A plan to outlaw conversion therapy has been reintroduced by the Government six years after it was first promised.
In the King’s Speech, Sir Keir Starmer’s government said it would bring forward a draft Conversion Practices Bill which would implement a full ban – including for transgender people.
Starmer said the ban had been “a promise that has lingered in the lobby of good intentions for far too long”.
Conversion therapy is a practice aiming to suppress or change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Theresa May was the first Prime Minister to promise to ban it in 2018 but successive Tory governments wavered over whether the policy should include banning it for trans people as well as those who are gay, lesbian or bisexual.
Boris Johnson downgraded it to exclude transgender people from the protections but Rishi Sunak’s government said in January 2023 that it would ban conversion therapy for “everyone”.
There have been debates over how to legislate around such an issue without penalising genuine medical or psychological support.
Former Tory health secretary Victoria Atkins warned it could be “ripe territory for the law of unintended consequences”, with concerns around the potential for criminalising people who are trying to support those with “gender distress”.
The new Labour Government said its Bill, for England and Wales, “must not cover legitimate psychological support, treatment, or non-directive counselling”.
And the Bill “must also respect the important role that teachers, religious leaders, parents and carers can have in supporting those exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity,” the Government said.
It said the Bill would propose new offences covering practices not captured by existing legislation and argued there was cross-party support for such measures.
It said: “The Government wants to ensure that the criminal law offers protection from these abusive practices, while also preserving the freedom for people, and those supporting them, to explore their sexual orientation and gender identity.
“This will mean those providing medical care and support are in no way impacted by this Bill.”
Ministers will “work closely with everyone and bring everyone with us” in developing legislation.
News of the draft Bill was welcomed by LGBTQ+ campaigning organisation Stonewall, which said: “Each day that these abusive practices remain legal, our communities are put at risk”.
“Legislation was first committed to over six years ago and yet, despite relentless campaigning, it has failed to materialise,” the organisation added.
“The Government needs to urgently publish a comprehensive Bill to ban these abhorrent practices once and for all.”
But LGB Alliance, a charity formed in recent years to support the rights of same-sex attracted people, voiced concerns about whether, in the case of those questioning their gender, any new legislation “would make it illegal for a therapist to ask a young person to consider why they want to change their body”.
Dr Roman Raczka, president-elect of the British Psychological Society, said any legislation “must be very clear that it will not prevent ethical forms of therapy, which are non-directive and non-judgmental”.
He added: “The Government must make an explicit distinction between so called ‘conversion therapy’ and normal ethical practice.”