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

Debate contribution by Mr Eóin Tennyson on 22 September 2026.

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 5741711

Text

I thank the Member for giving way. She has been really generous in taking interventions, and I thank her for that. On Mr Buckley's point about consent, we have made a deliberate choice not to make consent a defence for the purposes of the legislation. That is because, as Sian Mulholland referenced, people who come before a conversion therapy service are often people who are inherently vulnerable. The choice that they face is not whether to freely go to conversion therapy or not; it is between going to conversion therapy and losing their faith, their family, their loved ones and, in some cases, their home. If you add a defence of consent to the legislation, you create a loophole that forces people to be subjected to harm. Many people consent, but they do so under duress and due to the power imbalances that exist around them. That is why a defence of consent is not present for, for example, domestic abuse.

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

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