Government extending consultation period on banning conversion therapy

The government is extending its consultation period on banning conversion therapy in the UK by eight weeks following threats of a legal challenge.

Government Ministers are expected to announce today that the consultation, which was due to end on Friday, will run for another two months after the short timeline was criticised.

The government launched a consultation in October on legislating to ban conversion therapy.

Liz Truss and Mike Freer, the equalities ministers, asked people to submit their views on the proposals within six weeks, half the normal 12-week period.

MPs have been told the Government risks introducing one of the most “religiously repressive” laws in centuries if it bows to pressure over how it plans to ban conversion therapy by Simon Calvert, deputy director for public affairs at The Christian Institute, said there appeared to be a drive in some quarters towards a very “theologically based ban”.

He told the Women and Equalities Committee he was concerned this could target people holding protected Christian beliefs and carrying out “ordinary, harmless practices” in churches, such as pastoral care and requested prayer.

Other witnesses said they were not calling for a ban on preaching but a ban on any practice with a “predetermined purpose to try and change” someone, and that most conversion therapy occurred in religious settings.

The Government has launched a public consultation on its proposals to create a new criminal offence for “talking” conversion therapies that seek to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

This would apply to under-18s under any circumstance, and to adults unless they had freely consented and been fully informed about the potential impacts.

Under the plans, simply expressing the teachings of a religion would not constitute conversion therapy, and it could not be “reasonably understood” to include casual conversations or private prayer.

Mr Calvert said some activists were calling for “gentle, non-coercive prayer” to be covered by the ban – which he said “can’t be right” – and were calling teaching on celibacy harmful.