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

Debate contribution by Mrs Diane Dodds on 15 September 2026.

MLA: Mrs Diane Dodds
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 15 September 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5706183

Text

I thank the Member. It is really important, on a day when we are all being lectured about equality, that equality is not just for those who take a particular view on conversion therapy or gender identity but for the parents who have brought up their children in a Christian home, who want to live by those values and who find themselves quite distressed by the potential impact of the legislation. Equality is an important concept, and it is not a one-way street. It is about the very fundamental liberties and freedoms that the Bill, I think, endangers.
I want to go on to another general piece that is important to the Bill. When researching this, I discovered that there has been only one Northern Ireland-based study on this particular matter. That research was commissioned by the Department for Communities under the Sinn Féin Minister Deirdre Hargey. It was funded by Minister Hargey, but it was commissioned by LGBT organisations, including the Rainbow Project. I presume that that organisation had the job of determining the parameters of the research and how the research was commissioned. There is one thing that is really instructive in how parties in the Assembly approach this type of legislation. The recruitment call for the study said that the research:
"will inform the Department for Communities’ work towards a ban".
We have just been talking about the importance of equality and freedoms, but, in this case, the research was commissioned to inform people about a ban, but it did not inform people about any alternatives. That is not an objective view. That is the view — I use these words advisedly — of the liberal consensus, but it is not a view that I hear expressed in the circles that I move in. Many ordinary parents, teachers, pastors and church ministers are really concerned about the implications of the legislation. It becomes worse when we discover that the researcher based the research on the answers of 10 people, two of whom Professor Ashe, as she has said, recruited for the project from her own circles. I do not know Professor Ashe, but I am sure that she wants to conduct a fairly objective piece of research within the parameters that she has been set. In the article that I read, however, she is quoted as saying that criminal legislation, which this Bill is:
"should not be based on any one study".
She goes on to say that the Bill sponsor has confirmed that that is the case.
That is my understanding. It is worse when we conclude that the professor had to recruit two from her own circles, as she said. We will get on to the detail of the legislation, shortly, but we are basing legislation that will criminalise people on a limited piece of research and a base that is not reflective of the Northern Ireland population. The Assembly should take heed. The Bill — a Bill about the criminalisation of people and practices, which many in church and counselling services, including parents, pastors and youth workers, conduct as part of their work — has no equality impact assessment and one very limited piece of research. One of Scotland's leading human rights lawyers has produced a commentary on the Bill. Aidan O'Neill KC describes the Bill as fundamentally illiberal, poorly drafted and posing a severe threat to basic civil liberties. He characterises the proposals as "jellyfish legislation".
I want to finish this piece; it is very important. I thought that that was quite an interesting analogy. He said that the concepts used are "impossible to grasp" and the drafting is vague but the offences carry "a sting in the tail" in the form of severe criminal penalties of up to two years in prison. Indeed, he goes further, reflecting something that was said earlier, and questions whether the Bill is within the legislative competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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

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