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

Debate contribution by Mr Peter Martin on 28 September 2026.

MLA: Mr Peter Martin
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 28 September 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5762989

Text

I thank the Minister for hearing me and for his commitment to this. It has been a very long debate, and I really thank him for listening to it all and being here. The Minister mentioned the breadth and depth of feeling — let me call it "the diversity of feeling" — on the Bill, and he cited some evidence of that. My understanding is that the Communities Committee has been furnished with the email that came from Eldur Smári Kristinsson, who is the head of the Lesbian and Gay Alliance in Iceland — I suppose that discussion on the Bill has gone outside of the UK completely. It is worth reading into the record what Eldur Smári Kristinsson has said about it, because my understanding is that they have had some experience of this type of legislation in Iceland. The Bill's sponsor may come back to that. I remind Members that Iceland is one of the most "progressive" countries, if I can put it in those terms, in Europe.
He said:
"I write to ask that the Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill be abandoned completely. It should not be amended into a 'workable' version. It should be withdrawn. I say this as a gay man who has spent years defending the rights of same-sex attracted people, and as someone who has already watched a near-identical exercise play out in another parliament. The language is muddled. The definitions are not fit for criminal law. The Bill is redundant where it concerns sexual orientation, because the old coercive abuses are already crimes. It is dangerous where it concerns 'gender identity,' because that phrase is left undefined and can mean clothing, stereotypes, pronouns, or an inner feeling that no court can test."
Does the Minister agree with Eldur Smári Kristinsson — I am doing my best with his name — and the Lesbian and Gay Alliance in Iceland's fear about our Bill? Having experienced similar legislation in Iceland and felt its powerful effects, that organisation warns us not to proceed down the same route in Northern Ireland.

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

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