Gay-to-straight Conversion Therapy

Jim Hood Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that such courses are particularly dangerous for young people who are struggling with their sexuality? When I was a teenager, I had great difficulty reconciling who I was. The variability of those courses places an enormous burden on young people who are already frightened about the consequences of being open about who they are.

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that this is a 30-minute debate, and interventions should be brief to allow the hon. Member whose debate it is to speak.

[Sandra Osborne]

Thank you, Mr Hood.

I want to focus on the main aspects of the problem of conversion therapy, and to debunk three common myths: first, that conversion therapy is something that happens only in America; secondly, that conversion therapy is carried out only by religious fundamentalists operating outside professional channels; thirdly, that the debate about conversion therapy is a simplistic one between allowing people freely to choose conversion therapy and infringing people’s personal choices. On the contrary, I hope to show that conversion therapy is a real and present danger in Britain, and that instead of being a problem just among religious fundamentalists, it is an issue for the national health service and the professional sector. This is not a simplistic debate about freedom to choose. If lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community patients are coaxed into undertaking therapy by peer pressure or referred to conversion therapists after approaching professionals, that is hardly free choice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sandra Osborne]

I totally agree, and thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. In addition to a ban, we must go further in the training of professionals who are dealing with LGBT patients and provide friendly public service provision.

Other than a solitary remark from the Government that they do “not condone” conversion therapy, made in response to a written question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North, the Government have said nothing about their views on conversion therapy. I look forward to the contribution of other Members and, in particular, to the Minister’s reply on the issues that I have raised.

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

I have received a letter from the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) requesting permission to speak in the debate. She assures me that she has had the agreement of the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne), and the Minister has told me that he agrees. To be fair to the Minister, he has to have the same time as the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock had in opening the debate, so I ask the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West to take only a few minutes, which will hopefully leave time for the Minister.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) on securing the debate, and on her powerful speech setting out the problem that we are hoping the Government can solve. I thank her, the Chair and the Minister for allowing me and other hon. Members to make small contributions to the debate.

I should also pay tribute to the many Members on both sides who have campaigned on the issue, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) for his excellent private Member’s Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who did a national petition on the matter.

This debate comes during an important week for the LGBT community. On Monday, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the abolition of the wretched section 28, and today is the annual transgender day of remembrance, when we remember the thousands of transgender people across the world who have paid the ultimate price, simply for seeking to be themselves. Those men and women have lost their lives at the hands of hate-filled zealots, because they had the courage to be who they wanted to be.

Pushing conversion therapy on people who are homosexual might not be on the same level as physical attacks on a member of the LGBT community, but it is certainly part of the wider problem of discrimination against them. That said, the psychological harm that medical professionals have recognised as a side effect of such attempts to change or tone down sexuality could well lead to the same end result.

Let us be absolutely clear: allowing the continuation of so-called therapists offering gay cures is, first, saying that being gay is problem that needs to be cured, and secondly, that it can be cured. Being gay is not an affliction. The only higher power that I defer to on the matter is the World Health Organisation, which has categorically confirmed that fact. Being gay cannot be cured any more than any other aspect of someone’s personality can be changed without doing that person serious damage.

What we want from the Government is similarly clear. The action taken last year by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, and in 2010 by the UK Council for Psychotherapy, is welcome. However, they cannot solve the problems themselves if the people they strike off their registers can still legally continue to call themselves therapists.

We need a system to ensure that counsellors and therapists are properly accountable. A statutory register has been put forward in the past as a solution to the problem, and in the absence of any better ideas, I still think that that is the way to go. However, I would be grateful for any other solution that the Minister can put forward that would have the same effect.

While such a system is set up, no doctor practising in this country—and certainly no doctor paid by our NHS—should be sending any of their patients to conversion therapy. Even if that patient begs to be referred, doctors swear an oath to do no harm, not to do whatever their patient asks them to do. We know that conversion therapy is harmful and doctors should know that too. We also know that the majority of people who request conversion therapy do so because of pressure or abuse from family or peers—

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

Order. I now call the Minister.