Why years of legal warnings can no longer be ignored

For years, Let Us Pray and The Christian Institute have been issuing a consistent warning to politicians: attempting to draft a 'conversion therapy' law is a legal and ethical minefield.

Proponents of a ban have repeatedly dismissed these concerns as alarmist. But now that the Westminster Government has finally published its draft conversion practices Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny, it appears that every single warning published by leading human rights lawyers has been vindicated.

A mountain of legal consensus

To understand why the new draft Bill is so dangerous, we have to look at the extensive track record of legal expert opinions on this issue. Between 2021 and 2024, no fewer than 13 independent legal opinions from leading King’s Counsel – including Jason Coppel, Aidan O’Neill, Philip Havers and Sarah Vine – analysed various versions of proposed conversion practices ban legislation.

Their conclusions were devastatingly consistent:

• Human rights violations: Time and again, these top lawyers warned that a broad ban would directly breach the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by criminalising free speech, freedom of religion and the right to a private family life.
• Existing law is sufficient: The experts repeatedly pointed out that the physical and coercive abuses activists highlight are already completely illegal.
• The chilling effect: Experts warned that vague definitions would inevitably be weaponised by activists to target mainstream religious beliefs, gender-critical viewpoints and loving parents.

‘Jellyfish legislation’

When looking at the wording of the new Westminster draft Bill, the accuracy of these past legal opinions is striking.

Aidan O’Neill KC famously described previous attempts at this legislation in Scotland and Northern Ireland as “jellyfish legislation". He warned that the concepts used were impossible to grasp, the limits wholly undefined, and that they contained a severe sting in the tail through criminal sanctions.

The new Westminster draft Bill is the ultimate example of jellyfish legislation. The Government has created a Bill that would:

1. Label ordinary Christian teaching and pastoral care as a ‘conversion practice’.
2. Leave the definition of “abuse” entirely undefined, forcing courts to decide what it means based on subjective criteria like “emotional pressure”.
3. Lower the criminal threshold to unmeasurable concepts, like “serious alarm or distress”.

This is exactly what Jason Coppel KC foresaw when he warned that such bills would criminalise expressions of personal conviction even when made entirely without hatred, intolerance, coercion, or an abuse of power.

The next steps in the fight

The Christian Institute is already seeking a legal opinion on the new draft Bill.

But we do not need to wait for that analysis to know that the foundations of this Bill are rotten. We have half a decade of senior legal consensus showing that this entire legislative agenda is incompatible with human rights, unnecessary under criminal law, and a direct threat to the family and the church.