Draft Conversion Practices Bill

The thread sits in the pre-legislative phase. The Government's substantive policy position is that conversion practices are abuse, that a full trans-inclusive ban is the goal, and that the design will be tested through pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft Bill — language confirmed both in the King's Speech 2026 background briefing note 1 and in the Minister's PQ 112135 answer on 10 February 2026 2. The design template that the draft Bill is most likely to inherit is the 2021 GEO consultation 3, which proposed a new criminal offence with sentence uplifts, Conversion Therapy Protection Orders modelled on Forced Marriage Protection Orders, charity-trustee disqualification, and broadcasting / advertising restrictions; Annex A of the consultation 4 documents the granular design choices the draft Bill must take a position on. The thread's parliamentary history runs through three PMBs in the current decade — Wera Hobhouse's Conversion Therapy (Prohibition) Bill 2021-22 5, Lloyd Russell-Moyle's Conversion Practices (Prohibition) Bill 2023-24 6 7 and Baroness Burt's Conversion Therapy Prohibition (SOGI) Bill 2023-24 8 — none of which passed, but which collectively memorialise the substantive design choices and parliamentary support. The Women and Equalities Committee remains the principal Commons scrutiny actor on the file 9 10.

In the last six months three things have moved. First, the King's Speech 2026 Background Briefing Notes formally placed the Draft Conversion Practices Bill on the legislative programme with explicit pre-legislative scrutiny, E&W extent and the four core carve-outs (legitimate healthcare, broader exploratory support, religious belief and expression) 1. Second, on 8 May 2026 the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/495) were made 2 — the regulatory frame that the Bill's healthcare carve-out will need to track, although the corpus does not establish a direct intentional link between the SI and the Bill. Third, PQ 112135 of 10 February 2026 and a follow-up PQ on 29 April 2026 pressing for a publication date have kept the publication-timing question live without securing a date from the Minister. The Government's response to the 2021 consultation remains outstanding.

The next 6–12 months are dominated by two related decisions and two design points. On decisions: (i) publication of the draft Bill — committed but undated, with the King's Speech 2026 commitment 1 being the firmest forward anchor; and (ii) designation of the pre-legislative scrutiny committee, most likely the Women and Equalities Committee given its sustained engagement 2 3 but potentially a Joint Committee. On design points: (iii) where the healthcare carve-out lands in relation to the post-Cass clinical landscape and the regulated-activities frame just amended by SI 2026/495 4 — this is the live boundary the Lords Library Note 5 flags via Kemi Badenoch's December 2023 'affirmative model' framing; and (iv) whether the draft Bill retains the 2021 consultation's adult-consent carve-out for talking conversion therapy 6 7 or follows the no-consent-carve-out architecture of the Burt Bill 8. Two adjacent processes are also relevant: the Scottish Government's parallel consultation closed in January 2024 9, leaving open how cross-border conversion practices will be addressed via the proposed Protection Orders; and the Government's Equality Law call for evidence (correspondence at 10 11) is the broader equalities-policy vehicle alongside which this Bill will sit.

Three risks shape the file. First, definitional risk: the predecessor PMBs and the 2021 consultation use materially different definitions of 'conversion practice' — the Burt Bill's 'any practice which demonstrates an assumption that any sexual orientation or gender identity is preferable to another' is far broader than the predetermined-purpose formulation in the Russell-Moyle Bill 1, and the draft Bill must choose, with ECHR Art. 9/10 implications. Second, healthcare-boundary risk: the carve-out for legitimate exploratory healthcare runs through the CQC regulated-activities framework just amended by SI 2026/495 2, and the post-Cass clinical pathway raises the question of whether 'affirming' or 'exploratory' clinical conduct could be drawn into or out of the offence — the very issue the Lords Library Note flagged via Badenoch's December 2023 remarks 3. Third, timing risk: PQ 112135 4 and the follow-up PQ pressing for a publication date have not yielded one. Inferred from corpus gap: no formal Government response to the 2021 consultation 5 6 appears in the corpus, which is the principal upstream document a careful reader would expect to see before the draft Bill text. Inferred from corpus gap: the King's Speech 2026 documents commit to pre-legislative scrutiny but do not name the committee that will conduct it.