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 5740838
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I genuinely wonder whether the Minister has listened at all in the debate or in the engagements that we have had over the media, because, time and time again, I have explained the drafting structure of the Bill. I understand that the Minister cannot wrap his head around that based on an ordinary meaning of the Bill. I have also extended an offer multiple times, which the Minister pretends he cannot hear, to engage with him to provide the additional clarity that he says he wants.
The truth is that, for the DUP, this is not about the words on the page in front of us. The truth is that the DUP is institutionally opposed to progress on rights and equality. The evidence for that is that the DUP says that it supports, in principle, action to protect LGBT people from abuse and coercion, but, when two notices of motion came to the House calling for a ban in principle, proposed by the Ulster Unionist Party in 2021 and the SDLP in 2024, the DUP could not even vote for the principle. Let us drop the pretence and at least admit that this is an ideological opposition to the progress and protection that some of us want to deliver for our LGBT community. I have been more than patient and more than generous in listening to and engaging on the points that Members have raised.
235 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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