Debate contribution: Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Mr Gordon Lyons on .
- MLA
- Mr Gordon Lyons
- 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 5707487
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I am grateful to the Member for giving way. He made an exceptionally revealing comment. He said, "I can't see that happening". That is why we need to read the legislation, because we are changing the law. I encourage the Member to look at all the tests that need to be met. I can easily see a situation where a minister has spoken from the front of a church to a group of people and someone says that they felt fear, alarm or distress. You might say that clause 7 gives an exemption for someone who is stating their beliefs. However, in the church that I go to, we do not just get a summary of the Bible; we get instruction on that. I believe that what the Member has said is covered in the legislation and that it is not unlikely that you could see that. The Member makes a fair point; it is, perhaps, unlikely that something like that would follow through to a prosecution. However, there is a chilling effect. Parents or pastors or whoever it might be will have a concern and wonder, "Can I say this? Is it acceptable for me to say this? Do I have a reasonable defence for that?". It is not good enough for us to say, "I can't see that happening", when it is in black and white before us, and it is certainly not prohibited in what is in front of us.
243 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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