Debate contribution: Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Eóin Tennyson on 15 September 2026.

MLA: Mr Eóin Tennyson
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 15 September 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5705780

Text

He is conflating coaching and instructing from the first offence with coercive control as per the second offence. They are two separate things, and they are dealt with very differently. As with domestic abuse, there is a reasonable person test. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that a legitimate exercise in parental rights will meet all the tests, including the intent to suppress or change and a coercive course of behaviour, which means threatening and abusive behaviour, such as humiliating, degrading and punishing the individual, that causes harm. That harm has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt to be actual harm. That is higher than the threshold that exists in law in respect of cruelty to the child or domestic abuse — higher, not lower — and there is then a reasonable person test. For example, I have seen this scenario talked about on social media and pushed from some quarters: a parent can legitimately restrict who their child sees or whether they go on dates at a relatively young age. If a parent restricts their child's access to material on the internet, that is not motivated by an attempt to suppress or change sexual orientation or gender identity; it is motivated by a concern for the welfare of the child.
I have much greater confidence than some Members in the Chamber about the ability of the police, the Public Prosecution Service and the courts to apply that framework in a proportionate and consistent way.
One of the reasons why the reasonableness defence is included in the legislation is to allow for circumstances where there would be an overriding motivation or where other convention rights are at play. That has been a complete conflation of two separate issues. Someone indicated: Nuala McAllister.
I thank the Member for that intervention. The point about cruelty to a child is important, because you can already be convicted under the existing law for causing psychological harm to a child. There is precedent in law about how those issues should be handled to balance the rights of the child with the rights of the parent. Crucially, even under child protection legislation, the requirement is that the behaviour only be "likely" to have caused harm to the child. In this legislation, it would have to be actual harm that can be proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court.
The threshold for an offence under this legislation would be higher. Mr Buckley has been trying to get in for some time.

413 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.12 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.93).
No identity-based framing was identified (0.93).
Subject area: Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues.
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.08	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.03	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.02	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.09	No
Controversy escalation	0.08	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.93	Yes
Overall judgement	0.12	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	0.93
Reports or questions it	0.04
Criticises or condemns it	0.02
Adopts it	0.01

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues	1.00
No identity-related subject	0.00
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.00
Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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