Debate contribution: Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Mr Eóin Tennyson on .
- MLA
- Mr Eóin Tennyson
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 22 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill: Second Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5740735
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for giving way. I suspect that I am going to make this point on a number of occasions over the coming hours, as I did last week. The use of the word "therapy" is deliberate, in that it frames what we are talking about when there is reference to talking therapy, coaching or instructing, or treatment or purported treatment. It would also have to be carried out with the intent to suppress or change sexual orientation or gender identity and to cause harm. The nebulous idea that something such as sports coaching could somehow fall within the auspices of the Bill is a straw man. During the debate, I have said repeatedly that, if Members want further clarity in the Bill, such as the kinds of scenario that we are testing against that offence versus the second offence, I am very open to doing that. The intent is that we capture therapeutic interventions. I believe that that is what we have captured. If Members want the additional clarity, I am open to a conversation with them. The violent examples that the Member mentioned earlier are not referenced in the Bill because there are existing criminal offences, but that does not allay the fact that talking therapies are harmful in this context when they are pseudoscientific and unregulated.
Forty-six studies reviewed by the UK Government have concluded that those practices contribute to suicidal ideation among their victims. If that is not harm that is worthy of protection and action from the Assembly, I do not know what is.
261 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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