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

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on 15 September 2026.

MLA: Mr Paul Givan
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 15 September 2026
Type: Debate contribution (made as a minister)
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5707212

Text

I appreciate the Member's giving way. He has spent the past number of minutes referencing the concerns of the Christian community from a biblical perspective, which is right. He has quoted verses that some Members perversely misinterpreted when quoting them earlier in support of the Bill. That was an affront to those in the Christian community. There is a much higher authority than Nuala McAllister when it comes to moral integrity on the issue, and that is the authority to which we will subscribe. We will certainly not subscribe to Nuala McAllister's authority. On instruction, setting aside any consideration from a Christian perspective, the UK Supreme Court ruled on biological sex. I issued a clear direction and policy that all schools have to reflect biological sex. The Bill references:
"suppressing the sexual orientation or gender identity".
It references "coercive behaviour" and speaks about it being:
"behaviour on two or more occasions".
Clause 5 references being "humiliated".
Are we in any way assured that, if a school, which has to follow the law and my clear guidance, prevents, on repeated occasions, a boy who wants to be a girl from entering the girls' toilets or participating in girls' sports and that school rightly complies with the law and consistently applies its policy on more than two occasions, the individuals involved will be protected? The Bill is so vague and broad in its definitions that it will stand in conflict with one of the most basic policies that schools now have to comply with on the basis of the UK Supreme Court ruling. Irrespective of one's religious beliefs, where are the protections for schools in the Bill?

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

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