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 5741224
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for giving way. The Bill sponsor has always defended his Bill by saying that there is a reasonableness test. He has also said that we should not be alarmed by the settings and scenarios that we describe, because the definition of "coercive behaviour" is steeped in the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act and that, as nobody has been convicted under that legislation, we should not worry about this legislation. That is wrongheaded, however, because the Act states:
"Behaviour that is abusive of B includes ... (a) behaviour directed at B that is violent, (b) behaviour directed at B that is threatening, (c) behaviour directed at B, at a child of B or at someone else that— (i) has as its purpose (or among its purposes) one or more of the relevant effects, or (ii) would be considered by a reasonable person to be likely to have one or more of the relevant effects."
The reasonableness test is flipped on its head and is not included in the coercive behaviour clause in the Bill sponsor's Bill. He puts it in clause 1 and clause 2, which gives the reasonableness test a different effect. How can anyone say that a reasonable person test will apply when a child goes to a parent and says, "Mum, I want to be a colour", or, "Mum, I want to be an object"? That is the difference in the reasonableness test. The Bill sponsor has used that as a defence when there is no defence whatsoever in the reasonableness test.
259 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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