Oral Answers to Questions

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

3. What the Government’s planned timetable is for bringing forward legislative proposals on conversion therapy.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

4. If the Government will take steps to help protect trans people from conversion therapy.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)]

The Government are committed to protecting people from these practices. We are carefully considering the responses to the public consultation on banning conversion practices, which closed this year, and we will set out our next steps and the Government’s response in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kemi Badenoch]

This is a very serious issue, and one reason that it is taking so long is that we are being very considered. Many of the things that people asked for when we first started talking about conversion therapy practices are different from what we are looking at now, so the scope has widened. More importantly, I reassure LGBT people that we can tackle these issues with existing law. We are being very careful in our considerations of what will come into the Bill. The answer that the hon. Lady is requesting will follow on from the consultation, and that will come in due course.

[Hannah Bardell]

A lot of words and no action. In 2018 a promise was made that conversion practices would be banned. Four years and four Prime Ministers later, this disastrous Tory Government are going backwards with some on their Benches actively fanning the flames of hatred and bigotry towards trans people. When will this Tory Government follow the lead of the SNP Government in Scotland, take action to ban conversion practices, and stop putting trans peoples’ lives at risk?

[Kemi Badenoch]

The hon. Lady from the SNP is, of course, talking absolute nonsense. Government Members are legislators and what we are going to do is bring a robust Bill into law, not one that will be helpful for her to send her tweets. This is about looking after vulnerable people and not about social media campaigning.