Proving Tricky: stories of failed conversion therapy plans

The Christian Institute has published a new report urging the Westminster Government to ditch its unnecessary conversion therapy plans.

“Proving tricky” tells the story of how governments around the world are waking up to the fact that a conversion therapy law of the kind activists want is unworkable.

It details how attempts in Scotland, Ireland, Western Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland have all foundered.

Scotland

The report explains that the Scottish Government has spent years trying to craft a law,

only to then hand responsibility to Westminster.

A conversion therapy law first appeared on the Scottish political agenda in 2020, and was included a year later in the Bute House Agreement (the governing programme between the SNP and Greens). But despite the two parties commanding a majority in the Scottish Parliament, a draft bill was only published in January 2024.

The plans met with outrage and days of negative media coverage, since they would have seen parents and pastors face seven years in prison for not affirming LGBTQ ideology. Just months later, the 2024-25 Programme for Government revealed the Scottish Government was putting the brakes on its own Bill and seeking a “UK-wide approach”. The Scottish Government indicated to activists within the Party that the reason for the U-turn is to ensure they “don’t end up facing judicial review”.

Sweden

In another example, it explains that Sweden’s proposed law was savaged by an official Government assessment.

The 372-page legal report, written by one of Sweden’s top judges, Maria Hölcke, concluded that the Government should not introduce a new criminal law on conversion therapy. It said existing laws already prevent coercion and assault, and warned against introducing a law merely ‘to send a signal’.

Westminster

The message we have to get across to MPs is that even some of the countries most intent on introducing conversion therapy legislation have found it to be impossible. Activists have led governments up the garden path. They have persuaded them to tackle a problem that doesn’t actually exist. And governments have come to legislate only to discover that not only are the extreme examples activists cite not happening, but what activists really want to outlaw is the expression of opinions they don’t like. A growing number of countries aren’t prepared to do this.

As “Proving Tricky” makes clear: “The UK Government now faces a choice; continue with a project that even many ‘progressive’ governments are beginning to see is a dead end, or consider seriously how individuals reporting genuine abuse can be better protected under existing law.”