Tory MP Says Government Has ‘Broken Its Promises’ On Banning Conversion Therapy

Conservative MP Alicia Kearns has accused the government of breaking promises on conversion therapy after proposed legislation to outlaw it appears to have dropped off ministers’ agendas.

Kearns, who has been a vocal campaigner on the issue, said she was told work would be done to ban the discredited practice last year but it has not yet taken place.

Former prime minister Theresa May pledged to end conversion therapy – which aims to alter someone’s sexuality or gender identity – in all its forms in 2018, but the policy has been shelved then revived by successive administrations.

It was not included in last year’s King’s Speech, the government’s legislative agenda for the following year, leading campaigners to fear it will not be brought forward before the next general election. 

Kearns said “the risk of the election timing us out is of course a possibility”. As a result she is sponsoring a backbench bill from the Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, due to have second reading in the House of Commons on 1 March.

She told PoliticsHome podcast The Rundown that she feels “let down” by her own party.

The Tory MP, who is also chair of the powerful foreign affairs select committee, said she withdrew an amendment to the Online Harms Bill on conversion therapy last year “because I was promised on the floor of the House by word, and I was also promised it in writing into the House of Commons” that a committee would be set up by government to do pre-legislative scrutiny of a bill to outlaw the practice.

“I didn't trust that it would happen in time, so I actually put a deadline that they had to complete it by the next King’s Speech, and they didn't do it” Kearns added.

Kemi Badenoch, the Minister for Women and Equalities, told MPs in December she