope will be the Minister’s positive response and a timetable for legislation.
While I am sure that the Government’s intentions are positive and the Prime Minister’s statement will be honoured, the Government have given the impression of being tardy, and now is the time to end that impression. As the chief executive of Stonewall, Nancy Kelley, said:
“The UK government must stop dragging its feet and make good on its promise to bring in a full legal ban, and put a stop to conversion therapy in the UK for good.”
I hope that the Minister, in her summing up, will give us clarity that that will happen and set out the timescale.