Why Are We Waiting: The Case for a Scottish Conversion Practices Bill

We’ve published an analysis following the introduction of the UK Government’s “Conversion Practices Draft Bill” for England and Wales and the “Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill” in Northern Ireland, making the case for why Scotland needs its own legislation to end conversion practices.

You can read our full analysis here, and see below for a summary of our key thoughts.

It is important to note that the UK government’s draft bill is only proposed to cover England and Wales, not Scotland. In Northern Ireland, a private member’s bill has been introduced to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which includes similar proposals to those previously consulted on in Scotland. As it stands, Scotland is the only part of the UK that has not introduced a draft bill to end the harm caused by conversion practices.  

Crucially, the UK Government bill, in its current form, fails to adequately address all forms of conversion practices, contains exemptions, and uses unnecessary definitions. As a result, in our view, it falls far below the standard of a comprehensive legislative ban. As we are also not confident that the bill will be improved in its process through UK Parliament and, for other reasons outlined in our analysis, we do not think that this bill should be extended to cover Scotland.  

In Scotland, extensive work has been done over the past several years to develop a Scotland-specific bill, including the work of the Scottish Parliament Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee investigation and report in 2021-2022, the Ending Conversion Practices Expert Advisory Group in 2022, and a Scottish Government public consultation in 2024. 

Based on our analysis, we are calling upon the Scottish Government to introduce a bill to the Scottish Parliament, in line with their 2026 Holyrood manifesto commitment, as soon as possible. 

Analysis summary

The key messages from our analysis are:

• We are calling on the Scottish Government to introduce its bill on ending conversion practices to the Scottish Parliament as soon as possible
• The UK Government’s current draft bill on conversion practices fails to adequately address all forms of conversion practices and protect from harm
• The UK draft bill crosses three of our ‘red lines’ for a bill to extend to Scotland:
  • 1) It fails to include conversion practices that suppress sexual orientation and gender identity;
  • 2) It contains a broad exemption for health, and pseudo-health, care settings; and
  • 3) It uses the unnecessary definition of “abusive conversion practice” which results in a de facto loophole for supposed consent
• The private member’s bill introduced in Northern Ireland has similar proposals to those in Scotland, which strengthens the case for Scotland as a devolved nation to progress our own bill
• Scotland is now the only part of the UK where a bill has not been introduced to end conversion practices

More information on conversion practices

For more information about our work on conversion practices, please visit our website landing page.  

If you have been affected by conversion practices or require support, you can contact the LGBT Health and Wellbeing national helpline in Scotland by: 

• Visiting: https://lgbthealth.org.uk/service/helpline/
• Emailing: helpline@lgbthealth.org.uk
• Phoning: 0800 464 7000