Debate contribution: Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 22 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5740543
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The Bill defines "conversion therapy" as, first:
"counselling or any form of talking therapy".
It then defines it as including "coaching", which could be any form of coaching, or "instruction". That would be instruction from either a parent, a teacher, a pastor or a preacher on sexual orientation and transgender issues. What you are doing is depriving the Church of instruction, a pastor of instruction and a parent of instruction. There is nothing about torture therapies or torture practices.
79 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not qualifying”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.52 (qualifying needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not qualifying).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.68).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.54).
- Subject area: Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues.
- The overall probability was moderate at most and none of the culture-war criteria was close to being met.
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
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.48 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.10 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.26 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.35 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.33 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.68 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.52 | Between thresholds |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.54 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.01 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.01 |
| Adopts it | 0.44 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.96 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.04 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9. This record has been assessed 3 times; the latest assessment is shown.
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