Mental Health: Unregulated Treatment

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Jolly for the opportunity to talk a bit about conversion therapy, or the use of non-accredited counsellors offering psychotherapy or counselling to those seeking help for their unwanted same-sex attraction, which is prevalent in some churches. It is defended by some religious groups as a legitimate part of their faith, but the majority of churches, alongside the professional bodies, see it as a very harmful practice.

In December 2018, there was a small study of people who had been subjected to conversion therapy. Of those, two-thirds said that they wanted to see the practice made criminal. The remaining third did not want to see it criminalised, but they did want to see it stopped, because it had profound and harmful effects upon the people who were subjected to it.

That is the point I want to make, following that from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. We go to religious organisations in the extremes of happiness and of despair. They are rarely neutral places in which to transact matters such as counselling. Therefore, it is only right for us to ask the Government, when they bring in some form of regulation—and they will inevitably have to—not to allow, as they do in other cases, any form of exemption for religious organisations. There should be ethical standards to which all practitioners, no matter the context in which they practise, conform.

The Government’s LGBT Action Plan recognised this as a very important issue for our community. There are some particularly vulnerable young people who are perhaps locked into religious communities, from which it is difficult to find a way out or alternative point of view. It is of the utmost importance that we make sure that, when those young people live their faith, they do so in safety. Therefore, I ask the Minister to update us on what is admittedly a technically difficult area of law but one that is of the highest importance to a number of people and one that, I would suggest, is urgent.