Banning Conversion Therapy in the UK: An Update

On June 29th, 2023, I set up a petition asking that the government ensures the protection of the transgender community by banning conversion therapy. Conversion therapy being the harmful practice of trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of an individual. At the time of writing this blog, that petition has over 4,000 signatures. When one of these petitions reaches 10,000 signatures, a government response is given and when it reaches 100,000 signatures, a debate occurs within parliament. However, due to the contentious nature of the government’s backtracking on conversion therapy legislation, a response may be issues without that 10,000-signature milestone.

The Petitions Committee, the group of MPs who consider parliamentary e-petitions, has written to the Minister for Women and Equalities to request an urgent update on when the Government will introduce a legislative ban on ‘conversion therapy’ practices.

The letter reads as follows:

Dear Minister

I am writing to ask for an update on when the Government will introduce a legislative ban on so-called ‘conversion therapy’ practices.

The Government included plans to ban these practices in the 2021 Queen’s Speech and held a consultation to help develop legislation from October 2021 to February 2022. A Conversion Therapy Bill was then included in the 2022 Queen’s Speech.

However, despite the Government’s commitments, legislation to implement a ban has not been introduced, and was not included in the 2023 King’s Speech, which set out the Government’s legislative programme for the remainder of this Parliament.

The Government’s failure to bring forward this legislation will be a serious disappointment to the many thousands of people who have signed petitions calling for a ban on these practices.

I would be grateful if you could provide me with an urgent update on the Government’s plans for a ban by Wednesday 6 December, so that the Committee can update petitioners.

Yours sincerely

Cat Smith MP

Chair of the Petitions Committee

It is incredibly significant that this action has been taken. Typically, letters and petitions are filed away, and the sentiment is recorded, only very rarely do petitions overtly change hearts and minds of the people within government chambers. The fact that this issue will now be seen directly by the person responsible for backtracking on this legislation is a major step towards justice for the LGBTQ+ community. Our petition is making an impact, so please (if you haven’t already), give it your signature!

We as a Students’ Union are already doing our part by committing to working towards a National Conversion Therapy Ban until at least November 16th, 2026. This happened because of our community voting towards the Big Idea to do so which had 77 positive votes and passed at Students’ Council with 80% of the vote!

However, this campaign does not stop at UCLan, after contacting the Trans Officer at Warwick Students’ Union and forming a policy with them, they have also voted to show their support for a conversion therapy ban by a margin of 87% to 13%. As a student community there is no limit to what we can do, as demonstrated by our work with Students’ Unions nationally, that is why as one of your NUS delegates, we will also be pushing our National Union of Students to support a conversion therapy ban.

Thank you for reading and thank you for the votes and signatures, none of what I’ve been able to do over this academic year would have been possible without our UCLan community behind me. And don’t worry, there is much more to come between now and the end of the year, watch this space.