Those who carry out conversion practices could be jailed for up to five years and hit with unlimited fines under a landmark draft bill published by the government on Thursday, eight years after a ban was first promised.
The Conversion Practices Bill, laid before Parliament, creates for the first time a legal definition of such acts as conduct which “aims to change someone’s sexual orientation or transgender identity through abusive acts that seriously harm the victim”. It applies to England and Wales.
“Anyone carrying out conversion practices could face up to five years in jail under a new draft bill in England and Wales.”
Minister for Equalities Olivia Bailey said: “Conversion practices are driven by the false belief that being LGBT+ is shameful and can be forcibly changed. Legal loopholes have left LGBT+ people vulnerable to these harmful acts, which is why we must legislate.”
The plans introduce two new criminal offences: one for carrying out conversion practices “which cause serious harm, alarm or distress”, and another for encouraging or assisting such practices outside England and Wales. New civil powers, Conversion Practice Protection Orders, are designed to “pre-emptively protect those deemed to be at risk of abuse”.
The government argues existing domestic abuse or coercive control laws do not address “the unique nature of abusive conversion practices”. But some groups have warned the bill could criminalise exploratory conversations around gender identity or sexual orientation.
Plans for a ban were first promised in 2018 but led to protests after several U-turns. How widespread conversion practices are remains unclear. In the government’s 2018 UK-wide LGBT Survey, about 5% of the 108,000 respondents said they had been offered some form of conversion therapy, and 2% had undergone it – though the survey did not define what it meant by conversion therapy or ask when or where it happened.
The anti-LGBT abuse charity Galop, which has campaigned for a ban, released new figures showing that between 2022 and 2025 it identified more than 300 calls about conversion practices. Researchers analysing a sample of 195 of those calls found reported examples of physical and sexual violence, attempts at forced marriages, and people being forcibly taken abroad to undergo conversion practices. The majority of cases (132) were reported as ongoing or recent, and more than half (123) were reported as being initiated by family members or religious groups.